In game frame rate drops from 45 fps to single digits.

[Aero_105]

When doing a dogfight against a single Su 27 I get frame rate drop to single digits every 15 seconds or so.  When doing a dogfight against a F 14 the frames are more smoother.  My CPU averages 86% or less on all cores and the GPU averages about 30% load.  The GPU memory usage is about 4GB or less.  My set fps are 45 max.  How can I get the fps to stay near that mark?

What I tried so far:

check affinity
disable power management
roll back nvidia driver from 560.94 to 445.87
set power management to high performance 0 parked cores
roll back DCS update from 2.9.7 to 2.9.5.55918
set pagefile size to 32768
ran windows 10 in safemode then ran a test mission Su 25 against a Su27 since offline
check dcs.exe hdd usage to one drive
renamed DCS saved game folder to DCS.bak
disabled hotplug plug device detection

I have attached a dxdiag.txt, a trk file,  dcs.log and settings image

CPU: AMD Phenom II X4 955  GPU: Nvidia GTX 1070  RAM: 16GB DDR3  SSD: 480GB

DxDiag.txt testPiece1.trk dcs.log

Edited September 21, 2024 by Aero_105

[Aero_105]

I rolled back DCS update further from 2.9.5.55918 to 2.7.18.30765 and it works good!  With update 2.7.18.30765 my CPU load averages 76% and GPU load now doubles to about 60%.  There is no fps limiter with update 2.7.18.30765.  How can I get the same performance with update 2.7.18.30765 to the latest update?

[rob10]

I'm not a hardware guy, but pretty sure you're pretty limited by an old CPU.  ED has added a lot of stuff since 2.7 and yes that increased the computing power required to run it well in 2.9.  So your chances of getting 2.7 performance on your hardware with 2.9 are likely pretty small.

[Aero_105]

Unless they optimized their program more efficiently.  I am looking for what particular event that is causing the frame drops.  Maybe I can then edit a file or something.  I need a way that I can rule out if it is hardware related or not.

[Aero_105]

I have two DCS installs with two DCS profiles under Saved Games.  I change two folders accordingly to switch from version 2.7.18.30765 to 2.9.7.59263 which is the latest.  In version 2.9.7.59263 with LOD Switch factor set to .1 there were less major frame drops less frequently.  Things are improving but still not there yet.

Edited September 25, 2024 by Aero_105

[Nptune]

Highly recommend upgrading your whole system ram/cpu/motherboard/gpu. It's not surprising at all your having issues those are weak specs for 2.9. 

[Aero_105]

20 hours ago, Nptune said:

Highly recommend upgrading your whole system ram/cpu/motherboard/gpu.

I did do an upgrade went from hdd to ssd,  4GB Ram to 16GB then the graphics card went from 2GB to 8GB video Ram.  I am just getting started into DCS and don't want to over commit.  I get 70 fps average but the program spikes my cpu then the frames drop to about 20 fps now.  I am wondering if the developers could make further adjustments as my system does meet low end requirements.

[Nptune]

You wouldn't be over committing. Those are weak specs over all regardless of DCS. If you want to enjoy dcs or any game the way it was meant to be played or enjoyed you are going to need decent specks, it doesn't mean you need 64gb ram of a 4080 etc. If you want to play at 1080p look in to a 3070 or some thing like that, i have a 3070 and every thing is beautiful although settings are not at there highest it's still beautiful and smooth also i play on 2k resolution.

 To play at 1080p doesn't require a beast, you can play at that res on almost max settings with a 3070 and say 32gb of ram and a decent cpu.  

If you spend 500-600 roughly$ you will be setup to play dcs at 1080p with no issues for possibly a long time to come, and you will also be able to play at 2k if you ever upgraded your monitor. At this day and age i HIGHLY recommend upgrading your whole pc it's just very weak. These simulators  require more computing power then most games so if you really like flying sims, then its well worth it committing to upgrading to a reasonably decent pc compared to what you have now.

I dent think it's a little thing that can be fixed, it seems its just overall your pc is the issue and i find it hard that any thing could be fixed unless you rolled back to a very old version.

 

 

But im no expert so get other opinions. Good luck i wish you all the best.

 

 

Edited September 26, 2024 by Nptune

[Philip Mongeon]

To be honest and as others have pointed out, your specs are very low. DCS  is quite heavy for a simulator even on newer hardware. The Phenom processor was never really meant for high end gaming, adding to the fact that the Phenom platform is well over 15 years old.

This means that you are limited to DDR3 memory

Also, the 1070 chip has an inherent issue with newer texture formats, such as vectoring and dynamic fluid engines.

you can pick up a fairly inexpensive Ryzen 7 computer that will be a night and  day difference.

Personally, i'm using a lower end spec'ed computer :

AMD Ryzen7 5700g

64GB DDR4

RTX3060

i picked up the computer for 300$CAD.

these are my settings.

 

All this to say, while the Phenom processor was great in its day, those days are long past. 

null

[Aero_105]

On 9/28/2024 at 10:59 PM, Philip Mongeon said:

Personally, i'm using a lower end spec'ed computer :

AMD Ryzen7 5700g

64GB DDR4

RTX3060

i picked up the computer for 300$CAD.

From Memory Express yesterday they had:

AMD Ryzen 7 5700X for $260 CAD

ROG STRIX B550-A for   $225 CAD

Corsair DDR 4 64GB for  $150 CAD

I may wait a year before I do an whole system upgrade.  I have a dual boot system with both Win 7 and Win 10 as Win 7 does come handy when running older programs.

Could you give this mission file attached a try to see if your frames dips considerably.  You may have to use mission editor to change the player aircraft depending on what you have.  Right ctrl + pause to view fps in dcs.

 

dogfightSu27.miz

Edited September 30, 2024 by Aero_105

[sleighzy]

I ran your log through the DCS log analyser which highlighted a couple of points. One of them was fairly obvious, you have a preload radius of 150,000 (the max). This is going to hit your RAM, of which you only have 16Gbs. Drop this to 30,000 and see what happens as well.null

[Aero_105]

@sleighzy Changed the settings from "Tuning Tips" and no change in fps performance.