Aluminum Donkey

Just curious, what's the difference? A brief bout with Google showed nothing of significance. Weight? Engine power? Fuel Capacity? Gunz 'n' Goodies? :) What's the difference folks? Peace AD

Bah, if it ain't well over 10GB, then it's barely an "update" :) AD

No, it's not. It's as easy as falling off a log. CPU: Anything fast. Intel seems to work better, but anything over 4.0 GHz is good. Core i3, i5, i7, i9, i11---it doesn't make any difference at all. RAM: 16GB is good. 32GB is supposed to be better, but I never find DCS using much more than about 10GB anyway. Graphics card--faster is better of course. 8GB video memory. So, GTX 1070 is good, but faster is better. GTX 1080 Ti is nice, RTX cards are expensive and you pay lots of cash for Raytracing tech that DCS World doesn't use, and probably never will. Storage: SSD only. NVMe is nice, but SATA is fine. Mechanical hard drives are too slow. That's all there is to it! All the rest is just details. AD

Gotcha, sounds good! I was really hoping that this wasn't 'realistic' Maverick behavior :) AD

Maverick controls are awful? Hi everyone, I've noticed now that I can't slew the Maverick seeker unless I'm holding down the TDC cursor switch on the throttle (target lock). Also, the Maverick slew control moves in large jumps, making it impossible to designate a specific ground target. The Maverick seeker jumps all over the place, and I just have to settle for whatever target it happens to grab (if any at all). Is it supposed to be like this? It's gotten worse in a recent update, now I can't slew Maverick seekers at all unless I hold down target lock. It seems that the A-10C has good Maverick slew control, but the F/A-18 is terrible. Any insight? AD

Sorry, thought you meant DCS settings :) In NVCP, I find leaving everything at "Application Controlled" works best for DCS (and everything else, too.) I also leave Power Management at Adaptive. Putting it on Prefer Maximum Performance only gives 2 GPU speed steps, but it really doesn't make any difference, since the GPU will be running at full speed all the time anyway. Honestly, I'm not sure why the NVCP has different settings for GPU power management, since the GPU will run at whatever speed it has to to meet the target framerate (up to the max, of course.) AD

Yesssss! Solid advice here folks! Gamers are going ga-ga over all this new 8-core 16-thread stuff, for the life of me I don't know why. AD

Way I see it, if it runs fine now on 4 cores/threads, it'll run even better when ED gets the Vulkan API implemented. It's supposed to have less overhead than DirectX. I wouldn't hold my breath though, this kind of thing can take more than a while. I recall ED stating that they had already finished the main code for Vulkan, but now they had to write all the shaders--and that sort of thing takes forever and a month. AD

As good as any. Like any other game, DCS doesn't care what kind of CPU you have, as long as it's about 4.0 GHz or faster and has at least four cores, you're good to go. Core i3, i5, i7, i9, don't matter. DCS seems to like 4 cores, more probably doesn't make any difference. I once had DCS running quite well on an old Core 2 Quad Q9650 machine at 3.6 GHz. Asus P5Q mobo and 8GB DDR2. Only the video card held it back. I currently have an i5-6600K (4 cores/threads, 4.5 GHz) and it's great. I won't be getting a new CPU for a very long time. Actually, I recently got a GTX 1080 Ti, and DCS World can still bottleneck on the graphics card, not my "ancient" i5 CPU :) AD

That helps a lot :) You should also post your screen resolution. Anyway, looks like a pretty good system. Try setting everything on max, except: -no MSAA. -SSAA at 1.5 (or try Nvidia DSR at maybe 2x DSR Factor, might perform better) -Shadows on Medium -Terrain Shadows on Flat -Civilian Traffic on Low or Medium -Water on Medium (important, it looks about the same but performs much better than High) ...and see how she goes :) Peace AD

Don't lock your framerate. Don't use maxfps statements in autoexec.cfg, just leave it at default in graphics.lua (default is maxfps=180). Don't use RTSS framerate limiter, or any other framerate "clamping" utility. Just use Vertical Sync in the sim options menu itself, leave VSync turned off in NVCP. Seems to work well for me, and we have the same graphics card. If you only use the in-sim Vertical Sync and no other framerate limiter of any kind, then the sim will also run smoother overall. Try it, it's really nice :) Peace AD

Put your *complete* system specs in your signature, and it'll be real easy for anyone to answer this type of question for you in the future. But for now? Sorry, we haven't got a clue. AD

If you're using SSAA x2, there's no reason for you to also use MSAA x2 (or anything). It'll reduce framerates and probably cause stuttering, but if you're happy with what you get, it's cool. That's one of the nice things about DSR, is you can use the Smoothing function and it doesn't reduce framerates, unlike MSAA, which sucks :) AD

The built-in SSAA looks really good, but DSR gives you lots more options and also allows better performance. I still wish DSR worked with the Ka-50 cockpit. I tried it, and it causes problems with click location--the graphics scale, but the click map does not, so you can't click the cockpit buttons and switches. AD

Awesome man, so glad it helped you! Remember: 1) No framerate clamping with autoexec.cfg/maxfps, Rivatuner, or anything else 2)In-sim VSync only 3)No in-game MSAA (SSAA is good, but you need a "meaty" graphics card) ...and you're good to rock 'n' roll :)

I find clamping the framerate externally (either with autoexec.cfg maxfps or Rivatuner) always causes jittery movement. MSAA causes it too. Leaving the framerate unconstrained and using in-game vertical sync works best for me. My system specs are below. AD

This is right if your physical screen is 1920x1080. 2x doesn't mean it doubles the number of rows and columns of pixels, that would be 4x, not 2! 2x means your graphics card renders twice the number of pixels as your screen. So, if you have a 1920x1080 screen, the correct DSR resolution is 2715x1527. If you set it to 4x, it'll be 3840x2160. AD

You can use any factor you want, but even numbers are believed to be better for some reason, so 2 or 4. When you select a DSR Factor, your graphics card renders that many pixels compared to your physical monitor. For example, 1920x1080 has so many pixels (2,073,600) and setting DSR Factor to 2 will render double that amount, setting it to 4 will render 4 times that amount. Try 2x first, then see if 4x is better. You can just select all of them in NVCP and try them out one at a time in the sim. After choosing your DSR Factor(s), start DCS and select that new resolution (higher than your screen). You might have to hit Alt-Enter to get it to scale right. AD

You have to select a DSR Factor before the Smoothing option becomes available. DSR Factors = the number of pixels your physical screen has, times a factor. This gives you the number of pixels the graphics card will render the scene as. For example, with a 1080p screen, and select 4x as a factor, the video card will render 4 times as many pixels as a 1920x1080 screen has--it will render as 4K, then down-scale the finished frames for 1080p. In order to work, you must first select the new resolution (3840x2160) in DCS World or whatever you're running in DSR. Finally, the Smoothing slider becomes available and adjusts how sharp the image is. I find adding a bit makes the HUD and displays look better, but too much makes averything fuzzy. AD

Yes, but it gives better image quality and better control than the built-in AA in the sim--and it's easier on framerates too. Mighty shame about incompatibility with the Ka-50 clickable cockpit. The visual cockpit and the clickable representation of it are scaled differently when you use DSR so you can't click the buttons & switches in the Ka-50 when using DSR (seems to work fine with the Hornet, though, havne't tried any others yet). Imma try selecting the Fullscreen option in the sim (instead of my usual Alt-Enter) to see if the Ka-50 cockpit work with that. AD

DSR is better. It preserves fine detail by pre-rendering the scene at higher resolution and then downscaling it to fit your monitor. It's easier on the graphics card than MSAA as well, I'm just trying to sort out how to get it to work in DCS without causing problems with the clickable cockpits (Ka-50 doesn't like to work with DSR because the click map doesn't line up with the visual representation of the cokpit buttons & switches). DSR also has a Smoothness slider in NVCP, which acts like a continuously-variable antialiasing control, and is very nice to use. Of course, a real 4K display would probably be best, but I already blew all my cash on a used GTX 1080 Ti :) AD

I'd try G-Sync first, since you forked over a ton of bread for it :) G-Sync causes the monitor to refresh only after it has been fed a new frame by the graphics card, so if the frame rate is uneven, it may cause motion jitter. You'd have to try it and see--after than, disable G-Sync and use the in-sim VSync, and see if it's smoother. Pick whichever one is better :) I'd suspect that either one will work best if the framerate is not clamped in any external software. You can try using both G and V sync together, but it shouldn't be needed and might cause other problems. AD

I've never tried it in VR. I don't have a VR headset. Unfortunately, some modules don't like it. It always looks really nice, but you can't click the cockpit buttons. It doesn't work in the Ka-50. Works great in the F/A-18C, though. The key to making the sim run smoothly is to not clamp your framerate (maxfps=60 or whatever, or Rivatuner or anything like that) and only use the sim's internal VSync option. MSAA sucks so don't use it, SSAA is a framerate killa, but so be it :) At least the clickable cockpits will work. I could swear that DSR gives better framerates, though, and looks awesome. AD

Greetings everyone, I sorted this out while messing around for ages with my new graphics card, seems to help a *lot*, and hope it helps you. The stutter I'm talking about is the kind you get when just flying around--the sim seems to move in a series of small jumps, instead of zipping along smoothly. I have an Nvidia graphics card, but maybe this will help for AMD ones as well. So, here goes: 1) Disable ALL normal anti-aliasing in the sim and in Nvidia Control Panel. That includes in-sim MSAA and SSAA, and all similar features in NVCP. So, no AA anywhere at all. We'll deal with the aliasing problem later. 2)Don't clamp the framerate, for example, with Rivatuner, or anything else. Let your vid card render un-constrained--this also means don't use an autoexec.cfg file (or graphics.lua) maxfps line to limit FPS. 3)Use the VSync feature IN SIM. Don't use anything else. 4)Finally, since you'll have aliasing, with all AA turned off, go to NVCP and enable Dynamic Super Resolution (DSR). I have a 2560x1440 screen, so I set my DSR Factor to 2.25x so the vid card renders the frames as if they were 4K (3840x2160) and this is the new resolution you set DCS World to in system options. Then you have the Smoothing slider to adjust-out the jaggies. And there you have it! The sim now just flies along smoothly without jumping and stuttering, and gets really nice framerates :) DCS World's built-in AA features are framerate killers (SSAA) and they also cause stuttering (MSAA); just use DSR and you're good to go! If you don't know what DSR is and/or how the heck you use it, it allows your graphics card to render each frame at a higher resolution than your screen, then down-scales it when it sends it to your screen. It preserves high detail and looks better than MSAA, and the Nvidia driver does a really nice job of it. For example, if you set DSR Factor to 2x, it will render twice as many pixels as your screen (if you have a 1080p screen, it will render as 4K, then scale down to send it to your screen). The DSR-Smoothness slider is now your antialiasing control :) Just remember to go into the Options, System menu, and choose the new, higher resolution in DCS World. You may have to hit Alt-Enter to fit the new image to your screen. And there you go! Peace and happy warfare AD

I wouldn't call the Eco mode useless. That fan is barely needed :) It only kicks in when both CPU and GPU are having the living boogers flogged out of them. All other times, including most gaming, it doesn't run at all. As far as I'm concerned it's just another case fan :) AD