Severe loading performance issues with 2.9.16

[Nightstorm]

@BIGNEWY  Since the 2.9.15 topic was locked and we're now on 2.9.16, I'll start a new one.

Since Friday's update I have encountered every single one of the previously reported issues.  Right now in fact, as I type this the game has locked up on loading for the sixth time in the last two hours.

Saving missions, loading mission, exiting missions, exiting the game, starting the game, all of these continue to have the same performance problems.

Sometimes it does work correctly or at least mostly responsive.  Others, you're fighting just to get the thing to start up.  It's really frustrating.

Rolling back to 2.9.14, again, resolves every single issue with no other changes. 

[Dangerzone]

The last 2 updates have significantly increased their load times, that's for sure. I have had it go non responsive "Program is not responding, what do you want to do. Close, or Wait", but I don't think I've had it crash out completely - just takes ages (and I mean ages sometimes) to actually load in. 

Some times it can appear as though it's locked up, but it's still working. If your SP only, it may be best to stay on 2.9.14 until this issue get's recognised and fixed. But if you MP, it might be worth pursuing; What are your PC specs, and how long are you actually waiting? Also - are you on SSD's, or HDD's?

[YoYo]

13 hours ago, Nightstorm said:

@BIGNEWY  Since the 2.9.15 topic was locked and we're now on 2.9.16, I'll start a new one.

Since Friday's update I have encountered every single one of the previously reported issues.  Right now in fact, as I type this the game has locked up on loading for the sixth time in the last two hours.

Saving missions, loading mission, exiting missions, exiting the game, starting the game, all of these continue to have the same performance problems.

Sometimes it does work correctly or at least mostly responsive.  Others, you're fighting just to get the thing to start up.  It's really frustrating.

Rolling back to 2.9.14, again, resolves every single issue with no other changes. 

Correct, with this subject no changes. I hope that they work on the fix.

[Mamakin]

Same. Especially the QMG

Edited June 2 by Mamakin

[Vecihi Hürkuş]

Am 2.6.2025 um 00:42 schrieb Nightstorm:

Saving missions, loading mission, exiting missions, exiting the game, starting the game, all of these continue to have the same performance problems.

I have these problems too.

[Nightstorm]

I fortunately have enough space on my drive that I kept 2.9.14 and just renamed the folder when I updated to the newer versions.  So, it's a pretty simple matter to rename folders and swap back and forth.  Going back to 2.9.14 and performance is very good.  Both in normal and in VR with no other system changes.  Unfortunately, I lose access to the Germany map as that was introduced in 2.9.15.

There are still many other maps to fly on though until this gets resolved.  I can only guess at how complex the code base for this game is.  And the strides that were made in multi-thread support are amazing.  To the point, I understand, we not only don't need Process Lasso any longer, but should not use it if you're on Windows 11.

I'm sure they'll get this sorted out.  I just hope it's soon

[Flanker35M]

S!

For me only thing affected really is when exiting the game, takes longer than previously. I bought a WD Black 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive just for DCS as was running out of space on my original game nVME.

[YoYo]

35 minutes ago, Flanker35M said:

S!

For me only thing affected really is when exiting the game, takes longer than previously. I bought a WD Black 2TB PCIe 4.0 drive just for DCS as was running out of space on my original game nVME.

Problem is for entry (first 1-2 minutes of mission), saving mission in the Mission Editor and exit DCS.

[Nightstorm]

I tested the new .1 release last night and didn't see any improvements.  Since there wasn't anything mentioned regarding performance issues, I didn't expect to see any.  It sat on a black screen for a minute or so trying to exit a mission back to the ME.  All of these delays still seem to be CPU related.  I've got a sensor panel with AIDA64 and when this happens, even it stops updating.

Core i9 14900k (new) that has always been run on the new microcode and updated BIOS so no degradation. RTX5090, 64GB DDR6000.  There shouldn't be ANY issue running this.

And not to be a broken record but just switching folders to the 2.9.14 version and all issues go away.

[YoYo]

8 hours ago, Nightstorm said:

I tested the new .1 release last night and didn't see any improvements.  Since there wasn't anything mentioned regarding performance issues, I didn't expect to see any.  It sat on a black screen for a minute or so trying to exit a mission back to the ME.  All of these delays still seem to be CPU related.  I've got a sensor panel with AIDA64 and when this happens, even it stops updating.

Core i9 14900k (new) that has always been run on the new microcode and updated BIOS so no degradation. RTX5090, 64GB DDR6000.  There shouldn't be ANY issue running this.

And not to be a broken record but just switching folders to the 2.9.14 version and all issues go away.

As for the aspect of changes in this topic, nothing happened, but the last hot fix fixed a rather annoying problem - high load on one of the cores and a temperature jump when running DCS like some kind of stress test. That was the main point and here the ED team fixed this problem :).

[flavnet]

Soporific loading times and it even takes two minutes to exit the game!!!!

[Dangerzone]

6 hours ago, flavnet said:

Soporific loading times and it even takes two minutes to exit the game!!!!

Yeah... we've come so far. I remember with DOS games... I'm finished. Half a second later POWER BUTTON and walk away. 

[Smashy]

35 minutes ago, Dangerzone said:

Yeah... we've come so far. I remember with DOS games... I'm finished. Half a second later POWER BUTTON and walk away. 

sounds like my prom night

[YoYo]

11 hours ago, flavnet said:

Soporific loading times and it even takes two minutes to exit the game!!!!

 

[flavnet]

Thanks YoYo but, about the tips in the post you reported, "Alt+Tab" is not a solution, especially since I don't play DCS in window. My hardware is up to date and the problem remains.

Let's hope that ED realizes how much worse this problem (which was already present) has become and finds a solution.

[YoYo]

1 hour ago, flavnet said:

Thanks YoYo but, about the tips in the post you reported, "Alt+Tab" is not a solution, especially since I don't play DCS in window. My hardware is up to date and the problem remains.

Let's hope that ED realizes how much worse this problem (which was already present) has become and finds a solution.

Forced manual DCS exit is not good and I don't use it. Better to wait, but it is true that it is a bit annoying now.

[Vecihi Hürkuş]

My observation of these loading issues is that actually the loading times didn't change much. But there is a delay now before the loading process starts and this delay is approximately a 15 seconds long freeze. So this delay/freeze is actually the problem.

[TheFreshPrince]

It just took me 5 minutes just to open the game after I clicked on the launch button. What is going on guys. 

[sleighzy]

12 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

It just took me 5 minutes just to open the game after I clicked on the launch button. What is going on guys. 

With no log attached it’s hard to tell what your problem might be.

@YoYo posted the below comment on another thread. Don’t believe this is public API but would be interested to know what other folks experience with this config line.

 

[BIGNEWY]

On 6/1/2025 at 11:42 PM, Nightstorm said:

@BIGNEWY  Since the 2.9.15 topic was locked and we're now on 2.9.16, I'll start a new one.

Since Friday's update I have encountered every single one of the previously reported issues.  Right now in fact, as I type this the game has locked up on loading for the sixth time in the last two hours.

Saving missions, loading mission, exiting missions, exiting the game, starting the game, all of these continue to have the same performance problems.

Sometimes it does work correctly or at least mostly responsive.  Others, you're fighting just to get the thing to start up.  It's really frustrating.

Rolling back to 2.9.14, again, resolves every single issue with no other changes. 

please included the dcs log and dxdiag so we can look for clues. 

thanks 

[Nightstorm]

12 hours ago, sleighzy said:

With no log attached it’s hard to tell what your problem might be.

@YoYo posted the below comment on another thread. Don’t believe this is public API but would be interested to know what other folks experience with this config line.

 

That resolved the issue for me.

Since I don't want to interfere with the original files, I personally recommend adding this entry to:

• C:\Users\xvy\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config
• go to autoexec.cfg (or create it), add this new line:
• bkg_load_signed_plugins = false

[Vecihi Hürkuş]

Am 8.6.2025 um 22:50 schrieb YoYo:

Yes, this is good workaround. This is the first thing worth checking instead of drivers, memory, mods and God knows what else ;).

However now it is: bkg_load_signed_plugins = true, we havent here "all".

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Since I don't want to interfere with the original files, I personally recommend adding this entry to:

• C:\Users\xvy\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta\Config
• go to autoexec.cfg (or create it), add this new line:
• bkg_load_signed_plugins = false

DCS is back to normal (no stutters at the beginning, fast saving, even the exit is immediate ect).

Btw. You can use my file as well:

autoexec.cfg 156 B · 19 Downloads

This fixed it for me.

[BIGNEWY]

Hi all, 

if you are seeing issues still please attach your dcs log and dxdiag so the team can check it out. 

thank you 

[buceador]

11 hours ago, Nightstorm said:

bkg_load_signed_plugins

Forgive the ignorance but what constitutes a 'signed plugin'?  Can you give me an example please?

Thanks

[Hiob]

Sry, no track (yet), but giving my +1 to noticable performance degradation in loading performance (loading textures at mission start e.g. takes forever). Also +1 on CPU usage (though no temp problems, just noticing a big jump in utilization). Also shutting down the sim results in a pretty long blackscreen.
I'll make sure to save a track next time and attach it here.