Added Touch-Buddy plus monitor-FPS drop

[Slick Twitchy]

So I added a new touchscreen monitor-(have three in all now) to use DD's touch buddy profile (super cool), but my frame rate dropped significantly. Why would that occur, I don't think much more processing power is being used. I am using DCS max with 4 cores/Win 7/Nvidia GTX 8800/GeForce 6200 for third touch buddy monitor.

I know that BS is bottlenecked at the CPU, but the FPS drop seems related to the addition graphics rendering (Touch Buddy etc.)

What could I do to improve the FPS? New/better video card? Stop extra apps from running etc.

[deadsmell]

get one of those nuclear power plant power supplies. the 1.21 gigawatts one should do.

Edited April 2, 2009 by deadsmell

[Feuerfalke]

1.21 GIGAWATTS?

 

[Prophet]

The ideal way to run touch buddy is from another computer over the network.

 

You may check your processor affinities, maybe that will help? I wouldnt think on a quadcore it would hurt at all.

[GregP]

So you're using a 2-screen setup in BS, or 3? If 2, check out cypher1312's Phantom Monitor Fix (search for the thread, it's around here somewhere): it somehow gets around BS rendering the 3rd screen, bumping up your framerate. You do, however, have to run in Windowed mode instead of Full Screen, which drops FPS a bit. Overall though, your framerate ought to increase significantly.

[Slick Twitchy]

Nope. Using three monitors in all now. Left is the Touch Buddy screen from DD, Middle is the main view/cockpit, and right is the SHVAL. Not really rendiring that much more, and there really isn't more information to process, so just wondring why the drop in FPS?

 

Whats strange is that if I plug the two monitors (SHVAL and ABRIS) into the GeForce 6200, the main screen (attached to the GeForce 8800 GTX) slows down even more.

 

I would think that having the two monitors being rendered by the 6200, would free up processing power for the 8800, and should be smoother gameplay.

 

I am aware that BS is CPU dependent, however the FPS is clearly being impacted by the new monitor, and/or graphics card setup.

Edited April 2, 2009 by Slick Twitchy

[CyBerkut]

Just my guess here, but I'd suspect the 6200, or rather, a bottleneck being created by the 8800 having to communicate with the much slower 6200. As someone suggested, if you have another computer that could handle the TouchBuddy over a lan connection, you may get more satisfactory results.

[Slick Twitchy]

So why does the 8800 have to communicate with the 6200? Why doesn't the 6200 just draw the SHVAL and ABRIS, and the 8800 draw the cockpit/terrain etc?

 

Why is there even more slow-down when I plug two monitors into the 6200, and only one into the 8800?

 

And if the 6200 is the bottleneck, then should I just go SLI, and use the ports from the extra 8800?

 

So many questions....all I wanna do is shoot stuff...

[DickDastardly]

As you've noted, multi-monitor performance in Black Shark does seem to be limited by the weakest link in the chain of components (the second graphics card) so minimizing its load by having it only draw one screen does seem to help considerably. One thing I've not tried is to compare performance when the main card draws the ABRIS+TB and the second card draws the Shkval to when the main card draws the Shkval and the second card draws the ABRIS+TB so that might be worth experimenting with.

 

As for the suggestions that you run TB on a networked PC, this would make sense but of course the TB profile is designed around displaying the ABRIS so you would need to export that to the networked PC too. There are some tantalising hints in the lua files that this is possible, but to my knowledge nobody has managed to actually do it yet.

 

The ideal solution would be to have a stripped down version of DCS:BS running on a networked PC which draws the ABRIS, Shkval and TB based on positional/state data sent from the main PC. There could then be an option to disable the ABRIS and Shkval completely on the main PC so it wouldn't have to do any processing for them and could just receive any required data from the networked PC (as sending the values of a few variables is obviously much quicker than sending values for tens of thousands of pixels).

 

Hopefully we'll see improvements to Black Shark's handling of multi-monitors in the patch or the PCIP (though I've not heard anything definite yet).

Cheers,

DD

[DickDastardly]

So why does the 8800 have to communicate with the 6200? Why doesn't the 6200 just draw the SHVAL and ABRIS, and the 8800 draw the cockpit/terrain etc?

I think everything is rendered on the main card then the appropriate parts are passed to the secondary card. I agree, though, this does seem to be a weird way of doing it. Possibly instead each card just renders its own stuff but the faster card has to wait for the slower one to render each frame before it goes onto the next. Either way it would seem there is room for the process to be improved.

 

And if the 6200 is the bottleneck, then should I just go SLI, and use the ports from the extra 8800?

In SLI only two outputs are available so you wouldn't be able to run three monitors (though obviously having two 8800s running in non-SLI will give better results on three monitors than a single 8800 + a 6200).

Cheers,

DD

Edited April 2, 2009 by DickDastardly

[Slick Twitchy]

BTW-DD when I get this thing running I want to get you a little cash for your profile-it is super cool. I'd like to PayPal you a token measure of gratitude for your work.

 

Thanks for the responses guys,

 

So I should I get a Geforce 285, and run non-SLI for BS?

[GregP]

In SLI only two outputs are available so you wouldn't be able to run three monitors (though obviously having two 8800s running in non-SLI will give better results on three monitors than a single 8800 + a 6200).

Cheers,

DD

 

DD, each 8800 has two outputs, don't they? So wouldn't that give you 4 outputs total? Running 3 monitors should be no problem.

[Slick Twitchy]

I think when you pair them via SLI, the other physical outputs are disabled. The two cards become one (and one card has 2 ports).

[GregP]

I think when you pair them via SLI, the other physical outputs are disabled. The two cards become one (and one card has 2 ports).

 

Ah, I see.

 

BTW, I tried to run a similar setup (DD's 3-monitor T-B profile left, main center, Shkval/ABRIS on right) and saw a huge framerate drop too. I was using a GeForce GTX 260 and 8400 GS. However, when I dropped back to 2 monitors and used cypher1312's Phantom Monitor Fix, I got a jump back up to very playable rates.

[Slick Twitchy]

Right. Looks like the second/slower video card limits the entire game's FPS, and not just the screen (e.g. SHVAL, ABRIS) that is attached to it.

 

Too bad.

[GregP]

Right. Looks like the second/slower video card limits the entire game's FPS, and not just the screen (e.g. SHVAL, ABRIS) that is attached to it.

 

Too bad.

 

Is it that, or just the fact that the main video card is being forced to render a huge resolution? I'm not sure.

[CyBerkut]

Is it that, or just the fact that the main video card is being forced to render a huge resolution? I'm not sure.

 

I don't think it is the rendering of a huge resolution that is the likely issue... The reason I think that is because people use an 8800 to render a humongous resolution for a Matrox Triple Head 2 Go, with satisfactory results. With that arrangement, the 8800 is rendering a large resolution, but it is not having to communicate over a bottleneck with a slower secondary video card.

[Slick Twitchy]

Also, there is significant improvement when I hook up two of the monitors to the 8800, and only one to the 6200 (although there is still a lot of chop) Waiting on new card. I'll let you know the results.

[Slick Twitchy]

OK, I got the GeForce 285. So now I have the ABRIS, and main camera hooked to the 285, and the SHKVAL hooked to the 8800. Things ran much better, but still not as well when I wasn't using the third monitor, and touch-buddy.

 

Even with DDs 2 monitor setup, I was still running at a lower frame rate.

 

It's too bad. It seems that BS multi-monitor setup can be very hard on graphics cards. It would be nice if each system (e.g. ABRIS, SHKVAL etc.) were processed seperately. The ABRIS system (with DD) seems to take a lot of graphic's horsepower.

 

Still, much better. And I love this game. Already spent sooo much money on it though....crazy money.