investigating Horrible simulation time after last update. Same mission, unplayable FPS

[Robi Hobby]

I have now updated my PC System last Week.
from
i 7 7700K       to       i7 12700K
32GB DDR4  to        64GB DDR5
Win10 Pro      to        Win11 Pro

DSC is on M.2 Samsung 990 Pro 2TB

RTX 3090 and Rift S are in use.

Even in the DCS Menu the frame rate freezes brutally.
When I display the Multiplayer Server selection the fps goes down to 1-10 fps.  
The hourglass keeps coming up. And fps goes almost to zero.
My new PC is now worse than my old PC with i7 7700k. So much Money wasted. 

Edited August 11, 2024 by Robi Hobby

[Jenson]

7 hours ago, Robi Hobby said:

I have now updated my PC System last Week.
from
i 7 7700K       to       i7 12700K
32GB DDR4  to        64GB DDR5
Win10 Pro      to        Win11 Pro

DSC is on M.2 Samsung 990 Pro 2TB

RTX 3090 and Rift S are in use.

Even in the DCS Menu the frame rate freezes brutally.
When I display the Multiplayer Server selection the fps goes down to 1-10 fps.  
The hourglass keeps coming up. And fps goes almost to zero.
My new PC is now worse than my old PC with i7 7700k. So much Money wasted. 

 

Can confirm this, yesterday even in the main menu and mission editor, half of the time the fps was around 10, and half time around 30-40, a few moment even drop to 3-5. However, after rebooting my PC, the fps was stablized around 60-70. This huge fps drop / freeze issue would happen occasionally, making the game completely unplayable. I have the high-end PC with i9 14900k, 4090, 96G DDR5 and game installed on a 2TB SSD M2. Developers should look at the performance issues before releasing any new modules! 

[Paladin1cd]

Between the patch before last and this one (I have not flown for awhile) I have gone from smooth in mission editor to very choppy. I logged into the grey flag server and flew and it was mostly smooth. I went back to mission editor and took the same mission I've worked on for a year and dumped all triggers, scripts, etc and took out any mod aircraft, same effect.  

[Dangerzone]

Just a reminder to please check and make sure that CPU Parking is disabled. I noticed issues with poor performance again, but in my instance it seems that Windows decided to do an update, and in it's update it seems it re-enables CPU Core Parking. 

IDK why - but even just in the DCS main menu screen (not the launcher, but the main screen), if I viewed FPS's, I was getting nasty FPS drops consistently every second or so - which would cause stuttering. Disabling CPU Core parking appears to have resolved the issue (at least for me). IDK enough about game development to know if DCS can tell windows not to park cores that it's using so this hack doesn't need to be done?

This may not be the issue that everyone is facing, but even if it helps one or two...

If unsure of how to do this, it can be done via the registry under Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Power\PowerSettings.

Search for a value that ends with dec35c318583, and change ValueMax to 0. Obviously usual registry disclaimers apply.

Plus - if anyone knows a better way of doing this so that CPU parking is only disabled while DCS is running, I'd love to know.

 

Edited August 13, 2024 by Dangerzone

[Jenson]

15 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

 

Plus - if anyone knows a better way of doing this so that CPU parking is only disabled while DCS is running, I'd love to know.

 

 

I assume that ED should write this into the MT logic. 

[Slippa]

I wish there was more logic being applied to testing updates.

I don’t understand it.

Earlier today I tried lowering some settings looking for better performance. I buggered it up somehow until all I could see when I tried to boot DCS was a small black windows window with DCS written on the top of it. All I could do was close it or minimise it. I posted here for help as I couldn’t do a thing with it after trying to repair, then a longer repair after that. No good.

I’ve got a folder on an SSD where I keep ‘DCS Backup bits’. I took an old Options setting file and copied it over the existing one. It brought the launcher back up properly, though I’d left it disabled but it was running. I deleted my plea for help here and tried it out. It ran pretty smoothly. Even flying the Chinny. While on there people logged in, complained about the lag and left without barely having taken off. 

Even with my limited knowledge of how these things work, or don’t in this case, I can’t see that my reloading an old options setup will have had any impact on fixing the lag and the stutters. Maybe the repairs helped? More likely, but I can’t say everything’s fixed. I’m expecting it to be as bad again tomorrow, it was the update, I'm sure it was. Some people on the MP server reckon it’s the Chinny but we were all having bad lags before it was released.

I’ve no logs to share but if I get more of it I’ll post another one. It doesn’t seem much of a mystery to me, it was the update and it can’t have been properly tested. The chinny’s my first and probably last go at Early Access. I’m fine with there being teething problems with that, there are meant to be, it’s EA but as things are I’m lucky if I can fly anything in MP.

At least we only have one to bugger up now. No OB or stable now it’s just one Multi-Threaded lucky dip.

[Tomcat388th]

Here's my log from a few days ago

 

dcs.log

[buceador]

Given the quantity of posts on this forum (and others) relating to stutters and lag since the last couple of updates I imagine it is something that the devs are aware of through the conduit of @BIGNEWY and @NineLine....

[BIGNEWY]

Threads merged 

We are looking into it 

thank you 

[DragonSoulkin]

Adding my log to the mix. Mods are currently installed but there's a lot of errors unrelated to the mods.

dcs.log

[dutchili]

The patch has more work on threats that influence 'cpu time'.

Running a Miz with moving ground units on a server (same computer as the client) make a huge difference . 

So bad choice in multi threading / process.

@BIGNEWYhttps://www.science20.com/tommaso_dorigo/multithreading_for_dummies-256741

 

(I am polite and respectful here, just handing vital knowledge for free. There is another resource on testing. Must read)

[Migo]

Before the update I had around 70 to 80 fps with my VR settings in the Harrier.

Today I installed the update and wanted to fly the Apache since a long time and also noticed extreme stuttering and fps below 10 when looking around.

A look into the task manager of Windows showed that all my 32gb of RAM were used.
Now I thought this might be related to the Apache and I've just ordered 32gb more of RAM.

Afraid that it's not the Apache but the last update which eats all the ram after seeing the threads in this forum section.
Can anyone else confirm that their RAM is completely used up when this happens?

 

Update:  I just tested the harrier once more and it's fine. Seems that it's really just the Apache needing more than 32gb RAM on my side.

Edited August 14, 2024 by Migo

[Kahless_uk]

Side note, but possibly related, just sitting in the main menu without clicking anything and one CPU core is already at 100% and the next most loaded not far behind with the others doing nothing and a second screenie of CPU activity sitting still on the deck of the supercarrier in an F/A-18c on the syria map with the fps tanking

Edited August 14, 2024 by Kahless_uk
added screengrab

[Wingnuts]

Only a small improvement with todays patch in frame delay.

[Karman]

It's awful, I'm fed up with these optimization hacks. It worked very well in the penultimate update and since Ch47 and the Spawn dynamics updates it's been a disaster. I miss the stable version. We spend more time making adjustments than flying.

[wcdiver]

I have encountered similar problems. There is a lot of stuttering in the single player, especially in the external view. However, multiplayer is slowly becoming unplayable at this point. Very long texture loading times, that I have to wait in cockpit for several minutes with single digit fps, then constant stuttering. God forbid i check another player by using F2, it almost freezes at this point. For now the game is utterly unplayable for me.

[Robi Hobby]

What I don't understand is that when I start DCS in VR (MT) and I'm on the Main Page, it starts to stutter badly. fps goes down to 5? From 80 to 5 without me doing anything. And I'm only on the Main Page. It disappears again and comes back for no reason.

Edited August 18, 2024 by Robi Hobby

[DragonSoulkin]

15 minutes ago, Robi Hobby said:

What I don't understand is that when I start DCS in VR (MT) and I'm on the Main Page, it starts to stutter badly. FBS goes down to 5? From 80 to 5 without me doing anything. And I'm only on the Main Page. It disappears again and comes back for no reason.

What I don't understand is why we, the customer, need to play PC forensics to diagnose and fix the game.

[Darcaem]

21 minutes ago, Robi Hobby said:

What I don't understand is that when I start DCS in VR (MT) and I'm on the Main Page, it starts to stutter badly. FBS goes down to 5? From 80 to 5 without me doing anything. And I'm only on the Main Page. It disappears again and comes back for no reason.

+1 to this. But in my case, usually the main page runs smothly at 90fps (I have modified sceneVR.lua to remove the background) but when I enter settings or mission menu the stutter appears and fps goes out ot the window

[Slippa]

Amen. 

I’ve spent as much time messing about trying to get it working than I have flying it.

I don’t think it’s anyones setup, or their particular settings. I’m sure it was that update and I’m sure ED will know what it was that was so special in it that’s given a lot of us a simulation of one of these.

[Glide]

I've isolated this a bit.  The spikey Simulation behavior is greatly improved by enabling Low Latency Mode ON in the Nvidia Control Panel.  I don't know why.  I turned off all the PimaxXr Runtime companion settings, turned off all the Pimax Crystal headset settings, turn down the graphics to nothing.  Enabling Low Latency Mode gave a very smooth FPS graph. 

Zoom in on this shot.  It's just after being in Esc mode (sim paused), and Resuming with LL On and Max FPS 35 in Game Settings.  Note how the simulation time is "correct" during Pause, then goes spikey after resume.  I hope this helps.

Edit: the second shot is the same settings but with "Perfer FrameRate over Latency" deselected in the PimaxXR Runtime companion.  Note the switch from CPU Bound Rendering thread to CPU Bound Main Thread.

Edit: Bingo!  No lock to half framerate in PimaxXR runtime companion, and no prefer framerate over latency in the PimaxXR runtime companion in this shot.  Properly synced fps graph.

 

Edited August 18, 2024 by Glide

[Karman]

This is a joke... 3 updates in 3 weeks. And the last one could have been done in the penultimate patch. I'm sick of being a beta tester for free. And still no performance fixes. I'll test Falcon BMS in the meantime. (I don't like helicopters, I only fly planes) Latest update: DCS World User Crash Reporting Tool. CTD related to ghost network client animation - fixed User Crash Reporting Tool. CTD triggered by unloading aircraft cargo - fixed Multiplayer text chat window unresponsive until player spawns in aircraft cockpit - fixed Visual glitches if GUI scale is set to more than 1 - fixed Using TAB while Route tool is active disables other controls and inputs - fixed DCS: CH-47F by Eagle Dynamics User Crash Reporting Tool. CTD related to multicrew client join in CH-47F - fixed

[Tomcat388th]

Yep its getting old, its a shame we have all these jets and helos but no way to fly them anymore. To much focus on $ in my opinion. I could live with a game breaking patch if it happened once a year but it seems like its everyone now. I feel like a stranded starliner astronought. ED got us into orbit and here we sit.

[DragonSoulkin]

Seriously no fix or word on this? I guess back to that unspeakable WarToonder I go.

[ZACHI]

I bought the amazing F16 First in Weasels Over Syria Campaign, and it’s just not flyable! Missions starts with a decent FPS (80+) but as I fly into the mission FPS drops to a slide show… I spent hours on my PC and reading online, thinking that I have issues with my setup until I found this thread.
Soooo frustrating!