Underperforming Hardware

[Ianmcbean]

Hi,

I need help with figuring out what's wrong with my system and why I may not be getting the performance I should in DCS (especially multiplayer).

I have a Ryzen 5600, RX 6600, 64GB DDR4, and 2TB M.2 SSD, 1080p flatscreen. Based on benchmarks and statements from people with similar PC's as mine, it seems like I should have no problem running DCS multiplayer servers like Contention at medium-high settings. However, the reason I'm here is because I struggle to maintain a consistent and bearable framerate with basically the lowest graphics settings. For example, sitting on the SC deck in the hornet on contention results in a stuttery fps ranging from 30-60, but usually below 40 especially with other aircraft on the deck. Sometimes, I start a flight with around 60 fps, fly my mission with decent amounts of stuttering and fps drops, then land back on the same SC to find my fps has halved from when I first spawned in. It isn't a SC specific issue, it happens at all airports too but I use the SC most of the time. I can't pinpoint this to the GPU or CPU specifically because they seem to interchangably be labeled as the limitation in the in-game FPS monitor. I do notice that my VRAM usage is almost always at a maximum in multiplayer (all textures low), and that at least one of my CPU cores is at maximum utilization until I disable and reenable it in task manager. My main background processes are Opentrack + AITrack, WinWing, Task Manager, and sometimes Chrome. 

I've tried many things I've read online such as process lasso, DCS repair, clear shaders, etc. but nothing has really helped. I use optiscaler so that I can use DLAA but I know that it's not the problem because it existed before dowloading optiscaler.

I can share logs and screenshots as needed. My hardware is benchmarked and performs well in other modern games.

 

My settings:

 

I would really like to know if my system is truly underperforming, if I should tweak some things, and/or if DCS is the problem.

dcs.log

Edited 19 hours ago by Ianmcbean
Added log

[TheFreshPrince]

RX 6600 is not a great card, worse than the GTX 1080 I had. But it should be able to perform in 1080p, especially with lower to medium settings. What I can see is that your preload radius is waaayyy too high, this will kill your performance. Try the default of 60000, maybe even less.

The maxed out CPU core could be that current bug, you will find solutions in another topic.

Also, I'm not sure if your card even works with optiscaler and DLAA. Try MSAA 2x. The looks won't be that good, but performance should be OK.

[Ianmcbean]

4 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

 

RX 6600 is not a great card, worse than the GTX 1080 I had.

 

Is this because DCS is more Nvidia focused? Most benchmarks have the 6600 at 10-20% faster than 1080. 
 

4 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

What I can see is that your preload radius is waaayyy too high, this will kill your performance. Try the default of 60000, maybe even less.

I actually notice better performance with higher preload. From what I understand, the game loads the textures within that radius into ram during server/mission load. So it would increase load times but reduce stuttering by having the textures ready. My 64GB ram can easily handle max preload on multiplayer servers. 
 

4 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

Also, I'm not sure if your card even works with optiscaler and DLAA. Try MSAA 2x. The looks won't be that good, but performance should be OK.

Actually, MSAA completely wrecks my performance. TAA performance is ok but looks awfully blurry. DLAA looks  better than both and has better performance (I think optiscaler converts it to FSR 2/3? I’m not really sure how it works for AMD cards)

[Beirut]

3 minutes ago, Ianmcbean said:

Is this because DCS is more Nvidia focused?

 

Pretty sure it is. That's the whole reason I stay with those heartless bas... I mean, with Nvidia.

 

But I'm sure one the tech wizards here will have the low down.

[TheFreshPrince]

vor einer Stunde schrieb Ianmcbean:

Is this because DCS is more Nvidia focused? Most benchmarks have the 6600 at 10-20% faster than 1080. 
 

I actually notice better performance with higher preload. From what I understand, the game loads the textures within that radius into ram during server/mission load. So it would increase load times but reduce stuttering by having the textures ready. My 64GB ram can easily handle max preload on multiplayer servers. 
 

Actually, MSAA completely wrecks my performance. TAA performance is ok but looks awfully blurry. DLAA looks  better than both and has better performance (I think optiscaler converts it to FSR 2/3? I’m not really sure how it works for AMD cards)

Just look which brand pops up when starting DCS. Hint: It's not AMD.  Unfortunately, DCS focuses on DLSS and DLAA while neglecting newer FSR versions and there are no plans to integrate the latter. There's probably a cooperation with Nvidia of some kind.

 

I had a 1080 until recently and it was totally fine with medium to high settings on 1440p, so much higher settings than yours. Despite not supporting DLSS/DLAA. I mean the SC on a heavy multiplayer session IS challenging, no doubt. But you should at least get 30+ FPS and no stuttering.

The only differences I had were the lower preload radius, MSAA 2x and I also used Vsync and a max. FPS of 80 (which I never achieved anyway). Everything else, I had set higher.

Have you set up your page file correctly for your 64GB of RAM? Have you tried Vsync? Have you some kind of cards settings that override the ingame settings?

And have you tried a benchmark like HeavenBenchmark (it's free) to look if it's a general problem or a DCS problem?

[Czar66]

34 minutes ago, TheFreshPrince said:

Unfortunately, DCS focuses on DLSS and DLAA while neglecting newer FSR versions and there are no plans to integrate the latter. There's probably a cooperation with Nvidia of some kind.

As a nVidia card owner, I find this sad and ridiculous.

It is ironic on how much neglect there is on nVidia for VRAM on newer cards and DCS eats VRAM like there is no tomorrow.

2 hours ago, Ianmcbean said:

Is this because DCS is more Nvidia focused? Most benchmarks have the 6600 at 10-20% faster than 1080. 

"Most benchmarks" features games that run on consoles. Your card has only 8gb of VRAM. Try to look at a hardware resource monitor to see if your VRAM is the bottleneck.

[Ianmcbean]

26 minutes ago, TheFreshPrince said:

I had a 1080 until recently and it was totally fine with medium to high settings on 1440p, so much higher settings than yours.

Yeah, this is what confuses me. Is there really that much of a difference when using Nvidia over AMD? DCS becomes unplayable in multiplayer at high settings for me, while comparable cards (like 1080) can easily do that and more. I feel like it might be a VRAM issue more than anything. I can easily get 100 fps in single player at medium-high settings when VRAM usage is usually in the 3-4GB range. In multiplayer, however, it seems to overflow immediately (even at low settings) and kill my fps with the exception of really small servers.

 

36 minutes ago, TheFreshPrince said:

Have you set up your page file correctly for your 64GB of RAM? Have you tried Vsync? Have you some kind of cards settings that override the ingame settings?

And have you tried a benchmark like HeavenBenchmark (it's free) to look if it's a general problem or a DCS problem?

 

Page file is at 40GB. I don’t notice a difference with vsync. It is possible that Adrenalin could be causing issues, but I have most features turned off in it. I’ve used 3DMark and seen no issues with my card.

[Ithronwise]

18 hours ago, Ianmcbean said:

Hi,

I need help with figuring out what's wrong with my system and why I may not be getting the performance I should in DCS (especially multiplayer).

I have a Ryzen 5600, RX 6600, 64GB DDR4, and 2TB M.2 SSD, 1080p flatscreen. Based on benchmarks and statements from people with similar PC's as mine, it seems like I should have no problem running DCS multiplayer servers like Contention at medium-high settings. However, the reason I'm here is because I struggle to maintain a consistent and bearable framerate with basically the lowest graphics settings. For example, sitting on the SC deck in the hornet on contention results in a stuttery fps ranging from 30-60, but usually below 40 especially with other aircraft on the deck. Sometimes, I start a flight with around 60 fps, fly my mission with decent amounts of stuttering and fps drops, then land back on the same SC to find my fps has halved from when I first spawned in. It isn't a SC specific issue, it happens at all airports too but I use the SC most of the time. I can't pinpoint this to the GPU or CPU specifically because they seem to interchangably be labeled as the limitation in the in-game FPS monitor. I do notice that my VRAM usage is almost always at a maximum in multiplayer (all textures low), and that at least one of my CPU cores is at maximum utilization until I disable and reenable it in task manager. My main background processes are Opentrack + AITrack, WinWing, Task Manager, and sometimes Chrome. 

I've tried many things I've read online such as process lasso, DCS repair, clear shaders, etc. but nothing has really helped. I use optiscaler so that I can use DLAA but I know that it's not the problem because it existed before dowloading optiscaler.

I can share logs and screenshots as needed. My hardware is benchmarked and performs well in other modern games.

1. Set the Max. Frame rate in DCS to 60 FPS (it is always better to set it to the same FPS that you use in Opentrack).

2. Enable AMD FreeSync Premium in the Display settings of the Adrenalin UI (it limits the monitor frequency to the FPS rate of the game)

3. Optional: Enable Frame Rate Target Control in the Graphics Settings of the Adrenalin UI (problaby not necessary anymore since DCS has its own FPS limiter) 

4. Optional: Set the Max. FPS to 60 in the Graphics Settings of the Adrenalin UI (it is the value below No. 3)

5. Remove the Optiscaler, not sure how exactly it works but to have an additional layer that needs performance and process time is never a good idea if you already have performance issues
6. Set Anti Aliasing in DCS to MSAA and MSAA to 4x

7. Deactivate the Game Bar and the Game Mode in Settings -> Gaming in Windows

[jackrussell0232]

I'm not sure where your expectations come from to be honest. 

Who do you know who is running ryzen 56 and RX6600 GPU and getting great performance in DCS at medium/high settings?

I'm sorry if this isn't helpful, but while your CPU and GPU might represent decent value for money, neither are high performers.

So the best thing you can probably do is to accept that your hardware is not underperforming.  Then it might be easier for you to use lower settings and keep the game playable.  It doesn't need to be on high settings to be very immersive.  A few years ago we were all enjoying games in 640x480.

Edited 36 minutes ago by jackrussell0232

[Raven (Elysian Angel)]

5 hours ago, TheFreshPrince said:

neglecting newer FSR versions and there are no plans to integrate the latter

That’s false. ED have stated multiple times DCS is stuck with FSR1 for now because of technical reasons. They’ll update it to a later version once we have Vulkan.