mart

Thanks Reece That was really helpful, and thoughtful. I'll take it as it comes. There's lots to do/crash into :) Thanks again

Hi again and thanks for the advice. I tried DCS once before, and even have some paid modules. Sadly, it didn't work out. I have a neurological condition that affects cognition and concentration. But, I wanted to try DCS again (& now also iL-2) with a more relaxed approach. Happily, my new Macbook turned out to be well up to the job. Whether I am, remains to be seen. So, I'll be happy starting with the easier sigle-player missions and see how it goes. I know multiplayer is great, but I'm content to wait awhile. :) Happy flying :) Martin

My old Macbook Pro 13" Mid-2012 was the only laptop I've owned so long. It just kept going. I'd have eaten 3 Windows over that time period. I think it was the last variant that you could open up yourself to put in an SSD, extra RAM & the like. Wonderful. I do like the Macs, but I knew, when buying my Macbook Pro 16,that there'd be no DIY upgrading. But, on the upside, it does have 4 Thunderbolt 3 ports, and that can add a lot of oomph to it. External GPU etc. Also, with Thunderbolt 3 and fast external NVME SSD's I can add extra storage, as if it was in the machine. But, my plan B when my Macbook is a bit past it for PC Gaming, is to buy a cheap, ugly gaming laptop, that'd be good enough for all I'd need. I'd have to hide it away for special occasions though! Once again, thanks for your help.

Thanks reece146. That was really so helpful. It's always good to get an answer to something that I thought was totally weird. I've decided to stay with 1920 x 1200 in future. It gives great graphics on my Macbook, or my 22" TV/Monitor, and very smooth, framerates. Judging by the minute size of the framerate counter, the smaller screen sizes also help. I know that a time will come struggle when my Macbook will struggle with DCS as it develops further. Fortunately I have already decided on a number of solutions to that which won't be expensive (ugly and cheap, but with decent specs for the time) and will leave me with the Mac for other uses. My last one was 8 years old when I handed it to a friend, and it's still going great today. I'd done a DIY increase of RAM, and replaced my hard drive with an SSD. That gave it a new lease of life, for what my friend needed it for. Thanks again for the help. I now have a sense of what might be happening. I'm really grateful. Pretty encouraging, when you think of it All the best. Martin :)

DCS and Macbook Pro 16 FPS at different resolutions. After the high framerate DCS ran at with 1920 x1200 resolution, I tried different resolutions of DCS (solely on my Macbook Pro 16 - no external monitor) and the results were a little odd. Encouraging, but odd. My Macbook display doesn't have 1440 as an option. So, I first tried DCS with both the Macbook & DCS set to 3072 x 1920. The framerate dropped, under the same circumstance as before, in the SU-25T free flying (high, low, through urban areas, but no other planes around). The framerate stayed roughly between about 45fps to 60fps, and was smooth. Then I lowered the resolution of the Macbook, and DCS, to 2560 x 1600. So, this is where it gets odd. Under exactly the same conditions, the framerate rose, as you'd expect, to 70-75 plus. It was very smooth, but it periodically froze. It didn't crash the program. The plane simply froze for a second and then carried on its merry way. So, the Macbook was giving a good framerate, and the game was smooth, but periodically froze for a second. But, with the highest resolution, though the framerate was lower, it was smooth and didn't stop once. I am not particularly techie. But I know Mac screens are a little "different". Apple really do want you to run the machine at 3072 x 1920. So, at the preferred resolution, all was well with the Macbook but the fps simply dropped as you'd expect. At 1920 x1200 DCS also ran smoothly and with a high framerate. The problem came with the intermediate resolution. Still 1:6 and reasonably fast, but apparently not to its liking. During the two high resolution tests, it was very strange trying to read the fps on a 16" screen, at a high resolution. A magnifying glass would have come in handy :) So, in future I'll stick with the 1920 x 1200 sweet-spot, and I'm very pleased that my little machine has enough juice to run DCS smoothly. Thanks for the suggestions :) Martin

Many thanks. I'll give it a shot. I'll take a look on the Macbook (16:10) at its native resolution (3072 x 1920). I previously reduced the resolution mostly to be in synch with the monitor, which has a 1080 maximum I haven't yet tried DCS solely on the Macbook, at its maximum/native resolution. It'll be interesting to see. I'll give it a try and see what happens. Thanks again. :)

Hi Just thought it might help, for any future queries like mine, if I gave feedback on how my Macbook Pro 16 inch is coping with DCS. I have only just started, and I had to grab a full PC keyboard from someone, as starting the FPS command was so much easier on it. I seem to be getting around 120 fps consistently on the Macbook, both on its own screen, and also using a 22" LG TV/Monitor with graphics at medium+ and the Macbook resolution reduced 1920 x 1080 (to match that of the monitor) Have to admit I was happily (very) surprised. For context, I used the SU-25T solo flight training mission. No doubt loads of other planes around would seriously clobber the FPS. But I did go through towns, at low level. The view of the cockpit, looking out of the cockpit and using F2 to get an outside view was really smooth and the FPS still at 110-120 I'd love to tell you what it'd be like on multiplayer, but I'm afraid I may never fly online. All the best. Martin

Thanks for all the help Many thanks. That was really helpful, and makes me very hopeful I could have a lot of fun. I can't see me wanting to play multiplayer (though that'll probably change) or getting involved with the big Supercarrier, F-14 and F/A-18C scenarios. One nice thing about this particular Macbook is that it has 4 Thunderbolt-3 ports, which gives me, in time, access to an external GPU, and more Nmve storage. Not ideal, but helpful. I'd already decided that, in a few years, though keeping the Macbook (my last one lasted 8 years! and is still being used by a student) I'd need to up the specs somehow. The Macbook 16 is a great computer. But there are some cheaper faster setups that don't look fancy, but are fast :) and can be secretly brought out on my mad nights! So, over time, I should hopefully be able to keep up without it costing too much. Many thanks, and to all that have helped. I'm really grateful Martin

Thanks for replying so fast :) Several reputable sites compared my Macbook 16 inch (AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 4GB of GDDR6 memory) to similar NVIDIA GTX Cards. The Macbook came out as roughly identical, in benchmarks, games etc to the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 (Desktop) Does that make the comparison a bit easier? There are reasons to do with a cognitive problem I have, following a brain injury in the past. I did try to get into DCS when it was FC3 + A10. So, having some information (a guess is just fine) from people who are more knowledgeable about computer specs than I am would be really so helpful. Thanks so much. Martin :)

Hello. This year I bought a Macbook 16inch. It needs to fulfill a number of functions, so I know it's not a perfect match for DCS But the new Macbook 16 is no slouch, and haver fast ssd storage, and of vourse, Windows 10 in bootcamp. It seems to run DCS fine at first sight, though I have only tried single-player missions, with reasonably high graphics settings. The specs of my Macbook 16 are as follow: Intel 9th gen 8 core 2.3hz boostable to 4.8hz AMD Radeon Pro 5500M with 4GB of GDDR6 memory 16GB 2666MHz DDR4 RAM 1TB SSD nvme storage I simply wondered if somebody could give me some idea of weather my machine be up to multi-plane missions / environments in DCS Any thoughts would be so very welocome Thanks Martin :)

Many apologies I posted my query in this part of the forum, in error. Thanks. Martin

Since the 1.5 release, I am finally able to play DCS with my 2012 Macbook Pro, via Windows 10 on my BOOTCAMP partition. I got totally amazing FPS but inexplicable stutter that made the sim unplayable even with very high fps. The problem went away ENTIRELY simply by running the game in Windowed mode (i.e unticking Run in Fullscreen) Hope that helps. Amazed by the incredible performance boost with the new 1.5 engine. Thank you ED Martin :)

Well, I'm amazed. I own a Macbook Pro 13" (mid 2012) i7 CPU and Intel HD4000 graphics. I am running DCS 1.5 using Bootcamp, and Windows 10. For those unfamiliar with Macs, Bootcamp is not a PC emulator, or virtual machine. It's a parition of your hard-drive that is assigned entirley to Windows, and you boot into it when you start the machine. Apart from a small Bootcamp utility, which ensures your keyboard assignments and all your drivers are recognized, it is, in effect, a normal Windows PC. My Macbook is entirely USB 3.0. I have DCS 1.5 installed on a USB 3.0 Samsung external SSD Hardrive, and connected to my computer with a USB 3.0 cable. So, the connection is very fast. In DCS 1.0, I could run DCS, but the framerate (and stutter) made it, in effect, totally unusable. I have just updated to DCS 1.5 and my little Macbook Pro just flies! Twice the frame rate (over 40 fps) Totally smooth on "Low" settings, and really quite smooth on the default "medium" setting. Setting DCS to default "medium" and then reducing some features, as best suit you, will give a great compromise between resolution/objects and good FPS, even in built-up areas Just for information, it ESSENTIAL, for me, using my laptop screen, to run the program in Windowed Mode (not Fullscreen). Otherwise, you get good framerates, but absolutely horrendous stutter. Thanks ED, you've made the sim playable for me. Incredible! :) Martin

MacBook Pro and Monitor Sze Hi, I'm new here, so I hope I'm not butting into the wrong part of the forum. I have a MacBook Pro (mid 2012), running Yosemite. It's has 8GB 1600MHz DDR RAM, an Intel 2.9 GHz Core i7 (with boost up to around 3500 - I think) and Intel HD Graphics 4000 (1 GB assigned to it). The Bootcamp partition is running Windows 7 (64) and though I don't have any internal SSD Drive, I do have a USB 3.0 Machine, and a USB 3.0 Samsung External SSD HardDrive, onto which I've installed DCS. So, firstly I'm happy to report that it all works. I don't have an FPS counter, but it runs smoothly on Low, and Medium, at height, and is best on Low for whizzing around towns, in the SU-25t until I immediately crash! I've discovered that the best way to set the monitor resolution, is to do it within the program, and not on my monitor. As I understand it, the lower the screen resolution, the less drain on the frame rate. But does it also matter what SIZE monitor you use. I am experimenting wih 2 flat HDMI HDTVs. They can both get high resolutions which I reduce slightly. But my impression is that the frame rate is higher on the smaller screen (20") than on the larger screen (40"). That kind of make some sort of intuitive sense, but then lots of things that seem to make sense to me turn out to be wrong! If anybody could shed any light on the effect on monitor size (both at the same resolution) on frame rate, I would be just so grateful. Also, just to add to the discussion about Macs and DCS, Macbook's are, generally, not the fastest of Macs in any one year. I love the Su-25t but I have a twist joystick, not yet having bought rudder pedals. As the flight models in a lot of Flaming Cliffs 3 planes tend, mostly, to be simpler than many DCS modules, am I likely to see higher frame rates over my beloved Su-25t. So, that's monitor size, and Flaming Cliffs 3 compared to some other planes. I promise to report back, for any MacBook people out there, and who may like to know, should their MacBook/Bootcamp set-up is slightly borderline. I'm afraid I can comment on things like graphics cards, as when you ow a MacBook, this sort of stuff soon becomes a distant memory. This may also be a good time to thank so many in the community who only recently gave me the confidence to get up in the air. I really do appreciate it. Thanks, Martin

Thanks Ironhand! That is just amazingly helpful, and also very reassuring. Just can't thank you enough. I'm in business. Great. I've popped on your site and was pleased to see it still there. :) Incidentally I read that some of you use are using VAC, for voice control. I hadn't realised it was still used. I wrote the 1st VAC profile for Flaming Cliffs 1, which is in a separate archived "downloads" folder on the VAC site. It must have been fairly rubbish because someone wrote another, which I imagine is much better. Funny how things change. Anyway, that was a long time ago. Thanks so much for your advice and the profiles. You've also saved me 160 quid! GOOD man! All the best Martin