Smoke particles = unreasonable FPS drop?

[Aerowinder]

Running an AMD 1090T, Radeon 7970, 8GB RAM, Win7x64, DCS World 1.1.2.1. This happens with all DCSW modules I've tested (A-10, P-51 [need tuts for other modules!]), so I'm lead to believe it's an issue with the world. This issue also occured with the older versions of A-10c I've used in the past (1.1.0.8-1.1.1.1). This happened on an older video card as well. I would just assume it's a beta issue, but with my past experiences - it is not.

 

I have my settings pretty well maxed out (as you probably guessed), but I have AA at 2x. VSync is on.

 

Fly by a smoke stack at low altitude? 60fps turns to 15.

Fire P-51 guns? Not as bad as smoke stack flybys, but noticeable fps drop.

Fly into the clouds? The game becomes unplayable until you get through them.

Anything with smoke particles is tanking my fps.

 

I've also noticed using the rearview mirror in the P-51 really kills performance. Not sure if it's smoke-related or not.

 

I've seen here some people having issues with the cluster bombs. I'm not good enough at flying to use those yet, but it appears that the cluster bombs are only a symptom of the problem - terribly unoptimized smoke particles?

 

Is there a setting I can lower to drop the quality of the smoke? Or just remove it entirely? I like realism, but I like immersion more. And fps drops kill immersion.

Edited June 24, 2012 by Aerowinder

[Erforce]

To me, Dynamic weather almost kills my rig, especially if there's a heavy cloud cover.

 

didn't tried CBU, but tried rocket arty bomblets and it's also dropping to 1-5fps until the smoke dissapears.

Same for MLRS firing at very close range)

Same for some colored smokes at close range...

I think it's a known bug atm and i truly whish they gonna do something with it.

 

I have Texture set to high, all others all set to medium.

GPU is dropping activity when this is occuring. (4890)

[Laud]

Has this issue been resolved with 1.2??

[Kuky]

I am certain mirrors and smoke particles are burden on the CPU not the graphics card... I can't have mirrors enabled for this reason as I like higher graphics also. It's a trade off untill they get multithreading into game engine.

[Laud]

But there was also the issue with the BDU-33 smoke (MP lag). Is that the same like what the guys above described?

[Kenan]

I tried EVERYTHING, setting scenes to low, textures to low, lower resolution..what not. However, when I turn my head around the cockpit (left/right view), framerate drops from 35-40 to 15fps (looking at cities, towns etc.).

 

This is very frustrating..does anyone have any idea what is causing the issue and how can it be fixed (if)?

 

I never had these issues in 1.1.0.9. but with every new patch (and now with 1.2.0) this is becoming an ongoing problem.

[Kuky]

If you set scenes to low there should be no cities visible.

 

If you use high scenery you can edit Graphics.cfg file and line that has Structures = {60, 20000} change to {30, 20000}... or try lowering first number even more. This will make less dense cities (will show only vert large buildings and small ones will how only up close, hence reduce CPU load) and by no means use mirrors, they kill FPS

[Laud]

... and they're not too useful anyway...

[Kenan]

If you set scenes to low there should be no cities visible.

 

If you use high scenery you can edit Graphics.cfg file and line that has Structures = {60, 20000} change to {30, 20000}... or try lowering first number even more. This will make less dense cities (will show only vert large buildings and small ones will how only up close, hence reduce CPU load) and by no means use mirrors, they kill FPS

 

In my case it has nothing to do with either scenes or even viewing distance. I set the scenes and view distance to LOW and when I did a low flyby over a flat grassy terrain (which would have been populated with buildings) the framerate would instantly drop the moment I start looking left/right (left wing, right wing). I really have no idea what's causing this FPS drop if it's not the terrain itself?

 

What is being rendered there that I'm missing? Low scenes, no buildings, low viewing distance? Is it perhaps cockpit-related?

[Rotorhead]

In my case it has nothing to do with either scenes or even viewing distance. I set the scenes and view distance to LOW and when I did a low flyby over a flat grassy terrain (which would have been populated with buildings) the framerate would instantly drop the moment I start looking left/right (left wing, right wing). I really have no idea what's causing this FPS drop if it's not the terrain itself?

 

What is being rendered there that I'm missing? Low scenes, no buildings, low viewing distance? Is it perhaps cockpit-related?

 

I think it's surely terrain-related, not cockpit. My FPS goes up to about 60 when looking towards clear skies (even from inside the pit), and drops to 20 or lower as soon as terrain comes into view.

 

Already lowered all my settings to lowest, and not even slightest improvement :wallbash:. No problems in standalone BS2 nor DCSW Beta. Something's definitively VERY WRONG with current DCSW....

[Kuky]

nothing is wrong in current DCS world. I get good framerate with most high settings and few extra tweaks for higher texture distances, smoke etc and my CPU is not the best out there but still pretty good (i7 950 @ 4.2GHz) and my video card is pretty good (HD7970).

 

If you use LOW senery there are NO BUILDINGS being rendered or calculated in game. If you think i's cockpit, try running HUD only view (I think it'sSHFT F1) and see if that makes any difference?

 

Kenan, what's our CPU and video card by the way?

[Rotorhead]

nothing is wrong in current DCS world.

 

Sadly, on certain systems, it is. When some users suffer serious FPS drop, while others experience exactly the opposite, then there must be problem somewhere.

 

EDIT: And yes, I'm already using LOW scenery. And my FPS is really low in outside view too, even if I eject and my Shark does not exist anymore (thus no FM or cockpit calculations).

Edited July 17, 2012 by Rotorhead

[Kenan]

Kenan, what's our CPU and video card by the way?

 

It's an old rig, but it had great framerates in Hog 1.1.0.9. and with every patch since that (including 1.2.0) the frames are going downhill:

 

Athlon II X2 250 2x 3.01 Ghz

4 gigs of ram

Ati Radeon 4770 512mb

[Kuky]

Sadly, on certain systems, it is. When some users suffer serious FPS drop, while others experience exactly the opposite, then there must be problem somewhere.

Sorry but if same software works fine on most systems and not fine on few others I think this sound more like system issue not the software

 

It's an old rig, but it had great framerates in Hog 1.1.0.9. and with every patch since that (including 1.2.0) the frames are going downhill:

 

Athlon II X2 250 2x 3.01 Ghz

4 gigs of ram

Ati Radeon 4770 512mb

Yeah, unfortunately both your CPU and GPU are quite outdated now, but it should still run fairly ok on low scenery setting. And you know it's expected to have slightly worse framerate with every new version as when developers keep adding new stuff in game engine it has to costs some CPU and/or GPU cycles.

[Kenan]

And you know it's expected to have slightly worse framerate with every new version as when developers keep adding new stuff in game engine it has to costs some CPU and/or GPU cycles.

 

Well, that's the frustrating part. I don't see any major (or even noticable) visual differences, yet, with every patch, in my case, sims runs slower and slower..

[Rotorhead]

Sorry but if same software works fine on most systems and not fine on few others I think this sound more like system issue not the software

 

That sounds reasonably, but when the beta version worked well, and the final version does not -- on exactly the same system -- then I'd be not so sure about that.

 

Maybe DCSW somehow conflicts with some piece of my software / hardware ??

[Laud]

... or driver...

[Rotorhead]

That's a good idea, maybe a driver! I tried to check for driver updates right now, but no improvement...

 

Is there some way to find possible driver conflict? I am not very good at computers, so any help whould be appreciated.

Thanks in advance.

[Kenan]

It's just NOT normal to have a drastic FPS drop on a FLAT terrain around you (when looking left/right). It's just not. I don't care if it's "updated" engine, it sucks. It happens on either HIGH or LOW scenes, HIGH visibility or LOW visibility...Antialiasing or NO Antialiasing..high resolutions or low resolutions..it's an inherited problem and it's very, very anoying.

[TheRat]

Kenan, I totally agree. I have max FPS (60@VSync) w/ DCS A10 and below 30 w/ DCS World. I don't see any reason why the engine should perform @50% with ident HW and settings. I honestly hope the next patch will fix up things.

[Laud]

Whatever the reason is, it seems to affect only few system-setups.

[Settingz85]

This might help in case u have a problem with smoke particels. But im not quite sure.

 

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=91203

 

see post 3

[Congo_Toey]

Hi Guys, I just installed the whole of dcs world yesterday, a10, bs2, p51 and ca. I have tested it out and found my fps dropping a lot compared to the previous versions. So I thought that I would see what the forums were saying and found this thread and some others all complaining about the same thing. So I have done some playing around and testing based on some of the posts I have read. So as a software engineer myself, I thought that I might be help the developers by giving some of my feedback.

First my system:

i7 980x CPU overclocked @ 4.5 GHz

12G of triple channel DDR3 running 2000 MHz

OCZ revodrive as my main disk

ASUS HD 6970 Direct CU ii graphics card with 2G of graphics ram

triple monitor eyefinity setup with a total screen resolution of 6048 x 1200.

trackir 5

All the latest drivers and software

Windows 7 64bit

 

My results.

with or without hyperthreading the same results

all graphics setting are on high

MSAA and TSSAA turned on or off make no difference

Enable or disable aero interface makes no difference

 

I have simple mission with nothing going on in it and civ traffic turned off

in basic flight hig hor low, over fields or in towns, I get around 20fps

Is turn the SHKVAL the fps drops down to about 17fps

if look at the sky it goes up to 30fps

 

My CPU total load is roughly 8%

With noticeable activity on only 3 cores, which is about 40%, 15% and 15% on those cores.

My GPU is max'd out at 99% the whole time.

The graphics memory use is at about 40% of the 2G

 

So it seems to me that the GPU is the the one being hit the hardest here, so will try over clocking that next, and let you know if that helps.

[Mustang]

It might be your 6970 causing this, DCS titles don't like multi-GPU cards too much.

 

Try enforcing your card to use just one of your GPUs and see if the FPS increases.

[Congo_Toey]

It might be your 6970 causing this, DCS titles don't like multi-GPU cards too much.

 

Try enforcing your card to use just one of your GPUs and see if the FPS increases.

 

The 6970 only has one GPU, its the reason I bought it for the DCS titles