fixed Huge SP performance degradation with 2.9.7.58923 and 2.9.6.58056 compared to DCS 2.9.5.55918

[A Hamburgler]

3 hours ago, chichowalker said:

My virtual squadron is thinking now of stopping liberation/retribution operations. With this kind of sim regression it is imposible to perform any mission with lot of units. I'm curious how people are invested more money in computer builds and now the sim run worst, with any kind of optimisation. I would suggest for future updates, to come back three patches ago and introduce all modules changes.

An answer to all your problems is Falcon BMS. I started to play it after 2.9.6 release and I am a couple weeks in a campaign and can’t stop flying missions. I can’t believe I slept on BMS for so long. There are so many basic features that is missing from DCS like ATC, comms ladder, a bunch of AI commands, and so on. 

Edited August 21, 2024 by A Hamburgler

[pixie]

BMS is really promising, right now it's ugly as f*** with those repetitive terrain tiles, but once 4.38 is out, I might go for it.
 have seen some screenshot previews, that will be a game changer.

 

[Gate]

32 minutes ago, pixie said:

BMS is really promising, right now it's ugly as f*** with those repetitive terrain tiles, but once 4.38 is out, I might go for it.
 have seen some screenshot previews, that will be a game changer.

 

I just started BMS and also didn't like the repetitive tiles. I've since installed the Balkans Theater and its WAY better looking. Currently playing through that until the terrain update comes through. Definitely would recommend it.

[Darcaem]

While I do agree with all of you regarding having a break from DCS hoping this will be solved (in my case "that other civil sim" instead of "that other F16 sim"), please we should avoid making this thread off-topic, since it could be closed. And the last thing we need right now is all these threads and comments of people having troubles being deleted

[BIGNEWY]

Folks yes please keep it DCS related here, and if you need to take a break that is fine, we understand. Some users are seeing bigger FPS hits than others, and we are looking into performance optimisations. If you have shared your dcs log or a track replay showing a fps issue, we appreciate it as it helps the team investigate. 

thank you 

[Sveppur]

Add me to the list of those affected by these performance issues. Took a short break from the sim at 2.9.5.55918, then came back a few days ago only to realize DCS became unplayable for me if I want to run a complex mission.

In 2.9.5 my fps/frametime graph would show a flat line, keep the frames at 100+, and I could run these heavy missions from start to finish without a single stutter. Now it's filled with steps and spikes, and seems to get worse as soon as more AI units are being spawned, and also deteriorates the longer the mission runs (to the point of single digit fps).

Attached is the log from a quick test session I just did using the last mission of the FIWOS campaign. I also have the track file but it's the whole flight that I've recorded, and exceeds the attachment upload limits

dcs.log

[Bounti30]

dcs 2.9.5.55918.log dcs 2.9.7.59263.log

I noticed a double consumption of my GPU
Does anyone have the same thing?
everything is strictly identical except the DCS version

I9 9900k, Asus prime A, 32Go DDR4, Win10, RTX 3090, SSD m2 for windows, SSD m2 for DCS

[SignorMagnifico]

Attaching my DCS.log, dxdiag, some screenshots, and a track file. FPS went from 80 down to 45/46 just by looking from right to left in the Chinook on the ground. 

DCS Performance.rar

[DragonSoulkin]

So is there any progress or anything? Or do I start requesting refunds for products I can't use anymore after what's going on a month?

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, DragonSoulkin said:

So is there any progress or anything? Or do I start requesting refunds for products I can't use anymore after what's going on a month?

To better understand what is happening and try to assist you please remove all unofficial mods first and run a slow repair of DCS

Custom Mods
WW II French Battleship Dunkerque,USS Fletcher Class Mariana Islands,WWII KMS Bismarck,pw-dev,ECHO19_CORE,Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler,Vietnam Assets Pack,WWII DKM German Naval Squadron,DCS-SRS,LotAtc,Centurion C-RAM 1.0.0,AU-Daring-Class,SAMSitesAssetPack,MELBOURNE1980,vTF-77,OH-6A,USS Franklin CV-13 -Big Ben V2.0,UH-60L,Virtual Air Festivals,WWII HMS Illustrious,Civil_Aircraft_Mod,Military Aircraft Mod,M142 HIMARS 1.3.2,CV6 USS Enterprise -The Grey Ghost-,WW II French Battleship Richelieu,Tacview,WWII Iowa Class 3 Battleships,WW2 Carrier Capable,476 Range Targets 14NOV19,CLP_Mods,CH S-350 SAM 1.2.0,Hercules ver 6.8.2,VNAO_T45,OH-6A_Weaponpack,HighDigitSAMs,A-4E-C,RedK0d-Clickable-v1.1.5,F-22A,WWII Italian Naval Squadron

Your have some errors due to mods and edits 

Error
'=' expected near '/'
Line
1
Script
/sounds/82/sdef/aircrafts/f-22a/external/frontroar.sdef

Error
attempt to index upvalue 'selfData' (a nil value)
Line
1222
Script
D:\Users\USSol\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Scripts\Hooks\pw_nav-hook.lua

Error
unfinished string near '"Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/Su25InEngineR'''
Line
1
Script
/sounds/87/sdef/aircrafts/engines/su25inenginer.sdef

Config File Corruption
Delete Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\MissionEditor and try again.

Tuning Tips
 
If you have FPS issues, try turning off VSYNC in graphics settings.
Enable Full Screen mode.

Delete metashader2 and fxo folders in Saved games DCS and run a single player mission to rebuild shaders. 

[DragonSoulkin]

1 hour ago, BIGNEWY said:

To better understand what is happening and try to assist you please remove all unofficial mods first and run a slow repair of DCS

Custom Mods
WW II French Battleship Dunkerque,USS Fletcher Class Mariana Islands,WWII KMS Bismarck,pw-dev,ECHO19_CORE,Northrop Grumman EA-6B Prowler,Vietnam Assets Pack,WWII DKM German Naval Squadron,DCS-SRS,LotAtc,Centurion C-RAM 1.0.0,AU-Daring-Class,SAMSitesAssetPack,MELBOURNE1980,vTF-77,OH-6A,USS Franklin CV-13 -Big Ben V2.0,UH-60L,Virtual Air Festivals,WWII HMS Illustrious,Civil_Aircraft_Mod,Military Aircraft Mod,M142 HIMARS 1.3.2,CV6 USS Enterprise -The Grey Ghost-,WW II French Battleship Richelieu,Tacview,WWII Iowa Class 3 Battleships,WW2 Carrier Capable,476 Range Targets 14NOV19,CLP_Mods,CH S-350 SAM 1.2.0,Hercules ver 6.8.2,VNAO_T45,OH-6A_Weaponpack,HighDigitSAMs,A-4E-C,RedK0d-Clickable-v1.1.5,F-22A,WWII Italian Naval Squadron

Your have some errors due to mods and edits 

Error
'=' expected near '/'
Line
1
Script
/sounds/82/sdef/aircrafts/f-22a/external/frontroar.sdef

Error
attempt to index upvalue 'selfData' (a nil value)
Line
1222
Script
D:\Users\USSol\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Scripts\Hooks\pw_nav-hook.lua

Error
unfinished string near '"Effects/Aircrafts/Engines/Su25InEngineR'''
Line
1
Script
/sounds/87/sdef/aircrafts/engines/su25inenginer.sdef

Config File Corruption
Delete Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\MissionEditor and try again.

Tuning Tips
 
If you have FPS issues, try turning off VSYNC in graphics settings.
Enable Full Screen mode.

Delete metashader2 and fxo folders in Saved games DCS and run a single player mission to rebuild shaders. 

 

Here's what the log analyzer shows now. I can remove these last remaining mods but is that really going to be necessary? Setting these up was such a pain.

dcs.log 319.71 kB · 8 downloads

I suppose though since I can't play single player as it is it doesn't matter if I remove these and have to spend hours later reconfigured them if they're not the problem. I'll provide a recording as well as a track file.

[BIGNEWY]

1 minute ago, DragonSoulkin said:

 

Here's what the log analyzer shows now. I can remove these last remaining mods but is that really going to be necessary? Setting these up was such a pain.

dcs.log 319.71 kB · 8 downloads

I suppose though since I can't play single player as it is it doesn't matter if I remove these and have to spend hours later reconfigured them if they're not the problem. I'll provide a recording as well as a track file.

To be sure you can rename your saved games dcs folder ( keep it as a backup )
Restart DCS login and redo your desired settings, we can rule out any strangeness with settings or configs then. 

Of course you can always return to the origional by changing the name again. 

See if you notice any difference with this fresh saved games folder. 

 

As mentioned we are looking into fps issues some are seeing and we are also working on optimisations for a future update. 

[pixie]

4 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

To be sure you can rename your saved games dcs folder ( keep it as a backup )
Restart DCS login and redo your desired settings, we can rule out any strangeness with settings or configs then. 

Of course you can always return to the origional by changing the name again. 

See if you notice any difference with this fresh saved games folder. 

 

As mentioned we are looking into fps issues some are seeing and we are also working on optimisations for a future update. 

I'm glad the dev team is actively looking into it. 
The performance hit seems to be so widespread for people who are running complex mission files, I reckon everyone is impacted. 
I might be wrong and biased.
Do you mean some ppl can still  run a .miz with lots of ground and air objects without noticing the radical FPS drop  ?
I understand that after each and every update some ppl complain about a performance while a large silent minority is fine if not better, but it seems to me that the latest update are killing most of the big servers.

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, pixie said:

I'm glad the dev team is actively looking into it. 
The performance hit seems to be so widespread for people who are running complex mission files, I reckon everyone is impacted. 
I might be wrong and biased.
Do you mean some ppl can still  run a .miz with lots of ground and air objects without noticing the radical FPS drop  ?
I understand that after each and every update some ppl complain about a performance while a large silent minority is fine if not better, but it seems to me that the latest update are killing most of the big servers.

Hi, high end machines tend to cope better even when there is an fps issue, so some are lucky and have not seen the performance hit that others have. 

We are currently investigating a few leads regarding the FPS hit and are working on optimisation in parallel, hopefully we will make improvements for the next patch, it is a high priority task currently.  

[DragonSoulkin]

9 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

To be sure you can rename your saved games dcs folder ( keep it as a backup )
Restart DCS login and redo your desired settings, we can rule out any strangeness with settings or configs then. 

Of course you can always return to the origional by changing the name again. 

See if you notice any difference with this fresh saved games folder. 

 

As mentioned we are looking into fps issues some are seeing and we are also working on optimisations for a future update. 

While I am still getting the weird fps spikes in multiplayer, I was still getting the unplayable frame time jumps in single player even after getting rid of the 4 remaining mods (SRS, LotATC, TacView, Pw-Dev). So I did as you suggested and renamed my saved-games folder and it freaking worked. Single player no longer has a 2-4 second stutter every couple of seconds.

[BIGNEWY]

18 minutes ago, DragonSoulkin said:

While I am still getting the weird fps spikes in multiplayer, I was still getting the unplayable frame time jumps in single player even after getting rid of the 4 remaining mods (SRS, LotATC, TacView, Pw-Dev). So I did as you suggested and renamed my saved-games folder and it freaking worked. Single player no longer has a 2-4 second stutter every couple of seconds.

Yeah I thought there maybe something else going on, don't get me wrong we know we have some fps issues that need looking into but yours seemed extreme. Hopefully you can work out which script / mod was creating that extra performance hit. 

 

[SharpeXB]

6 hours ago, pixie said:

Do you mean some ppl can still  run a .miz with lots of ground and air objects without noticing the radical FPS drop  ?

I can play on servers with large missions and numbers of players without any trouble. My frame rate is 90-120 FPS using max settings in 4K, no stuttering at all. There’s nothing special about my setup, it’s all set at defaults. So yes it’s possible. 

Edited August 22, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Pande4360]

vor 14 Minuten schrieb SharpeXB:

I can play on servers with large missions and numbers of players without any trouble. My frame rate is 90-120 FPS using max settings in 4K, no stuttering at all. There’s nothing special about my setup, it’s all set at defaults. So yes it’s possible. 

 

The fps drop is only occur if you host yourself. The server itself can however lag due to the performance issue mentioned. Which would simply cause rubberbanding for the players or heavy desync.

Lots of units is also relative to server power. e.g. my dcs can run around 16 full air sqaudrons witth 16 full sam templates and around 60 ground units all fighting at once pre update and now it can only handle 10 air squadrons and 11 sams and 60 ground units with very stuttery result.

Hosting a dedicated server with the same cpu will cause no stuttering for players joining but the server has issues which causes rubberbanding.

Edited August 22, 2024 by Pande4360

[SharpeXB]

7 minutes ago, Pande4360 said:

The fps drop is only occur if you host yourself. The server itself can however lag due to the performance issue mentioned. Which would simply cause rubberbanding for the players or heavy desync.

Lots of units is also relative to server power. e.g. my dcs can run around 16 full air sqaudrons witth 16 full sam templates and around 60 ground units all fighting at once pre update and now it can only handle 10 air squadrons and 11 sams and 60 ground units with very stuttery result.

Hosting a dedicated server with the same cpu will cause no stuttering for players joining but the server has issues which causes rubberbanding.

 

Oh I see this thread is about SP not MP

I can’t say I have any trouble with SP either though. Mostly I’m running DLC campaigns, not sure if those qualify as “large” missions. 
The Syria F-18 mission “Airbase Defense” always seemed challenging on my old PC but no trouble running that now. 

Edited August 22, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Pande4360]

vor 53 Minuten schrieb SharpeXB:

Oh I see this thread is about SP not MP

I can’t say I have any trouble with SP either though. Mostly I’m running DLC campaigns, not sure if those qualify as “large” missions. 
The Syria F-18 mission “Airbase Defense” always seemed challenging on my old PC but no trouble running that now. 

 

It does affect MP but only the machine that hosts, and accordingly the clients do lag.

Huge missions are rather liberation campaigns. Any normal mission and campaign mission is usually not big.

As reference i pointed out the 10 air wings + 11  sams +60 tanks which are 40 jets and over 150 ground units.

[SharpeXB]

33 minutes ago, Pande4360 said:

It does affect MP but only the machine that hosts, and accordingly the clients do lag.

Huge missions are rather liberation campaigns. Any normal mission and campaign mission is usually not big.

As reference i pointed out the 10 air wings + 11  sams +60 tanks which are 40 jets and over 150 ground units.

Is that a performance problem with the game or the mission? Given the sandbox nature of DCS it will always be possible to overwhelm the game with units by designing missions which are too big. 

[Archangel44]

3 hours ago, BIGNEWY said:

Yeah I thought there maybe something else going on, don't get me wrong we know we have some fps issues that need looking into but yours seemed extreme. Hopefully you can work out which script / mod was creating that extra performance hit. 

 

Whoa! Wait...

By re-naming the Saved games folder to say, (pick a name), and restarting DCS, DCS will create a new Saved games folder, then we can adjust controls, fly a mission and see how it goes?

Please let me know if I got that right cuzz I hate those spikes, it really sucks when I'm trying to land when I'm about 500 ft from the runway, when I switch from the F-10 view back to F1 view. Really looking forward to flying without the stutters.

Thank you

[Pande4360]

vor 37 Minuten schrieb SharpeXB:

Is that a performance problem with the game or the mission? Given the sandbox nature of DCS it will always be possible to overwhelm the game with units by designing missions which are too big. 

I mean the mission is part of the game. The whole point of this thread is that it used to work perfectly fine and the latest updates heavily decreased the unit count that can be used. So yeah the mission is basically too big now for the game to handle. or rather bigger mission use up so much more cpu that even the best computers cant handle them anymore. And the question remains if that can be improved again.

vor 35 Minuten schrieb Archangel44:

Whoa! Wait...

By re-naming the Saved games folder to say, (pick a name), and restarting DCS, DCS will create a new Saved games folder, then we can adjust controls, fly a mission and see how it goes?

Please let me know if I got that right cuzz I hate those spikes, it really sucks when I'm trying to land when I'm about 500 ft from the runway, when I switch from the F-10 view back to F1 view. Really looking forward to flying without the stutters.

Thank you

The idea is to check if mods are the cause of individual spikes. so yes you should remove all the mods by e.g. renaming the saved games folder. Globally there is a confirmed decrease in performance thoughg outsdie of mods.

Edited August 22, 2024 by Pande4360

[Dangerzone]

3 hours ago, Archangel44 said:

Whoa! Wait...

By re-naming the Saved games folder to say, (pick a name), and restarting DCS, DCS will create a new Saved games folder, then we can adjust controls, fly a mission and see how it goes?

Please let me know if I got that right cuzz I hate those spikes, it really sucks when I'm trying to land when I'm about 500 ft from the runway, when I switch from the F-10 view back to F1 view. Really looking forward to flying without the stutters.

Thank you

Renaming the saved games directory is like wiping out all your custom settings, controls, mods (installed in the saved games directory). It's akin to a new install/setup, and a new saved games directory will be created - just with the exception that you still have all your files, so you can rename the old directory back, or copy across just what you want (such as your control bindings). 

It's a quick easy way to see if there's something in your configurations that is contributing to the issue, whether they be mods, settings, hooks, or other things. 

[tmz]

The problem is the performance degradation between 2.9.5 and 2.9.6/2.9.7. What used to work does not anymore, and that is a big problem for those of use that run missions with large unit counts. How can you simulate a war with 20 planes and 50 ground units?