Aluminum Donkey

40 y.o. here, nearly 41. Been flight simming on-and-off since I was about 7 or 8, and yes, DCS World actually DID exist back then (believe it or not). I remember playing it in my hometown of Pointe Claire, Quebec, when relatively few people had home PCs and Internet access--but it was all there if you wanted it. Yes, DCS World really has been around that long--if not longer!! I kid you not! We had the Bf-109 and Su-27, A-10C, and the F-15--and of course, the Su-25T that came with it. I'll be danged if I recall where on earth we got a computer that would run it back in the mid-1980s, around 1985 or thereabouts, but it really was around back then and it took what was an insane video card in those days to run it. Graphically, it has improved, but it has always taken ages for updates/improvements to get released. Flight modelling was already pretty good, and yes, there were discussion forums, and yes, people griped about bugs and argued over flight model accuracy, and complained about how long it took for updates and new modules to get released. So little has changed! DCS World must be one of the world's oldest video games that still gets played and updated. And, as far as I'm concerned, it's still one of very, very few that deserves it's decades-long staying power. I guess I sound like I'm making this all up, but I'm absolutely not. This game is a third of a century old. Kerbal Space Program and the Fallout games were around back then, too. I played 'em all. Mid-1980s.

That's the nice thing about flight sims. Drunk as a monkey? No problem, fire 'er up and take off anyway! Not that I'm any good at DCS while sober, either, but hey :)

It's the upgraded Russian landing gear, for making the Su-27 carrier-capable. Get a good set of tires on 'em and these babies corner like a Miata set up for autocrossing :)

That looks like a great choice for GPU and RAM, you'll love the GTX 1070. I don't know much about AMD processors other than that the new Ryzen ones are supposed to be very good. If you do get one of those instead of an Intel, make sure your motherboard supports overclocking, because it'll come in really handy for 'heavy' missions in DCS that have a lot of active vehicles and aircraft. Remember--when choosing a CPU for DCS World (and other gaming) always choose one based on single-threaded performance bechmarks, not overall scores, because hyperthreaded CPUs and CPUs with lots of cores will always have high overall scores--that won't help with most gaming, and certainly won't do any good in DCS! Don't forget a really good CPU cooler, because AMD stuff generally gives off more heat than similar Intel CPUs at a given performance level, although that may have changed recently. Personally, I wouldn't bother with watercooling--plenty of great air coolers out there, and they're cheaper and also continue to work if the fan conks out :) Plus, fans are cheap and easy to replace, especially on an air cooler. Peace and happy warfare AD P.S. I almost forgot--the i5-7600K is about the same price as that AMD Ryzen 5, but has significantly better benchmark scores for single-thread performance. If I were you, I'd get the i5-7600K instead. You'll be very pleased with how it performs, and you won't even have to overclock it if you don't want to.

I have the Cougar, not the Hog, but have you considered re-flashing the firmware? Sometimes that works. Also, make sure you've installed the latest drivers. How long have you had the Warthog? These gadgets can sometimes be a little flaky for whatever reason, and occasional re-flashes might be needed once in a while... Did you try unplugging it again and plugging it back into the original USB port you had it plugged into when the mini stick quit working? If so, does the mini stick still work? AD

Instead of that Core i7 CPU, get an i5-7600K. The i7 doesn't really give any improvement in gaming. Games don't use 8 threads, they're heavily dependent on single-threaded performance, and the i5 K versions can be overclocked, but are cheaper than an i7 and will perform every bit as well at lower cost. The i5 is a 4-core CPU without hyperthreading, so it runs 4 threads max (games generally don't use hyperthreading, or don't use it well, and DCS only uses two threads.) With the money saved, don't get a GTX 1060, get a 1070 or better. Now, you'll have a great gaming rig that will run anything at full settings. DCS World is *very* hard on video cards at max settings, and you'll be really glad you got a GTX 1070 (or better) instead of that Core i7 CPU, which would have cost a lot more and wouldn't have contributed at all to better performance! The 1060 is also marginal for 1440p displays, the 1070 is well suited to that. 16GB of RAM is plenty, especially with an 8GB video card. Also, don't forget to get a good CPU cooler. I use a Hyper 212 Evo, which is excellent and fairly cheap. Peace and happy warfare AD

It's entirely possible. I've heard that while the 970 does have 4GB, if you use more than 3.5, the remainder is slow. Why this would be a problem I'm not sure, but DCS 1.5 had it's quirks and 2.0 is supposed to be much better with regards to vram/system ram management and general rendering performance. Do you also fly 2.0? How is that one? Without trying both, it's hard to guess where the problem is. I consider version 1.5 to be obsolete, but people are hanging on to it because 2.0 doesn't have the Caucasus map yet. Utimately the only good advice I can give you is to wait for the new Caucasus map to be released as DCS 2.5. How long that's will be, well... they announced it over a year ago and it's nowhere to be seen. Might be another 6 months, might be another 2, 3 or 4 years. Just for the record I have the same CPU as you and also 16GB RAM, that's not the issue since 1.5 is pretty easy on system resources compared to 2.0 and I've always had the best of luck running 2.0. If you know someone with a hefty video card, you ask them to try it out on your system. Best of luck AD

I wholeheartedly intend to beat Windows 7 x64 like the dead hoss it is :) I've gotten used to it and by and large it works fine. I guess we're up to 10 now; it supports DX12, and I'll happily change to that when anyone can demonstrate that it actually makes anything run better :D Until then, it takes a blinkin' dogs age to reinstall DCS and all the modules, so I'll just hobble along with Win7 until for whatever reason, something I like (DCS or any other sim/game etc.) just doesn't want to play ball anymore because everything needs DX12. Peace AD

Precog, Only two things I can think of: First, you're using version 1.5, and as someone else stated it sometimes doesn't allow you to make full use of your graphics card. Version 2.0/2.1 doesn't have this problem, but if you want to fly over the Caucasus map, you're stuck with version 1.5 for now. Sorry :) To get the Caucasus map with version 2.0 you'll have to wait until DCS 2.5 is ready for release. It should only be another few years. Second, your GTX 970 is a 4 GB card. DCS can use a *lot* of video RAM, and when you use more than your card has, Windows starts swapping game assets (graphics textures etc.) to the system RAM, which can cause microstuttering and/or framerates taking a dump... but version 1.5 uses much less VRAM than 2.1 (Nevada/Normandy) so that might not be the problem. Change your MSI Afterburner settings so you can also see how much VRAM the sim is using and reduce graphics settings if needed to see if it helps (try reducing your Textures setting to Low and fly it again). My best guess is that it's the former. Either buy one of the maps for 2.0 and fly that, or wait for DCS 2.5 to get released. I have a gut feeling it'll be a LONG time, since they announced it about a year ago or more and it's nowhere to be seen, not even teaser vids. Peace and happy warfare AD

Thanks, but if the problem is in the main PCB in the stick base, replacing the handle won't help any. I appreciate the offer. I'm giving it a bit of a rest for now, it would be nice if 2.5 came out so I could go back to it... If I really want to fix this thing I'll probably have to graft Leo Bodnar's controller into the stick. Ten wires from the handle to the base, and I'll probably just run wires directly, no plugs. Why remove the handle anyway... Thanks all AD

Lenux, Your i7-4790K and GTX 1080 are about perfect for DCS. Like everyone else says, buying a vastly more expensive CPU will not improve performance any because DCS only uses two threads. A Core i5 is fine. Even a fast i3 is probably very good these days. The extra L3 cache from an uber-expensive CPU won't help gaming performance. On the other hand, you may be able to get more FPS out of a GTX 1080 Ti. The regular 1080 you have is great, I only have the 1070, but it's great for Normandy, Nevada, and just about everything else I throw at it at very close to max graphics settings. The regular 1080 is only slightly faster than the 1070. So, your system sounds about perfect to me. If you're having framerate problems, it's because of how your system is set up. Drivers, UEFI/BIOS settings etc. Not lack of sufficient hardware. Keep what you have and enjoy the sim, I wouldn't bother spending any more money at all unless you want a GTX 1080 Ti. Peace AD

Wow, thanks! If I use my BU0836A I'd probably just run a huge bundle of small wires, that way the circuitry stays simple--just Leo's PCB itself. A recent email I got from Thrustmaster states that it's probably the main stick circuit board itself... Which is strange, since the rest of the system works well, only the stick handle is acting up. At this stage in the game I'd rather just fly the stupid sim rather than jerk around with nonsense, but that's just the way it goes. Oh well. Maybe I should find something else to do with my time other than this...

It does look like the Cougar... I contacted tech support at TM, they say it's either the shift register circuit board, or the stick base main board, or the 5-pin connectors in the stick handle and base. Since the board for the handle is $60 shipped, replacing all three components would cost a lot more than the stick is worth to me, and might not even fix it!! It very well could be a driver bug as well, not a hardware problem. I have my Leo Bodnar USB circuit kicking around, which always worked perfectly... If push comes to shove, I'll probably just stuff that in, if I can find small enough fine-stranded wire to do it with. The stick handle would require 26 wires, not just 5. Man, what a pain in the arse! AD

That's what I'm thinking... But, the Cougar hasn't been supported for years, they want to sell the Warthog now and probably can't be bothered with people nagging them about an old product. I suppose I could try calling them (long distance of course, and probably half an hour on hold) and see what they say. Shift register eh? So you actually know how these little boogers work inside--very cool. My best guess is that it was to eliminate a huge pile of wires passing through the stick base, and also to make the handle conveniently removable. Nifty, but annoying to diagnose when it don't work! The little circuit board in the handle also has a pile of resistors on the opposite side of the board from the ICs. I wonder if one of them is cooked, possibly related to holding the trigger in to erase the flash memory. Or, if replacing one of them with a different value would make the thing reliable. They should have sorted this out themselves... maybe they did, and I just got a duff one. Thanks for the thinkage :) AD

Great idea, only $600 for the Warthog here in Canada... That's why I insist on trying to fix the Cougar, these infernal sticks are too expensive for what they are--nice looking, solid-feeling, cheap junk. The Warthog has plenty of problems, I want one stick I can use, not two that I can't :) I restored my old used Cougar to top shape mechanically, and replaced the pots with Hall effect sensors, all that works great. But, the buttons on the stick handle are glitchy now. Started happening a few months ago. Thanks anyway AD

Thanks, but all done. Loosened stick clamp ring and fiddled with stick; still glitchy. Only thing that works temporarily is either re-flashing firmware (sometimes works), or removing stick handle and holding trigger, then re-installing stick handle. The stupid Cougar is a fiddly little bitch, I paid $200 for mine well-used and it was still too much. If I had paid $600 for it new, I'd have been royally pissed! Unfortunately, the reliable but affordable sticks (Logitech, CH Products etc.) are all cheap junk (and they all have problems too). Still hacking at it... Wish I could just enjoy the stupid sim for what it is instead of dealing with crap. AD

Greetings everyone, I use a Cougar with throttle, and the buttons on the stick handle are intermittent. All of the axes work fine, and the throttle's functions are all fine, but the stick handle buttons are a pain! They usually work in Windows 7, but after a flying a mission or two, all of the stick buttons stop working altogether. The only one that works is the trigger, and it produces a wild array of glitchy outputs on all buttons from 1 to 6 or 7 in the Cougar test program. Sometimes, re-flashing the stick firmware works for a short time, but not always. Removing the stick handle and plugging it back in again fixes it for a short time, as I've recently found. However, the 'flaky' stick buttons always return. The electrical wiring in the stick handle is fine, the buttons either all work, or they don't. Any suggestions? Thanks AD

Even when flying a flight simulator, I much prefer real beer. Not a bad idea though, it's just that if you have the real thing available, why bother with a simulation? :) Peace AD

It wouldn't be 'combat' if it was so easy that anyone could do it. War is hell man, soldier on :) Peace AD

Just move to Russia, learn Russian, get the appropriate fake ID that shows you were born in Russia, join the Russian air force, and fly the real MiG-29. It's cheaper to do and probably easier too :)

OK, finally got it all. Took ages.

All right, Imma try selecting both the map itself and WW2 Assets Pack in Module Manager, and downloading the two together. I`ll see if that works. Another 2.3 GB to download, at 140 kB per sec...

Greetings, OK, I just purchased the Normandy map, WW2 asset pack, and Combined Arms bundle. Tried installing the Map first. I figured it's the part I wanted originally, so why not. I deselected the other two and clicked 'install' in module manager. The download took hours, coughing along at ~250 kB/sec. I have a 15 MB/sec connection. Now, the damn torrent is stuck at 96% complete, 4202.1 MB of 4352.6 MB. No peers to connect to. Not even any uploading. I tried disconnecting, and re-downloading. Torrent checks out OK up to 96% again, and stops cold there once more. I don't want to try HTTP download, because it invariably starts the DL again from the beginning, and it's only good for 600 kB/sec. I've run into this time and time again when buying new DCSW modules and it pisses me off every single time. Any ideas? P.S. ED guys, if it sounds like I'm pissing & bitching, it's because I am. Why not post the complete torrent on your website, so people can download it with uTorrent (or other Bittorrent client) and seed it like a real torrent? Why the muffing around? Love your work and all, you know, the usual ass-kissing, but this sort of crap is bloody infuriating.

DCS 2.1 is both very CPU and video card intensive. Your power supply (PSU) current will be higher running it than many other games/apps. It's possible your PSU fan has stopped working, but the PSU can still supply enough power for the other things you use your machine for--but when you run DCS, the PSU overheats and shuts itself off to prevent damage. I've seen this happen before. Make sure your PSU fan works--if not, you have to replace it or get a new PSU. In the meantime, you might try putting a small desk fan over the PSU to blow air through it and keep it cool. Perhaps a higher wattage PSU is needed as well. Have you recently upgraded your system or done any hefty overclocking? Peace and happy warfare AD

No doubt, I was wondering if was gonna be a little blurry in motion. I'm mostly worried about it being 'leaky', as big high-res screens tend to be unless you spend a small fortune.