How to improve FPS with my GeForce GTX 260?

[Speed_2]

Hey, I thought my graphics performance was pretty good in BS until my friend and I were playing and compared frame rates. With a similar computer and some ATI 1GB card, he get something like 4 times the FPS that I do than I do with my nVidia GTX 260.

 

My question is if there is anything I can do to optimize performance? I downloaded nHancer, but when I went to update my nVidia drivers to the latest version, I got no improvement in performance in BS AND nHancer no longer worked, so I rolled back. Anyway, I was curious if anyone had any nHancer profiles for BS?

 

I'm kinda worried that maybe nVidia is just crap and I should have gone with ATI. I've noticed that some other games that have issues with nVidia, kinda worried that BS may be among those.

 

Thanks for any help I can get!

[slug88]

What operating system are you using? Most users with multicore processors experience 50% or more FPS improvement when going to Vista or W7 from XP.

[Speed_2]

What operating system are you using? Most users with multicore processors experience 50% or more FPS improvement when going to Vista or W7 from XP.

 

Vista 64 bit

 

I don't care what MS says, I've had Vista for 6 months now and I still hate it with a passion. Sorry for going off topic, but I really do.

[PoleCat]

This sim is CPU bound as is LockOn. While tweaking may help the graphics some it is likely you are bottle necked at the CPU. I don't think you would likely see some vast improvement by moving to an ATI card for this or Lock On. Maybe different levels of graphics settings or AA/AF driver settings might account for the difference you are seeing?

 

Out

[JG14_Smil]

set water to 0 in blackshark\data\scrpits\options.lua for a 10% gain. If you have mulitple cores, use DCSMax for a 30-40% gains. You won't gain alot from graphics card settings usually, but you may find settings where you think it runs best.

[vortex360]

set water to 0 in blackshark\data\scrpits\options.lua for a 10% gain. If you have mulitple cores, use DCSMax for a 30-40% gains. You won't gain alot from graphics card settings usually, but you may find settings where you think it runs best.

 

The patch makes DCS Max unecessary now as the 1.0.1 version adjusts the affinity.

[Speed_2]

This sim is CPU bound as is LockOn. While tweaking may help the graphics some it is likely you are bottle necked at the CPU. I don't think you would likely see some vast improvement by moving to an ATI card for this or Lock On. Maybe different levels of graphics settings or AA/AF driver settings might account for the difference you are seeing?

 

Out

 

Ok, I have an AMD Phenom II Quad core 2.8 GHz processor, with 8 gigs of RAM. My friend, who gets frame rates about four times what mine are, is running an Intel i7 920 (quad core of course) at 2.8 GHz with only 6 gigs of RAM. You're telling me that the intel i7 920 is four times better for this game than this AMD Phenom? If so, that sucks :(

[sinelnic]

What are your graphics settings in DCS compared to your friends'?

 

Also, what are the specific fps you and him are getting?

[Dr_Watson]

For me, it all depends on what resolution I run.

 

I have a C2D at 3.5Ghz and a GTX260.

 

My FPS stays constant at 60FPS which is limitied by the LCD because I have vsync on.

 

I’m at work right now so I can’t check what resolution I use.

 

I remember, if I run at 1920X1200, I get a steady 25FPS. This sounds ok, but there are lots of micro stutters, maybe 3 a second, making unplayable.

 

If I lower the resolution down a little (can’t remember to what right now), I get 60FPS and the micro stutters are gone! It is dead smooth and I really don’t notice the drop in resolution anyway, in game settings are ALL maxed out…result!

 

The other nice thing is that you can set the aspect ratio, so if you drop the resolution, you can still have everything nicely in proportion. I think I use 16:10

 

I tried reducing some of the ingame settings but they made a very small difference and it wasn’t worth it. Try a lower resolution and put in game graphics to high, I’m sure your 260 can handle it like mine.

 

Iain

Edited August 28, 2009 by Dr_Watson

[Feuerfalke]

Es previous posters already stated, the graphics card is not the limiting factor in this game. Therefore comparing your graphics card won't help finding a cause of why your PC is slower than that of your friend.

 

Basically it depends on CPU, but you will also need a fast board and memory to make use of it.

 

And then you need to compare your monitors resolutions and rendering quality settings. If you have a larger monitor, let's say 1900x1200 the graphics card still has a lot to do and this increases dramatically if you increase FSAA- and AF-settings in your driver.

[Maximus_G]

Hey, I thought my graphics performance was pretty good in BS until my friend and I were playing and compared frame rates. With a similar computer and some ATI 1GB card, he get something like 4 times the FPS that I do than I do with my nVidia GTX 260.

I've checked this issue when i was upgrading.

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=689726

As we can see, GTX260-216 delivers nice improvement in framerates compared to HD4850.

4870 should have somewhat better FPS than 4850 due to faster memory and GPU speed. But architecture is the same, so it would act very similarly. And 1Gb of memory is of no use here.

I still would not say that DCS "likes" NV cards more than ATI ones at the moment. Just not to show the bias, 'cos i like ATI actually :)

[Dr_Watson]

I just checked my settings

 

1600x1200

16:10

Vis range medium, everything else high

Cockpit 512

 

 

nHancer

AA Multisampling 16Q

AF 16

 

FPS 60

[CyBerkut]

Speed, this posting mught give you some insight:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=741359&postcount=5

[MackTheKnight]

Ok, I have an AMD Phenom II Quad core 2.8 GHz processor, with 8 gigs of RAM. My friend, who gets frame rates about four times what mine are, is running an Intel i7 920 (quad core of course) at 2.8 GHz with only 6 gigs of RAM. You're telling me that the intel i7 920 is four times better for this game than this AMD Phenom? If so, that sucks :(

 

I hate to break this to you man, but AFAIK the Intel i7 920 is far superior to any AMD Phenom processor. The i7 also has hyper-threading, so essentially Windows sees it as an 8 core processor (four physical, four virtual). It also uses DDR3 memory which will make a big difference as well.

 

I would think you can safely assume the main cause of the FPS difference between your friends PC and your own, is the processor and Intel architecture.

 

But, on the other side of the coin - is your FPS playable? Would you have noticed the difference if you didn't turn on the FPS Counter? IMHO if your game appears smooth to you and a few less FPS isn't making the KA50 unflyable, why worry?

 

-Mack

Edited August 28, 2009 by MackTheKnight

[Speed_2]

Thanks for all the help people! You guys are incredible. First things first. The reason that this came up was I made a mission where you have to take off and defend your base from attack. Artillery is hitting all around (see my "takeoff mystery" thread), tanks are inbound, and about 200 AK-47 infantry guys are attacking. The weirdest thing was I seemed to run the mission just fine the first couple times, but the next day I fired it up I got nearly unplayable frame rates after making (seemingly) only minor modifications. That was frustrating enough, but when my friend got four times better frame rates than me with hardware that was similar but, admittedly better, BUT NOT FOUR TIMES BETTER, I figured something was wrong with my setup.

 

In response to people saying that DCS is CPU dependent, I went into bios and overclocked to see what would happen. Keep in mind I am a complete noob at overclocking. What I did was increase the CPU overvoltage 50mV (available settings are 50mV, 100mV, and 150mV) and then increased the speed from 2.8GHz to 3.2GHz, which was the highest speed I could go without getting blue screens in windows.

 

Now normally, I get decent frame rates in BS unless over a big city. I have all the graphics options set to high. However, using this very busy mission I created, here was my frame rates when starting up the aircraft:

 

2.8 GHz (standard)- 6-9 frames per second

3.2 GHz (overclocked)- 8-11 frames per second

 

This was a SIGNIFICANT improvement. There is a threshould around 9 or 10 frames per second where below that, the game becomes difficult to fly.

 

 

Now, in response to other suggestions, I tried reducing my resolution. My monitor is a widescreen 1680X1050. Reducing the resolution to 1280x800 these were my results:

 

2.8GHz 1680x1050: 6-9 FPS

2.8GHz 1280x800: 5-7 FPS

 

Incredibly, it seemed that reducing my resolution actually DECREASED my frame rate! Does that have to do with my monitor's native resolution somehow being prefered?

 

 

I have yet to try to benchmark reducing the res of cockpit displays or view distance, but I did try that, and it seemed to make a slight positive difference.

 

 

As far as the nHancer settings Dr_Watson provided. I had previously had my Antialiasing turned off. With AA back on, NO DIFFERENCE was seen! So indeed, graphics card doesn't seem to be the bottleneck.

 

I also tried installing the new nVidia drivers. However, once I did that, nHancer stopped working, even the latest version of nHancer. Furthermore, I saw no increase in graphics performance. I rolled back my drivers.

 

 

My next step would be to clean out all the dust from my CPU fan, make sure all fans are at their highest setting, and leaving the 3.2 GHz overclock more or less permenent. Me being a overclocking noob, should there have been any other settings I should have adjusted other than CPU speed and CPU voltage? I absolutely needed to increase the voltage, right? As previously mentioned, I experienced blue screens while windows was trying to start with CPU speeds higher than 3.2GHz. Does that mean I might need to increase the CPU overvoltage to 100mV to go at speeds above 3.2GHz? I know that overclocking is very motherboard specific, but are there general rules about it?

 

Anyway, thanks again,

Speed

[Speed_2]

I hate to break this to you man, but AFAIK the Intel i7 920 is far superior to any AMD Phenom processor. The i7 also has hyper-threading, so essentially Windows sees it as an 8 core processor (four physical, four virtual). It also uses DDR3 memory which will make a big difference as well.

 

I would think you can safely assume the main cause of the FPS difference between your friends PC and your own, is the processor and Intel architecture.

 

But, on the other side of the coin - is your FPS playable? Would you have noticed the difference if you didn't turn on the FPS Counter? IMHO if your game appears smooth to you and a few less FPS isn't making the KA50 unflyable, why worry?

 

-Mack

 

Well, it wasn't just in that very busy mission I mentioned above where the frame rate becomes very slow and annoying. I will get choppy over big cities, or even in some of the stock missions when things get busy. However, this one mission I created was the only time I've had where it become down-right unflyable at times.

[Speed_2]

Oh on another note, I wish the devs would enable the deactivation of dead groups. One way I tried to fix the bad frame rates in this mission was to deactivate infantry groups after they were all dead, but it doesn't work. Instead, the bodies lie around seemingly forever, hogging CPU, RAM and GPU resources. Do they ever despawn? I don't think they do- I never once saw a body dissappear. Hey, you know there's a reason why games usually make dead folks dissappear after they die :mad:

 

While burning tank hulks are nice, and definately need to have very, very long despawn times if any despawn time at all, infantry, which attack in much higher numbers than tanks, should despawn ALOT faster than they do, if they even despawn at all.

[sinelnic]

Hi Speed, don't forget to tell us what your graphical settings are in the options menu, compared to your friend.

 

With regards to the i7 being far superior than AMD, it really is, but DCS does not care much because it does not leverage multiple cores, it uses just one.

[sinelnic]

I absolutely needed to increase the voltage, right? As previously mentioned, I experienced blue screens while windows was trying to start with CPU speeds higher than 3.2GHz. Does that mean I might need to increase the CPU overvoltage to 100mV to go at speeds above 3.2GHz? I know that overclocking is very motherboard specific, but are there general rules about it?

 

General rule is, increase speed in small increments and run tests for each increment, until your system becomes unstable (BSOD). Then increase voltage and repeat the cycle until you fry your processor. Then go ahead and buy an xBox.

 

No really, try googling for overclock+your specific processor and mobo, you'll probably get very good advice on specific speeds and voltages to use.

[EtherealN]

Yeah, there's no absolute need to overvolt to achieve an overclock. This is however very dependent on which chip you use - it appears the consensus on articles I've read have stated that f.ex. the Exxxx series of intel C2D chips overclock really well even without overvolting. However, since I haven't had an AMD CPU in a while (last one was the 1.8GHz singlecore Athlon 64) I haven't kept track of how all that works for AMD chips nowadays.

 

But generally speaking - only overvolt the CPU if you have hit the wall, so to speak. And do so while understanding that you might be purchasing a new one afterwards. ;) My own E8500 runs at the current specs (see sig) while remaining within the standard voltage range.

 

And also, do heed sinelnic's advice - try to find articles, preferably several, that cover overclocking something as close as possible to your specific CPU and motherboard combination. That might give you good hints on any extra hickups you should expect and any extra considerations that you need to take into account.

[Speed_2]

Hi Speed, don't forget to tell us what your graphical settings are in the options menu, compared to your friend.

 

With regards to the i7 being far superior than AMD, it really is, but DCS does not care much because it does not leverage multiple cores, it uses just one.

 

Well, I donno about that. Messing with my video card settings have only resulted in negligable increases and decreases in FPS. Meanwhile, overclocking it gave me a significant boost. AND my friend who has an i7 at an identical speed with LESS RAM than I do gets 4X the frame rates. Does really sound like the processor to me!

[Speed_2]

Both my friend and I have the game on its maximum settings.

[sinelnic]

Both my friend and I have the game on its maximum settings.

 

Ok, for a very quick important performance improvement without damaging visual quality, in DCS options, use the following:

 

- Water = Normal

- Shadows = Active Planar

 

Measure your fps again and let us know!

[Speed_2]

Ok, for a very quick important performance improvement without damaging visual quality, in DCS options, use the following:

 

- Water = Normal

- Shadows = Active Planar

 

Measure your fps again and let us know!

 

Holy crap! That was a HUGE difference

 

Just confirming, I got about 8-11 frames/sec with the full settings.

 

With those settings, my FPS jumped to 12-18, usually being around 15!!!!!!

 

But why should I mess with water settings? I'm not anywhere near water.

[vortex360]

If you've repeatedly uninstalled and then reinstalled updated drivers over a period of more than 6 months a complete recovery may be in order.