Terrible performance in campaign regardless of settings

[fignuts]

I am trying to play the A10-C campaign on DCS World 1.2.6. Performance is so bad that it is hard to play. The first mission has a lot of units in the target zone and looking that direction reduces my framerate very badly even though I have decent specs!

 

Specs:

i7 2600k @4.2ghz

16gb ram

radeon 7870 2gb

Catalyst 13.12 drivers (latest)

Windows 8.1

 

With maximum settings:

On runway or looking at water 31-48FPS

Looking at target zone (with TGP and MAV on MFCDs): 13-22FPS

 

With minimum settings:

On runway or looking at water: 34-61 FPS

Looking at target zone (with TGP and MAV on MFCDs): 16-25FPS

 

 

CPU ~80% and GPU ~70% usage in both tests.

 

Even with minimum settings the framerate drop is so bad in the target area that it is hard to play! It seems very odd that performance is so bad on such a powerful machine even at minimum graphics settings. Is there anything that can be done to make the sim more playable? Is 1.2.6 just so broken that I should ignore the campaign and play simpler missions? DCS is the only title that has these sorts of performance problems on my machine :(

[ENO]

Can you screenshot your settings? You've got a solid build- only thing that stands out is the AMD graphics... which are pretty well known to not handle DCS as easily "out of the box" as Nvidia.

[AtaliaA1]

I believe like others who have overclocked systems that your BIOS settings is the issue.

 

Turn off all overclock settings and try to run the same Flight Mission. Or you can (can't think of the name of it) the setting that turns off the CPUs ability to cycle up and down as the software gets harder for it to handle? just turn that one off as it was the culprit in most systems.

[NineLine]

I see no difference between campaign and single missions. My puter is well under yours, as Eno said, share your graphics settings from the game, perhaps it can be tweeked, but also try and load a campaign mission from the mission selection screen, it really shouldnt have anything to do with campaigns so I would be interested to see if you have the same issues running a mission that way.

[SkateZilla]

the High/Med/Low Preset Boxes on the bottom change some settings behind the scenes, so simply dropping the individual settings to their lowest isn't gonna change those settings.

[ENO]

I believe like others who have overclocked systems that your BIOS settings is the issue.

 

Turn off all overclock settings and try to run the same Flight Mission. Or you can (can't think of the name of it) the setting that turns off the CPUs ability to cycle up and down as the software gets harder for it to handle? just turn that one off as it was the culprit in most systems.

 

Uh... what? Overclocking worsens performance?

 

And you're talking about speed step... and most people who overclock turn this off to increase stability.

 

Turning down stable overclocks is not the answer for anything. Overclocking isn't going to cause bad performance... it's going to cause crashes which CLEARLY aren't the problem in this case.

 

And OP- Airports are a bad place to be looking at FPS since many of the revetments and hangars etc are pretty inefficient. 50-60 FPS is a pretty good standard and sagging to 30+ isn't going to result in anything substantial.

 

HDR, MSAA etc will drag your heels... mirrors will KILL everything (which is why I love the ability to flip them up and down in 1.2.7)... Heat blur... off. Most of the other stuff is okay. That 7870... though... I think you may be overestimating it a bit. It's like a 660- maybe a slight benchmark step up from that... but in DCS world, it may be a step down. Reel in your settings a bit- you're on a mid range graphics card ... MAYBE upper middle but very firmly middle grade.

Edited January 9, 2014 by ENO

[fignuts]

Here are my settings. In the campaign missions this gives me ~32-55 fps looking at empty land / ocean / cockpit. Over the target area fps drops to ~13-21 -- pretty choppy! The strange thing is that reducing all of the settings to their lowest only gives me ~16-24 fps in target area which is not much of an improvement. Little difference between low / med / high settings makes me think it is a bug in DCS (perhaps that disproportionately affects my machine) and not a settings issue or lack of graphics power.

[SkateZilla]

MSAA,

Scenes,

Visib. Range.

Disable Aero Interface (depending on driver)

 

 

Those are Primary Concerns..

 

MSAA at 8x on a 2GB Card with Texture set to high... Ouch.

 

The rest are performance killers on their own.

[fignuts]

MSAA,

Scenes,

Visib. Range.

Disable Aero Interface (depending on driver)

 

 

Those are Primary Concerns..

 

MSAA at 8x on a 2GB Card with Texture set to high... Ouch.

 

The rest are performance killers on their own.

 

I have played with the settings in a bunch of configurations -- even turning EVERYTHING down to minimum still results in poor FPS so I doubt that the problem is with my graphics settings.

[AtaliaA1]

Uh... what? Overclocking worsens performance?

 

And you're talking about speed step... and most people who overclock turn this off to increase stability.

 

Turning down stable overclocks is not the answer for anything. Overclocking isn't going to cause bad performance... it's going to cause crashes which CLEARLY aren't the problem in this case..

 

 

Please Re-read my statement. I said no such thing. and I was talking about Hyperthreading and setting the cache file (swapfile) to anything thing but windows controlled as most who overclock do this to tweak more speed. But find it causes more issues than it is worth. Search the A10 thread you'll see.

 

Those were the BIOS tweaks I was talking about not your assumed response, everything after your assumption was mute. Be kinder in your posts. I bet you dollars to donuts should he turn off the OC. settings he will get more enjoyment out of DCS. Heck turn them back on for other stuff if you want. It's just a click away. and a huge load off of your mind in DCS.

 

I have an i7 920 (yes I enjoyed overclocking it in the beginning) and yes it was stable. but the speed wasn't really worth the ware on the CPU and motherboard. along with the other tweaks that didn't bode well with some software. 7 more FPs (average) just didn't seem worth all the headaches involved. Not to mention the money spent on cooling for 7FPs...........really?!!???

[Nedum]

This is a AMD/ATI versus DCS Engine Problem!

1.2.7 is running much better but the Engine hates AMD GPUs!

My nV GTX480 runs DCS much faster than my new R9 290x (fresh OS install.. all other Games are more than 200% faster (Arma III, Skyrim, Star Citizen Hangar Modul, Asetto Corsa, etc.)).

You have too live with this till the new Engine shows up (maybe this year, but I won't bet on it).

[SkateZilla]

it's not the engine, it's AMD's drivers.

[Nedum]

As you say.. I don't know.

Other DX9 Games are running fine on AMD GPUs, so it's hard to believe that this is an AMD driver Problem!

AMD says it's the Engine... you say NO it's AMD but this will not help the AMD GPU Users!

What should the AMD User do?

At this current state, AMD Users are the Losers!

And perhaps some people won't buy DCS till it runs on AMD GPUs like on nV GPUs?

So it should be in EDs own interrest that AMD will support DCS at it current state.

As a User it doesn't care what's going wrong or who is "guilty", this is EDs thing, it's not fair to make this a user thingy.

Edited January 9, 2014 by Nedum

[Haukka81]

Its just bad code and old dcs engine so nothing new..

[AtaliaA1]

it's not the engine, it's AMD's drivers.

 

 

I've heard that before. You would think if I can run the software on an AMD 6950 2Gig card latest drivers that it isn't the driver but the Technology the card uses. Like its ability to handle tessellation or its instruction set isn't as optimized in the card itself not the drivers? Just a thought.

[Nealius]

I can't figure this out. When someone has a performance issue it's always "AMD cards don't work well with the DCS engine." Then 5 days later Nvidia comes out with a new driver and it screws with DCS too.

[NineLine]

I can't figure this out. When someone has a performance issue it's always "AMD cards don't work well with the DCS engine." Then 5 days later Nvidia comes out with a new driver and it screws with DCS too.

 

Realize the current engine is well behind current vid card tech, it makes for a bumpier road.