[RESOLVED]Huge performance drop in Normandy

[Dornil]

Since the last update some missions on Normandy map became virtually unplayable for me. E.g. Bf-109 quick aircombat mission (the one with 2 Spitfires). And it is not fps itself which is the problem, but rather constant swapping. I.e., I get heavy stutters when I pan around, zoom in, fire guns, approach another aircraft, etc. HDD indicator flashes madly at that time.

My terrain preload is at maximum, but it does not help at all. Did not have this prior to recent map update. Just had once in Jagdflieger, when approached B-17 formation in mission 2.

Help please!

 

System specs:

i5-3570K overclocked to 4.2 GHz

16gb RAM

GTX 1060 6gb

Win7 is on SSD, DCS on another SSD, pagefile is on HDD.

Edited December 20, 2019 by Dornil

[Mr_sukebe]

Sounds like your RAM is being maxed out.

Go check the system usage in Task Manager and see if you can close down other apps that might be using RAM. If that doesn't help, do reduce the pre-load, which IMO has a direct impact on RAM use.

[twistking]

if ram is indeed maxed out, you should decrease preload radius not increase it!!!

also why on earth would you want your pagefile on an HDD?

 

maxing out preload and having pagefile on an hdd at the same time, seems to me like a way to force stuttering and bad performance.

is there any particular reason for this setup?

[BIGNEWY]

Windows 10 is better at Memory management, but try using an SSD for your pagefile it will help.

 

What is your pagefile set at?

[Dornil]

Currently pagefile is set as "system default" and is at 16329MB.

I put it to HDD to save space and prolong life of SSD.

What I have now:

C: old SSD, 57.5 GB, 5 GB free - used for win7 only, no pagefile

D: HDD, 1.81TB, 962GB free, holds 16GB pagefile

F: SSD, 232GB, 50GB free - holds DCS and couple other sims, no pagefile.

 

Did I understand correctly, that now I should:

1) Decrease pre-load range.

2) Move pagefile from HDD to SSD.

Regarding the latter:

Should I remove pagefile from HDD (D), creating one at SSD (F)? Or leave it be as well?

What should be the size of pagefile on this SSD?

How exacly do I do it? I.e., what's the correct procedure?

[twistking]

Currently pagefile is set as "system default" and is at 16329MB.

I put it to HDD to save space and prolong life of SSD.

What I have now:

C: old SSD, 57.5 GB, 5 GB free - used for win7 only, no pagefile

D: HDD, 1.81TB, 962GB free, holds 16GB pagefile

F: SSD, 232GB, 50GB free - holds DCS and couple other sims, no pagefile.

 

Did I understand correctly, that now I should:

1) Decrease pre-load range.

2) Move pagefile from HDD to SSD.

Regarding the latter:

Should I remove pagefile from HDD (D), creating one at SSD (F)? Or leave it be as well?

What should be the size of pagefile on this SSD?

How exacly do I do it? I.e., what's the correct procedure?

 

for testing reduce preload to a low or medium setting before doing anything else.

also make sure you have not too much stuff running in the background (web-browser etc.).

another thing for testing would be to pause the game after you loaded into the mission, wait for 30 seconds, and then continue. see if this helps.

 

with all this you can test if the stuttering is indeed memory/pagefile/cache related. as others have mentioned - also check task-manager to see how much ram and vram is occupied by dcs.

 

of course the problem could also be something compeltely different, but first thing should be to check for said memory related problems, because this would be a good guess witht he issues you describe.

 

wait until you change the pagefile. in the long run, you should rethink your setup, because pagefile on HDD is a waste of perforamnce (pagefile really profits from ssd performance), but how you set it up, is up to you. tbh. i would try to squeeze it onto c drive (maybe you can delete some unused stuff to make it work on c) and leave it on default settings. all those tweaking of pagefile seems to be mostly placebo to me... just make sure, it's on a drive with fast random read/write performance (... a ssd).

Edited December 21, 2019 by twistking

[twistking]

for testing reduce preload to a low or medium setting before doing anything else.

also make sure you have not too much stuff running in the background (web-browser etc.).

another thing for testing would be to pause the game after you loaded into the mission, wait for 30 seconds, and then continue. see if this helps.

 

with all this you can test if the stuttering is indeed memory/pagefile/cache related. as others have mentioned - also check task-manager to see how much ram and vram is occupied by dcs.

 

of course the problem could also be something compeltely different, but first thing should be to check for said memory related problems, because this would be a good guess witht he issues you describe.

 

wait until you change the pagefile. in the long run, you should rethink your setup, because pagefile on HDD is a waste of perforamnce (pagefile really profits from ssd performance), but how you set it up, is up to you. tbh. i would try to squeeze it onto c drive (maybe you can delete some unused stuff to make it work on c) and leave it on default settings. all those tweaking of pagefile seems to be mostly placebo to me... just make sure, it's on a drive with fast random read/write performance.

 

 

oh. what you also should do, if dcs runs much worse after an update, is the usual steps.

-> repair/verify dcs installation

-> delete metashader fxo in user files (might be placebo, but takes only a second and is honestly reasonable after an update with new textures and rendering tech like updated normandy)

-> make sure GPU drivers are up to date

 

*edit* also since the map got updated, it is possible that the mission you are testing, got somewhat corrupted. best way to check for performance problem is the mission editor therefor. just put down a plane and press preview...

Edited December 21, 2019 by twistking

[Dornil]

Seems to be RAM shortage indeed.

Idle system RAM usage is about 1.25-1.5GB.

In light (freeflight) missions DCS consumes about 5-6GB

When DCS uses more than 9GB, I see stutters. Taskmanager shows 100% (15.9GB) of total RAM usage at that time. (9 + 1.5 < 15.9... wtf?)

 

What do I do next?

[twistking]

Seems to be RAM shortage indeed.

Idle system RAM usage is about 1.25-1.5GB.

In light (freeflight) missions DCS consumes about 5-6GB

When DCS uses more than 9GB, I see stutters. Taskmanager shows 100% (15.9GB) of total RAM usage at that time. (9 + 1.5 < 15.9... wtf?)

 

What do I do next?

 

 

first, find out where the missing 5 gigs of ram went! check other processes in taskmanager etc.

 

 

i'd see 2 ways of going forward.

-> optimize your pc setup and let dcs utilize all the ram

-> since it seems to be a memory bottleneck of some kind, it might indeed be helpful to put pagefile on an ssd. just point it to the drive and leave everything else on default/auto. i don't think that this will get rid of the stuttering completely, but it might help

-> lower dcs settings, so it needs less ram. dcs also needs ram for things that would normally go into vram. i think this is a dx9 limitation. not sure though. it means however, that f.e. lowering texture quality should reduce ram usage, not only vram usage

Edited December 21, 2019 by twistking

[twistking]

first, find out where the missing 5 gigs of ram went! check other processes in taskmanager etc.

 

 

i'd see 2 ways of going forward.

-> optimize your pc setup and let dcs utilize all the ram

-> since it seems to be a memory bottleneck of some kind, it might indeed be helpful to put pagefile on an ssd. just point it to the drive and leave everything else on default/auto. i don't think that this will get rid of the stuttering completely, but it might help

-> lower dcs settings, so it needs less ram. dcs also needs ram for things that would normally go into vram. i think this is a dx9 limitation. not sure though. it means however, that f.e. lowering texture quality should reduce ram usage, not only vram usage

 

i think this could be related to the problem i reported a while back.

i don't get stuttering, but reduced framerate. this might be, because on my system pagefile is on my ssd and after dcs runs out memory caching from and to pagefile is less of a bottleneck compared to your system.

 

https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4033533&postcount=28

Edited December 21, 2019 by twistking

[Richard Dastardly]

Preload radius affects ram usage a lot, I found - first step try reducing that. I've got a SSD from the first run of PC SSDs I've used as a cache drive for a HDD for many years & there's not a single fault on it yet, wouldn't worry too much about SSD life. Actually I've got a few tiny computers around with swap on a SD card & even they haven't worn the cards out after - in the case of one of them - 7 years.

 

Also, try disabling recording of tracks, might stop some stutters as it writes.

[Dornil]

Thank you very much for your advice! I moved the pagefile to the same SSD where DCS is, and it seems to have pretty much solved the problem.

[BIGNEWY]

Thank you very much for your advice! I moved the pagefile to the same SSD where DCS is, and it seems to have pretty much solved the problem.

 

Good to hear, enjoy!