Donut

Well, after a quick test, I don't think my overclock is causing any issues. CPU load and GPU load look okay to me but I don't really know much about the subject to be honest. Sitting on the runway at Nellis in the Hornet my CPU and GPU load varied greatly but that is probably because I was moving my head around and changing the view. I have a few statics on the ramp as well and notice my FPS dip into the 60's when I look at them and FPS goes up to low 100's looking straight ahead. With unlimited FPS CPU loads were anywhere from 4%-64% with a spike at 100% GPU loads were anywhere from 50-70% with a spike to 90% With FPS locked at 60 I saw my GPU load go down only slightly but my CPU usage went up a little. A few spikes in both loads were present at well. I really don't know what to conclude from all this and I don't know if there really is anything abnormal with my CPU or GPU usage that would contribute to stuttering or reduce my performance.

Interesting discovery! Thank you for sharing. I am currently at a 21% overclock. I have never really looked into my CPU and GPU loads but I will now have to take a look after what you have said. I will also see what reducing my overclock does as well.

What are your PC specs and in-game settings? What FPS are you seeing? The more information that you provide, the better the rest of us will be able to troubleshoot our issues to maybe see if it something on our end that is causing issues.

There are a few posts about the incorrect helmet and I have made some comments as well. What we currently have is not the standard issue US Navy/USMC helmet. I found a photo real quick and attached it below... Yes, it's early access but nonetheless, it's wrong and needs to be fixed. The whole pilot model in general needs improvement when compared to what we have seen with Heatblur and the Tomcat. Hopefully we get a more accurate representation of a naval aviator with proper helmet soon.

I am as excited for this as I am for Hornet updates and the Tomcat release! Okay...maybe not, but it's close!

I don't know if 2.5 and smooth are possible right now with any system but you can get close and it of course all depends on your monitor resolution and how high you want the in-game settings. I paid roughly $1,400 last year for my CPU, GPU, MOBO, RAM, and PSU as seen in my signature below.

Great and informative write up! However, you mention 150+FPS...under what conditions do you achieve this and what are your in-game settings? I have a 4.6GHz CPU, and 1080 Ti and my FPS varies greatly. Over open water or desert my FPS can go into the 140's but in dense areas my FPS can drop into the 60's. If I use the "High" Preset in settings, my FPS will drop into the 50's at times so I have to customize the settings a bit to achieve FPS over 60.

Great stuff Heatblur, thanks for the update! I am very much looking forward to those in-depth looks! That album is going to be the soundtrack for my life...

Wow, that was better than the release trailer! A lot more detail this time. Great stuff Heatblur!

Do you truly have everything at max settings and if so, what does your FPS look like? Here are my current settings: With these settings, my FPS can get down into the 60's at times. If I use the "High" Preset option, my FPS will get into the 50's. As for stutters, do you not even get stutters from weapon hits/effects?

Unfortunately, I as well as others here have been experiencing worse performance over the last few 2.5 updates. I run DCS at 2560x1440p and with a 1080 Ti, 4.6GHz CPU, 16GB RAM, and SSD, I cannot run at max settings and stay above 60 FPS. There are also ongoing issues with stutters as well in which the source of has yet to really be found. Supposedly ED is working to incorporate Vulkan API which hopes to bring performance improvements but not much has been mentioned about it lately.

I believe the simplest explanation is that the F/A-18 was designed to be a multi-role aircraft from the start while the others had the capability added later but the "A" was not added for whatever reasons. I have always thought the most bizarre was the F-117...not a fighter at all.

Yep, exciting stuff! Hopefully Friday’s newsletter will give us some Hornet details.

Are you sure you are in afterburner? Use the F2 view to verify that your burner is engaging. On a side note, there are times where I have noticed that I can’t achieve 100% RPM but this may be proper behavior at certain speeds and altitudes.

Agreed. Almost 6 months in and we still have the wrong helmet, no CAG birds and no FRS VFA-106. Since most of what we are doing is training and learning the Hornet, I would have imagined VFA-106 would have been one of the very first squadrons included.

I am hoping on some OB fixes as well. I don't see what we currently have as good to go for the stable version.

I have been doing some testing and noticed a great improvement in performance when I locked my FPS to 60. I have EVGA Precision X and set the Frame Rate Target to 61 to get the 60 FPS in game. I leave my monitor at 144HZ and GSYNC on. I leave Full Screen unchecked in game settings and do not use LALT+ENTER. By locking the FPS to 60, I noticed everything is a lot more smooth and no stutters. TrackIr is smooth as well. Even the stutters with weapons hits/effects is gone. Maybe this will help some of you as well!

I have been doing some testing and noticed a great improvement in performance when I locked my FPS to 60. I have EVGA Precision X and set the Frame Rate Target to 61 to get the 60 FPS in game. I leave my monitor at 144HZ and GSYNC on. I leave Full Screen unchecked in game settings and do not use LALT+ENTER. By locking the FPS to 60, I noticed everything is a lot more smooth and no stutters. TrackIr is smooth as well. Even the stutters with weapons hits/effects is gone. Maybe this will help some of you as well!

Okay everyone. Quick update here. I don't think this is a bug. I did some further testing just now and what is happening is that I have several static aircraft on the ramp at Nellis. When I take them away, I noticed the FPS increase when anti-aliasing is off compared to on. It is only when the static aircraft are present that I don't see the difference in FPS between anti-aliasing on/off. Lesson learned though...static aircraft are a huge hit on FPS

Yes, every time I changed a setting I exited DCS and restarted. SSAA 1.5 MSAA 2x Both Off I get the same FPS with both off that I do with either one of them on.

Same here buddy. I was seeing FPS drop to the low 80's at worst and now I see FPS dropping into the upper 60's at times. I did not change a thing in regards to settings but now I am looking at adjusting settings because I am getting uncomfortably (for me) close to that 60 FPS threshold. I feel that this is really unacceptable performance at any level of settings for a 4.6GHz CPU, 1080 Ti GPU and 16GB of RAM.

I can understand that. I would expect the drop in FPS as I look to more detailed areas. In my brief test above, I saw the FPS drop as I looked left towards the hangars. My concern is that turning off anti-aliasing all together does not increase FPS.

Shouldn't we be trying to achieve 60 FPS to match the TrackIR refresh rate? For me to get 60 FPS in DCS, I have to set my EVGA Precision X frame rate target to 61 and have full screen checked in game. If I set it to 60 FPS, DCS shows 59 FPS in game. My only question is, do I leave my monitor refresh rate at 144Hz or do I set that to 60Hz as well?

That was a great post by Schmidtfire and really puts everything in perspective. When I pre-purchased the Hornet, I was guessing maybe two years since original release for a complete Hornet but with only 4 people working on it and the current pace, I have to agree that the unfortunate reality may be closer to three years. Maybe if the Hornet is selling really well, they can hire more staff and increase production.

I have been messing around to try and get the best performance in DCS and noticed a possible bug with anti-aliasing. With SSAA 1.5 or MSAA 2x, I get almost exactly the same FPS but I feel that SSAA looks better. No problems here. My FPS was roughly the following for each one: Sitting on the runway at Nellis in the Hornet Looking forward: FPS 103 Looking left: FPS 68 The possible anti-aliasing bug that I noticed was that when I turned off all anti-aliasing, my FPS stayed the exact same. I was expecting a significant increase in FPS with anti-aliasing turned off but that was not the case. I restarted DCS, checked/unchecked full screen, tried LALT+ENTER and got the same results. Anyone else getting similar performance and if so, does this seem right?