SOS: Save our Smoke!

[Ebs]

The frame drops are getting on my nerves too. Got an hour free so I'll look into this. Probably a LOD setting somewhere....I'll report back later :)

[Kameni]

Number of particles is also a big factor in rendering.

I see that other people are aware of that as well.

Look into that too, tnx :)

[TZeer]

Confirmed.

 

Tested with 3 US fuel trucks. Takes my Titan to 100%.

 

Tested also with 2 parked IL-76 planes, same effect. Big FPS drop due to smoke.

 

 

Edit:

 

Tested again, and had no such FPS drop. This time with 4 US fuel trucks. Strange

Edited April 1, 2013 by TZeer

[TZeer]

Same test mission- now with fuel trucks.

 

HUGE hits... now I'm in low single frames.

 

 

Maybe you're onto something here!

 

 

Tested this mission. And I do get some heavy GPU usage when the smoke starts.

 

Noticed one interesting thing. If I look at the smoke from the side, so you can separate what vehicle it comes from, the GPU usage is less. If I align the view with the road so I get the smoking vehicles in one line, the GPU usage maxes out.

 

So even if the amount of smoke is the same, if they overlap each other it brings your GPU to it's knees.

[Kameni]

it brings your GPU to it's knees.

 

Because when smoke is overlapping your GPU tries to render interaction between particles.

AA, Tesselation...etc

[Ebs]

ENO thanks for the miz file. really helped with testing...Here's what I've got so far....

 

DCS World\Bazar\ParticleEffects\effects\FireVehicle.lua

This deals with burning vehicles (and only with burning vehicles) open this up in Notepad++ and you'll see this section...

 

       Name = "SmokeL",
	Texture = "SmokeNormAnim.png",
	Technique = "TranslucentAnim",
	Flags = {"SoftParticles", "Sort"},
	InitPositionBox = {Min = {-1.8,0,-0.6}, Max = {1.8,0,3,0.6}},
       
        [b]Number = {{0, 3}},[/b]
      --NumberRate  = {{-2, 1}, {0, 0.33}},
        [b]Life = {{0.0, 2.*smokeLifeC}, {1.0, 7.0*smokeLifeC}},[/b]
	

 

Editing 'Number' and 'Life' will reduce particles. Number from 0 to 3..try reducing the second number to 1 and you're only generating a third of the particles. if you change Life to Life = {{0.0, 0.0}, {1.0, 0.0}}, you'll eliminate all smoke from burning vehicles.

 

additionally, check out the LODs section in that file...

 

Lods = 
{
[1] = 
{
	Distance = 800,
	Emitters = 
	{
		["Fire1"] = 
		{			
			Number = {{0, 2}},
			Flags = {},
		},
		["Fire2"] = 
		{		
			Flags = {'Disable'},
		},
		["SmokeL"] = 
		{
			Number = {{0, 1.7}},
			Flags = {},
		},
	}
},
[2] = 
{
	Distance = 2000,
	Emitters = 
	{
		["Fire1"] = 
		{			
			Flags = {'Disable'},
		},
		["Fire2"] = 
		{		
			Flags = {'Disable'},
		},
		["SmokeL"] = 
		{
			Number = {{0, 1.2}},
			Flags = {},
		},
	}
},
}

 

The SmokeL parts are what to look at. There are two lod distances. 800 and 2000. if you reduce the 'number' for SmokeL you'll reduce the particles for that LOD distance. e.g. Number = {{0, 0.1}}, will cut a ton of particles out...Use Eno's mission to test this..You'll also see different fires in that mission 'large' etc. for these you need to edit the other files in the DCS World\Bazar\ParticleEffects\effects folder accordingly. Hope this helps you guys :)

Edited April 1, 2013 by Ebs

[Kameni]

Yes, basically, that gives a lot more space to maneuver.

Thanks a ton :)

[ENO]

Wow- glad to see some progress on this! Nice work Ebs!

[159th_Viper]

So it's the fuel truck causing problems, eh?

 

I'll test later.

[TZeer]

Tested removing all smoke and fire.

 

Gained very little from it.

 

When scene starts I'm at 140 FPS.

Explosion starts going off, I drop down to 60-70 FPS.

When everything settles I get about 50-60 FPS with everything at default.

When I turn off smoke and fire, my lowest FPS was around 60 FPS, while looking down the street from a top down angled view.

Only thing left to turn off is this "hue/light" whatever that surrounds a burning wreck.

 

That glowing "hue" that's surrounding burning wrecks and buildings, how do I get rid of that? Want to take that one off and see what happens. Cause when I turn my view and look at the row of new vehicles the FPS goes up to 110+ FPS.

[Kameni]

Tested removing all smoke and fire.

 

Gained very little from it.

 

When scene starts I'm at 140 FPS.

Explosion starts going off, I drop down to 60-70 FPS.

When everything settles I get about 50-60 FPS with everything at default.

When I turn off smoke and fire, my lowest FPS was around 60 FPS, while looking down the street from a top down angled view.

Only thing left to turn off is this "hue/light" whatever that surrounds a burning wreck.

 

That glowing "hue" that's surrounding burning wrecks and buildings, how do I get rid of that? Want to take that one off and see what happens. Cause when I turn my view and look at the row of new vehicles the FPS goes up to 110+ FPS.

 

Consider that fired weapons, their smoke, contain particles aswell.

Regarding that the same people coded everyzhing zey probably did the same with all zi smokes. So all zi smokes and particle settings must be revamped. :)

[TZeer]

Here are pictures to compare.

 

 

 

No change in FPS if there is smoke or not.

 

Here is looking towards the wrecks. 42 FPS

 

 

Here is looking towards the row of new vehicles. 85 FPS

 

 

During all of this my Titan GTX was working at 100% load on the GPU.

 

I was also careful not to tip the camera to much. Since that would cause the horizon to come into view and the CPU would be bombarded by objects. So there is something else that's causing the FPS loss.

 

Would like to disable the lighting effect from the fire on wrecks. If you change the time of the mission to 0:00 you can clearly see the effect I speak of around all the wrecks.

Edited April 1, 2013 by TZeer

[159th_Viper]

 

No change in FPS if there is smoke or not....

 

We have established before that there is no appreciable loss of FPS with the first mission provided, that being prior to the fuel truck.

 

Are there fuel trucks in the mission as shown in those screenies you posted?

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

1.2.3.9871

 

 

I'd like to roll back to 1.1.1.1 at this point :helpsmilie:

 

 

Anyone else make any headway with this issue? Doesn't look like any practical fixes that we used to be able to use are working... Granted, in this scenario we had many, many, many vehicles involved that resulted in single digit... but even cutting frames down from 90+ into the 20s isn't exactly what we're hoping for...

 

I hesitate to even pull the trigger anymore because I know it's going to bring someone with a 3000 dollar computer to his knees every time.

 

thx ENO, though i have no clue how to roll back....

i just hope that the devs soon release a fix for this, as my game goes down to single digit fps even if only one plane crashed in my view...that sucks if you fly on a p51 dogfight server, where every few seconds another plane crashes in your surrounding.

[159th_Viper]

i just hope that the devs soon release a fix for this, as my game goes down to single digit fps even if only one plane crashed in my view...that sucks if you fly on a p51 dogfight server, where every few seconds another plane crashes in your surrounding.

 

This report of ENO has sweetblowbuggerall to do with the FPS loss occasioned by plane wrecks.

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

i dont think that its the wrecks causing the fps drop, but the smoke columns coming from them....as there now seems to be an overall problem with smoke, either from vehicles or planes, are you 100% sure those are not connected somehow?

[TZeer]

We have established before that there is no appreciable loss of FPS with the first mission provided, that being prior to the fuel truck.

 

Are there fuel trucks in the mission as shown in those screenies you posted?

 

yes, these pictures are with the latest mission with fuel trucks.

[159th_Viper]

Back to square 1 then.

 

@DavidRed no, cannot be related as the one issue (plane wrecks smoke) tank your FPS to single digits whilst the destruction of a massive convoy (ground unit smoke) leads to acceptable and still playable FPS loss.

[9.JG27 DavidRed]

Back to square 1 then.

 

@DavidRed no, cannot be related as the one issue (plane wrecks smoke) tank your FPS to single digits whilst the destruction of a massive convoy (ground unit smoke) leads to acceptable and still playable FPS loss.

 

ah ok thx for the explanation....i didnt know as in the last few days i only flew the stang and not the a10...

[TZeer]

If someone know the location of the files for lighting effects on burning wrecks it would be great.

 

Thanks

[Rider1]

So this bug was introduced with this patch.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

We have released an update to DCS version 1.2.3.10201 that mostly focuses on localization and network stability changes:

 

And this was included in the patch:

Crashed and burning aircraft now produce smoke

 

So, is it possible to see what files were changed with this latest patch. Maybe be able to single out something graphic/effect related that was changed? Or some way to do compare of the files somehow, and change them back to the original value prior?

 

Or hell, just email the devs and ask them which files they were working on to add this smoke effect bug and what they changed so we can change it back, right? :hmm:

Edited April 1, 2013 by Rider1

[Kameni]

Your FPS still drops, and Not all of us have a Titan

Last time I checked, this is intended to be played on machines that are not brand-new-hardware-infested.

But if you have a drop, imagine some of us...

[SkateZilla]

So this bug was introduced with this patch.

Wednesday, 13 March 2013

We have released an update to DCS version 1.2.3.10201 that mostly focuses on localization and network stability changes:

 

And this was included in the patch:

Crashed and burning aircraft now produce smoke

 

So, is it possible to see what files were changed with this latest patch. Maybe be able to single out something graphic/effect related that was changed? Or some way to do compare of the files somehow, and change them back to the original value prior?

 

Or hell, just email the devs and ask them which files they were working on to add this smoke effect bug and what they changed so we can change it back, right? :hmm:

 

 

They know what it is already, and no, you cannot revert individual effects files to fix it manually

[SkateZilla]

I wonder if it's a Lighting / Post Process issue.....

[NineLine]

I wonder if it's a Lighting / Post Process issue.....

 

 

I was wondering that myself as it seems night missions with a lot of aircraft seem not as smooth for me as before, at airfields that is with lights coming on and such....