DCS CPU Bound, what settings raise GPU usage?

[truebrit]

Unfortunately the latest update has brought back some similar problems as the original 2.9 update did for me.

I only seem to get lag in when I am CPU bound, so I thought I would turn down all system settings that mention CPU usage, the result was I was even more CPU bound? So I upped all the sliders you can while in game, clutter/grass, forest visibility etc, and straight away became GPU bound most of the time and much smoother gameplay.

I have seen this stressing the graphics card "fix" when I was looking for a solution to the lag that 2.9 introduced for me.

So what what settings affect GPU more than CPU?

Edited July 15, 2024 by truebrit

[Nightstalker]

When mulithreading got released any hint of stutter and frame drops went away for me until the last 2 patches.  This one has really ruined my experience.  I thought it was the Afghanistan map, but now it’s happening everywhere.  I’ve tried everything to get it to stop.  Sometimes it gets so bad the whole game freezes.  

[truebrit]

7 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

When mulithreading got released any hint of stutter and frame drops went away for me until the last 2 patches.  This one has really ruined my experience.  I thought it was the Afghanistan map, but now it’s happening everywhere.  I’ve tried everything to get it to stop.  Sometimes it gets so bad the whole game freezes.  

2.9 was the start of an 8 month nightmare to get the game playable for me, now after just a few months, this latest patch has made it unplayable again. Before 2.9 the game had fairly low FPS for, but was smooth as butter. I think maybe they're over stretching the limits of this very old game. I believe the base game is basically Lock On: Modern Air Combat 2003.

[Nightstalker]

4 minutes ago, truebrit said:

2.9 was the start of an 8 month nightmare to get the game playable for me, now after just a few months, this latest patch has made it unplayable again. Before 2.9 the game had fairly low FPS for, but was smooth as butter. I think maybe they're over stretching the limits of this very old game. I believe the base game is basically Lock On: Modern Air Combat 2003.

I figured out what the issue was for me.  After 4 days of frustration I noticed in my Resource Monitor that my CPU Cores were parked.  Not sure if you are aware of this issue.  I can only assume a Microsoft Win11 update over the last couple of months messed with my windows settings.  I looked up the Core parking thread under Bugs & Performance and followed the easy video in the forum thread.  Did a computer restart and then hopped back into DCS.  Like magic, my buttery smooth fps with ZERO stutters.  I’ve spent all morning flying on Afghanistan, Syria, S/A and Sinai with the DCS fps monitor up and everything was stutter free for prolonged flight.

I fly on a 2k 34” Ultrawide with everything maxed and sliders all to the right.  I don’t like my fans going crazy so I limit fps to 60 and turn on vsync.  The 2 lines in the fps monitor stay completely flatlined the whole time I fly with a locked 60 fps never bouncing.  Normally I would be up between 130 - 160 on multithread startup and no DLSS.  I just like to keep the fans down.

I hope that may help someone else.  I was overjoyed after complete frustration for weeks.

[truebrit]

4 hours ago, Nightstalker said:

I figured out what the issue was for me.  After 4 days of frustration I noticed in my Resource Monitor that my CPU Cores were parked.  Not sure if you are aware of this issue.  I can only assume a Microsoft Win11 update over the last couple of months messed with my windows settings.  I looked up the Core parking thread under Bugs & Performance and followed the easy video in the forum thread.  Did a computer restart and then hopped back into DCS.  Like magic, my buttery smooth fps with ZERO stutters.  I’ve spent all morning flying on Afghanistan, Syria, S/A and Sinai with the DCS fps monitor up and everything was stutter free for prolonged flight.

I fly on a 2k 34” Ultrawide with everything maxed and sliders all to the right.  I don’t like my fans going crazy so I limit fps to 60 and turn on vsync.  The 2 lines in the fps monitor stay completely flatlined the whole time I fly with a locked 60 fps never bouncing.  Normally I would be up between 130 - 160 on multithread startup and no DLSS.  I just like to keep the fans down.

I hope that may help someone else.  I was overjoyed after complete frustration for weeks.

I'm glad it worked out for you. I know how it feels to finally find the solution after so long and just enjoy the game, but unfortunately this did not help me.  I have tried the Supercarrier fix also, no joy. I think after spending most of my time since 2.9 came out trying fixes, I'm gonna take a break from DCS. Cheers.

[Gunslinger52]

On 7/16/2024 at 11:01 AM, truebrit said:

I'm glad it worked out for you. I know how it feels to finally find the solution after so long and just enjoy the game, but unfortunately this did not help me.  I have tried the Supercarrier fix also, no joy. I think after spending most of my time since 2.9 came out trying fixes, I'm gonna take a break from DCS. Cheers.

Hi truebrit,

can you tell me what the 'Supercarrier fix' is please?

Cheers

'52

[The_Nephilim]

On 7/14/2024 at 8:18 PM, truebrit said:

Unfortunately the latest update has brought back some similar problems as the original 2.9 update did for me.

I only seem to get lag in when I am CPU bound, so I thought I would turn down all system settings that mention CPU usage, the result was I was even more CPU bound? So I upped all the sliders you can while in game, clutter/grass, forest visibility etc, and straight away became GPU bound most of the time and much smoother gameplay.

I have seen this stressing the graphics card "fix" when I was looking for a solution to the lag that 2.9 introduced for me.

So what what settings affect GPU more than CPU?

 

Hey If you hold the mouse cursor over the game settings in the options menu ingame it gives you a description of that setting and if it is CPU or GPU based..

[Hikaruncat]

On 2024/7/15 at 午前9時18分, truebrit said:

残念ながら、最新のアップデートでは、元の 2.9 アップデートで発生したのと同様の問題がいくつか再発しました。

CPU にバインドされているときのみ遅延が発生するようです。そのため、CPU 使用率に関するすべてのシステム設定を下げようと思ったのですが、その結果、CPU にバインドされることがさらに増えてしまいました。そこで、ゲーム中にできる限りすべてのスライダーを上げ、雑然とした草や森の可視性などを調整したところ、ほとんどの時間ですぐに GPU バインドになり、ゲームプレイがはるかにスムーズになりました。

2.9 で発生した遅延の解決策を探していたときに、グラフィック カードの「修正」を強調するこのメッセージを見ました。

では、CPU よりも GPU に影響を与える設定は何でしょうか?

 

I'm very surprised.
I play DCS on a weak computer,
so my CPU usage is always over 90%.
I was wondering why my GPU usage was only around 20% despite that.
I had lowered the graphics settings quite a bit to reduce the burden on the CPU,
but after reading your comment, I increased the density of trees and smoke in the field of view to the maximum and it became much smoother.
To the point where GPU usage was over 40%.
I had thought that lowering the above settings would increase the FPS, but it seems that was slightly wrong.
The lower the settings, the less the GPU was being used,
and the CPU hardly changed at all.
This is a very welcome discovery!
Thank you.