A-10C tips, tricks, or game tweaks?

[The Editor]

I'm only getting 20ish fps, sometimes lower, in game. Anybody know any fixes or something i could do to fix that?

[Mule]

That's a pretty good system so no probs there. This is remember a beta version and it has been acknowledged to have fps issues. Saying that i have a similar system and mine runs ok on medium settings in the graphic options.

[Napa]

I wouldn't worry too much. Beta 3 is on its way soon. They remade the LOD modelling so the sim should be a lot more optimized.

[The Editor]

My settings are set to low at 1680x1050. I wonder if turning off crossfire is better. Cool, any ideas when beta 3 comes out?

[hassata]

Crossfire doesn't help, OCing the CPU does.

[Callsign.Vega]

Crossfire/SLI can help if you run high resolution. My 2x GTX 480's are MAXED out in A-10C. But then again I run 12.3 mega pixels ;).

[hassata]

That's true-I think Crossfire helps with AA at high res.

[CrashEd]

As the other guys have mentioned, B3 should improve things.

 

Sounds like you have most things on low, which may be the only way to go for now. The biggest culprits, fps-wise, are Civilian Traffic, Water, HDR and TSSA. Try turning those off and experimenting with other settings until you get a balance between eye candy and fps.

[coolts]

Bottleneck test

 

run game in window with task manager open, (assuming you have one monitor. if you have 2 then run fullscreen w/ task manager on second screen), w/performance tab, (or more accurate desktop gadget like "all CPU meter")

 

what is your average core loading whilst playing? WH uses 2 cores, windows will shunt all window-sy tasks to the others

Edited November 16, 2010 by coolts

[Georgio]

Make sure you shut down all unnecessary background programs; I'm still using XP so use 'Kill it all' which you can select which programs to leave running and which to kill.

The more horses you have for A10 the better she'll fly... :D

[Steel Jaw]

Bottleneck test

 

run game in window with task manager open, (assuming you have one monitor. if you have 2 then run fullscreen w/ task manager on second screen), w/performance tab, (or more accurate desktop gadget like "all CPU meter")

 

what is your average core loading whilst playing? WH uses 2 cores, windows will shunt all window-sy tasks to the others

 

And what EXACTLY am I watching for after that?

[coolts]

If you can see all your cores and identify the two DCS cores, (the ones doing all the work ;)), then you can see how much work they are doing whilst running the SIM, (as a %).

 

If as in my case I get 20-30fps and my working cores as working at 60% or so I can say that in MY case the graphics card just can’t render fast enough, (as the CPU still has more to give), and is therefore my bottleneck. Answer = new gfx card. As I have a GTX 285 which is now 2 generations old, fair enough.

 

If you are getting CPU loading of consistently 90-100%, then your CPU can’t keep up with your GFX card. Answer is most likely to upgrade CPU.

 

There are a few caveats;

 

 

• GPU load isn’t measured like CPU load with %, meaning it’s not as east to determine whether your GPU is working hard. In this case, my pure CPU test is therefore not 100% conclusive
  
• CPU load within the sim is not flat, obviously over cities, etc., but you get the picture
  
• I am ignoring disk I/O bottlenecks here. They aren’t that common in DCS. It’s not ARMAII (unless you have ancient HDD’s)
  
• you could have an equally slow gfx card and CPU! (100% load, GPU fan screAming, crap frame rates.....TURN THE GFX SETTINGS DOWN AND START SAVING UP )
  

People asking “how can a DX9 game tax my setup?” Are missing the point. Pick up a heavy 50” HD TV. Put it down. Pick up a heavy rock. Put it down. Both heavy? One new and one old… funny that ;)

 

 

(Mower, in your case and in my opinion, your GFX card needs, shall we say, a comfy chair and a tartan blanket for its legs, as the rest of your system is 3 generations or so ahead. It's 3 years old this April! Your CPU will happliy hit 4ghz all day long and DCs wont touch that)

Edited November 16, 2010 by coolts

[MainSail]

If as in my case I get 20-30fps and my working cores as working at 60% or so I can say that in MY case the graphics card just can’t render fast enough, (as the CPU still has more to give), and is therefore my bottleneck. Answer = new gfx card. As I have a GTX 285 which is now 2 generations old, fair enough.

 

Same here, my old gpu (3870X2) was working at 100% and my CPU only at 60%. I replaced the graphics card with an HD6870. The CPU is running close to 100% and the gpu around the 60-80%.

Now the sim is playable for me ! :joystick:

[coolts]

Its a balancing act. BTW, what app are you using to get GFX card load %. Ive had a few hokey ASUS apps but they were a bit.......pants. Pity rivatuner does'nt do it.

 

Now your bottleneck has moved......to your CPU. What CPU are you running?

[bengo]

Does anyone know if the HDR-settings puts any extra load on the cpu, or does the gpu handle that completely.

When I tried beta3 last night, HDR was on by default, and it really brought my (aging) system to its knees. Switching HDR off gave me my high-20's fps back. But I saw HDR gave the sim an awesome look. So if HDR is a pure gpu-thing I might upgrade the gpu. Looking into to getting the cpu up to 3.6GHz.

[KillaALF]

HDR is done on the GPU.

[The Editor]

Apps to test?

[MainSail]

Its a balancing act. BTW, what app are you using to get GFX card load %. Ive had a few hokey ASUS apps but they were a bit.......pants. Pity rivatuner does'nt do it.

 

Now your bottleneck has moved......to your CPU. What CPU are you running?

My CPU is an E8400 (core2 duo) overclocked to 4.0Ghz. A very good program to measure your GPU is GPU-Z. See here http://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/

[coolts]

just installed a gtx580. framerates doubled from 30 ish to 60 ish. super smooth and now no bottlenecks! enabled HDR and back to 35 ish. the hdr needs a lot of tweaking.

 

trying gpu-z. what i want though is a realtime GPU load viewer. not sure if such a thing exists.

 

**EDIT** ooh hang on, it does that. now what about graphs?

Edited November 18, 2010 by coolts