SOS: Save our Smoke!

[MagnumHB]

No issues so matter seems to have been resolved internally without the necessity of a formal bug report.

Good news. Any chance that there has been an improvement to the massive slowdown encountered with the CBU-87 to go along with this?

[159th_Viper]

Any chance that there has been an improvement to the massive slowdown encountered with the CBU-87 to go along with this?

 

That matter is still residing in the bug factory where it is being attended to.

[159th_Viper]

Driving a 980X @ 4.1 and a GTX680 at stock speeds...

 

 

I'll reserve the commentary because I know it won't help- but seriously it would be nice if this would get fixed.

 

My previous post, as mentioned, dealt with the latest testers version. Just in case, I thought it prudent to go back and test the current public install as well, with the following results, captured with an ATI 7970:

 

 

 

As you can see, FPS sit at around 100. Destroyed unit count and burning amounts to about 30 units within view.

 

Mission file attached - to bench against my results just run, they shoot themselves happily and only takes a minute or so.

 

That said, there is obviously something amiss that needs further investigation if your install gives you 7 FPS and mine 109 FPS. In order to aid, would you please post tracks, preferably one as per your original post illustrating the poor FPS so I can track down the issue - maybe it's a certain ground unit/s?

[Agg]

I noticed the same thing yesterday. I took advantage of the spring sale and bought Black Shark 2. But as I was getting reaquinted with the weapons in the Shark I started noticing that my FPS dropped a lot after having taken out a few units...

[159th_Viper]

Tracks would reeeaaaaaaaaaaaaaally help.

[ENO]

I may have to send you over the server side track to get you the actual mission where that photo was taken. I was free-viewing the scene and I hadn't joined a position so I'm not sure if that'll work. Later I did fly a mission with someone but I know track data can get a bit messy after 5 minutes. I'll go in and hunt around for it now.

[159th_Viper]

Ta Eno :)

 

Forgot to add mission file that the screenshot was from. Would you do me a favour and run the mission - takes about a minute for the units to kick the stuffing out of each other. When the dust settles, see what FPS you are getting. Dependent on camera angles, my lowest was about 80 IIRC. If you get the same or thereabouts then at least we know it's not system-specific (Nvidia/ATI or the like) and must start searching elsewhere (mission, unit count, location etc etc).

 

Mission: .miz

[ENO]

Okay, I'll do it... in the meantime here is the track for that actual photo. Go to about 0948 in the mission... maybe a bit before.

 

AS you can see I was in there doing a few FPS things looking around various areas (at a new texture mod for airfields) and eventually headed over to that specific spot.

 

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B8MeQLQ7pOpjQnBnWlRPblRwM0E/edit?usp=sharing

 

Had to put it in my Googledrive.

 

I'm going to watch your mission now.

 

 

PS: Was yours done in an MP environment or SP environment?

[159th_Viper]

PS: Was yours done in an MP environment or SP environment?

 

SP.

[ENO]

Okay... well I have tried it in both now- interestingly enough my frames start at 60 (limited in my settings)... and as the fight heats up it drops down to between 20-30... then as the battle starts to wind down but smoke on the American side is heavy the frames go back up to 60.

 

I tested this in server-client (client side), server side and also single player and the behavior was the same.

 

 

 

 

 

You can see the passage of time on the clock- the above were taken with about 30 seconds of one another and generally demonstrates the behavior throughout all 3 setups I mention above.

 

 

Here are some other shots:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[159th_Viper]

Ta

 

So now we know it's not a general burning ground unit problem but something else. I'll continue tinkering.

[ENO]

Thanks Viper.

 

I'm sort of wondering if it may have more to do with AI congestion caused on the roads. In original versions of the mission (I've since trimmed it down a bit) AI units tended to stack up and were coming through that part of town almost every 20 minutes. I haven't looked closer in that area- but I Wonder if there aren't 20 other AI vehicles trying to pick their way through the wreckage and that data congesting the server.

[159th_Viper]

 

I'm sort of wondering if it may have more to do with AI congestion caused on the roads.....

 

It's an absolute train-wreck :D

 

Approximately 100 wrecks (burning and otherwise) and 30 active units, together with wrecked buildings in the tiny area:

 

 

 

 

That said, my personal opinion is that the scenario is not entirely unrealistic, not by a long shot, further compounded by the fact that it does not matter whether you are viewing the carnage from afar (in an airframe) or stuck in the middle of it (combined arms driver) - the FPS loss is constant, ie from about 100 FPS with the area out-of-view to a drop of 5 when viewing the area from near or afar, indicative of a very real problem.

 

I'll attend to test against the latest tester version and if necessary, submit a report asap.

Edited March 24, 2013 by 159th_Viper

[159th_Viper]

Update:

 

Track does not play back at all on latest testers version. Do you per chance have a .miz file that will recreate those circumstances as seen in the track/screenshots? Was that as a result of A.I vs A.I or A.I vs Player? In any event, a short plug-and-play mission would be appreciated in order to enable an attempt to replicate the circumstances.

[ENO]

Thanks viper. I'll see if I can conjure something up- big convoy in that area- and trigger a huge explosion, then run another through. Will that do it? I should be able to do that...

[159th_Viper]

Aye, that should do fine.

[ENO]

Okay... well here's a quick shot at it.

 

 

I try to get them to disperse with a few initial explosions early... these get some guys off the road... later explosions are much bigger and destroy a variety of structures.

 

Then shortly after much of this chaos is created, another group of a similar size spawns and is left to pick through the pieces. That seems to be where frames slam to a halt.

 

Let me know if this helps?

 

 

And to answer your question what happened is the convoys go through and someone dropped a CBU on them- resulting in a scatter and a variety of wrecks in the path (on road AI)... then someone else came in and did the same... plus plus plus- which results in what you see there. There was no AI vs AI action going on at that point.

Test.miz

Edited March 24, 2013 by ENO

[159th_Viper]

Then shortly after much of this chaos is created, another group of a similar size spawns and is left to pick through the pieces. That seems to be where frames slam to a halt.

 

Loved the mini-nuke :megalol:

 

OK - on a more serious note, running the .miz with the latest test build, the second convoy spawned and started picking their way through the leftovers and got bogged down halfway through. Interesting thing is that, viewed from afar, my FPS never dropped below about 25 or thereabouts.

 

It certainly didn't dump down to the single figures. I'll continue tinkering.

[ENO]

Okay... may just need to up the numbers- that's only 30 vehicles each... It was hard to tell on this comp (laptop) and the numbers were quite a bit lower anyway.

[SkateZilla]

OK, Just bought, downloaded and installed DCSP-51.

 

After updating to the latest version (i thought I did, but i guess not).

 

As soon as the "QUICK MISSION" Loaded, it was a 7 FpS Slide show when looking forward, turn around back up to the VSYNC.

 

the Cause was the Black Smoke, as soon as it was in the FoV, Slide Show.

 

So I guess if 1.2.4 is a bit away, I'll have to look into a way to tweak this.

[Rider1]

Hey check it out.. Maybe on to something here:

C:\Program Files\Eagle Dynamics\DCS World\Bazar\Effects\Jfx\Textures

 

Inside of this folder you will find a bunch of smoke_ball .png files along with a test folder. That folder is 25MB in size and contains dupes of the smoke balls and other test files.

 

I opened up the 6 smokeball files in the the texture folder in phototshop and all of them measured out to 2048x512 pixels at 72 dpi. Around 700KB in size.

 

Do these file sizes sound right for typical graphic "sprites?" in game?

 

To test that these maybe the files we are looking for, I deleted them, fired up DCS shot a truck and the game CTD. I put them back and all OK.

 

Can someone with more knowledge about this stuff check out these files and see if something looks amiss? Gracias

 

EDIT

Ahh shit. Scratch all that.. These files are also present in standalone A10C. :crash: :(

Edited March 26, 2013 by Rider1

[dumgrunt]

Yeah I've got the same problem with vehicle wreck smoke, more than 3 or 4 in the FOV, and it turns into a slide show. Surely a patch can be distributed and not needing to wait for 1.2.4?

 

Ah well back to 1.1.1.1 for the time being then.

[_Dredd]

Isn't there an error dump log file that pinpoints errors being encountered in game; if it is?

 

Is everyone testing with HDR on or off? I saw issues with HDR on; turned it off, and havent really noticed anything too dramatic?

[ENO]

I've never run HDR and I'm the one reporting it- not to sound snippy or anything... just saying :)

 

Instantly when we have even a couple vehicles burning guys in KA50s began complaining about frames slamming to a halt (literally 0) when looking at the city where it happened (ZUGDIDI).

 

I continue to see this problem everywhere I go though this time it didn't collapse MY frames... but others started talking about it the minute I killed three vehicles in a convoy and they dispersed.

[Wolf Rider]

Looking out over Poti (P-51 Free Flight over Poti) has improved the fps (to what it was) with the last update... going in to land at the default set airport, however, has not.