Rhinox

I'm not registered on anon6 so I could not read SOP. And I did not dare to register before all details were known to me. Kind of "circulusu vitiosus" (closed circle)... Anyway, thursday & sunday evening is very bad combination for all those going to work/school next day...

Question: You wrote "STARTING DATE: 23rd of October 2014". Does it mean you want to run this even on thursday(s)? That might be "small" problem for some of us (school, work, etc)...

For those who have been using TrackIR for years without any problem: Have you ever been using TrackIR with window behind you? Or sitting close next to someone else using TrackIR too? I did. And I experienced all sorts of false detections you can only imagine. Been using TrackIR for years, but sure not without problems, as all you lucky ones...

I'd say there is nothing suspicious in that output. CPU-temperatures of 95+ are quite normal for laptops under full load, and have no impact on performance. If you want to be sure, I'd recommend to start some serious cpu-benchmark i.e. SuperPI (remember to fire it 4 times for your 4 cores, as SuperPI is single-threaded app). This will bring load on your laptop really to max (except for GFX, of course). Then start some frequency-monitoring app (cpu-z being my favourite) and check if there is some cpu-throttling (automatic cpu-frequency reducing in order not to overheat cpu). Or you can test it with load only on 2 cores (more similar as DCS). Just "turbo" frequency is different, depending on number of cores loaded...

I honestly doubt there is something like "gaming laptop", but *IF* you were buying laptop with intention to use it for games, why did you pick a one with such a weak graphics??? GT650M is good for video and office-work, but sure not for 3d-gaming. Just a small hint: if we talk about NVidia mobile chips, "GTX" graphic adapters are for gaming, not those "GT". I said it here zillion times: if you are buing laptop for gaming, pick the one with the best GFX you can find, because you will have to live with it! You could change CPU (yes, even in laptops), add more memory, switch disk for SSD, but you can do nothing with GFX (except for a few very rare laptops which have GFX as module in slot, i.e. MXM). Recently I tested GiBy P34Gv2 laptop with DCS: it had i7, 8GB RAM and GTX860M. I was surprised it could play DCS quite well, with moderate settings. Basically the only difference compared to yours is GFX, but unfortunatelly for you, the most important...

I'd like to know which in-game settings you have. If you are on low/med, then CPU is your bottleneck. And the truth is, there is not much difference between X5460 and E8400 (from DCS-point of view): the same "core" architecture, nearly the same clock-speed. Yes, you have 4 cores now, but DCS can not use more than 1 and 1/2 cores (one for DCS physics/gfs, the other partially for sound). If you try higher in-game gfx settings, you might see higher difference.

E8400: TDP = 65W X5460: TDP = 120W I'd say it is quite logical it is overheating if you did not switch cooler. Stock heatsink E18764-001 is not designed to cool down such a beast...

I'd say "slmod" is more necessary than "notepad++". BTW, there are a few more "questionable" parts in those "10 easy steps", i.e.: "...b) your PC has to have a static IP address;..." Nope. Actually, you can have dynamic address too, provided your router will translate its outside (static & public) address always to the correct inside-one. "...c) your PC has to be powerful;..." Explain "powerful". BTW, server does not need to be as powerful, as client. "...d) you have to install the game onto a dedicated HD\SSD..." Why this? My DCS-server is running from OS-shared virtual HDD. "...Great, you have a dedicated hardware..." You can run DCS-server on virtual (shared) hardware too. "...install vcredist, and DirectX..." Useless, when you do not use 3d. "options.graphics.maxfps = 10" The same. With render3D=false there is no fps at all. "["fullScreen"] = true, to ["fullScreen"] = false," Not necessary. Runs in full-screen mode too.

Actually it does not have to have real graphics card. It may be just sw-emulated. I use such an adapter on my VM, it is called "VMware SVGA 3D" display adapter... But what I am missing in that guide is step 11: tweak your system to get the best possible performance. For example these are Windows7/64b services which I turned off using services.msc (all were previously "automatic"): desktop windows manager session dhcp client diagnostic policy service distributed link tracking client dns client ip helper offline files print spooler security center superfetch tcp/ip netbios helper themes windows firewall (I use comodo) windows audio windows audio endpoint TaskManager now shows 30 processes running on my server (for all users), including (in my case) a few non-system processes, i.e. Comodo firewall, TightVNC-server and VMware-tools. Without DCS-running, OS (+ my extra-tools) takes just about ~700MB RAM...

Hard-drives (not SSD!) do not have constant transfer speed over its capacity, because they have more sectors on the outside tracks ("cylinders") than on inner. With constant rotational speed, read/write speed ratio can be even more than 2:1. So one way how you can maximise transfer-rates is to re-partition your drive: remove all partitions, and create new one, on only 20-25% of the first sector-numbers (AFAIK, all SATA-drives count sectors starting on the outside cylinders, so sectors with lowest numbers are those where transfer speed is highest)...

GPU might be your problem. Generally, all mobile CPUs/GPUs are less powerful than their desktop counterparts, but GT650M is really slow. You'd need at least GTX 7xx/8xx if you want to run DCS on laptop with acceptable pefrormance...

MP-gui is completely screwed. Not only it lacks filtering, but you can not even stop searching for mp-servers over and over again. You are checking the list, and then suddenly blink! MP-server list has changed, you can start checking from the beginning. And again, before you come to the end of list, it is again updated/changed. Etc, etc. Really "funny"!

I have tested DCS on "Gigabyte P34G v2" laptop, and was quite impressed. Cooler was a little bit loud under load, but its HW (i7-4710HQ, GTX-860M, 8GB RAM) could handle DCS pretty well. Costs here ~1200€, and with weight under 2kg it is even transportable. And it even looks quite good and decent...

It stops rendering 3d graphics, not all game graphics.

Maybe you could post your in-game GFX settings, with your HW configuration. With that card you can not turn everything to max...

E5503 is "pre-Sandy", probably "Core" (IIRC), 2 cores + HT. Not sure what mobo you have, but if you can stick more RAM in it, you could still use it. I'd try to get some cheap 2nd hand CPU on eBay (you said there is 2nd socket) and as much ram as possible. I have similar small xeon-based box as multi-purpose server with ESXi and ~10 VMs (linux/bsd/windows) for web, ftp, teamspeak, mail, etc. In one VM I'm running Win7 with DCS-server. Disabled sound/gfx and it works like charm. Not even one core is up to 100%. Concerning power: my xeon has TDP 80W, but most of the time the whole server takes ~70W. It simply reduces cpu-frequency when not needed.

IMHO 2xSu27 vs 4xF16 (or 2xF15 vs 4xMiG29) is completely unrealistic. If it is not like "2x TopGun Aces vs 4x Amateurs", those out-numbered pilots would turn away asap they see number of opponents on radar/rwr...

The question is WHICH plugin you want to use. Overwolf is part of TS, or better said, is distributed with TS-client. Apart form that, there are two, maybe three other overlay-plugins as user addons...

That's strange, because when I check TS-web, I see: New Official TeamSpeak In-Game Overlay Enjoy the ultimate TeamSpeak in-game experience with Overwolf.

No need to do it "gradually". All what server needs is DCS-World, which you can get free (no license/key required). IIRC you still need to have different (unique) DCS-account for server, but again, that's not a problem.

If you really turned 3d off, then GFX should not be any problem. I'm running DCS in VM, and my server has some trully historic ATI-gfx of "pre-Radeon age", with 4MB (yeah, megabytes, not gigabytes), no 3d, capable only of ega/vga text-console output. HD-2000 in i3 is sure much better... I think in your case CPU might be the problem. i3 is low-end, some important technologies might be missing (VT-d, for example)...

I observed this on Su-33, that's true. But is Su-27 OK? Did not test it yet...

I have not been flying russian birds for quite some time, but the last time I did (which was maybe half year ago) I remember I could load flanker with ~9 tons of fuel, with no external tanks. Recently I tried flanker again. The new cockpit is very nice, but I noticed some instruments changed or moved to different place. One if them is fuel-tank indicator: now it has single bar with max value rated as "12" (do not know what unit is that), but I could never fill it more than up to ~6. What's this? I even unloaded all weapons (though maybe I'm over weight), tried to fill tank up to 100%, but again only about "6" (tons?). I asked ground-crew for 50% fuel, after that fuel-indicator showed "3" (only about 1/4 of the full line). Then I asked for 100%, and again only about half of indicator was lit (~6 out of 12). Is this normal? Is it really possible to load fuel only up to the mark "6" on the fuel indicator (which has max "12")?

In C:\Users\<user>\Saved Games\DCS\Config\autoexec.cfg I have: options.graphics.render3D = false Do you have it exactly the same? No just "render3D=false", but with full variable path! BTW, for remote connection I personally use TightVNC with DemoForge Mirage Driver...

Of course it *IS* possible! Read what I wrote. My VM has just emulated vSVA card (no 3d-support at all) and DCS is running... BTW, even vGPU can be DX-compatible, and support 3d-acceleration. Some time ago I did some tests with VMware Workstation: I could run some 3d-games in VM (i.e. LockOn!), I could even run 3dmark. VirtualBox also has some 3d-support, though not so good as VMware. But as I wrote: it is not necessary. I'm runing DCS without 3d-gfx...