No Comments On The Update?

I won't be getting the update just yet, I bought my Spitfire on Steam and it seems they're having a problem updating the Steam version.
But doesn't anyone else, here have the Spit? They finally finished it, I guess. The bombs, drop tanks, and clipped wings are in now. Some guy already did a You-Tube video on it! These people don't waste any time.
There are other changes, too, of course.

I gave it a try, no change in my slideshow performance
nor got any update either.

It wasn't automatic for me. I started the sim when I saw the update, but it didn't happen. I had to go and start the updater and do it manually. My AI Spits in my DCS Stand Alone now can carry bombs. There's also a new clipped wing option.
Unfortunately, for me, still no update for the Steam version, so I'm waiting. Seems there always has to be some sort of issue, for some reason.

I don't get paid enough to be a "Beta Tester"
hence why I only have 1 version on this pc, the "still bawked but still managed to tick all the boxes and pass ED's QA" version

What system are you running it on? What settings?

I haven't noticed a performance decrease, it actually runs better now than when I had 2.0 and Nevada.

I seem to have porked patching to latest version as I do not have bombs as an option on my spit. Looking into it now. I want bombs on my spitfire

Bish, you have to add them yourself in the Mission Editor. They don't show up without doing that.

very high settings, the ones I used before in 2.0

I haven't noticed any improvement either, tried to run in a dozen times before lunchtime, same result

i7 4Ghz
32GB RAM 1333
1080/8GB
RAID 0 SSD 1TB

I'm not sure what your issue may be, but it might be hardware related. I have an i7, 16gb ram and a 1070 and run with settings maxed (2x anti-aliasing) and I stay well above 60FPS, even in large multiplayer missions.

In any case, if your system cannot handle the game, I don't think any update will help. Maybe lower settings?

the hardware is OK - it is a couple of years old but my PC handles all I have maxed out, I only tried it with the Mustang and today with the Spitfire, it runs poorly

my PC is optimized to run while I make skins, 10-15GB templates open in Photoshop simultaneously with P3D or Il-2 open in the background and a model viewer as well.

I used to tweak a lot but nowadays I run it without changing anything, P3D and Il-2 I max out and set FPS to 40-50 and off it goes, DCS should be the same, I know it is annoying to read me posting it runs badly, that is the way it is running, does not freeze, ctd, it runs slow, I can exit at any time and go back. Maybe at some point it will run better.

Daaaaammn , Tom! You can't run it on THAT thing? There is definately something wrong, buddy. Too many background programs running? I use enditall and make sure they're all off before I start any gaming. CCleaner, too, to clear out errors. It doesn't make sense that I'm running this, and you're not. Even if I am turning spome stuff down.
Okay, I just read your post before entering, so I see that it's not anything that I mentioned.
That makes no sense to me. That's a nice machine. You should be having more fun with this than I am! I just nailed two 109's and was so damned proud of myself. My AI wingman abandoned me. I came back, landed like a champ...and then effed it all up by running into a Jeep!
I am thoroughly impressed with the Spitfire.

To be fair, unless you download faster RAM or a better CPU, no DCS update is going to make it run better if you don't have the horsepower. I'm guessing its an older i7? Mine is a few years old (skylake) and it destroys DCS.

Oh yeah, almost forgot the best part. I hate DCS its terrible.

why should I hate DCS ? did you ever see me posting anything malicious about DCS ?

the problem is not background apps or anything of the sort,

I have a new i7-4790K 4Ghz, the RAM could be faster (1333) but I can't spend US$300 on 32 GB right now to get a new set

I ran and flew P3Dv4 to test a 10GB Photoshop template, still open, with 6 GB RAM free over Utah terrain at 40 FPS



if you guys browse Lockonfiles you can see that I run my flight sims at high settings, that is why I have the PC I have.

the problem with DCS I don't know what it is, when 2.5 came out it froze while loading, now it runs as a slideshow, I am being very patient and I hope that eventually the developer will optimize it to run smoothly.

I got it figured out. User error on my part

I didn't say you hated DCS, I said I do. The game is trash.

Not that its any business of mine, but it appears something is either wrong with your installed files or the hardware. If you were interested in playing the game, I'd recommend deleting mods and repairing etc., but it doesn't seem that you are. If you just want to check skins and take screenshots, slideshow FPS should be fine anyway. Or just use a model viewer?

I don't hate - and I don't think it is trash either, if it were trash, I would not have it installed.

I only make skins I can fly - so no flying, no skins...

I guess if I re-installed Win10 clean and re-installed DCS then, it could run OK
but I can't do that - since I have this Win10 install now for a couple of years and everything else works fine, probably something somewhere in an old DCS install is preventing it form working, could be in the registry also.

It seems it would benefit me if you could fly this sim Tom.

I'd like to have access to your skins for my screenshot 'selfies'

What resolution you have?

1920x1600

Weird that DCS doesn't run with that machine, it should. There must be some other issue with your machine. Your specs are more than needed for smooth gameplay. I'm running it fine, some dips to 30fps when lots of static planes, normally some 50+ fps which is fine with me (after leaving airfield, low level) and if I go high 70-90 or something like that. I suggest you re-check your machine, uninstall GFX drivers, re-install, check that your OS has motherboard drivers, go to device manager and see if there's some exclamation marks. There's something to do for you for now

Forgot to add that you should also delete the DCS folder in your 'Saved Games' - that's actually the first thing to do, then try running the game.

Specs:
Ryzen 7 1700 @ 3.8GHz
32GB RAM @ 3GHz
GTX 1060 6GB @ stock or OC 2.1/8.7GHz
SSDs for Windows and DCS

Zettings





P.S. Let's all visit Tom at night when he's sleeping and fix the damn machine, who's with me? We want aircraft skins...

If Tom has existing apps open its probably more a case of the piss poor memory management by DCS. We all know it uses far more than it really should and doesn't off-load memory blocks when it should be hence the artificially high usage and increase in minimum spec by ED as a lazy workaround.

If DCS is using a page file as a swap disc that may explain the pausing and stuttering. Out of interest Tom, have you tried running DCS on its own or after a reboot to compare performance?

I deleted everything when I re-installed, I tried multiple different ways to run DCS

I have DCS on a RAID 0 drive and the OS in another RAID 0 - the swap file is OS manged

I have Photoshop editing a 6 GB template and DCS open with a Spitfire,



plenty of free resources, the GPU is maxed out

Have you tried DCS without Photoshop running at all?

Why on earth are you playing with the Spitfire Tom?.......there are cows to skin!

I like the cows



sure did, I just left it open to show that even with that it has a lot of headroom, for the fun of it, I tried it with P3D loaded in the background as well, still plenty of resources left, the result is the same, clean load, move the view and tec-tec-tec like a slideshow.

Can you show/tell your DCS settings?

Tom,

Might be worth checking the affinity through task manager and making sure that DCS is using all the cores. In the past I have seen it only use one core when it can use two (maybe 3). This has created a slide show for me in the past. Either way...hope this helps some.

Kind Regards,

Brett

the CPU, RAM are OK, the GPU and disk access are close to 100%, looks like DCS is loading a lot of stuff so when I move the view, it can't keep up and starts to slow down.

the preload radius should help - but it does not, the mission loads quite fast, a few seconds.

First get rid of 'Depth Of Field' that's the biggest FPS hog and try Preload Radius 100000, res of cockpit displays to 1024 or 512 and no every frame unless you really need it. Shadows high reduce FPS, so does heatblur but I don't think it matters much with that GFX card.
I think you can leave Aero on, it shouldn't matter that much. Civ traffic to med or off, unless you want to admire the block cars (although that shouldn't make much difference either way). Cockpit Global Illumination is good have on and if you wish to stay parking a long time you may wanna admire raindroplets.

First things first disable Bokeh and see how it goes.

I tried it - it loads as fast with 100k or 150k, cockpit display did not do much either - it gets a bit smoother with less eye candy .

I am no expert but it seems like a lot of stuff keeps loading after the flight starts, it loads very quickly ( I haven't timed it but less than 30s ) the Spitfire is ready to fly and it is still loading and loading and loading, so when I try to move it starts to stutter.

When I run P3Dv4 first time, it takes forever for the flight to load, several minutes - but then it is silk smooth and when I load any scenery afterwards, it is all cached and it loads fast.

One thing that I do that may be helping , is to go into the task manager to change the games priority to high. And I have depth of field turned off. What does that even do?

Preload radius; I think you can put it back to 150k, DCS should load more terrain into memory then and when you have 8GB, I think it's ok. I just wanted to see if makes any difference and now there's one less to be concerned about - Cockpit; If you changed to 512 and fell it's worse eyecandy-wise put it back 1024 - The every frame reduces FPS, so try without it first and if it's good, leave it to that.


After getting to cockpit, it continues to load stuff, but it shouldn't affect that much. "...but then it is silk smooth and when I load any scenery afterwards, it is all cached and it loads fast." Next time getting into cockpit, press F2 and rotate the view all around, zoom with mouse wheel back and forward as much as you can, turn in every direction - now it should load much stuff (or try.. it's DCS). It should get smoother every second you do that (it's loading the surrounding area). It should do that only once and when it's done it should be smooth. There is a major problem atm (which has also been fixed many times) with DCS and its static objects; If you have lot of them surrounding you or nearby area it starts to stutter much and basically dropping frames (different than lowering FPS; worse than that). So when you try that rotating thing, don't put any other objects there to not to bring that problem into this.

One more thing, have you used any terrain mods from which you could have any leftovers in DCS folder?

2nd thing...Oh and the Device Manager thingy, check that there isn't any '!' marks and remove any custom settings from NVIDIA control panel (especially if there's antialiasing settings).

3rd.... your game is set to full screen, you can press left LALT+ENTER and see if it makes any difference, I doubt it - but you can try - it supposedly switches from DCS's full screen to true full screen, although DCS's full screen option should be true full screen already. In some games it makes big difference whether you're in borderless full screen or true full screen.

I have a clean install - nothing but Spitfire skins and a few Mustangs I updated

I tried it all - nothing
but I tried to do this again



while enabled some options
with no MSAA I got this and 24 FPS


I enabled MSAA x2


and that shadow vanished, FPS is about 40 - but there is a flicker now, enough to give me a headache.

With that setting SSAA on you are now doubling the rendering resolution, which umm yea you guessed it reduces FPS... a lot. Don't use it unless you really, really need it. About the flickering, not exactly know what you mean.. hmm..

means that although I am getting 40 fps it is skipping frames, very tiresome to watch.

Turn off: SSAA, Motion Blur, Lens Effects

Set Resolution of Cockpit Displays to "1024" instead of "1024 Every Frame"

Turn Clutter/Grass to something more sensible, definitely below 500.

Set Terrain Object Shadows to "Flat". Set Cockpit Global Illumination to "Off".

Also do the shader recompilation dance.

With all that you should get much better performance at almost equal visual quality.

will give it a try later tonight , thanks.

"and remove any custom settings from NVIDIA control panel (especially if there's antialiasing settings)."

You mean, run all graphics settings throught the game, and not through the NVidea control panel? I have MSAA turned off in the game and I've got my NVidea settiing on 2x.

Oh hell, yeah. MSAA on 2. I thought there was supposed to be a performance hit with that. None at all that I can tell. And AF on 16x. Very nice.

before anything else , thank you guys for your help, I do appreciate it



it is x2 and AF is x8, I'll try later x16



I also disabled all VR settings and force feedback - in the NVIDIA panel it is all now application controlled

this is paused , to get some info



I left preload at 150, it loads very fast the mission, tens of seconds - with Cockpit Displays to "1024" the cockpit flickering is gone, and the outside view is smooth, no flickering either

I am getting a steady 40-45 FPS in and out of cockpit, which is what I get in P3Dv4 and a bit lower than in Il-2, the map is Crimea

I have no idea if 40-45 is good compared to other people's , I rather have less FPS and more eye candy

as I haven't flown since last November, but if this holds steady over cluttered areas I suppose it is more than enough for good gameplay

Yes, that's what I meant, my NVIDIA settings had no effect in game, and I've heard similar stories from many others. I think the in-game MSAA isn't that bad, afterall even I have it 4x with GTX 1060 and having decent FPS.
But of course you can try and check if it works for you, you're the best judge for that.

@Tom - Good to hear it's working now

Cockpit global illumination doesn't eat all that many fps, but makes pit lighting and shading much better. That's the last thing I would turn off, after all, cockpit is where we spend most of the flight time.

Based on a snippet of info on the previous page - Tom, do you plan to update your Mustang skins to make them compatible with 2.5.xx?

I will update them - I made a few already a couple of weeks ago

http://www.lockonfiles.com/files/file/3067-dcs-tf-51p-51d-dolly/
http://www.lockonfiles.com/files/file/3198-dcs-tf-51p-51d-nooky-booky-iv/
http://www.lockonfiles.com/files/file/3062-dcs-tf-51p-51d-raaf-sharkmouth/

Glad to hear that. Thanks!

Coo! Tom

Took a look at them in the sim. Glad to see my favourite PTO skins getting back into 2.5! Any plans, however, for re-introducing some weathering too? The overall grainy noise layer you seem to be adopting in all your work recently (perhaps overdoing it in my opinion, as in Il-2 skins) might be visually optimal for a somewhat worn out airframe, but then with not a single dirt stain anywhere on the plane whatsoever, it gives a bit of an "out of place" feeling .

the DCS template for the Mustang is not easy to work with, I have first to reorganize it and takes more work to do it than the others, so it will take some time to do it.

I updated the description.lua to add the DIF_RoughMet file

Tom, glad to see you got it running well and still have some eye candy.

"Glad to see my favourite PTO skins getting back into 2.5!"

Yeah, now all we need are some B-29's and some Japanese fighters! There used to be some but I guess, after 2.5, they don't work anymore.

the clipped wing Spitfire was going to be released, but I can't find it - is it available already ?

Should be in OB.

sorry, what is OB ?

Open Beta.

and what I have is the released for public consumption ?

I don't know what version you have. I have 2.5.2.19273. The version number can be seen in main game menu lower right corner.

it is 2.5.2 - that should then be the stable version

Global illumination "on" means only one light source -> less visual quality. In this case, "off" is the setting with the higher visual quality.

I turned it on, and immediately got some stuttering. I turned it back off. I don't see much of a difference, anyway. I've got this running too well, I'm leaving it alone.

"the clipped wing Spitfire was going to be released, but I can't find it - is it available already ?"


You're supposed to have this, now. Came out on the 4th of this month.

Are you sure about that? Not to mention you're contradicting yourself as far as your suggestions from 2 pages back are concerned...

I clearly remember the last time I experimented with that option (back in 2.0.5-2.1 times), turning it off caused half of shadows in cockpit going away, making the whole thing look like a pile of hogwash. Also:
a) it's off by default in "low" and "medium" gfx quality presets, while being on by default in "high" one;
b) turning it on drops framerate by 10-11.
Both would indicate "on" being considered higher quality option and "off" being performance one, unless ED mislabeled them .

That being said, toying with it in latest version a minute ago, in all warbirds, I was very surprised to notice that the visual difference between both is nowadays negligible at best indeed (Spitfire changes the cockpit colour from green to blue, but that's about it ), so I think I'll turn it off and gladly take that extra 10 fps back! Whoever is right, thanks for bringing it up .

They're all 2.5.2.somedigits. These "somedigits" make the actual difference. Not to mention both OB and release versions being exactly the same now. As Iceecl noted, if you're on 2.5.2.19273, you're good. Note, unlike in Il-2, the clipped Spit in DCS has to be selected as a separate aircraft in the editor.

"That being said, toying with it in latest version a minute ago, in all warbirds, I was very surprised to notice that the visual difference between both is nowadays negligible at best indeed (Spitfire changes the cockpit colour from green to blue, but that's about it wink ), so I think I'll turn it off and gladly take that extra 10 fps back! Whoever is right, thanks for bringing it up biggrin."

Yeah, I thought that didn't sound right, but tried it anyway. And the performance hit for me was enough to go from a nice, smooth running game, to suddenly getting stutters. I think it looks fine without it. Wouldn't mind having the green cockpit instead of the blueish one, but not enough to put up with that stuttering crap.

not yet, I am downloading an update now.

I had time only for a quick look - there are 2 versions, the new one has no skins to choose from, does this mean that they will release a new template or all I need to do is to create a folder for it and copy paste the old skins into it ?

To see the Spitfire skin options you have to check UK in the countries option box. If not, you'll just see the one.

Tom, it seems ED copied the stock skins from non-clipped Spit to clipped one, but nobody knows why, as these skins are NOT compatible with the new airplane. They either don't show up correctly at all, or seem to show up OK'ish when close, but get totally fudged as soon as lower LOD kicks in. I'm certain we'll need a separate template for CW Spit.

the description.lua is different

found it, thanks



and the description.lua is different, so all skins made for the other version will have to be edited, hopefully the template will be the same.

Uh, since we've ventured way off topic anyway, and there's no forum section for the Spit here, I'll continue with custom skins topic.

Tom, have You ever considered tweaking the colours on your natural metal finish Spit DCS template so that the aluminium part doesn't appear so blue? I admit the very first thing which struck me hard when I loaded the skins I was interested in (RAAF and KNIL ones) was how "in-your-face-blue" they look, especially compared to your reworked NM Mustang template, which represents much more natural looking aluminium finish. I've made some comparison screens, but the ones on page 5 are sufficient really. Your NM looks NM only when the camera is rotated so that the sun reflects off the surface and kills the colour, at all other angles the planes look as if they were painted somewhat faided PRU blue, no matter what time and weather conditions are set. On these screenies, the metal looks even more blue than your interpretation of Ocean Grey on camo'ed skins. The problem doesn't seem to be there on the equivalent versions of these skins You did for BoX and P3D.

that is because it was painted originally in light blue/grey for 2.0xx line I do for P3D, they don't have metallic reflections



while the P-51D has , I am going to work on making the Spitfire compatible with the clipped wing and see if I can add a metal surface to it, should not be difficult.

http://www.lockonfiles.com/forums/t...hread/?do=findComment&comment=317018

Got it, thanks for the update. Looking forward to trying out the tweaked versions!

Edit: they look much better now, though fuselage roundels on RAAF A58-303 shifted up, by mistake I presume? Almost to the top, at least on weathered version, 'cause that's the one I chose. Could you check it, please?

it is fixed