CPU usage 100% = bottleneck?

[Bizman]

Environment mapping is the most effective frame rate killer.

[atlau]

What exactly does environment mapping do? I see no difference visually when i change that setting

[Bizman]

For what I've understood it mirrors the surrounding of shiny objects like a bright aluminium P51. The higher the value the more real time effect you get.

As you say, the difference may be hard to see since you rarely just stare at a mirror shiny plane closely enough to see any details. In flight you mostly see it in the cockpit gauge glasses and windows, a lower value mirroring the grass beside the runway at the very worst. That negative feature has maybe been fixed since I don't remember having seen it in a long time.

[DaddyAce]

I just tried adjusting up EM while climbing out in a jug with a shiny skin.  The effect was pretty striking on the canopy and the wings, and I realized it was something I liked when I was using a monitor (pre-VR), and I like the effect.   The lower settings were not nearly as satisfying as having it maxed out;  I think my preference would be all or none.  The only trouble, as you pointed out Bizman, was my framerates dropped to slow enough to be distracting.    Now I've got thoughts of upgrading my GPU, and am thinking hard about a 1070 or 10670 ti...........

[Bizman]

DaddyAce, as EM is the most demanding single adjustment in the game (in any game) you'd need the best video card you can afford. At one point Skuzzy said that no video card on the market could use it on full without a punishment but that was before the 10## series. However, if you're planning to get a better monitor i.e. 144 Hz or 1440p or both in the near future, even the 1070Ti might be too weak for full EM.

[DaddyAce]

DaddyAce, as EM is the most demanding single adjustment in the game (in any game) you'd need the best video card you can afford. At one point Skuzzy said that no video card on the market could use it on full without a punishment but that was before the 10## series. However, if you're planning to get a better monitor i.e. 144 Hz or 1440p or both in the near future, even the 1070Ti might be too weak for full EM.

Yes, you're now the third person to suggest the 1080 in the last half-day.  The prices seem really high right now.....maybe missed all the recent sales already.  Although a quick look it seems like a RTX 2070 may be a better deal....will likely do some more research, and likely waiting before I jump in to upgrade my GPU....but I think I have the bug now.   Thank you for the input Bizman.   

[atlau]

Wait for the next ebay 10% sale and 2070s will be about 450. Still not cheap. But maybe more reasonable

[DaddyAce]

....caught a eBay 15% off sale today, and sprung for a used    Gigabyte AORUS GeForce GTX 1080 for $340.   Hopefully it'll last a while......     

[atlau]

So anyway back on target...

Sometimes my framerate drops but when I check my GPU usage, CPU(including individual cores), or RAM usage none of them are maxed out. Trying to figure out the culprit and if it's something I need to upgrade.

[DaddyAce]

So anyway back on target...

Sometimes my framerate drops but when I check my GPU usage, CPU(including individual cores), or RAM usage none of them are maxed out. Trying to figure out the culprit and if it's something I need to upgrade.

Sorry atlau, no good ideas.  Hopefully some of the much more knowledgeable guys can help.

[Skuzzy]

There are, literally, hundreds of reasons why frame rates will fluctuate.  Load measurements are not effective in catching most of them as resource related issues can happen even when the CPU/GPU are at 10% load.

Measuring resource usage is almost impossible without some profiling tools and a version of the executable built to support them.  Even then it is difficult without those same debugging aids being built into the video card driver, audio device driver, network interface driver, and input device driver.

All those devices are constantly grabbing and releasing resources.

[Shuffler]

My frame rates stay very steady. I use a system that takes a given rate over a given time and averages it all almost instantaneously. It works on all machines.

 I call it "Frozen Margaritas"

[68falcon]

 

[atlau]

There are, literally, hundreds of reasons why frame rates will fluctuate.  Load measurements are not effective in catching most of them as resource related issues can happen even when the CPU/GPU are at 10% load.

Measuring resource usage is almost impossible without some profiling tools and a version of the executable built to support them.  Even then it is difficult without those same debugging aids being built into the video card driver, audio device driver, network interface driver, and input device driver.

All those devices are constantly grabbing and releasing resources.

Dang Skuzzy! I wish there was an EZ button! Its mostly frustrating because those darn clouds will cut it form 90 to 45 hz and it feels choppy when it does so!

[Brooke]

Your setup is probably totally fine for Aces High (assuming your screen isn't 4k, or you aren't running 2 monitors or VR -- and assuming you've got a graphics card that costs about $140).

What's your graphics card and what's your monitor resolution?

I run AH on a Pentium g4400 and a GTX 1050 graphics card on a 1080p monitor and get 60 fps (including in heavy clouds) as long as I turn off reflections and shadows and set environment slider to none.  It's a $275 computer system plus a $140 graphics card.

Look at CPU usage without AH running and make sure CPU usage is usually 0-1% with only some blips higher.  If not, you've got some program running that is hogging some CPU that you should hunt down and turn off.

Then try turning off reflections, shadows, and setting environment slider to "none".  If you still don't get a steady 60 fps, you can also try setting (from the starting AH screen) video settings, max texture size to 2048 or even 1024.