fps drop after update to DCS 2.7

[B4ron]

12 hours ago, Flappie said:

 

Please open a new thread describing your performance issue (I've read you get -30% FPS but not everybody has seen your previous posts) and attach to it:

• your dcs.log file  ( C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS...\Logs\dcs.log )
• your dxdiag log (howto)
• your process list (howto)

 

As requested here is the new thread with my performance issues:

- after update to DCS 2.7 I recognise a fps drop of >30% compared to DCS 2.5.6

- complete clean reinstall done, game is at initial setup, no mods enabled, graphics are set at the same values as in 2.5.6

- several measures have been tried with no success: update GPU driver, Update Windows 10, update Direct X, disable clouds, ...

 

Attached you can find the requested files + the last crash log (since DCS 2.7 is regularly crashing).

If you need more information please let me know. Thank you.

dcs.log dcs.log-20210524-120210.zip DxDiag.txt process_list.txt

Edited June 14, 2021 by B4ron

[wowbagger]

Thanks for posting this.

 

I think your crash log is from before the update which removed many of the crashes. There's a decent chance it's unrelated to the performance decrease issue.

[B4ron]

The crash definitely happened after update to 2.7!

I completely uninstalled OB on April 29th, renamed DCS stable folder (in order to prevent files being copied from there) and fresh installed OB 2.7. The crash happened on May 24th.

Edited June 14, 2021 by B4ron

[wowbagger]

Yes, you are right. But there was a subsequent update which fixed the cause of many crashes people experienced after updating to 2.7. After a cursory look at your log, it seems likely that the cause of this crash would have been addressed by that update. Have you had any crashes since the most recent update? If so, please post those logs - they might give better clues as to what is going on.

[B4ron]

No I haven't. But I only opened OB once after each update just to see if the performance improved.

[Flappie]

OK, let's forget about crashes and concentrate on performance.

 

Your PC has 8 GB of RAM and DCS seems to be given a small 6 GB pagefile (this may change during your game sessions, since you don't get memory error messages).

 

2021-06-14 18:49:49.835 INFO    DCS: CPU cores: 2, threads: 4, System RAM: 8052 MB, Pagefile: 6144 MB

 

Your DCS is installed on an SSD, which is a good thing. I see you're running DCS on a native resolution of 1600x900 px.

You get this error message before each mission:

 

DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER: ChangeDisplaySettings failed! Result is -1

 

And your GPU graphics driver is 6 years old!

 

ATI Driver Version 15.201.1151.1008-151104a-296217E

 

I see 2 possible ways to improve performance:

 

 

1. Check where your pagefile is stored (HDD or SSD?)

Your pagefile should definitely be stored on your SSD. Please run a cmd Window (press Win key, type "cmd" and hit Enter), and run this command to know more about your Windows pagefile:

wmic pagefile list /format:list

Please copy-paste the result. What we're after is the path of your pagefile. If it's stored on your C:\ drive, chances are your performance issues can be solved by moving it to your D:\.

 

2. Update your GPU driver:

Your pagefile is stored on your D:\ driver, and you keep having performance issues? Try this.

1. Uninstall your current AMD GPU driver using DDU
2. Install this recent WHQL AMD GPU driver
3. Reboot
4. See if DCS performance improves

Edited June 14, 2021 by Flappie

[B4ron]

Thank you for your answer. Ok, lets go through it:

 

DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER: ChangeDisplaySettings failed! Result is -1

This error message is not present in DCS stable 2.5.6 log (see log file attached)!

Do you think this might be the problem? 1600x900 is the native resolution of my display.

 

1. The pagefile is already located to D:\. I already did this when building the SSD in. The actual installation is:

  D:\ (SSD) = DCS stable, DCS openbeta, Saved Games folder, pagefile, OpenTrack

  C:\ (HDD) = OS Windows 10, rest of the programs

 

wmic pagefile list /format:list

AllocatedBaseSize=6144
CurrentUsage=36
Description=D:\pagefile.sys
InstallDate=20210614203138.160075+120
Name=D:\pagefile.sys
PeakUsage=3136
Status=
TempPageFile=FALSE

 

2. The GPU drivers for my graphics card are not supported by AMD anymore. The installed 6-year old version is the most actual one.

   I already did exactly this. I completely removed the GPU driver and installed the latest version 15.7.1 WHQL from the AMD page (date 29.07.2015).

   Windows 10 did another update later on the driver which is the actually installed one:

   "Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. driver update for AMD Mobility Radeon HD 5000 Series / Erfolgreich installiert am ‎05.‎05.‎2021" (from Windows Update history)

   Non of the driver versions brought a performance increase.

   The driver supports DX11 and works fine with DCS stable 2.5.6. Or have you changed something on the graphics engine from 2.5.6 to 2.7 that the driver does not support anymore?

   However if you find it useful to reinstall the driver again, I can do that.

 

3. I think the problem is GPU related, since the GPU utilisation is usually at 99% when running DCS (in fullscreen mode). Usually the 1GB VRAM of my graphics card is the bottleneck of the system. Have you changed anything from 2.5.6 to 2.7 that generates more traffic between GPU und VRAM? If so this might be the problem, since more overflow VRAM is allocated to RAM and further to the pagefile which might cause the performance drop? May a reduction of "preload radius" then be a sollution in order to lower RAM usage?

dcs.log

[Flappie]

I didn't change anything, and I have no idea what was changed between EDGE 2.5 and EDGE 2.7 either., because I'm a customer like you, not an ED employee.

I see your SSD has a lot of free space (136.5 GB) for your pagefile to feel comfortable.

 

Please try this:

1. Right click DCS.exe > Properties > Compatibility
2. Ensure "Windows compatibility mode" is disabled
3. Ensure "Run as Administrator" is disabled

I see in your process list that both opentrack.exe and trackir.exe are executed. Is it normal? Aren't these two programs competing in DCS? I may ask a stupid question: I've never used anything else than my TrackIR.

[B4ron]

I disable both compatibility settings and tried, unfortunately no performance increase. I also reduced preload radius from 55000 to 40000, also no noticeable effect.

I'm only running opentrack. Afaik opentrack can use either trackir and freetrack as communication protocol since it has no own. I chose trackir as protocol, that's why opentrack is running trackir.exe in addition to opentrack.exe. Anyway I closed trackir.exe - also no effect on performance.

 

May it be possible that 1600x900 as native resolution is not supported by 2.7 and therefore will be calculated down from a higher resolution? If assumed that its calculated down from 1920x1080 this would pretty exactly match up with the performance loss.

Edited June 15, 2021 by B4ron

[Flappie]

No. If you get "1600x900" in the DCS graphics options, it should work out of the box.

 

Please try these ingame:

• VSync OFF
• Fullscreen OFF

[B4ron]

VSync OFF = no change in performance

Fullscreen OFF = even worse performance, since GPU utilization drops from 99% to 85%

[B4ron]

1 hour ago, Flappie said:

No. If you get "1600x900" in the DCS graphics options, it should work out of the box.

 

Please try these ingame:

• VSync OFF
• Fullscreen OFF

 

Really sure? I tested 1280x768 in graphics settings (the 2nd options DCS offers). I expected a performance gain.

- DCS 2.7 = same performance as with 1600x900

- DCS 2.5.6 = about 30% higher fps as with 1600x900

[Flappie]

Ok, the opposite result would have surprised me as well,but I thought it was worth a try.

 

Let's try something else. Set your page file size as follows:

 

Initial size: 16 GB

Max size: 32 GB

 

[B4ron]

No, no change in performance noticeable.

[Flappie]

Have you already tried to use a brand new "Saved Games\DCS.openbeta" folder?

 

Just rename "C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS.openbeta" into "DCS.openbeta_backup" (do NOT remove this folder - it contains your custom controls) then start DCS. Set ingame resolution to "1600x900" and see if there's any improvement.

[B4ron]

I also tried that before with no success. I tried again now, also no improvement.

Edited June 15, 2021 by B4ron

[lt_d4n]

It is evident that there is a decrease in performance and poor optimization since 2.7, with high and low computers.  stutter, blurry vision and fps drop.  It only remains to wait for new updates

 

[Flappie]

Can you please attach screenshots of your AMD graphics settings used for DCS?

[B4ron]

These are the settings I generally use (not game specific). Hope its ok in german:

[Flappie]

I don't read German, but that's OK. Have you create a profile for DCS? If so try leaving everything to it ("application controlled").

[B4ron]

It's basically already set this way except of anisotropic filtering. Anyway I created a profile and set AF to "application controlled (Anwendungseinstellungen verwenden)" - no improvement:

 

[Flappie]

Hmm OK, I don't have any more ideas at the moment.

 

Maybe this "DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER: ChangeDisplaySettings failed! Result is -1" error is the source of your issue, but I know nothing about it.

[B4ron]

18 hours ago, B4ron said:

 

Really sure? I tested 1280x768 in graphics settings (the 2nd options DCS offers). I expected a performance gain.

- DCS 2.7 = same performance as with 1600x900

- DCS 2.5.6 = about 30% higher fps as with 1600x900

 

"DXGUI_WIN_ADAPTER: ChangeDisplaySettings failed! Result is -1" is the most probable source of the issue also in my mind.

 

IMO there must be some kind of bug in 2.7 that does not effect everyone. I would still bet my money on some kind of resolution related problem... 

[Flappie]

Can you please attach your custom Export.lua  file, if you have one? It should be in there: "C:\Users\username\Saved Games\DCS...\Scripts\" but it's not a big deal if you can't find it, since it's not mandatory.

[B4ron]

Yes, here you are.

Export.lua

 

Btw, the error Code dxgui_win_adapter... wasn't present anymore in the last log files.

Edited June 18, 2021 by B4ron