Help, very weird fps drops in races.

[zzjorzz]

Can somebody help me with this?

When driving races in AC framerates drop from my normal (locked) 90 FPS to under 30.

I am not running vsync or freesync.

As you can see in the image my GPU is only running around 35% here while when driving solo or running benchmark it runs at 99% with unlocked framerate.

Nor is my CPU bottlenecking, all cores run at max 60%.

I do not have this in other sims.

PS: It might still have to do with AI, No difference between 6 or 30 opponents...Games runs smooth with 97% GPU usage....IF I am in pole position or starting last. When in the middle of the pack GPU usage drops a lot, as does the FPS. But the CPU does not get above 60% so thats not a bottleneck. Weird...weird....weird...

 

[Please Stop This]

"Does Content Manager use this .ini?"
AC uses it

You are using orignals cars?

 

[zzjorzz]

"Does Content Manager use this .ini?"
AC uses it

You are using orignals cars?

Yeah, tryd both with mods and with original kunos cars, as well as the benchmark mode

Edit: strangely all vallues shown by afterburner and the AC are exactly the same with both .ini values...

 

[RasmusP]

Ac can't use more than 3-4 cpu cores so with 6 cores you're stuck at about 60% overall cpu load. Like you see, sadly.
So the only things you can do:
- reduce the draw calls (bad mods have too many unoptimized things are using way too much cpu power)
- reduce shadows, reflections, world detail settings
- use as few hud apps as possible

- overclock your cpu and run nothing else than ac in the background.

Sadly the 8600 non-k can't be overclocked. It has a great single thread performance but sadly doesn't go as high as other cpus.
What Mainboard etc do you have? Maybe you could sell the 8600 and buy a used 8600k without paying too much for the swap?
A 8600k at 4.8 GHz will easily boost your fps to 60+!

You can also use content manager + the shader patch and while not using any fancy features of it, only activate all "cpu optimizations".

However I only have an i7 2600k running at 4.4 GHz. It's less powerful than your 8600 non-k.
With the shader patch optimizations, only the most essential hud apps and 24 ai cars of original Kunos GT3 I can maintain 60 fps at the Nordschleife endurance layout.

I have shadows at high and reflections at medium. Rest at maximum. Only AF (anisotropic filtering) at 8x.
I use sidekick, Kunos tyres and Realtime app and also helicorsa.

 

[Please Stop This]

... only activate all "cpu optimizations".

and "Custom Fonts rendering" for apps

 

[zzjorzz]

Ac can't use more than 3-4 cpu cores so with 6 cores you're stuck at about 60% overall cpu load. Like you see, sadly.
So the only things you can do:
- reduce the draw calls (bad mods have too many unoptimized things are using way too much cpu power)
- reduce shadows, reflections, world detail settings
- use as few hud apps as possible

- overclock your cpu and run nothing else than ac in the background.

Sadly the 8600 non-k can't be overclocked. It has a great single thread performance but sadly doesn't go as high as other cpus.
What Mainboard etc do you have? Maybe you could sell the 8600 and buy a used 8600k without paying too much for the swap?
A 8600k at 4.8 GHz will easily boost your fps to 60+!

You can also use content manager + the shader patch and while not using any fancy features of it, only activate all "cpu optimizations".

Thanks for your reply. I have a Gigabyte B360M AORUS GAMING 3.
Where do I find the CPU optimizations in CM CSP?

Ah, found those too. Unchecked are: Merge meshes, flatten nodes. The rest is checked by default. Would you check them as well?

 

[zzjorzz]

and "Custom Fonts rendering" for apps

Lol, and where do I find that one?

Ah, found that one, its active and hardware accellerations is on

 

[RasmusP]

Thanks for your reply. I have a Gigabyte B360M AORUS GAMING 3.
Where do I find the CPU optimizations in CM CSP?

Sadly no overclocking possible with the b360 chipset.
But anyway, you should be able to have better fps. At least with Kunos cars and well done mods!

Lol, and where do I find that one?

Ah, found that one, its active and hardware accellerations is on

Yep

Put shadows to 2048x2048, reflections to the second highest resolution but rendering frequency to static.

Rest like I edited in my post above

 

[Please Stop This]

"AF (anisotropic filtering) at 8x"
may i show you both this for nvidia cards:
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/assetto-corsa-af-settings.171547/
not only for vr

 

[zzjorzz]

Thanks for your help, Rasmus! I think the problem is that AC is not optimized for my i5 8600. Gonna dump some (car) mods. Seems the problem is way less with standard kunos cars and tracks. Then I can run a 20 ai race at 70 to 100 fps on 3840x1080. I'll test your settings as well!

 

[Please Stop This]

car radar maybe slower than helicorsa, but idk exactly

 

[zzjorzz]

"AF (anisotropic filtering) at 8x"
may i show you both this for nvidia cards:
https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/assetto-corsa-af-settings.171547/
not only for vr

~
Thanks, will try that as well!

 

[RasmusP]

Gonna dump some (car) mods. Seems the problem is way less with standard kunos cars and tracks.

I've read in a few "worse mod threads" that for example a kunos car will have 100k "tris" and a track 1 mio tris.
Then there are car mods that have 2 mio tris and tracks with 5 mio although the tracks are a lot shorter and the cars are a lot less detailed.
But they are simply of a lot lesser quality sadly.

AC basically has 2 cpu threads:
Physics and graphics. AI is in one of them too. Now if you increase the graphics calls for the cpu by the amount of 5-10x due to bad mods, every cpu in the world will struggle with it!

 

[zzjorzz]

- reduce the draw calls (bad mods have too many unoptimized things are using way too much cpu power)
.

Last question, what did you mean by "reduce draw calls" ?

 

[zzjorzz]

No, not last question, one more, lol. in the CSP settings you can install cars configs, cars textures, tracks configs and tracks VAO. I installed them all, is that bad?

 

[RasmusP]

Last question, what did you mean by "reduce draw calls" ?

I'm don't have very much knowledge on rendering pipelines but basically you have the game running and the first thing is that the cpu calculates the wire frame of the scenery, the physics and the AI.
The wire frame is called "draw calls". Calling/telling the graphics card where to render what.
So if you have an ugly car that is made out of a million little pieces, it will have a lot more draw calls than a pretty and optimized car that will have a lot less draw calls.

Now the custom shader patch optimizations are optimizing these draw calls, increasing performance

The graphics card then takes all the Infos and draw calls from the cpu and makes it pretty for our eyes.

No, not last question, one more, lol. in the CSP settings you can install cars configs, cars textures, tracks configs and tracks VAO. I installed them all, is that bad?

Mhh, I highly doubt it will increase performance.
Not sure how much it decreases performance though...
I only race casual online events so I delete sol and uninstalled all these configs, vao etc.
My performance is definitely better but I can't say what it was. Did uninstall too much at once.

 

[zzjorzz]

I'm don't have very much knowledge on rendering pipelines but basically you have the game running and the first thing is that the cpu calculates the wire frame of the scenery, the physics and the AI.
The wire frame is called "draw calls". Calling/telling the graphics card where to render what.
So if you have an ugly car that is made out of a million little pieces, it will have a lot more draw calls than a pretty and optimized car that will have a lot less draw calls.

Now the custom shader patch optimizations are optimizing these draw calls, increasing performance

The graphics card then takes all the Infos and draw calls from the cpu and makes it pretty for our eyes.

Mhh, I highly doubt it will increase performance.
Not sure how much it decreases performance though...
I only race casual online events so I delete sol and uninstalled all these configs, vao etc.
My performance is definitely better but I can't say what it was. Did uninstall too much at once.

Haha, yeah, it is very hard to remove one thing, test, remove one thing, test, etc.. Your explanations helped me a lot. Once again a game's strenght (mod friendly) is also it's weakness. At least now I know for sure, well, almost that its not my PC thats the problem. Background processes dont get over 2% cpu usage when idle and rarely go over 5% when in games, so I dont think thats a problem either.

 

[Please Stop This]

all downloaded configs are just for features of the patch, they dont slow it down/speed it up (of course lights at night do indeed cost performance, thats the track configs)

drawcalls are for how much objects are on screen
for good cars/mods there are also lower poly 2./3./4. models, which are used at some distance(s)
most mods dont have them, so game must always draw the whole bad mod

edit: so expect always bad fps at game start, it will get better, when the field is spread out

 

[zzjorzz]

Learned a lot. Thanks guys, remarkable how helpfull some fellow simracers are for us beginners!

 

[RasmusP]

My settings btw

In the General and the Graphics Adjustments tabs I selected a few custom settings. RED means = NOT default. White = default.

You can see what I'm having active at the left. Everything other than these two tabs is at full default.

And my AC graphic settings:

Additional stuff:
- system -> mirrors -> Rendering distance = 400m
- in the nvidia inspector I'm running 16x AF and 2x SGSSAA.
- I'm running gsync and limit the fps via riva tuner. That's why both is off in CM

And my HUD:

 

[Kek700]

Just a random question @RasmusP ,why do you use Nvidia inspector, especially with reference
to AC.
I see you also use compatibility 0x00 ( Assetto Corsa ) and especially why do you use the x16
and not the in game x16.
Noticed you include the forced on V-sync, knowing we have a similar monitor, I just limit my fps to 119 and have v-sync off.
Also i use LOD bias clamped, notice you do not.
Although I obviously use the standard Nvidia profile setting, mine are all set in game option, apart
from the obvious.??
This could be a question that open”s a box of worms, hope not.