F-14 - Instant Action mission: F-14B-Cold Start (Afghanistan) - Low FPS when initially parked at Kandahar

TBarina · March 5

have downloaded the trial version of Afghanistan and can confirm that I can easily get 75 and more fps after taking off.

The fps drops to 27 when parked at Kandahar in F-14 Instant Action Cold and Dark (IMHO there are too many objects in that mission parked at Kandahar).

My config is: Ryzen 7 5800X3D, MSI RTX 4090 24gb, 64GB DRAM, 2 x 1TB SSD, 5 Monitors 1920x1080p, Win11-Home

The resolution is 7680x1080 to cope with my monitor setup (see image) where:

2 is the monitor dedicated to the left view
4 is for the center view
3 is for the right view
5 is for the view at the sky above the HUD at center view (very useful for dogfighting and for general immersion since I don't want to use VR)
and monitor n. 1 is dedicated to Helios.

Never got 27 fps in any other map/airport so far. It breaks immersion at all.

i also have the 3 mini-monitors from WinWing for the MIP in F18 that would require to increase gloabal resolution but I've not tried them yet. I guess that the 27fps will decrease to a lower value.

I'm not sure I'll buy Afghanistan for now. There's plenty to do and to learn elsewhere where things run definetly smooter.

TBarina · March 5

Just now, TBarina said:

have downloaded the trial version of Afghanistan and can confirm that I can easily get 75 and more fps after taking off.

The fps drops to 27 when parked at Kandahar in F-14 Instant Action Cold and Dark (IMHO there are too many objects in that mission parked at Kandahar).

My config is: Ryzen 7 5800X3D, MSI RTX 4090 24gb, 64GB DRAM, 2 x 1TB SSD, 5 Monitors 1920x1080p, Win11-Home

The resolution is 7680x1080 to cope with my monitor setup (see image) where:

2 is the monitor dedicated to the left view

4 is for the center view

3 is for the right view

5 is for the view at the sky above the HUD at center view (very useful for dogfighting and for general immersion since I don't want to use VR)

and monitor n. 1 is dedicated to Helios.

Never got 27 fps in any other map/airport so far. It breaks immersion at all.

i also have the 3 mini-monitors from WinWing for the MIP in F18 that would require to increase gloabal resolution but I've not tried them yet. I guess that the 27fps will decrease to a lower value.

I'm not sure I'll buy Afghanistan for now. There's plenty to do and to learn elsewhere where things run definetly smooter.

I've also taken some time to provide some additional techical info.

My DCS settings are the following (as per image attached):

I launched F-14 Instant Action mission: F-14B-Cold Start Afghanistan

Without doing anything in the cockpit I took 4 snapshots as follows:

1) in cockpit view (F1) locking at my 3 o'clock (see attach image DCS 2025-03-05 00-16-06): fps is 39 fps2) in cockpit view (F1) locking at my 9 o'clock (see attach image DCS 2025-03-05 00-17-48): fps is 27 fps

Then I tried same view angle from outside cockpit (using F4):

1) locking at my 3 o'clock (see attach image DCS 2025-03-05 00-15-22): fps is 57 fps

2) locking at my 9 o'clock (see attach image DCS 2025-03-05 00-18-43 fps is 32 fps

Ala12Rv-Tundra · March 8

I strongly think it´s a hit from the mission rather than the map itself. The new 3D model B-1 seems to be heavy on performance, I used one for my regular Nellis template and fps tanked. On this mission, you have two B-1 leaving Kandahar. Plus the two A-10. Plus a squadron of F-14, another of F-4 (both being Heatblur hungry for performance), lucky for you they also placed low poly C-17, otherwise...
You even have a couple of armed humvees running a patrol alongside the perimeter fence.
Im sorry but it seems too much for most systems to handle.

BJ55 · March 8

A dcs.log could be useful... I have no such issues with that mission, but I use less demanding settings. Try with res. cockpit 1024, SSAO off, heat blur off, grass 800, preload 50000-60000 (use bigger values only if you have slow disks), max FPS 90. 7680x1080 are a lot of pixels to render!

TBarina · March 8

I definitely agree with you guys.

I have been playing with some Moose .lua scripts to flood Kobuleti and Kandahar with some 100 planes and helicopters using Moose's RAT and RATMANAGER (BTW: Moose is a fantastic library)
Actually the 2 maps (Caucasus and Afghanistan) behave in a similar way (and without going below 48fps so far, if I use Moose to put the airport to life).

As I suspected the culprit is surely not the terrain but that specific F-14 Instant Action mission: F-14B-Cold Start Afghanistan.

I know that 7680x1080 are a lot of pixels to render but using the additional 4th monitor above the central one of the triple screens offers a fantastic perspective when flying and doghfighting. I wouldn't be able to use a single monitor any more and even pure triple screen it's too narrow to enjoy a wide view even with TrackIR

Better reduce the number of objects at the airport. If I were looking for fully operational airports, I would be better off looking at XPlane or MsFlightSIm.

That IA mission is a pure school exercise to stress the system.

Many thanks

BJ55 · March 12

Btw: I was able to riproduce the issue with a simple RAM downclock (XMP1 3600 -> 2400), removing dust in ME made no difference (in a custom mission the new fog was causing heavy stutters), only removing static objects made some difference.