VanjaB

Just watched some totally immersive videos of FSX (with all the extra payware/mods) and I have to say that it puts DCS to shame with regards to immersive, realistic visuals. Not only does it look so much better, it PERFORMS better. Bring on the new rendering engine because even though I really like the realistic flight models of DCS, but the horrible visuals, and terrible performance (the performance of DCS seems to get worse with every patch) is really putting me off.

A lot of what you say holds merit, belsmitek's beta moduels are anything but optimised but your system specs. dont even match the recommended requirements as stated the DCS website: Recommended system requirements: Operating system 64-bit: Windows Vista and 7; Processor: CPU: Core 2 Duo E8400, AMD Phenom X3 8750 or better; Memory: 4GB; Hard disk space: 7 GB; Video: Shader 3.0 or better; 896MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX260 DirectX 9.0c or better; Sound: DirectX 9.0c - compatible; DirectX: 9.0C; requires internet activation. and we all know that official recommended system requirements are really the basic minimum requirements, in basically every single software product since the beginning of time.

Thanks guys!

Wow....mad skillz...

Will probably be buying it next week, as I am in the process of switching banks. As soon as I get it I will post some numbers for comparison.

Newbie question. Like the title says, where do I load/find the three campaign missions that are supposed to be in the beta?

Focha, you might consider a system upgrade. Those system specs in your signature are ancient....

He isnt contradictory, his point was actually that the DCS: Huey should be much easier to control and fly then it actually is. I have no idea when that post was made, maybe he was talking about a very early build of the Huey, and the other thing to consider is the average stick length. Our joysticks are at most 1/3 of the length of the real thing, which adds to the difficulty considerably, that is if the Sim doesnt take that into account. Someone @ Belsimtek should really pipe in about that.

Very interesting read Samek, I wonder if we could get a few other pilots to comment on the VRS and stability issues.

I know its a long-shot, but what the hell. Im upgrading my graphics card next week, and when I was thinking about DCS and its performance something occured to me. We all know how demanding DCS and all of its relevant modules are, so why not create a small (preferably free) module that would simply function as a benchmarking tool. It would load a specially crafted .trk and run through it in real-time. The track should be demonstrative of the performance requirements in DCS and should depict a suitably epic scene, and at its end could even generate a graph with FPS on one axis, and time on the other. Obviously it would list the average FPS in big bold numbers or something :smilewink: We could fiddle with our option settings, and instead of loading up each module and relying on our subjective senses like we do now, we could run this small benchmarking tool each time and actually measure our gains/losses. What do you think? Good idea or not worth ED's time?

I am retarded. The Mi-8 can indeed hit speeds of 260kph, for some reason I was reading this out as 230 kph, I dont know why, but major :doh: here. So it seems that the two are indeed very close in speeds, except that the Huey shakes almost uncontrollably at these speeds and feels like its going to burn out its engine at any second and the Mi-8 is as smooth as silk. Faulty flight dynamics or seriously impressive soviet aeronautical engineering?

How is it faster than the Huey, I can reach 140 knots in the Huey but somehow I cant get past 230km/h in the Hip. So far Ive done the free flight missions, and have tried pushing the helicopter to its limits. Could it be an autopilot thing?

So basically they flip switches and look at gauges? ;)

I wasnt planning on getting this chopper, but then it went on sale and now Im really glad I did. Its very differnent from the Huey and I think it will take some time to master. Its slow though, very slow. Tried pushing the collective to the max and it simply wont go faster than 220-230kph. It is very stable at speed though, there are no noticable vibrations unless you decide to take it for a dive and pick up more speed :)

This is exactly the kind of answer I was looking for, someone who had a very similar situation to mine. Well you have convinced me guys Im going for Nvidia. I have to say Im not really exuberant with this solution, since Ive felt that in recent years ATI is the better bang-for-buck deal but everyone seems to say that Nvidia works better with the DCS engine so thats what I'll be buying.

Like the title says, the training missions dont register in the logbook. Im not sure whether this is working as intended or if its a bug. In any case I just did the cold startup sequence mission, and then instead of quitting trained some take offs and landings for about half an hour, this time was not counted in my logbook.

Ok, thanks for your input.

Hang on, you switched from 7950 to the GTX 780 or the 760? The difference between the two is quite significant.

Well that is impressive indeed. This is what Im planning to do with the Mi-8 (indeed there is very little else to do with it at the moment) just mess around in free flight, practicing startups, takeoffs and landings in differnt conditions.

Im looking to buy one of these cards, on paper the ATI is the faster card and it usually sports 3 GB of memory compared to 2 GB on the 760. However I have heard that DCS likes Nvidia cards far more, and indeed most games like Nvidia cards more often than not. These two cards are in my price range. Suggestions, comments? For reference I have a 3570K, 16 Gig RAM, and system and DCS install on an Intel SSD disk. My current GPU is the 6870 HD and its just barely passable performance at all @ 1080p. If you have a similar setup, can you post some performance numbers please? I mostly fly the Huey and Mi-8.

How many hours of virtual flight time to develop that kind of skill is required? I have to say Im seriously impressed with some of these vids. :)

I never managed to complete this mission, the ADF leads me north to some airfield which is empty and after landing there and waiting nothing seems to happen. Damn, is this an actual bug?

Got in on the sale, yay! (Sorry early adopters) Spent about 20-30 minutes with the bird yesterday evening (yay for CET) just setting up my HOTAS and messing around for a bit and another 15 today. Already a joy to fly, although getting the cold start sequence is going to be nasty...

Thank you for taking the time to reply to this thread! :thumbup: Its a matter of timing as anything else, I for one did not expect to see the Mi-8 hit a sale so quickly, but I do welcome it and I am definitely one of those who would NOT have bought this module at full price, at least at this very early beta phase.

Well I cant do em worth a damn, the main problem Im having is figuring out how to slow down and lose altitude at the same time. With the Huey I can sort of do it if Im low enough in initial approach, or if I swoop and increase collective at the last second. But the Mi8 has so much more mass it feels like I need airbrakes...:lol: In any case the vertical landings are easy peasy compared to the Huey, just remember that m/s != ft/s