Game Performance

Well, I know that after this post I will be the person to throw stones at, but I couldn't help myself.

I am really disappointed with the way the updates were handled recently.

To explain the situation: I am working full time. I don't have a lot of time to fly, still it is a great way to relax for me at the end of the day.

The only thing I want from DCS is to be able to get back home, put myself into the chair and fly for an hour or so.

I understand that as complex as DCS is, it needs some time be set up and configured properly.

But at this very moment I caught myself spending more time in the settings menu then flying itself.

Last weekend I've spend like two hours to finally get the decent 40 fps in VR with a pretty good picture. May I ask - IS IT A FREAKING BIG DEAL to announce in the update logs that for some reason the deferred shading option is missing now?

The FPS rate has dropped almost in half. It's unplayable again.

Now I have no other way than reverting back the game version which is another ~25 GB of download. And I don't have time for that cause it was the last hour I could spend flying before a week long business trip.

thank you all.

P.S. And please with sugar and cherry on top, don't tell me I need to search the forum because it was said by someone somewhere there about the deferred shading. I've read the update logs which IMHO should be enough.

If I knew that "reading the whole freaking forum each time before launching the game" was a "system requirement"... Oh well, forget it.

It was in the patch notes from March 25th when the change was made:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3463558&postcount=8

Deferred Shading render locked in the game and can not be turned off. DCS ceased support of old graphic render without Deferred Shading.

So...yeah you had to read the DCS World 2.5 Changelog and Updates thread in the Official Updates forum.

Nice attitude btw.

No stones are being touched. The post you are looking for is here: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=3463558&postcount=8

25th April. I'm pretty sure it caught out many in the same way, there's a parallel thread asking "why" that has some insights, but not an official answer (but a fairly reasonable explanation).

A lot of people including myself hang over the update log looking for these, and if I'm honest not even all the vital notes are contained in these logs. ED have made a little more effort at more verbose update logs, yet the reality is, there are constant changes going on.

It's not going to help you that many people don't share this performance degradation you point out too. It seems to have hit the lower end of the hardware spectrum of users much harder. VR is an especially vulnerable corner of the hardware userbase. We (my group) played with using DS and going back to legacy HDR a bit, and after testing some time back we were 50/50 on what improvements we got. Things like night lights, tracer fire, FLIR and laser pointers were broken and spread across two lighting formats. I personally didn't have too much performance difference but the terrain looked ghastly, I think there were personal decisions made.

The answer is no help to you, I know. What I do know is that DCS is something that if you play casually and miss some updates, you will get caught out and end up in a cycle of tweaking. It's not like riding a bike that you can pick up.

Well, I know that after this post I will be the person to throw stones at, but I couldn't help myself.

 

I am really disappointed with the way the updates were handled recently.

 

To explain the situation: I am working full time. I don't have a lot of time to fly, still it is a great way to relax for me at the end of the day.

 

The only thing I want from DCS is to be able to get back home, put myself into the chair and fly for an hour or so.

 

I understand that as complex as DCS is, it needs some time be set up and configured properly.

But at this very moment I caught myself spending more time in the settings menu then flying itself.

 

Last weekend I've spend like two hours to finally get the decent 40 fps in VR with a pretty good picture. May I ask - IS IT A FREAKING BIG DEAL to announce in the update logs that for some reason the deferred shading option is missing now?

 

The FPS rate has dropped almost in half. It's unplayable again.

 

Now I have no other way than reverting back the game version which is another ~25 GB of download. And I don't have time for that cause it was the last hour I could spend flying before a week long business trip.

 

thank you all.

 

P.S. And please with sugar and cherry on top, don't tell me I need to search the forum because it was said by someone somewhere there about the deferred shading. I've read the update logs which IMHO should be enough.

 

If I knew that "reading the whole freaking forum each time before launching the game" was a "system requirement"... Oh well, forget it.

Well, I know that after this post I will be the person to throw stones at, but I couldn't help myself.

 

I am really disappointed with the way the updates were handled recently.

Well, if it's any consolation, I agree with you.

It would appear, that for many on here, ED walks on water and can do no wrong. So brace for stones.

For some reason, launching the stable version of DCS currently asks some users to update to a version that should only be available in the OpenBeta. That is most certainly a mistake, and I'll check if that's been reported. Did that happen to you? What's your current DCS version, and which branch are you on (stable or OpenBeta)?

Edit: potential problem reported here /Edit

If you fly the OpenBeta, then that would be entirely voluntary. All the changes to the OpenBeta, including the one regarding Deferred Shading, have been properly documented in the changelogs to the best of my knowledge, and if you voluntarily use the OpenBeta, you shouldn't be outraged about these problems, but rather report them in the appropriate parts of the forum so that they can be fixed, or addressed, for you and your fellow sim enthusiasts. After all, that's exactly what the OpenBeta is for.

I’ll tell you that the best bit of advice was to follow another thread and delete my shaders, the fx folder and to do a repair and cleanup. I then wiped the config file and let DCS rebuild it. Yes, it took almost an hour to get the settings back to where I was happy, but I’m back at being able to join MP servers and have fun again.

The price of progress is often times two steps forward and one step back.

Good luck.

TJ

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

For some reason, launching the stable version of DCS currently asks some users to update to a version that should only be available in the OpenBeta. That is most certainly a mistake, and I'll check if that's been reported. Did that happen to you? What's your current DCS version, and which branch are you on (stable or OpenBeta)?

 

If you fly the OpenBeta, then that would be entirely voluntary. All the changes to the OpenBeta, including the one regarding Deferred Shading, have been properly documented in the changelogs to the best of my knowledge, and if you voluntarily use the OpenBeta, you shouldn't be outraged about these problems, but rather report them in the appropriate parts of the forum so that they can be fixed, or addressed, for you and your fellow sim enthusiasts. After all, that's exactly what the OpenBeta is for.

I believe that I ended up with 2.5.1 beta by mistake update of 2.5 too. Luckily I had another copy of 2.5 on another drive,which I was able to reinstate. I now have parallel versions of 1.58, 2.5 and 2.5.1. The former two are for VR playtime and 2.5.1 for experimenting. Just to point out though settings made in one version will be used by the others so remember how to set them back as needed. :thumbup:

OP, for what it's worth, multiplayer is largely unplayable at this point, I have yet to get on a server that doesn't have massive lag on load in (IF it even finishes loading) and once in a slot have to wait another 2 to 3 minutes for the cockpit to appear. Then, if I'm lucky I may be able to take off without intermittent lag spikes causing me to crash. So you are not along in your major performance hits and there really hasn't been much acknowledgement about the problems other than to clear metashaders and user directories. Which does nothing. I spend less and less time with this game lately, it's just an exercise in frustration trying to get a good session in. The game has gone backwards especially in 2.5.x

Just to point out though settings made in one version will be used by the others so remember how to set them back as needed. :thumbup:

Wow, that really shouldn't be the case!

I've had up to 3 versions of DCS in parallel in the past, and have 2 versions right now. They've always had individual configuration folders and files and have always been completely independent of each other. The only thing they share are the activations.

If that's not the case for you and different installations share one configuration, that's a problem that you should probably fix in order to avoid (potentially game breaking) side effects. The safest way would be to uninstall all installations and then reinstall them from scratch, although there are certainly also registry hacks or config file edits that might solve the problem - or they might seem to fix it and then bite you in the behind at a later date. ;)

I just wouldn't want to take the risk.

However, I completely agree that one should always be able to revert manual changes by creating a backup in advance. :thumbup:

At the risk of getting suspended again I have to share in the OP's frustrations.

Admittedly since starting to play DCS in 2013 my PC's have seemed to be between the stated minimum and recommended requirements for DCS when it comes to hardware, so not top notch but neither are they an Intel 80386 from the 90s.

Framerates were never good on my original PC however with the release of 1.5.8 something changed (probably also coinciding with a change from an all AMD PC to an Intel/nVidia PC) and I was getting reasonable framerates for the most part and I started to enjoy playing DCS.

However, since 2.5.x was released I am one of those who has encountered problems each and every time I've fired up DCS. Ranging from low FPS and micro stutters, to full on pauses - always in empty misisons or misisons with very little going on because I daren't start a campaign or play missions with lots of stuff going on in them. I don't play multiplayer so I have no experience of the issues that is suffering with. I barely get 40fps on average and suffer frequent drops in framerate, and I've had to reduce my settings from those that I was comfortably using in 1.5.8. And to be honest the game, on the Caucasus map, doesn't look orders of magnitude better than 1.5.8. In fact there are aspects that look worse.

I've also tried all the panaceas such as clearing out my fxo and metashader folders.

It's been 4 months since 2.5.x was released, not a lot seems to have been done about the issues, and the only answer to any of the optimisation problems seems to be to throw £2k+ at getting a new PC.

However, and hopefully I am not in a minority, I simply am not in a position where I can throw £2k+ on a PC that dwarfs the "recommended" specs in a gamble to mitigate the problems in the game engine. I never have been in such a position nor do I imagine I ever will be. Due to "life" I struggle to spend £1k on a PC every few years.

I feel there is little will to optimise the game for those of us with PCs that aren't way over the top for everything other than playing DCS.

I also feel that I have invested money in modules for a game that is largely unplayable and I certainly won't be buying any further modules if the basic game engine continues to give me so many problems.

And I don't want to feel like that about DCS, whilst I am more of a casual player I enjoy flying around in a Ka-50 and blowing stuff up and you can't do that anywhere else to my knowledge.

At the risk of getting suspended again I have to share in the OP's frustrations.

 

Admittedly since starting to play DCS in 2013 my PC's have seemed to be between the stated minimum and recommended requirements for DCS when it comes to hardware, so not top notch but neither are they an Intel 80386 from the 90s.

 

Framerates were never good on my original PC however with the release of 1.5.8 something changed (probably also coinciding with a change from an all AMD PC to an Intel/nVidia PC) and I was getting reasonable framerates for the most part and I started to enjoy playing DCS.

 

However, since 2.5.x was released I am one of those who has encountered problems each and every time I've fired up DCS. Ranging from low FPS and micro stutters, to full on pauses - always in empty misisons or misisons with very little going on because I daren't start a campaign or play missions with lots of stuff going on in them. I don't play multiplayer so I have no experience of the issues that is suffering with. I barely get 40fps on average and suffer frequent drops in framerate, and I've had to reduce my settings from those that I was comfortably using in 1.5.8. And to be honest the game, on the Caucasus map, doesn't look orders of magnitude better than 1.5.8. In fact there are aspects that look worse.

 

I've also tried all the panaceas such as clearing out my fxo and metashader folders.

 

It's been 4 months since 2.5.x was released, not a lot seems to have been done about the issues, and the only answer to any of the optimisation problems seems to be to throw £2k+ at getting a new PC.

 

However, and hopefully I am not in a minority, I simply am not in a position where I can throw £2k+ on a PC that dwarfs the "recommended" specs in a gamble to mitigate the problems in the game engine. I never have been in such a position nor do I imagine I ever will be. Due to "life" I struggle to spend £1k on a PC every few years.

 

I feel there is little will to optimise the game for those of us with PCs that aren't way over the top for everything other than playing DCS.

 

I also feel that I have invested money in modules for a game that is largely unplayable and I certainly won't be buying any further modules if the basic game engine continues to give me so many problems.

 

And I don't want to feel like that about DCS, whilst I am more of a casual player I enjoy flying around in a Ka-50 and blowing stuff up and you can't do that anywhere else to my knowledge.

That was well said Raven Morpheus

Not sure why you were banned, constructive criticism is perfectly ok. They don't like the over the top deliveries as it promotes messy forums and not good for other members and the younger crowed that come here. Just be respectful when posting, even when ticked off and all will be well.

It's only been, as you said around 4 months since the merge, that's programming for you. ED would be the first one that wanted this to be a smooth transition plus with the hornet and all. Have you thought about going back or just having 1.5 installed and using that until this is more sorted?

Also ED is pushing for the Vulkan api, this will hopefully make it better for the lower end and high end PC as it should utilize more cores on the CPU and not just rely on big MHz CPU's. When? Sooner the better....

If you only have limited time to fly then why are you using the Beta build, If you use the stable release then you would not have had to change anything to fly and the testing can be done by those with more time.

I know we all want the latest and the new aircraft/maps come out on Beta branch first, Also not everyone has room for 2 DCS builds but when it gets broken or you have to spend time doing lots of changes please don't blame EA it is BETA Test.

I do also agree, I would prefer modules and maps put to one side and focus on optimising, Multi-player and many other things, I myself have purchased alot of content from ED, But after whats happening in game, Ive failed to even buy the SOH map content, I already know whats coming, Huge FPS drops in high density places and with shadows on and 30 to 50 people in one server it will be a stutter fest. My concerns anyway.

Dear Dami....

My observations and measurements are here since day two of the update:

https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=207002

The initial subject was "VR FPS disaster with latest update (2.5.1.16543.355)".

They almost had it with 2.5.0 (for VR at least). And someone flushed...

I wont say anything else.

... many people don't share this performance degradation you point out too. It seems to have hit the lower end of the hardware spectrum of users much harder.

This is far from the truth. See above link. The degradation affects all, not just VR users. It's jsut that VR has a well defined threshold. Below that is hell. Also MSAA is very very important. See the numbers on the above post.

23% lower at best scenario (NO MSAA) !!!!!

Still let's hope that they will rethink it and we will not be FORCED to update when the new map and plane comes out (I have prepaid for both).

This will be SAD.

Cheers

Implementing new module always means compiling new game core build, so yes, you will be forced to update.

One could discuss whether forcing Deferred Shading should happen now already, but looks like ED is set on their policy about that.

Sadly, I have to agree with the OP.

Whilst I'm certainly not as much on the scene since the days of the 74th, I still enjoy to fly DCS every now n then with former members who like me, prefer the quiet corner - hell why not, I have thousands of pounds invested in hardware and modules and DCS is never going to be pipped...........well......................not quite yet in my view.

But, it has to be said, that it is the time for ED to respond to the very valid points raised by the community (ultimately EDs clients - it is a long term relationship and constantly developing), regarding deferred shading, poor VR and low FPS. I have an i7 7700k, 32GB DDR4@3000mhz (not that it makes 'any' difference in my view) and a GTX 1080, it is 'unfair' to say that it runs like a dawg. As for VR? nope...............nope...............nope.

It seems that perhaps, the deferred shading problem we are all suffering with may be down to just the map - ie, caucasus??

It seems that Wags has no such framerate issues on his videos, when flying the Persian gulf??

What I do know is that pre-purchse for a map or a module that up until now, will be pushed out on the current graphics framework which is clearly 'broken', is a little disappointing.

But...............we may be presently surprised? A word from ED themselves, instead of posts being slamdunked by the notorious ED forum methodologies, may go some way to re-engage those watching from the wings, those lightly disappointed and those that have just 'had enough'.

Time is a commodity nowadays. Hell you can buy time off work so it literally is a commodity - of sorts. The amount of time spent finetuning, tweaking, searching forum posts for answers and tips on system performance is out of parity to the enjoyment felt when you actually get to fly.

Imagine at that point, that the best you can pump out with a home PC that's akin to a mini power plant with the computing power that trumps every game on the market, only 40 fps and no VR?

I'm not dissing DCS here, or ED, or anyone to be frank, but I am saying where we are now, considering our long journey (for me since 2005) is disappointing and 'unfair'. Is it ok to say 'unfair' nowadays without looking for a special corner?

Regular updates are great, the concept of the content is wonderful, the graphics work is sublime, DCS 'IS' the best there is, but one has to wonder how on every update so much is broken and that exponential bugs are not quashed before release. Almost a 'cottage industry' of patch releases............

'Fix - Build - Grow'.

Now if only.............................

And to be honest the game, on the Caucasus map, doesn't look orders of magnitude better than 1.5.8. In fact there are aspects that look worse.

I couldn't disagree more. :)

IMHO, 2.5 Caucasus does look orders of magnitude better than the 1.5 Caucasus did. It feels like an entirely new map to me, and I enjoy every second I spend there.

I agree that not all changes are for the better, but all things considered it's a massive improvement graphics wise. Plus, collidable trees. I just can't overemphasize how cool that is! ;)

[...] and the only answer to any of the optimisation problems seems to be to throw £2k+ at getting a new PC.

Of course I'd like DCS to run better and load faster, too.

But for comparison, I'm running DCS on an i7 2600K (not even overclocked) with 16 GB DDR3 in WQHD (for a few weeks even 4K) and for the most part DCS runs really well for me right now - and that's on Win 7, while people say that Win 10 yields much better performance. The biggest investment was swapping the gfx card to a 1070ti in December. Sure, I'd like to get a brand new PC in the 2000 € range, but so far I just don't know why I should spend all that money.

Now I'm not saying people don't have problems with their rigs. It's just that from my perspective, it doesn't seem necessary to upgrade the whole setup every two years while staying up to date with DCS.

Plus, the timing couldn't be worse, with DCS finally making good use of modern GFX cards at the exact time that their prices went through the roof. I used to complain that 400 Euros was too expensive for a GFX card, now 500 is like low end, that's just insane - but it's not ED's fault, the timing is just terrible, even more so with VR and its hunger for graphics power.

I also feel that I have invested money in modules for a game that is largely unplayable and I certainly won't be buying any further modules if the basic game engine continues to give me so many problems.

Well, 1.5 is stil available for download. There won't be new content for it, and it's unlikely it'll receive bugfixes, but if 1.5 ran fine for you, you liked it from a graphical point of view, and you're not required to fly MP in 2.5, then I don't quite understand why you put up with 2.5?

Yeah, well, it would look awesome if there was still a reliable way of running SSAA* somehow. But since there isn't, the sim is now full of jaggies and creepy-crawlies no post-proc AA will remove, plus I'm again seeing annoying micro-freezes after the last patch as well.

Now I do realize it's a beta, but the current impossibility of running AA methods that reduce the shimmering / transparent edge aliasing is disconcerting regardless. So let's just hope this is fixed rather soonish if possible.

*EDIT: OK, SSAA came back with the new patch / map :D Off to explore the Persian Gulf region and tinker with my AA settings again...

Well, 1.5 is stil available for download. There won't be new content for it, and it's unlikely it'll receive bugfixes, but if 1.5 ran fine for you, you liked it from a graphical point of view, and you're not required to fly MP in 2.5, then I don't quite understand why you put up with 2.5?

That's actually a great suggestion - thank you. I've had enough faffing about. I've requested a refund on my F-18 + PG pre-purchases, installed 1.5 and will stick with that until 2.5 is sorted out. I'll never pre-purchase anything again.

That's actually a great suggestion - thank you. I've had enough faffing about. I've requested a refund on my F-18 + PG pre-purchases, installed 1.5 and will stick with that until 2.5 is sorted out. I'll never pre-purchase anything again.

+1...DCS V1.58 is still awesome in VR, Best performance, graphics and night lighting, especially with HDR on. No need to spend more money if genuine immersive combat is what you're looking for on a PC also good for most other VR games. :thumbup:

Just chiming in on this real quick..

Have been running DCS 2.5.1 open beta for awhile now with good results as far as i am concerned.. But i keep seeing so many of us with perfectly capable systems on here having so many issues.

I have run DCS every which way that i can on my machine, from overclocked CPU and GPU to bone stock settings, adjusting everything in game, Nvidia CP, and post effects ie "Reshade"..

Currently, my in game settings are as follows along with Reshade SMAA always on and sometimes switching on MSAA x2 DCSsettings1.JPG

With no OC, everything runs smooth... If i OC, i could get more frames.. but i have also found that i just dont need to.. I am running a Ryzen 1800x along with a 1080ti and locked at 60fps via VSync in game on a 50" 4k tv... With MSAA off and using Reshade SMAA, DCS seems to barely utilize 2 CPU cores and about 54%-65% GPU generally. Sometimes spikes to an 85%-90% GPU load when conditions get hairy, but it doesnt skip a beat..

with MSAA on 2x plus Reshade, the GPU averages around 72-78% with a few 99% spikes every once in a while.. but still doesn't really skip a beat.

While it doesn't address VR, i think it may be of help to some to give you're systems a break... Lock your refresh to 60hz.. turn on VSYNC.. play between MSAA and Reshade or even both and figure out how you can make your system run comfortably... try to Avoid high load and to Avoid heat..

My setup:

Win 10 Pro

Ryzen 1800x @ 3.7 ghz 4.1 boost

EVGA FTW3 1080 ti @ just over 1950mhz stock boost clocks

32gb Corsair Dominator Platinum @ 2666mhz

Samsung 850 Evo

Stock settings in Nvidia CP

The only issue i ever see is that Reshade seems to make DCS sometimes crash when i exit the game.. sometimes... but i was done flying anyway so i can tolerate that.

Anyway.. locked at 60fps is a beautiful thing.. and i imagine easily achievable on most of the systems ive been hearing about having problems...

hope you guys can get similar results..

Totally agree, for VR, 1.5.8 was the last VR optimized version to date, performance and visually.

1.5.8 looks good, and runs really well on my machine (see specs below) and,

I'm getting mostly 90fps with 1.5.8 in VR.

 

The drawback is the new effects in 2.5.x you will not have, neither later product bug fixes, nor other additional products and objects.

 

See my "

" video.

Caution, awful voice acting..

 

Yes, basically, it seems to me that 2.5.1 is a much improved 2D screen application over 1.5.8, and optimized for 2D use (although I've read reports that 2D @ 4K suffers from some performance degradation also).

 

 

But you hit it on the nail head, VR is a different beast. This is where I've read so many complaints, myself included, posted here and updated post here.

Nvidia CP setting do not apply to VR, nor does Reshade work with VR.

 

 

"ED is aware of the Performance issues w/ Spatial AA" as per this post, so I'm confident the Eagle Dynamics Team will address this issue in due course of time (hopefully).

 

 

But, the unfortunate point is, as others have more vehemently stated :furious: than I would care to do so :v:, is that, for now, I'm also disinclined to purchase additional DCS World products, as I just don't have the personal motivation to do so, until the performance issues (in VR) are somewhat improved, which is regrettable :cry_2: .

 

 

Unfortunately, once you go VR, there's no going back :pilotfly:

:bye_2: :ufo:

Does VR require more than 60 fps?.. or like 60 x2 for the headset? i know nothing about it... what is the resolution of the internal screens? why is everyone seeking 90 fps or more?

watching your vid now

but why not something easier for the hardware like 60fps? can the refresh rate be set below 90 but above 45?

hmm.. well,Lol.. id be cool with just a mini 4k screen attached to my face at a solid 60fps along with some track ir... might not have the 3d depth, but would be more than immersive enough for me.. guess ill stick with my tv in my face for now though.:)