DCS World evolution and performance

[SyntaxError]

What is a 'new gen engine'?

An Engine that isn't 10 years old (I believe the current engine is but with lots of tweaks?). The proper phrase I should have used is next gen but that term is more suited toward consoles and their future, which thank god will never see DCS or anything else from ED. But yeah new gen is pretty self explanatory.

 

And thanks for the reply c0ff :)

[Revelation]

An Engine that isn't 10 years old (I believe the current engine is but with lots of tweaks?). The proper phrase I should have used is next gen but that term is more suited toward consoles and their future, which thank god will never see DCS or anything else from ED. But yeah new gen is pretty self explanatory.

 

And thanks for the reply c0ff :)

 

It's not cost effective to re-build an engine from scratch, unless you have the budget of a AAA title like BF3 as another poster pointed out. For instance, look at the money CoD rakes in and they have been running the same engine for a number of years.

 

But alas, you are also comparing an FPS with maps smaller than one airport in DCS - let alone the entire "world." Granted that FPS has more structures close together, but it doesn't compare to what has to be done. A closer comparison would be ArmA2, even then it's not exactly a "fair" comparison.

 

ED has stated that they are working to improve the engine, piece by piece and are slowly taking advantage of multiple cores. All we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride...

 

It's not like DCS World is completely unplayable until then...

[MadTommy]

An Engine that isn't 10 years old (I believe the current engine is but with lots of tweaks?). The proper phrase I should have used is next gen but that term is more suited toward consoles and their future, which thank god will never see DCS or anything else from ED. But yeah new gen is pretty self explanatory.

 

I'm certainly no expert of game engines. But i'd imagine a purpose built engine that has been constantly updated is the best way to go. You don't really think we are running DCS World on the same code as Flanker with just a few tweaks do you? Go fly LockOn and then World.. they are a world apart,(pun intended), in every measurable way.

 

Don't forget EDGE is on its way.

 

I certainly don't think 'new gen engine' is self explanatory in any way.. it sounds like a sound bite that is thrown about.

[Rivvern]

I just want to say that i agree with mmaruda.

 

Performance is getting worse and i start to lose faith in DCS. Something has to change. Is not fun to play when FPS drops way below 20 or even 10. Lowering every setting to absolute minimum helps a little bit. But then i rather play something else.

 

A while ago i thought about getting some new hardware to improve the performance. After thinking about it i decided not to as it surely wouldnt have increased the performance so much it would be worth it.

[SyntaxError]

 

ED has stated that they are working to improve the engine, piece by piece and are slowly taking advantage of multiple cores. All we can do is sit back and enjoy the ride...

Yeah I guess all we can do is wait. ED know what's best for the company and the fans. I think the game looks fine honestly like everyone else, I just wish the game would run better, especially on multiplayer but I think partially that's cause I only have 4GB of RAM. Usually stuttering and pauses are caused by low RAM. :)

 

V1.2.1 was a good leap forward performance wise, so I'm expecting good things.

[lokitexas]

For what it is worth, I feel bad for people with a loss in fps, but personally, I have had a huge increase in performance. HUGE.

 

I am quite happy with the way ED handles things. It can only continue to get better, and grow. I am in full support of it.

[Exorcet]

I can understand the frustration, but don't take things out of context. FPS for me has been a roller coaster since 1.2.0, though the general trend has been improvement. The problem isn't ED though in my opinion, it's my laptop which wasn't designed solely to run DCS [a laptop in general is not a good idea, but when I bought it, it was what I needed at the time, not a really nice desktop]. It's not really possible for ED to take every possible PC into account, so sadly there is bound to be a mismatch somewhere. I play DCS Mustang at 9 FPS. That was my choice and I don't regret it.

 

I was unlucky and my computer isn't able to make much use of DCSW, at least not without some meddling. I'm buying a new computer to replace it ASAP. Not everyone can, I was not able to for a while - and a dedicated flight sim computer isn't something I just started wanting yesterday. Unfortunately though, that's the situation everyone is in.

 

Keep reporting problems to ED, hopefully they'll do what they can, but it might take a while to see results.

[mmaruda]

So could anyone from the people who are happy about the way DCS runs provide their settings/driver version?

 

Apparently I have reported a bug or problem, since the thread has been moved. There was 4 pages of discussion about the engine (which by now everyone should already know to be futile - no, ED will not write a new one from scratch and no, do no expect an update that will make it use 8 cores to the max and give you a solid 60 FPS).

 

Since not everyone is experiencing the problem I'd like to appeal to the generosity of the lucky ones and humbly request they share their knowledge.

[GGTharos]

You read my post, didn't you?

 

We already know about the FPS slowdown. Hasn't ED always looked to fix them? Yes they have ... catch my drift?

 

So could anyone from the people who are happy about the way DCS runs provide their settings/driver version?

 

Apparently I have reported a bug or problem, since the thread has been moved. There was 4 pages of discussion about the engine (which by now everyone should already know to be futile - no, ED will not write a new one from scratch and no, do no expect an update that will make it use 8 cores to the max and give you a solid 60 FPS).

 

Since not everyone is experiencing the problem I'd like to appeal to the generosity of the lucky ones and humbly request they share their knowledge.

[Joyride]

@ Joyride: May i ask what version of graphic driver you use currently?

 

Ha, I literally just updated to the 306.97 this afternoon. I can't recall previous version # I had before today, but do recall it had a mid-July date (was not the September driver that was out).

[mmaruda]

Ok a little bit of speculation now:

The problem clearly lies with new effects. Guess Michael Bay fans are to thank for that. My guess is that explosions are animated bitmaps with smoothing and transparency put on them. As far as I know, GPUs had problems with smooth scaling of large sprites for ages. Not really sure if this is the case, but if it is than it can probably easily get fixed.

 

Anyway, going back to the effects pre-World would be something I would not mind at all - I like them better, more subtle (maybe except the GAU-8). Now a small missle like a Vikhr makes and explosion of a large bomb. It's HEAT missile, it has a shaped charge... Oh, I guess I just figured how to fix the problem - get rid of the new FX - UNREALISTIC. :D

[doveman]

So could anyone from the people who are happy about the way DCS runs provide their settings/driver version?

 

Apparently I have reported a bug or problem, since the thread has been moved. There was 4 pages of discussion about the engine (which by now everyone should already know to be futile - no, ED will not write a new one from scratch and no, do no expect an update that will make it use 8 cores to the max and give you a solid 60 FPS).

 

Since not everyone is experiencing the problem I'd like to appeal to the generosity of the lucky ones and humbly request they share their knowledge.

 

Assuming you're using Nvidia, these settings that GriffonBR found worked for him might help you http://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=1568123&postcount=92

 

Now that there's a 64-bit compatible version of Radeon Pro available, I did try to recreate them with that for my ATI 6950 but it didn't seem to help me. The upper screenshot basically has everything set to Application Controlled anyway, so it was only the lower screenshot settings I could copy, namely Ansiotropic Optimisation Off (I've never forced AF on DCS anyway and it doesn't have a setting in-game to enable it), Trilinear Optimisation On, Triple Buffering Off (this is off without Radeon Pro anyway). Texture Filtering was already set to High Quality in CCC and Tessellation set to 1x.

[doveman]

Yeah I guess all we can do is wait. ED know what's best for the company and the fans. I think the game looks fine honestly like everyone else, I just wish the game would run better, especially on multiplayer but I think partially that's cause I only have 4GB of RAM. Usually stuttering and pauses are caused by low RAM. :)

 

V1.2.1 was a good leap forward performance wise, so I'm expecting good things.

 

Before you run out and buy more RAM, I've got 16GB and it still stutters. I've tried running from a 10GB RAMDisk, which leaves about 4GB after Windows and DCSW only uses about 2GB and still stutters and I've tried running from HDD without the RAMDisk, so there's about 13GB free and DCSW still only uses about 2GB and still stutters. The stuttering's much the same whether running from HDD or RAMDisk so it can't be RAM or file streaming speed related.

 

The game looks fine but I can't play it whilst it keeps stuttering/freezing whilst I'm trying to make tight turns or avoid the ground!

[doveman]

Well I tried killing some unneeded processes with GameBooster before launching DCSW (from RAMDisk) but I still get the stuttering.

 

I've also got a problem if I fly below 20m, where the framerate drops to 10fps. If I climb above that, it rises back to 25fps, then 40fps.

 

Sylkhan found this here but I tried his fix of deleting smokecloud.pfx and then BS wouldn't load!

 

EDIT: My mistake, that was caused by a weird bug between FRAPS and Radeon Pro. I have to load FRAPS after BS has loaded for now. Deleting smokecloud.pfx does indeed fix that problem and I can fly as low as I like and maintain normal fps now (48fps on Instant Mission - Shooting Range).

 

Still got the problem with stuttering though. Maybe there's another file I can delete to fix that ;)

Edited October 11, 2012 by doveman

[Bodo]

I ain't had enough time to test it recently but on the 10 min flight I did with the shark I thought to myself, hmm, the performance is good, better than it used to be.

 

I will hopefully get some time at the wkd. Too busy really to play this series any more...:(

 

Anyway, for those with stutters, which I've never had or understood what could be going on, RAM isn't going to help there, SSD maybe but it must be because your CPU is being hogged at times by something other than the hog.

 

There are options to allow the DCS processes to be ignored by AV software which may be 'realtime' monitored and could cause an impact, just a thought.

 

Really though, I'd be willing to bet that the systems that suffer this have umpteen processes running in the background that aren't necessary and /or the system is possibly poorly configured.

 

I just wonder what some people'd task manager is doing at the times of these stutters. How many processes are using up cycles when the game is running and which of them need disabling.

[neroroxxx]

I've been experiencing up and downs in fps since dcs world was released, some updates made them higher some lower, I know my computer is not the best for DCS World and it wasn't meant to be its a computer for muscian that records and mixes bands, does graphic design and web programming, my next step is to add an SSD to my Mac and set about 100 or 120 GB for windows since I run windows strictly for DCS titles.

 

I know the engine will keep improving and as I've mentioned before, I'm jealous of those that will come to DCS World in 2 or 3 years from now to enjoy such an amazing simulator with even more improvements and more aircraft.

[doveman]

Anyway, for those with stutters, which I've never had or understood what could be going on, RAM isn't going to help there, SSD maybe but it must be because your CPU is being hogged at times by something other than the hog.

 

There are options to allow the DCS processes to be ignored by AV software which may be 'realtime' monitored and could cause an impact, just a thought.

 

Really though, I'd be willing to bet that the systems that suffer this have umpteen processes running in the background that aren't necessary and /or the system is possibly poorly configured.

 

I just wonder what some people'd task manager is doing at the times of these stutters. How many processes are using up cycles when the game is running and which of them need disabling.

 

Hi Bodo,

 

I can't see that a 500MB/s SSD is going to help with the stutters when a 1500MB/s RAMdisk doesn't.

 

As for the CPU being hogged, it averages around 40% when I'm flying but as I said, I tried using GameBooster to kill any unneeded processes and services but that didn't help. I've already set Antivir not to realtime scan my Games folder (on HDD or RAMdisk) and added DCS.exe to the processes exception list as well.

[doveman]

I think I just managed to have a flight without any stuttering, except for when I deliberately crashed into the ground, but if there's a stutter after it's decided I'm going to blow up and before transitioning to the third-person explosion, that doesn't affect my ability to fly so that's OK :)

 

I'm not sure which of the things I did has caused this happy state of affairs (and I need to be sure I can replicate it) but I'll do some more testing and try and narrow it down.

[mmaruda]

I just upgraded to the latest NV drivers. Performance is terrible. As mentioned before, I use the BS2 Battle mission as benchmark. The problem is not the stutters, but effects. At mission start with all the units around I get descent FPS above 30, but the more stuff blows up, the worse it gets. At some point an artillery barrage or something went down and so did my FPS... to around 7!!!

 

Perhaps people who say overal performance was increased are right, no matter the FPS, just flying around results in a very smooth gameplay, but once explosions come into the mix the framerate simply dies.

 

Just for comparison, can anyone claiming smooth gameplay run the Battle mission for Black Shark and post results? If it's a question of configuration/drivers/settings, I'd really like to know.

[msalama]

the Battle mission for Black Shark

Just tried it. And yeah, you're right, that one's an FPS killer - mine dipped to 10 or so when the 1st rocket salvo went in. But do you know what's funny? My own missions DON'T do that, and I usually have some 100-200 units both ground and flyable in a bloody battle with ensuing explosions, rocket strikes and overall bloody mayhem going on from the start. And _still_ my frames stay good!

 

So I'm wondering what exactly is it that causes the stutters / low FPS in the ED Battle mission, because it seems the GFX themselves are not the (only) culprit. Hmmm :huh:

 

PS. Regarding game / computer settings: I've been meaning to do a doco explaining all I've done to get the bugger run well(ish), but have not had the time just yet. Still gonna do it one day though...

[SyntaxError]

Hmmmm that is weird that it never uses more than 2GB Doveman, I'm sure you running 64bit aswell so it won't be that.

 

But anyway when the game is running and the stuttering starts my CPU usage is at about 28-40% while memory is at 87-97%, so in this case I'm sure it's more RAM that's needed. Oh and my main specs for anyone intrested:

 

AMD Phenon II X4 955BE

Gigabyte GTX560 (non ti)

4GB 1333Mhz RAM

[winz]

Right now DCS is the most demanding piece of software I can imagine, it beats Crysis, Battlefield 3, Arma 2... anything runs better. I recall some statements have been made that the engine will be optimised. Ok fine, I am aware it's hard work and not easy, let's be patient yada yada yada.

 

You mention Crysis, that game was playable on highest settings only for the selected few when it came out.

 

Arma 2 (and Arma, and Operation Flashpoint) has been through all the performance bashing DCS World is experiencing. But it's 3 years old now, and the HW has caught up, but it's still taxing as hell on highest settings.

 

Other regular games, especially FPSs (like BF3), are thrill rides, that are tailored to perform well on what is currently available. They have to, they are multiplatform and have to perform well on fixed specifications - consoles. These will always run better then sims, they always had. The developer has full control about what the player will experience, so he can tweak everything when performance hogs are experienced (lower the effects in scene, place a huge building in the player view, using skyboxes etc). Because you are either playing a campaign that is 100% on rails, or dev made MP maps.

 

Sims have allways struggled with performance issues, not because of poor optimalization, but because of the complexity. We, players, want high-fidelity simulation down to the button, we always want more terrain fidelity, higher visibility, more polygons, models right to the last bolt, more variety in terrain, huge cities, variate cities, more trees, bushes, good smoke effects, believable water, hdr, AI, ATC...and when we get all of that, what do we do? We use 3xFullHD monitors to display it and snap a helios overlay to it....and expect it to run on a average PC...

 

Personaly, I'm amazed what DCS World is able to display/simulate. It looks freaking gorgeous and simulates tons of things to an absurd level of detail. If it weren't optimized, you wouldn't be able to play it, at all. Could it be better optimized? Yes, every SW could. Would dropping a working, stable, engine in favour of a new shiny one help? I dunno, who will guarantee that the new engine will be stable and better optimized? Might look more shiny, but would it actually perform better?

[doveman]

I just upgraded to the latest NV drivers. Performance is terrible. As mentioned before, I use the BS2 Battle mission as benchmark. The problem is not the stutters, but effects. At mission start with all the units around I get descent FPS above 30, but the more stuff blows up, the worse it gets. At some point an artillery barrage or something went down and so did my FPS... to around 7!!!

 

Perhaps people who say overal performance was increased are right, no matter the FPS, just flying around results in a very smooth gameplay, but once explosions come into the mix the framerate simply dies.

 

Just for comparison, can anyone claiming smooth gameplay run the Battle mission for Black Shark and post results? If it's a question of configuration/drivers/settings, I'd really like to know.

 

If you, or someone else, could attach a trk from Battle with stuff blowing up I'll try that and see how it goes. I haven't really worked out how to blow stuff up myself yet, so I'm just flying around at the moment ;)

[doveman]

Hmmmm that is weird that it never uses more than 2GB Doveman, I'm sure you running 64bit aswell so it won't be that.

 

But anyway when the game is running and the stuttering starts my CPU usage is at about 28-40% while memory is at 87-97%, so in this case I'm sure it's more RAM that's needed. Oh and my main specs for anyone intrested:

 

AMD Phenon II X4 955BE

Gigabyte GTX560 (non ti)

4GB 1333Mhz RAM

 

Yeah, W7 x64 and DCS x64. Maybe it would use more memory later on if I played the mission all the way through. I can see why you'd be running out of RAM with 4GB though if you're running W7, as that uses about 2GB and DCS uses the other 2GB!

[Bodo]

Yup valid points, Doveman. And yesh 8GB is really a minimum for Windows 7 64bit, any more than that I think is unnecessary, maybe not for CAD work or audio sample libs like I have, but I struggle to push my 8GB.

 

And yeh, your point about the SSD is correct, I really meant that it could have a benefit given a worse case secnario of a slow/fragmented HDD, but even then, not a huge amount.

 

I'd recommend not using gamebooster but then again, I've not used it and it may be fine. I'd prefer to do things manually and disable processes and services that I know I don't need.

 

By the way, I'm one of the people who has stressed disappointment with how ED has optimised DCS. It needs to utilise CPUs more efficiently, I'm sure.

 

I say this with a mindful awareness of just how complex DCS is, and I also see ED as a small and dedicated team who will most likely achieve what they want to do, be it based on performance, engine tweaks/updates and of course the amazing modelling.