is it the DCS program or the hardware?

[fitness88]

I'm confused...I've read several posts about more and more people buying $uper computers with expen$ive graphic cards but still remain frustrated by the continued lagging/stuttering/freezing when flying in a graphic busy environment. Some tried different tweaking methods but with little improvement.

So I'm thinking why should I spend big money for a top computer with an expensive graphics card just for DCS when many of those who have still have the same complaints. Whether I get 50 FPS instead of 75 or 95 doesn't really matter when I don't see the difference above 35 FPS anyway.

 

Have computers outpaced the DCS software and we now need to wait for the software to catch up?

 

Thank you.

[razo+r]

DCS is or should be improved with EDGE..

 

Also, it can be that sometimes the new drivers for pascal GPUs have problems, since they're new, but meanwhile they should have that under control

 

And maybe they've took it too far with expectations and settings...

 

And you can clearly see the difference between 35, 60 and 90 FPS on a 60Hz monitor...

[BIGNEWY]

Some user get stutters, I have tried to help many of them.

 

Sometimes it is drivers or hardware issues, sometimes a fresh windows install solved the issue, or tweaking a windows setting and occasionally nothing we have tried has helped.

 

I am not a programmer or claim to understand any of it so it is difficult to say, what I do know is I have 6 installs of DCS on my machine and they are running fine.

 

As the new year progress's and we start saying good bye to 1.5 I think things will become easier for a lot of those who suffer with issues.

[fitness88]

DCS is or should be improved with EDGE..

 

Also, it can be that sometimes the new drivers for pascal GPUs have problems, since they're new, but meanwhile they should have that under control

 

And maybe they've took it too far with expectations and settings...

 

And you can clearly see the difference between 35, 60 and 90 FPS on a 60Hz monitor...

 

In a test to see the difference I went back to 1 monitor from 3 and had my FPS go from 30-50 and jump up to 75-90...I really didn't see the difference...what are you referring to exactly?

 

EDIT: I do understand the benefit of higher FPS in relationship to higher in-game graphics settings, you can afford the FPS drop when you have 80+FPS when you go to higher settings.

Edited December 31, 2016 by fitness88

[Brisse]

In a test to see the difference I went back to 1 monitor from 3 and had my FPS go from 30-50 and jump up to 75-90...I really didn't see the difference...what are you referring to exactly?

 

The results from such a test can wary widely depending on how it's done and what sort of movement there is on screen.

 

One of the more obvious cases where high frame-rate is of benefit in DCS is when using head tracking such as TrackIR, which is much smoother and more responsive at higher frame-rates. Personally I prefer it to never drop below 75fps when using TrackIR on my 144hz monitor. The TrackIR itself runs at 120fps.

 

On the other hand, if you are just staring at a scene with a static camera and a vehicle driving by 100m in front of you, there is very little actual movement happening in the image, so 35fps could look perfectly smooth under these circumstances.

 

So you see, it all depends on a lot of factors! I'm absolutely certain I could come up with a test where anyone would be able to distinguish 60fps from 120fps. Actually, I've done blind tests like that on friends and family, and they can always spot the differences, and end up looking really surprised afterwards, but it's all about coming up with a test where the difference is obvious. I could make it very difficult if I wanted, but what's the point in that? The point is that the human eye can definitely surpass common monitor refresh rates when there's ample movement on the screen. There's a lot of people feeding the old myth that "the eye cant see more than 30fps" but they are wrong and it's easy to prove it. In reality, our eyes are not digital, so it's actually impossible to say where the limit is. I'd say it's infinite, but of course there's also diminishing returns.

Edited December 31, 2016 by Brisse

[fitness88]

The results from such a test can wary widely depending on how it's done and what sort of movement there is on screen.

 

One of the more obvious cases where high frame-rate is of benefit in DCS is when using head tracking such as TrackIR, which is much smoother and more responsive at higher frame-rates. Personally I prefer it to never drop below 75fps when using TrackIR on my 144hz monitor. The TrackIR itself runs at 120fps.

 

On the other hand, if you are just staring at a scene with a static camera and a vehicle driving by 100m in front of you, there is very little actual movement happening in the image, so 35fps could look perfectly smooth under these circumstances.

 

So you see, it all depends on a lot of factors! I'm absolutely certain I could come up with a test where anyone would be able to distinguish 60fps from 120fps. Actually, I've done blind tests like that on friends and family, and they can always spot the differences, and end up looking really surprised afterwards, but it's all about coming up with a test where the difference is obvious. I could make it very difficult if I wanted, but what's the point in that? The point is that the human eye can definitely surpass common monitor refresh rates when there's ample movement on the screen. There's a lot of people feeding the old myth that "the eye cant see more than 30fps" but they are wrong and it's easy to prove it. In reality, our eyes are not digital, so it's actually impossible to say where the limit is. I'd say it's infinite, but of course there's also diminishing returns.

 

Thanks for the feed-back as per my previous EDIT: I do understand the benefit of higher FPS in relationship to higher in-game graphics settings, you can afford the FPS drop when you have 80+FPS when you go to higher settings.

 

Having said that...I watch my FPS when in-game and I see the amount of objects being displayed and I can see the definite correlation between FPS and how the amount of objects being displayed affects FPS. On my 3 x monitors [@ 60htz] displays when I see the FPS at 35 or at 75 I don't see any difference in the speed of motion of the display. I do understand that using other additional hardware could change the dynamics.

My concern is more toward the continued lagging/stuttering/freezing which happens at all different FPS not just low FPS...it seems to be a separate issue from what causes low FPS of which I understand.

 

Here is one of many examples of exactly what I'm talking about...I think too many people with all levels of hardware configuration and smarts are having this sort of issue and it's been going on for a long time.

 

IonicRipper:

"My framerate is very good (around 60 - 90) but no matter how low I set the graphics it keeps stuttering. I checked to make sure I had the latest nvidia driver and I do. I'll try rolling back to a previous driver see if it helps but if anyone has suggestions please let me know."

Edited December 31, 2016 by fitness88

[razo+r]

In a test to see the difference I went back to 1 monitor from 3 and had my FPS go from 30-50 and jump up to 75-90...I really didn't see the difference...what are you referring to exactly?

 

EDIT: I do understand the benefit of higher FPS in relationship to higher in-game graphics settings, you can afford the FPS drop when you have 80+FPS when you go to higher settings.

 

If you have 30 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, it's like a diashow, which you can see...

 

If you play a long time with 60 FPS on pc, and change to a 30 FPS action game on for example a PS 3 or XBOX 360, you can definitly notice the difference

 

If you have 90 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, then you get a weird effect on your monitor, called screen tearing, which you can spot quite easily, also it's really annoying

 

If you play a few years on a 144Hz monitor and jump back to a 60Hz monitor, you can feel the less frames, and if you go back to a 30Hz game/refresh rate, you will never touch that system again, once you've experienced the 144Hz

[fitness88]

If you have 30 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, it's like a diashow, which you can see...

 

If you play a long time with 60 FPS on pc, and change to a 30 FPS action game on for example a PS 3 or XBOX 360, you can definitly notice the difference

 

If you have 90 FPS on a 60Hz monitor, then you get a weird effect on your monitor, called screen tearing, which you can spot quite easily, also it's really annoying

 

If you play a few years on a 144Hz monitor and jump back to a 60Hz monitor, you can feel the less frames, and if you go back to a 30Hz game/refresh rate, you will never touch that system again, once you've experienced the 144Hz

 

Thanks razo+r, I appreciate the comparisons. I guess I can't miss what I never had! Getting 144Hz, is it the 27" monitor size or the hardware specs of the monitor that you need?

[razo+r]

You'd need a pretty good PC to run games at 144FPS or lower settings...

[shagrat]

There's a lot of people feeding the old myth that "the eye cant see more than 30fps" but they are wrong and it's easy to prove it. In reality, our eyes are not digital, so it's actually impossible to say where the limit is. I'd say it's infinite, but of course there's also diminishing returns.

You may want to prove it to the opticians, doctors and other specialists in that field, based on your scientific research?!

 

Maybe you mix up human sight with refresh rate, in combination with computer displays?

 

The issue is "30 still images a second" to exceed the human eye/brain into recognising a fluid motion is not necessarily what you can achieve with 30fps on a monitor.

 

Though I know exactly what you mean, the limitation if human vision is neither a myth nor the issue here.

 

Interesting is, that with 30-40fps and G-Sync you can't really tell a difference any more, only below 30fps you notice the effect! Still the monitor produces 30fps, yet in Sync with its refresh rate... and suddenly the "old myth" works as advertised. ;)

[razo+r]

2.0 is already here and has barely improved it, if not made things worse

 

2.5 or higher is the version on which we should hope

[shagrat]

It is the software. Get a new proper PC and hope it runs well (and hope that you don't pick a wrong component that DCS hates).

 

There's a reason if most people can run the game at very good FPS but still stutters and freezes sometimes, even after checking all background programs, closing everything, nope.

 

The moderators here blame hardware for bad performance, though I run my game at very well FPS, but stutters and freezes are the real problem here. It IS the software, it just wouldn't run well and go hiccup randomly, when there's nothing else running aside DCS, if it were a hardware problem, because then you'd have bad performance constantly. And no, the hiccups don't occur when someone flies past you or you look around, they happen whenever they want (I am going to tell you more: if someone flies past you with smoke on, what will actually happen is lower FPS, NOT freeze your game, instead the freezes are rather random). My guess is that DCS is trying to load too much stuff that isn't even displayed then. If you read old threads about LODs and texture stuff you would understand what I mean. And yes, I already tried changing the view settings but they don't alter anything, so I really wonder. Only the devs could explain us by using their own debug internal version to see what is the program doing. But no one cared to post a reply or explain something, instead what is mostly told here is to upgrade hardware... which might be actually saving your time rather than discuss here and there, but definitely not your pocket.

 

There's a reason if they suggest to restart DCS after some hours. The RAM is never cleared of all the stuff that is being loaded, and it will eventually get completely filled, hence more stutters are inbound (and hence why moderators here with SSDs say everything is fine. Eventually SSDs will become minimum requirements because of bad optimization ?)

I am not really sure if DCS explains 13 gb or more of RAM usage. Why do other games with higher textures and range of view do not have such problems ? I doubt the flight model and cockpit systems justify the higher RAM usage.

 

BUT ANYWAY. I suggested and I suggest once again, making more custom graphical options so we could ATLEAST "trim" our own performance so DCS is actually playable and enjoyable.

One example: Splitting the textures option into different options:

1) cockpit textures

2) aircraft textures

3) ground/object textures (no they are not the same as terrain textures.)

4) models...

 

Etc.

.

.

.

 

I doubt 2.0 will bring us better performance, but we'll see. I hope that my suggestion is taken care of nevertheless.

Interesting, are you sure about that?

 

Because in my considerable experience with hardware components, there is a lot that is neither obvious, nor "constant" from thermal problems, that trigger failsafes, over mainboard northbridge components that are just crap, to misconfiguration through auto-performance wizards in the BIOS that fail to set clock frequency according to CPU specs, and last but not least, the rare bad soldering point, that reveals itself after 4 to 5 hours uptime when the temperature bends the component just enough, to disconnect...

 

The power supply may is old or faulty and struggles to keep a constant voltage for the CPU (had that one myself, took me months to figure out!).

 

Then there is the OS that has its own ways of loading drivers and libraries into the memory with little chance of the user to decide where exactly the stuff gets loaded to (In old DOS times you could organise the memory yourself, if necessary).

 

So there you might hit the one broken page in memory layout with a library, that gets used once in a hundred instances and causes a blue screen, yet next time it is loaded elsewhere to memory and... nothing happens!

 

Now, drivers for hardware components, from Intel chipset drivers to onboard soundcard, to any USB device can have funny effects and cause performance trouble... and I'm sure I haven't encountered all possible causes for trouble in the wondrous component system we call PC, yet.

 

But it could be the software, as well. No doubt.

Yet if it runs flawlessly on hundreds or thousands of systems, why should it have an error in its code that strangely reveals itself only on yours? :smartass:

Edited January 1, 2017 by shagrat

[fitness88]

It is the software. Get a new proper PC and hope it runs well (and hope that you don't pick a wrong component that DCS hates).

 

There's a reason if most people can run the game at very good FPS but still stutters and freezes sometimes, even after checking all background programs, closing everything, nope.

 

The moderators here blame hardware for bad performance, though I run my game at very well FPS, but stutters and freezes are the real problem here. It IS the software, it just wouldn't run well and go hiccup randomly, when there's nothing else running aside DCS, if it were a hardware problem, because then you'd have bad performance constantly. And no, the hiccups don't occur when someone flies past you or you look around, they happen whenever they want (I am going to tell you more: if someone flies past you with smoke on, what will actually happen is lower FPS, NOT freeze your game, instead the freezes are rather random). My guess is that DCS is trying to load too much stuff that isn't even displayed then. If you read old threads about LODs and texture stuff you would understand what I mean. And yes, I already tried changing the view settings but they don't alter anything, so I really wonder. Only the devs could explain us by using their own debug internal version to see what is the program doing. But no one cared to post a reply or explain something, instead what is mostly told here is to upgrade hardware... which might be actually saving your time rather than discuss here and there, but definitely not your pocket.

 

There's a reason if they suggest to restart DCS after some hours. The RAM is never cleared of all the stuff that is being loaded, and it will eventually get completely filled, hence more stutters are inbound (and hence why moderators here with SSDs say everything is fine. Eventually SSDs will become minimum requirements because of bad optimization ?)

I am not really sure if DCS explains 13 gb or more of RAM usage. Why do other games with higher textures and range of view do not have such problems ? I doubt the flight model and cockpit systems justify the higher RAM usage.

 

BUT ANYWAY. I suggested and I suggest once again, making more custom graphical options so we could ATLEAST "trim" our own performance so DCS is actually playable and enjoyable.

One example: Splitting the textures option into different options:

1) cockpit textures

2) aircraft textures

3) ground/object textures (no they are not the same as terrain textures.)

4) models...

 

Etc.

.

.

.

 

I doubt 2.0 will bring us better performance, but we'll see. I hope that my suggestion is taken care of nevertheless.

 

Interesting post secret1962. What I finally did was to drop all my graphic options in DCS to OFF or lowest setting possible. I then went and flew on 3 servers that were busy and that I had previous stutter/freeze issues. My FPS was up of course and I experienced around a 98% drop in stutter/freeze, almost not noticeable. I then went back to my graphic options in DCS and very very gradually increased a couple of graphic levels...still looks nice graphically and it held at around 98% drop in stutter/freeze. As I have an older system I'm not going to increase much more than what I've already done. I will try it out again tonight and see how if it stays smooth and report back here.

I've come to realize that stopping stutter/freeze is hugely far more important to me for the appreciation of the flight experience than turning up the graphic options.

It could be that one only or combination of certain settings may cause this stutter/freeze issue, but I don't have the time/patience to do that kind of trial test.

 

EDIT: Again on a busy server [15] today I had almost no stutter/freeze...so far so good. What I did notice was the relationship between FPS and Object numbers been shown. The lower the # the higher the FPS. Also no matter how low the FPS went the stutter/freeze all but went away.

Edited January 1, 2017 by fitness88

[fitness88]

Again on a busy server [15] today I had almost no stutter/freeze...so far so good. What I did notice was the relationship between FPS and Object numbers been shown. The lower the Object # the higher the FPS. Also no matter how low the FPS went the stutter/freeze all but went away. I'm averaging 35-50FPS with planes and colored smoke all around me.

[fitness88]

All is still running really well after making those changes which makes me think that perhaps there is a graphic setting that is causing the stuttering.

[firmek]

I have to admit that this discussion is strange in some way.

1. Just get the best hardware that you can get. It should be rather obvious that better rig will yield a better performance. I hope none is trying to question that. Also take all the discussions on how much CPU bound is DCS with a grain of salt. DCS is 3D program/game and as any other is not special in this area which means it will benefit from a better GPU as also in any other case an old CPU will be a bottle neck for much newer GPU.

The bottom line. Consider DCS as any other 3D game. There is nothing like DCS specific hardware config.

 

2. Stuttering. There is no single obvious explanation or fix for it. Neither in DCS or in any other 3D program. First of all, there is a lot of confusion and mixing together of what people call a stutter. It could be anything as for the big pauses caused by substantial data being loaded, eventual pauses due to heavy CPU or GPU load, constant micro stutters or even a server lag. Usually there is a different background for different kind of stutter but it might be as well anything, other software running in parallel, hardware drivers, hardware not keeping up the demand or bad game optimization. Nevertheless, the so called "stutter" can also happen on every box for every single program and game - again, DCS in no way is special in this respect.

[fitness88]

I have to admit that this discussion is strange in some way.

1. Just get the best hardware that you can get. It should be rather obvious that better rig will yield a better performance. I hope none is trying to question that. Also take all the discussions on how much CPU bound is DCS with a grain of salt. DCS is 3D program/game and as any other is not special in this area which means it will benefit from a better GPU as also in any other case an old CPU will be a bottle neck for much newer GPU.

The bottom line. Consider DCS as any other 3D game. There is nothing like DCS specific hardware config.

 

2. Stuttering. There is no single obvious explanation or fix for it. Neither in DCS or in any other 3D program. First of all, there is a lot of confusion and mixing together of what people call a stutter. It could be anything as for the big pauses caused by substantial data being loaded, eventual pauses due to heavy CPU or GPU load, constant micro stutters or even a server lag. Usually there is a different background for different kind of stutter but it might be as well anything, other software running in parallel, hardware drivers, hardware not keeping up the demand or bad game optimization. Nevertheless, the so called "stutter" can also happen on every box for every single program and game - again, DCS in no way is special in this respect.

 

Good points firmek, I certainly agree the better the hardware the better...period!

I do understand as well that what you say about stuttering can be caused by many different things.

But I am quite surprised with my older rig at the lack of any stuttering now after turning off all the options and then turning back on just a couple that I feel really make a noticeable visual difference. I've been on 5 different servers with lots going on and I would think I'm flying offline by myself.