Daemoc

Have you guys tried the new cockpit texture options in the special options category? I am not sure when they put those options in, but they work great. I had a pretty big custom mission with a lot of units running 4k and recording at the same time and had an acceptable frame rate. I could not even play 4k and record a solo flight before. FYI, this was with the cockpit textures on high and the cargo bay on medium. I am not sure why anyone would need all that fidelity in the cargo bay anyway, but I guess the option is there when we have 128gb graphics cards?

This topic sparked a desire to really sit down and do a proper comparison of the three trainer/light attack aircraft in DCS. There is a lot here though. I used a custom mission I made a while ago, which is a low level deep strike mission to take out a convoy of SCUDS far behind enemy lines. I played through this mission twice from start to finish with each aircraft which takes between 80 and 95 minutes a run and recorded the results below. I also ranked each aircraft on certain categories based on my time with each of them. Keep in mind, these rankings are just my personal opinion and subjective in a lot of ways. C-101 Run One: 66% Fuel 4x 7ct Hydra HE Rocket Pods 1x DEFA 30mm Cannon TOW: 12117 lbs. Fuel = 2612 lbs. C-101 Run Two: 75% Fuel 2x 19ct Hydra HE Rocket Pods 1x DEFA 30mm Cannon TOW: 12475 lbs. Fuel = 2970 lbs. L-39 Run One and Two: 100% Fuel 2x Drop Tanks 2x 25ct Rocket Pods Internal Cannon TOW: 11387 lbs. Fuel = 2673 lbs. MB-339 Run One: 100% Fuel 2x 320lit Wing Tanks 4x 18ct Matra Rocket Pods 2x DEFA 30mm Cannon TOW: 12355 lbs. Fuel = 2523 lbs. MB-339 Run Two: 100% Fuel 2x 500lit Wing Tanks 2x 25ct HEI Rocket Pods 2x DEFA 30mm Cannon TOW: 11980 lbs. Fuel = 3148 lbs. For poops and giggles I decided to throw the A-4E and F-5E into the mix, but only ran each once. A-4E Run One: 100% Fuel 1x 150gl Drop Tank 4x 19ct Hydra HEAT Rocket Pods Internal Gun TOW: 20122 lbs. Fuel = 6441 lbs. F-5E Run One: 100% Fuel 2x 150gl Drop Tank 2x 19ct Hydra HEAT Rocket Pods Internal Gun TOW: 19581 lbs. Fuel = 6460 lbs. Ranking and Review: Ground Handling: 1: MB-339 - Great ground handling. Nose wheel steering which is both precise and smooth. 2: C-101 - Good ground handling. Differential braking can take some getting used to, but is precise and smooth. 3: F-5E - Good ground handling. Nose wheel steering which is overly sensitive. 4: A-4E - Ok ground handling. Differential braking which can be temperamental. It also randomly spawns with the castor wheel pegged to the left or right occasionally. 5: L-39 - Blasphemy. A differential braking abomination. You can get used to it, but it still sucks. Has good rudder authority at slower speeds to compensate though. Take Off: 1: F-5E - Monster power. 25 seconds from idle to v1 @ 180kn 2: A-4E - A lot of power. 25 seconds from idle to v1 @ 150kn 3: MB-339 - Good power. 35 seconds from idle to v1 @ 145kn 4: L-39 - Good power to weight. 35 seconds from idle to v1 @ 120kn 5: C-101 - Long take off roll. Run One: 55 seconds from idle to v1 @130kn - Run Two: 59 seconds from idle to v1 @140kn Climb: 1: F-5E Max+AB 22000pph! 2: A-4E Max 8000pph 3: MB-339 Max 4000pph 4: L-39 ? 5: C-101 Max+MPR 2200pph Ingress: 1: F-5E - 98%rpm 5200pph @360kn 2: A-4E - 90%rpm 4000pph @320kn 3: MB-339 - 88%rpm 1984pph @255kn 4: C-101 94%rpm 1350pph @225kn 5: L-39 97%rpm ? @225kn Weapons Systems: 1: MB-339 Dead simple. Master Arm, Select Pylons and you are ready to go. Can fire Rockets and Cannon at the same time. 2: F-5E Easy. Master Arm, Sight Mode, Weapon Mode to Rockets, Select Pylons and that's it. Can fire Rockets and Cannon at the same time. 3: C-101 Easy. Master Arm, Select A2G Mode, Weapon Mode to Rockets, Select Pylons, Toggle Trigger and Pickle Safety. Can fire Rockets and Cannon at the same time. 4: A-4E Moderate. Master Arm, Weapon Mode to Rockets, Select Pylons for Rockets and Select Salvo. Has separate Gun Arm switch and can't fire rockets and guns at the same time. Pylons have to be un-selected to fire guns. Weapons controls partially hidden behind control stick makes them tricky to use without hotkeys. 5: L-39 Difficult. Cannon Arm, Master Arm, Rocket Arm, Select Salvo, Select Pylon, Toggle Trigger Safety, Gun Power and AoA Limiter. Not only can you NOT fire Rockets and Guns at the same time, but you have to un-select the pylons and hit the EXPL.CHARGE GS button before you can fire the gun. There is a lot to remember in the heat of battle and switches are partially obstructed and all over the cockpit. Weapons Employment: 1: C-101 Super stable even at slow speeds. Gives you plenty of time to line up your shots. The DEFA canon is very accurate with a very flat trajectory. Great for ranged snap shots. Hydra rockets are the least accurate of all rocket options. 2: MB-339 Slow and stable, especially with the Wingtip Tanks. Both Matra and HEI heavy rocket pods are very accurate with a flatter trajectory than the Hydras. The DEFA cannons create a pitch down moment when firing which makes it difficult to aim and unpredictable. 3: F-5E Very Stable, but it's speed gives little time to line up shots. The nose mounted twin 20mm cannon is very accurate and predictable. 4: A-4E Very Stable, but has the weakest gun out of them all. I don't know if it is the slow fire rate or what, but visual shots on target never seem to cause damage. Switching between rockets and guns between attack runs can lead to errors/accidents if not careful and or practiced. 5: L-39 Slow, but very unstable and lacks power to pull out of a dive. Has a tendency to tip stall after a strafe run and takes a long time to climb/turn around. The rocket pods are fantastic though. Very flat and straight trajectory. The gun is like a garden hose. I think every round is a tracer. It shoots with a slower/higher trajectory with more bullet drop and also has a AoA limiter. It takes some getting used to. Switching between rockets and guns between attack runs can lead to errors/accidents if not careful and or practiced. Egress: no stores 1: F-5E - 98%rpm 6200pph @550kn 2: A-4E - 90%rpm 4000pph @400kn 3: L-39 97%rpm ? @300kn 4: C-101 94%rpm 1300pph @275kn 5: MB-339 - 88%rpm 1984pph @270kn Total Time/Fuel Used: 1: F-5E 55mins / 5000lbs ~ 5400pph average 2: A-4E 65mins / 4500lbs ~ 4150pph average 3: MB-339 Run One DNF: 70mins 2523lbs ~ 2200pph average - Run Two: 80mins / 2950lbs ~ 2200pph average 4: L-39 90mins / 2370lbs ~ 1500pph average 5: C-101 Run One: 95mins / 2550lbs ~ 1600pph average - Run Two: 90mins / 2250used ~ 1500pph average Things of note: The MB-339 lower RPM and speed for Ingress and Egress. The MB-339 does not carry a lot of fuel and has a thirsty turbofan. I ran out of fuel the first run and barley made it home on the second run. The 88%rpm 1984pph seemed to be the best for fuel economy with this load out, but I have not tried every option. I also had 4 Matra pods in the first run which was a lot more drag compared to the 2 HEI Heavy's but I still don't think it would have made it home with the smaller tip or drop tanks. The MB-339 is an absolute dog with full tip tanks. Especially in roll. It does help with stability though. The first run with the L-39 I could not get the gun to fire and after a few passes just went home with two SCUD launchers intact. About halfway home, I realized I had the outer pylons still selected and that's why I could not fire. The first run of the C-101 I completely whiffed using the rocket pods. Two SCUD launchers were smoking, but not on fire. I finished them all off with the excellent DEFA cannon, but it took a few more passes. I made it back to base but ran out of fuel just as I parked. That's why I gave it a bit more fuel for the second run. Also, even though the weights are about the same, the 2x 19 pods must have had less drag than the 4x 7 pods. I was a little faster and had better fuel economy the second time around. The A-4E has very long legs and probably could have done this without the drop tank. The F-5E burns a ton of fuel, but it makes up for it with speed. Especially with the clean egress. I may be able to get away with a single centerline tank rather than the two wing tanks. I tried this mission with the A-10CII as well. It had plenty of fuel even without drop tanks and carrying ALL of the weapons, but was slower than molasses. I also took a burst from a 12.7mm on the way home and it took out the left engine. I did manage to limp it home, but I barely had enough power to climb out of the canyon. I also had no nosewheel steering after landing. Maybe a flat tire. Anyway, with a one engine egress the data was no good and it was so slow I did not want to try again. So I just left it off of this comparison. It was funny though, a plane known for it's legendary toughness was taken out by a single burst from a 12.7mm. I have all this recorded and planned to make a video version of this, but the raw video files are too big to fit on my macbook for video editing and my iMac is packed away at the moment. I may still make this at some point though when I get my iMac back up and running.

The C-101 can carry a ludicrous amount of fuel internally. One of it's major design considerations was range. I think this is the most overlooked aspect of this aircraft. For a quick strike mission, 50% fuel is still way too much. IIRC, one of the first missions I did in the C-101 was over two hours and was done on 50% fuel. This was all low level. This cannot be stressed enough. Fuel has to be a major consideration on that aircraft every mission. Don't look at the percentages, calculate the fuel weight.

C-101 +It is super stable, even at very slow speeds. Best out of the three for strafing runs. +Fuel for days. -Very under powered, especially if you load it down with fuel. ---It has the absolute worst sound in game. It is borderline unplayable IMO unless you mod the engine growl sound file. L-39 +Does not make your ears bleed. -Has a long standing cockpit model graphics bug. MB-339 +Does not make your ears bleed. -Way too unstable. The smallest stick inputs and the nose bounces all over the place. It's like driving a car with bad struts. Not great for gunnery.

That seems to have done the trick. Microswitch logic set to auto off and bound a toggle switch on my throttle quadrant for the microswitch on/off. Using the physical toggle switch lets me know the on/off position. It is much better now, thank you all.

This thread was a life saver, thanks for the tips. I just bought this module during the sale and I have been fighting the damn pedal trimmer for days. One second I am in a stable hover and with no input from me the helicopter yaws off into the next time zone. I thought I had turned off all of the trimmer functions like I did for the Mi-8, but I guess it works a bit different. Anyway, if i read this correctly, I want to set up the microswitch logic to auto off and bind a micro switch toggle button on my HOTAS somewhere? Is there an indication anywhere in the cockpit on the status of the microswitch?

I have both and use the C-101 a lot. It is one of my favorite modules. I spent a lot of time learning the mission editor and make my own content though. When making your own missions, the possibilities are endless. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-2ez7Bltb9M But yeah, if you are looking for official/unofficial missions, there is not a lot of content out there.

TAA really does look better at higher frame rates. I used to cap my frame rate in DCS at 60 because that was the monitor refresh and saw little point in going over that. I have been using TAA and found it is much better setting my cap at 120. Resolution also makes a big difference. My sweet spot is 2560x1440 at 120fps. Anything below 60fps is going to be a blurry mess using TAA. I found native 2560x1440 with TAA looks better than my native 4k@66% with FSR. The FSR upscale looks a little better when there is no motion, but no upscale with TAA looks better overall IMO. Anyway, there are many versions of TAA, FSR and DLSS. We have what we have in DCS, but the rumor is once they switch to Vulkan we will have more options. nVidia users can change the DLSS presets using .ini changes I guess, but we AMD users are stuck with the default TAA for now.

Check this thread here... https://forum.dcs.world/topic/353993-msaa-not-workinghideous-shimmering/ MSAA had been having this issue for a while and it seemed to be wide spread.

I agree, I am just trying to help narrow it down. The fact that MSAA has been completely broken for a lot of users until the last big update is the probable cause. Whatever they did to fix MSAA is probably what caused this heat haze render bug for some. But we don't know if it is a DCS bug or a driver bug. A lot of these types of issues could be the result of a buggy driver. And while the DCS devs may have the ability to work around it, that may not be the ideal fix. Anyway, the more information we have on what hardware/drivers are having issues the easier it will be for whoever has to fix it.

My AMD card is working fine, what model are you using and which driver are you running? I figured it was an issue with the "Pro" drivers, but maybe it's more of a chip generation issue.

You do, in fact, have to make those particular changes before you launch the game. Some, like frame rate limits and such work on the fly, but not the above. That said, you only need to try the Anti-aliasing category. Ideally it should be set to "let the application decide" or whatever it says. Normally, you do not want to use the "override" or "enhance". Since using TAA fixes your graphics issue though, it might be worth a shot to try them all. Speaking of which, I know you said TAA fixes the problem, but what about setting the anti-aliasing to "none" in the DCS options? If "none" works as well, maybe setting DCS to "none" and you graphics card to "override" Multi-sample may do the trick? Tessellation Mode does not matter as DCS does not use it to my knowledge. I would leave it at the default setting.

Nah, Windows does not care that it is installed on a mac using boot camp. It is more likely the "pro" GPU. They use different drivers than the non-pro models. I see weird issues like this all of the time on pro cards and gaming. One thing you could check is if there is anything "over-ridden" in the control panel/adrenaline settings. Also, clearing your shader cache as stated above is a great suggestion if you have not done so.

Wow, that was unexpected. It does, indeed, actually work now. Thanks for the heads up, I had given up on MSAA and never would have checked it again.