Poor performance

[Noutaja]

So I bought this from the summer sale and hopped into free flight. Everything seemed fine until I got lower to the ground where my fps dropped to about 20 and to 15 when the city came closer. I was using ~medium settings at the time. Next try I went with everything on minimum except my resolution (1920x1200) and things got a little better with the fps hovering around 20 in cities.

Now I've seen older videos of this game than what my computer is, I assembled this just last year:

Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.40GHz
8 GB DDR3 RAM
Radeon R9 280X
64-bit Windows 7

Is there something in the options I'm horribly overlooking or some tweak outside of the game I need to get? Surely it's not my computer as I can run any game at a solid 60 fps especially if I sacrifice eye candy.

[Beibin]

Postat inițial de Scholtz:

There is NOTHING wrong with [...] anything about DirectX 9.

Are you sure about that? If I remember correctly, use of the DirectX 9 API was significantly more taxing than the newer versions, to the point Valve games that were ported to OpenGL to run on Linux experienced arbitrary performance gains.

DirectX 11 could very well mean an instant performance increase just by virtue of being DirectX 11, especially if no new graphical features are introduced.

Requiring newer DirectX versions reduces the compatibility of DCS. I would be locked out of the simulator because my graphics card only supports DirectX 10.

Postat inițial de Scholtz:

The problem is in game engine. DCS World is still using same original Lock-On game engine from 2003.

Assuming that's true, why would that be a problem? Things would not magically become better if they rewrote the entire thing from scratch. Actually, that would be a monumental waste of time and money, and in fact has killed many software projects.

Just because it is old doesn't mean it hasn't been significantly improved. Falcon BMS 4.32 is based on 1998 software and is one the longest-running PC games, now a very capable simulator.

Postat inițial de Scholtz:

The engine is single threaded and use only CPU for everything. So no matter what display card or multi-core CPU you have, there is no difference because the game engine can't handle better hardware.

Single threaded game is rough to any computer and especially when graphics and all are run by CPU with very basic display card calculations for few effects.

You do realize that there are extensive costs associated with synchronization in most multithreaded solutions, right? Introducing multithreading in applications is an easy way to introduce hard-to-reproduce bugs while only gaining marginal performance improvements, if any.

Graphical operations are already highly-parallelized within the GPU; any discussion of multithreading most likely applies only to the flight simulation itself. I don't know how the simulation works or how well the model lends itself to parallelization. I prefer to think that if it was worth the effort, it would have been done already.

[BlackArt]

all i can say is wow... lol =D

[Tatsue]

Walls of texts going on, so I'll just adress a few minor things. :P First Nevada:

There were no "features required", really. What happened was that a 3rd party was doing a Nevada map and ED was up for it's inclusion. The 3rd party effort fell through for various reasons, and ED took over the project for use as a testbed for EDGE. And of course, as a testbed for EDGE, however "finished" it may be, it does require the new IG to be released before it itself can be meaningfully released.

I'd also remind you that this isn't the first time. You know that "Lock On" thing? DX8. Not 9. And you also state it as if no progress has been made; that is a patently false insinuation. If nothing else, we've seen the introduction of completely new mission logic system, completely new ways of doing flight models, a DX stepup, tech for radio LOS calculation, interactive cockpits (does not happen through simply importing a new pit model into LO code), avionics modeling platforms etcetera.

Yes, there are places where old parts of the codebase is holding things back. But as you might have noticed, they are being replaced.

Another correction would be: DCS World is not from 2008. That's Black Shark 1 you are talking about - generationally the same codebase as FC2 uses. DCS World was released late 12/early 13ish (I fail to recall exactly). DCS World was based on a "generation" of the TFCSE that is in common with A-10C.

Regarding multithreading: the huge issue is data dependencies going rampant. Essentially you have to completely replace whole chunks for it to be practical at all - note for example the sound engine which got it's own thread already. Yes, it's "funny" that that one was separated first when there are worse performance worries - but it was completed first, so obviously you all got it when it was done. Not sure people would have been happy if ED would have just sat on the new sound engine with all it's mach cone juiciness and extra-threaded awesome... :P

The big "bandit" always was the simulation engine itself, and that one is very hard to rip apart from itself due to said dependencies. So the route to take is the same as, for example, Rise of Flight took: simulation engine in one thread, AI another, graphics another, sound another. But you need "completed" components for each of those to get that done (just ripping it out into a new thread is a major nono, you can theoretically do that but you're just asking for a mountain of trouble...)

Oh, and things haven't really been "delayed" (not more than things ALWAYS are delayed in game development. :P ), things have always been in development. It's not like development of EDGE _started_ when the first public mention of it occured, same as development of aircraft modules have typically been ongoing for quite a while already when they are publically announced.

Corollarry to that last: there just might be more things going on, but that have not yet been publically discussed. The devs are working hard, have some faith. :)

EDIT: Oh, and I forgot: those P4's weren't Dualcores. (Yes, there were later Pentium-branded stuff that was, but those weren't marketed across the 4GHz rated clock speed. My point was that EVEN IF DCS World was single-threaded (it isn't), it would still run a LOT better on a singular core of today than one of yesteryear. Multithreading isn't the only development that has happened, there have also been serious improvements in how said cores do stuff - and things being parallellized inside of them as well with increased number of ALU's per core etcetera.)

[Kurai Shidosha]

Performance is pretty awful for me and I have a GTX 780 and an Intel Core i7 3770k overclocked to 4.2Ghz. My GPU is pretty much capped with 100% usage at like 60 frames per second. I am not even maxing the settings out, low to medium across the board.

[Chameleon_Silk]

I'm running near max settings with 1920x1080 on a 4.6ghz i5 2500k and a r9 270x, tree shadows and TSAA off but ground clutter, tree distance and preload all the way up and 4x MSAA.

about 30 - 70 fps depending on whats going on, also keep in mind its highly dependant on the mission file and what the designer has going on... I use units dynamically and spawn them in only when needed and thus the overhead on my mission is very low and it runs like a dream -- compare that to a mission designer who fills the map with units that are fighting each other and its gonna run A LOT slower

I'm not saying that DCS runs fast its always chugged a bit on my system but with 1.2.8 + 14.6 amd drivers + my mission file, its been running like a dream.

[Tatsue]

Postat inițial de Scholtz:

You must have misread, I said 2003.... Lock-On is from 2003

Here is your statement: "And while DCSWorld is a young one (2008) it is still old (Lock-On 2003)."

[Chameleon_Silk]

no need to attack Tatsue or fearlessfrog.... its like shooting the messenger nothing they do could suddenly make the testing or development go any faster.

software development takes time to do things right and not every programmer is equal in talent or skill and no one has a crystal ball here to foretell unforseen issues looming off in the distance.

I'm not all that convinced just changing to DX11 is gonna be a performance boost, I think its more about PP effects and other bullet points that DX11 will then allow and support for modern graphics cards but if they are updating the IG then it would ridiculous to keep it DX9.

and if you think about that for a sec, PP = Postprocess... no matter how much gain there is from the API change anything post comes after the fact (always slows things down more)

I know DX10 was slower then DX9 even with equal settings and a real dog when you added some of those DX10 effects to it, consider DX10 windows ME or windows vista the stepping stone before they figured out how to do it right.

[Tatsue]

Postat inițial de Scholtz:

Yes, DCSWorld is from 2008. Black Shark was the first DCS module, what later got upgraded to DCSWorld when they got their networking work as they blanned for DCS.

Lock-On is from 2003.

That they renamed the DCS to DCS World isn't different product itself, only a upgrade what joins all modules together.

WE did not "rename" DCS to "DCS World".

WE ported DCS A-10C and DCS Black Shark 2 (note the 2) to the DCS World platform when the DCS World platform was completed. Both DCS A-10C and DCS Black Shark 2 were both completed products before then. Note "Black Shark 2", not "1".

The first module to exist without having been ported into DCS World was DCS P-51D, which was released in a public beta form along with the public beta of DCS World.

What you are confusing this with is that we did mention the modularity plan around the BS1 release - that was always the plan to make that happen. DCS World is indeed not some hack that happened on a whim, it is a project to transform the codebase into a modular one that was planned for a long while, but unfortunately took a lot longer than originally anticipated to realize. (Because, you know, this is software development...)

[Tatsue]

Postat inițial de GoaT:

i do have a question if i get another gtx 780 and run sli will this improve fps still or just multiscreen

Impossible to say without more information about your system otherwise.

[Chameleon_Silk]

minimum recommended PSU for GTX 780 is 600w, so i would say running 2 with a 750w might pose a problem.

[P*Funk [ESG]]

This is stupid. Everyone knows the DCS engine is just the same old lock on engine ported forward. There are multiple assets still in the game from the Lock On days and you can tell, they're the ugly ones that cause insane slow downs when you have them in the scene. There was actually investigation on the forums where someone figured out that something to do with how the LODs were ported from the older iteration of the engine created massive slow downs and that that was one of the chief reasons that the game was so slow near cities, because several of the older objects were basically sloppily ported creating significantly more rendered objects in the scene than there should have been.

There's no doubt that the biggest performance problem with DCS is the way the engine is coded. There are plenty of DX9 games that run way better than DCS. The DX11 update will not only port things to DX11 but also include a lot of coding fixes no doubt that they've not bothered making in the current iteration because ED is very stingy on its manpower I imagine.

DCS World is a bit of a mess, and anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves, or part of the main boards propaganda machine.

[=AiR FORCE=]

I'm running DCS with all modules on 5 year old AMD Phenom II X4 system with GeForce GTX 285 that never drops below 25fps (TGP or Shkval TV on) and mostly at 60 on 120hz 1920x1080 monitor.

While GAMES just use rag-doll physics and simplified accelerated PhysX engine,
DCS is NOT a GAME, it's a SIMULATOR.

There's a lot of realistic calculation being performed in real time.
Things that you do not even see, like actual simulation of hydraulics, air flow and a multitude of realistic forces.
In games, it's mostly just graphics.

Try running FSX on anything close to full graphics details, over towns and cities..
DCS, just like FSX, has been in development for 20+ years..
These games that come out every year are just that, games with shiny graphics.

I fly DCS daily and been flying since before LockOn. With great success!
There's absolutely no way I would be spending this much time flying if it was in any way irritating or slow on performance in order for me to focus on mine as a virtual pilot.

Getting an SSD helped a lot, it should be a recommended requirement.
Also, even there's still a debate on it, disabling your on-board sound chip and using an add-in Sound Card like Sound Blaster or from ASUS, does, in fact, improve the average fps as well as get rid of stuttering.
Everyone talks about Sound Quality, when the number of simultaneous sounds is very important, especially when you fire 100rnds/sec, each making a sound..
The On-board Realtek and other chips are not good enough for that.
Getting an Add-In Sound Card is almost as important as a GFX Card.

Yes, there are old models that after conversion had an increased poly count, and they have been work on here and there.

And EDGE is coming for FREE, so stop complaining, seriously.
Your opinion is quite subjective. How much $ have you invested in DCS or any simulation, have you ever purchased FSX or X-Plane?
Sounds like you just don't like flying for real, there's always War Thunder for you!

[P*Funk [ESG]]

Stop complaining? Your'e one of those people aren't you.

This is simply a discussion identifying the reality of the issues with the engine. Some people don't enjoy such a clean experience as you do. Some people have very inconsistent performance that changes dramatically with one patch, both positively or negatively.

The previous discussion of how those models with high object, not poly, object counts (important distinction) showed through testing that its that which is a major contributor to sharp FPS drops and not the internal systems. This was shown by putting dozens of good models then dozens of bad models on the edge of the map where thats the only thing being rendered. The bad models would dump the frame rate excessively while the good models wouldn't. The notion that calculations cause the frame rate to also drop isn't true either because the same test was done with a radar unit multiplied several dozen times and that had no appreciable effect on the FPS.

Now, why does flying near a city dump your frame rates? For the same reason, lots of crappy models. Don't tell me I should be grateful they're doing the EDGE update for FREE. You might as well be telling me to be grateful someone is patching their buggy game to run like its supposed to, which is what they're doing. You buy a DCS module produced this year and you want me to be grateful they're patching it to run on modern hardware properly? Thats not free, thats called fulfilling basic expectations of the product you're selling. They're patching it for the simple reason that if they didn't update the graphics engine people would grow tired of its age and within a few years it would be altogether obsolete.


"Sounds like you just don't like flying for real, there's always War Thunder for you!"
See you reveal yourself to be one of THOSE people by making this kind of absurd statement. You assume I'm not a real simmer because I don't agree with you or others who just want to laud DCS for being the miracle that is supposedly is (it isn't, there are many ways we could say this, but no simulator has ever been without its issues nor without its unique benefits). You don't have any idea how I fly DCS, how I play, who I am, how long I"ve been doing it, whether I've been simming for decades or 15 minutes.

How much money do I need to spend before a basic fact about the nature of the engine's limitations is true? To your subjective tongue in cheek faction of apologists I assume it must be the entire catalog or else I'm not a true believer or some such.

Of course what any of this has to do with being honest about the true issues with the DCS engine is beyond me. Guess you're just one of THOSE people.

[=AiR FORCE=]

Sounds like you are having some personal issues.
ED will not fix your computer, or attitude..

[Chameleon_Silk]

and some people cant even do something as simple as port forward and from my experience helping people with DCS its usually user error. no offense.

its a free to play game that has extra modules we should be happy they constantly work on the engine instead of releasing DCS world 2,3,4,5... or wose yet just stop working on it period.