2.5 runs smooth until i start bombing stuff

[METEOP]

Is it only me?

 

I'm flying around in caucasus with the ol A10-C and getting a solid 60-80 fps from buzzing trees to the stratosphere. no problem there!

 

I then felt like pounding something, so instead of just flying around I turn on the arm controls and the TGP and get ready for some death dealing. However, I start getting serious stuttering issues and it seems like it's from doing something related to engaging enemies (TGP screen perhaps)

 

Stuttering gets worse when flying low around the targets. It kind of breaks 'the mood' if you get my meaning...

 

Another thing that baffles me is there are huge black squares on the TAD like parts of the TAD maps are missing, duh?

 

BTW check my sig I'm runing Ikarus touchscreen cockpit with exported TAD, TGP and RWR. With Ikarus off there doesn't seem to correct the problem so I'm still trying to isolate the condition that causes this.

 

Anybody else got this?

[KCferrari]

I found that air to ground combat in general is having some major issues in this update. Free flight isn't perfect, but most modules seem to run decently smooth for the most part in caucasus, but better in nevada. As soon as I load up any ground based combat mission though, framerates tank, and the game stutters terribly.

 

This happens to me using both the Viggen and Mirage, yet if I switch to an exclusively air to air mission, everything seems to run smoothly.

[METEOP]

Did some more testing this morning:

 

Map is Caucasus instant action easy spring, multiple passes at waypoint 2 (first target)

 

pass 1, gun strafe, no tgp

- no noticeable stutter

 

Between passes, turned on tgp

- one time stutter, big momentary bump in cpu usage

 

Pass 2, ccip rockets

- light stutter when overflying target (very close to groud)

 

between passes, standby tgp

 

Pass 3, ccip rockets

- again some stutter when overflying (smoke from the marker and destroyed trucks an issue?)

 

Not a very scientific analysis, but so far my gut feeling is that the stutter seems to be aggravated by any combination of these factors:

- overflying ground targets (ai cpu usage?)

- smoke from markers and burnt targets (gpu usage?)

- tgp on (gpu and cpu usage?)

 

i have some screenshot that i need to analyse in hope of finding more correlation, i'll post later this evening.

[METEOP]

Yesterday I tested quite a bit and concluded the following:

 

- stuttering not related to graphic options, the only option I didn't try was lowering the resolution, but i'm just at 1080p...

- not related to map, I have the same behavior in Caucasus and Nevada

- not related to multiple monitor usage or sensors exports

- does not seem processor saturation is an issue

- does not seem gpu saturation is an issue

 

When I say 'does not seem' I mean the different cpu and gpu monitors are maybe not recording transient saturation if it last just a few milliseconds

 

Aggravating factors in no particular order:

 

- flying close to other units, air, ground, friendlies and enemies alike (all ai though)

- flying close to structures that you could collide with

- flying through smoke

- using sensors (TGP, MAV, CCIP)

 

One factors stand out alot, it's using the TGP, that will slice off up to 10 fps when combined with other factors above.

 

Another odd thing I tried is this: I maxed out all graphic options just for kicks. The fps meter was showing 40-45 fps but the stuttering was so severe that it looked more like 5-10 jittery fps!!!

 

Still BETA testing :smilewink:

[HiJack]

Switch off MSAA completely in DCS World settings.

[METEOP]

Switch off MSAA completely in DCS World settings.

 

Thank you for the suggestion HiJack, however it is unrelated to graphic settings as stated above, and just to be explicit I did try with the following :

 

- MSAA none

- Defered shading OFF

- Preload, trees and smoke to minimum

- HDR OFF

- Shadows OFF

- Ground shadows OFF

 

The stuttering persists as described prior...

 

I also cleared shaders and fxo folders, never imported graphic options from alpha or 1.5.

 

Granted the only thing I did not try turning Off is reshade, as I don't see how it could be related. I will nevertheless try with Reshade off just to be sure.

[METEOP]

HiJack you are using a Radeon GPU, you do not have this issue?

[tintifaxl]

I just finished the instant action easy for the A-10 on Caucasus and have rock solid 60fps (vsync on). No stutters anywhere specs in my sig.

[HiJack]

HiJack you are using a Radeon GPU, you do not have this issue?

 

No I don't. See my DCS settings in the image.

 

[Solid84]

i have noticed this issue too.

 

I think is related with explosions or smoke.

 

With A10C using Mavs, rockets or bombing in general, cause me stutters and fps drop, especially when i perform a low pass on target after attack.

 

After i've disabled in-game MSAA at all, using only FXAA through Nvidia CP, and the situation seems better, but not perfect.

[METEOP]

i have noticed this issue too.

 

I think is related with explosions or smoke.

 

With A10C using Mavs, rockets or bombing in general, cause me stutters and fps drop, especially when i perform a low pass on target after attack.

 

After i've disabled in-game MSAA at all, using only FXAA through Nvidia CP, and the situation seems better, but not perfect.

 

I am not alone in this madness it seems :crazy:

 

I've been playing around with graphic settings, windowed vs fullscreen, vsync, nvidia cp and profiler. I have yet to find a single culprit, like Solid84 says I can make it 'better' but not disappear.

 

Some options that seem to have a big impact on stutters and TGP usage :

 

- Dirt & flare

- Depth of field

- Shadows (any amount)

 

There are some of us which do not have this problem it seems... The only thing I can think of at this point if 16Gb vs 32Gb RAM :

 

Stutters (16Gb RAM) :

- KCferrari

- Solid84

- (me)

 

No stutters (32Gb RAM) :

- HiJack

- tintifaxl

 

I'm grasping at straws here... RAM usage is around 50% at 16Gb so I don't see why this could be an issue.

 

Gentlemen HiJack & tintifaxl, would one of you be so kind as to try to replicate the problem on you rig with 16Gb only?

[tintifaxl]

I have 2x 16GB, so I wouldn't run dual channel anymore. Besides, the cpu cooler makes it difficult to access the ram slots.

[Slap_Chop]

Has anyone considered this may be related to sound issues ? I'm not saying

it is but isn't bombing etc causing sound generation ?

 

Everyone lists graphics cards but no one lists sound devices. EG: PCI

Soundblaster, USB speakers, Onboard sound etc.

 

 

Just a thought.

[Lixma 06]

Has anyone considered this may be related to sound issues ? I'm not saying

it is but isn't bombing etc causing sound generation ?

 

Everyone lists graphics cards but no one lists sound devices. EG: PCI

Soundblaster, USB speakers, Onboard sound etc.

 

 

Just a thought.

 

I'm with you on this.

 

I'm firmly in the camp that suspects that many of the familiar stutters that have plagued ED games (since back in the LOMAC days!) are related to the sound engine.

 

Rockets hitting the ground, bombs exploding, an aircraft being hit, contacting ATC, ejecting, crashing....all these events, at least the first time you encounter them during a session, cause DCS to stutter. They have at least one common denominator - they trigger a sound file.

[boedha68]

No I don't. See my DCS settings in the image.

 

[ATTACH]177849[/ATTACH]

 

SET TEXTURES to HIGH!

SET WATER to HIGH!

 

= cockpitresolution mabybe 512

= Lower visible range to high even medium

= Lower preload radius to 100

 

= and Maybe lower antriscopic filtering if the 2 options above not help enough. :D

Edited February 5, 2018 by boedha68

[METEOP]

I'm with you on this.

 

I'm firmly in the camp that suspects that many of the familiar stutters that have plagued ED games (since back in the LOMAC days!) are related to the sound engine.

 

Rockets hitting the ground, bombs exploding, an aircraft being hit, contacting ATC, ejecting, crashing....all these events, at least the first time you encounter them during a session, cause DCS to stutter. They have at least one common denominator - they trigger a sound file.

 

Nope that is not the issue, it's turning on the TGP that does the most stuttering, way before pulling the trigger or anything sound related...

[Slap_Chop]

Nope that is not the issue, it's turning on the TGP that does the most stuttering, way before pulling the trigger or anything sound related...

 

There maybe more than one cause of stuttering. Is this not possible ?

[METEOP]

There maybe more than one cause of stuttering. Is this not possible ?

 

Yes, it's a combination of different things check the beginning of the thread.

[Lixma 06]

Nope that is not the issue, it's turning on the TGP that does the most stuttering, way before pulling the trigger or anything sound related...

 

I was speaking generally, not specifically.

 

"runs smooth until i start bombing stuff" could, without irony, be DCS's catchphrase.

[METEOP]

I was speaking generally, not specifically.

 

"runs smooth until i start bombing stuff" could, without irony, be DCS's catchphrase.

 

:megalol:

 

But seriously... It wasn't like this at all with 1.5 and 2.2. So it's definitely something new, to me at least.

Edited February 6, 2018 by METEOP
Wrong smiley!

[METEOP]

I did manage to make it stutter less by going in control panel/ nvidia cp / physx clamped to GPU!!!

 

It is almost enjoyable now, although passing in smoke from burning targets and SAM contrails still causes stutter, not sure if there is any way around this in this release?

[Wolf8312]

I did manage to make it stutter less by going in control panel/ nvidia cp / physx clamped to GPU!!!

 

It is almost enjoyable now, although passing in smoke from burning targets and SAM contrails still causes stutter, not sure if there is any way around this in this release?

 

Very big problem in VR viggen bombing missions and I had hoped it was something the devs would have worked hard to improve (explosion lags). It only seems to happen when bombing things though occasionally will happen during nasty crashes (more explosions).

[METEOP]

Sorry about the delay and for bringing this back up again.

 

After a good while spent testing here is some more info on the stuttering issue, I'm still on the fence as to reporting it as a bug or waiting it out.

 

While it appears stuttering in 2.5OB can be caused by a number of issues for different pilots, I've narrowed it down (on my system at least) to electro-optical sensor usage, specifically the MAV targeting screen, and somewhat lesser of a problem is the TGP screen in the MFCD also.

 

TO RECREATE THE PROBLEM:

 

- Any map and mission will do, I'm running the A-10C, not sure about other airframes. Smoke compound the problem so you might take an instant action mission with smoke markers.

- Line up for attack on ground target, get low about 3K-5K AGL

- Turn on TGP on one MFCD, MAV on the other

- At this point the stuttering should be pretty severe

- Attack target, launch a MAV, gun down the target to a burning crisp

- While overflying through smoke and explosions, the stuttering should be very bad

 

ANALYSIS:

 

I tried many benchmarking applications and finally I found the bottleneck appears in the GPU. Using nvidiainspector, I was able to point out the stuttering occurs when the GPU is saturated (100%).

 

When flying without using the EO sensors, under any condition the GPU is running smoothly at around 60-70% usage so there is lots of overhead available.

 

However, turning on the EO sensors, especially the MAV, will eat up up to MORE THAN 30% OF A 1070GTX GPU under any combination of graphic setting.

 

This was not an issue in 2.2A all other things being the same.

 

I've further narrowed down the conditions that causes the issue : THE TREES.

 

If the sensor is not looking at trees, then the GPU usage for the sensor is about 5%, more than reasonable! It's when the sensor is looking at trees it will just eat the GPU for breakfast.

 

So.... how to make this _playable_ ? Here's what I did, please chime in if you have some more ideas.

 

1. Graphic settings

 

Here are my current graphic settings, anything else will either not affect the performance of will degrade it severely. Note that I am runing in 1080p with a second 1080p monitor for my glass cockpit.

 

 

 

["graphics"] = {

["DOF"] = 0,

["HDR"] = 0,

["LensEffects"] = 0,

["MSAA"] = 2,

["SSAO"] = 0,

["anisotropy"] = 4,

["aspect"] = 1.7777777777778,

["chimneySmokeDensity"] = 0,

["civTraffic"] = "high",

["clouds"] = 1,

["clutterMaxDistance"] = 1200,

["cockpitGI"] = 1,

["disableAero"] = true,

["effects"] = 3,

["flatTerrainShadows"] = 0,

["forestDistanceFactor"] = 0.8,

["fullScreen"] = false,

["heatBlr"] = 0,

["height"] = 2160,

["lights"] = 2,

["motionBlur"] = 0,

["multiMonitorSetup"] = "ikarus-a-10c",

["outputGamma"] = 2.2,

["preloadRadius"] = 120100,

["scaleGui"] = false,

["shadowTree"] = false,

["shadows"] = 1,

["sync"] = false,

["terrainTextures"] = "max",

["textures"] = 2,

["treesVisibility"] = 17250,

["useDeferredShading"] = 1,

["visibRange"] = "High",

["water"] = 2,

["width"] = 1920,

},

 

 

 

Yes I use MFCD and RWR exports to an Ikarus touchscreen cockpit, but the problem appears even without them. So I did try with no exports, only one fullscreen etc... same problem.

 

2. graphics.lua

 

.../DCS/Config/graphics.lua

 

maxfps = 64

sync = true

 

I've found the maxfps trick in an old 1.x thread. If I put it under 60 the tracking is not so smooth, so I'm really wondering if some frames are not being dropped that are not detected by FPS meters... 64 fps is a good tradeoff for me between being smooth without sensors and playable with sensors.

 

The thinking behind this is, it seemed to me that even though the mainscreen would drop frames, the exported MFCD would run very smooth. This appeared odd to me, since i'd rather get 10 fps in the sensor than hurting the main view... So I started looking for ways to limit the max fps of the MFCDs.

 

I've found by default the maxfps is 180, by reducing the maxfps I am putting a hard limit on what the sensors can hog out of my GPU in worst case. Too bad I have not found a way to limit only the MFCD fps...

 

Oddly enough, if I put some VSYNC either in DCS or the Nvidia control panel after a few minutes of flying the fps degrades severely and it's unplayable, but the sync=true switch in the config file seemed to make the image mnore stable without causing any problems.

 

3. MFCD mip filtering

 

.../DCS/Mods/aircraft/A-10C/Cockpit/Scripts/MFCD/indicator/MFCD_useful_definitions.lua

 

mip_filter_used = false

 

 

Another optimisation I've discovered is disabling the mipmapping filter for the MFCDs. Turning it off seems to make thing better.

 

 

RECOMMENDATIONS:

 

I see a few options availlable to the developpers.

 

The easiest I would think would be to limit the MFCD max FPS, or at least make them less of a priority than the main views.

 

Another would be the speedtree algorithm, it is quite possible that the sensors for the A-10C need to be optimized to take this new algorithm into account.

 

I sincerely hope this will become a priority in the near future, since in it current state and without the aforementionned optimisations, it is alas UNPLAYABLE for now. Even with the optimisations it is barely OK.

 

Furthermore, I would really like to use my 30% GPU overhead that I keep free for sensor usage. The base engine is incredibly fast and beautifull so cranking up the graphics would be even better!

 

I would like some people to test these optimisations on their end and let me know what you think about filing an official bug report?

[Drag80]

May be its time to upgrade from 16 GB to 32 GB. I am sure the stuttering problem is due to RAM.

[METEOP]

May be its time to upgrade from 16 GB to 32 GB. I am sure the stuttering problem is due to RAM.

 

I did check with others on the forums and is not related to ram, please refer to the thread. Prove otherwise and I will gladly change my analysis.