BeastyBaiter

Fully agreed. Hell, we're fast running out of US planes from the 1980's onwards to add to the game. Thankfully we at least have the JF-17 on the other side (kinda). I suppose we can count the F-14 as a red plane too, depending on the time period.

I'm thinking about replacing my X-55 with these. I'm curious to know about how the stick feels around the center (sloppy like WH and X-55 or tight like they claim?) and the feel of the various buttons and switches. I've watched the youtube reviews, but those were all pre-production examples sent by the company itself. I always take things like that with a bit of salt, company's have a tendency to cherry pick for reviewers after all.

I suspect the 10600k is the better option for DCS. Stock it probably doesn't matter but my 10600k hit 5.0GHz with trivial effort. 1.31v is all it took, no additional tinkering needed. It's my understanding the current Ryzen chips are basically maxed out from the factory, so no overclocking headroom to play with. You can bump the all core boost up some but will sacrifice single thread in the process, so that's a bad thing for DCS. Using the benchmark software linked above, my 10600k at 5.0GHz at 1.31v gets 3176 in single thread. They list it at 3013 which is a mix of overclocked and stock results I think. Their Ryzen 7 3700x score is 2681. Overall the Ryzen 7 is the superior CPU, but in DCS specifically (and many other games), the i5-10600k still wins when overclocked. You can see this in plenty of online reviews from groups like hardware unboxed and gamers nexus on youtube. None of them are particularly fond of Intel either, for their usage it's Ryzen or nothing since their stuff takes advantage of the extra cores. But they show plenty of game results too.

There are two things at work against VR users in DCS: the engine using a single CPU core (ignoring sound) and the graphical quality of the game choking even a 2080 Ti. The single threaded nature of the game results in frequent CPU bottlenecks. Yes, the game engine could be better optimized to use that one thread more efficiently but those gains would likely be very small compared to splitting it across multiple cores. This is a very difficult process for a legacy game engine though. It's doable, but time consuming. The switch to Vulkan will multi-thread the graphics engine's CPU portion, but it won't necessarily do the same for AI and other things. I expect that shift will give a major performance uplift though, since flight models and AI are generally somewhat trivial for CPU's to handle. It's draw calls going to the GPU that slow things down. The second problem is the graphics quality. DCS has huge rendering distances. Games like Doom look fantastic and will hit 200 fps on a potato. But their view distance is maybe 200m rather than 200km. So even if just viewing water, there is more to render here. Switching to Vulkan may help a little, but we'll still need monster GPU's to run VR and have to compromise graphics settings compared to 1440p in order to keep the frame rates up. But that's an expected trade off. If the game suddenly performs way better, ED will want to make it prettier since the vast majority still view it in pancake mode. So we'll still have less eye candy, but that's fine. I just want a stable 80 fps in my Rift S or 90 fps in any other mainstream headset.

I play a variety of games too. I can say the 10600k runs them all just fine and the bottleneck in most is the RTX 2080 Super. The same would be true of a Ryzen 5 3600x. But since you are on this forum and you specifically mentioned VR, I think Intel is worth serious consideration. With that said, I think DCS in VR might be the only place where you'd be disappointed with a Ryzen CPU. They are great and I'm slowly getting my office on them as the old intel laptops die. But DCS is that oddball thing where overclocking the snot out of an intel is generally the way to go. Trying to make that jump from 40 fps to 80 fps is a game of the tiniest single thread performance gains. And intel still rules that area, though by ever decreasing margins. In any case, if you do go the Ryzen route, plan on swapping that baby out for a 4000 chip next winter. The 4000's might finally overtake intel in single thread performance. They already out perform them on a per clock basis, the only shortcoming is the clock speed. If they get anything like the IPC boost they are claiming (no reason to doubt), then they should overtake intel and have a 4GHz Ryzen out performing an intel at 5 GHz in single thread. But that's speculation right now.

I don't think a 3700x would be much of an upgrade in DCS for you. It's a huge upgrade overall, but since DCS only cares about 1 CPU core, the performance uplift will be marginal and might actually be a downgrade if you had an overclocked 7700k. As such, I recommend an i5-10600k or an i7-9xxxk. The 10600k is in your price range and should offer a pretty decent performance uplift in both DCS and in general. It is critically important to get a k model though, don't even think about a non-k. For that Ryzen will probably be better. The advice I'm giving here is exclusively for DCS and IL2. For nearly everything else, Ryzen is as good or better than anything Intel offers. We just happen to be the exception to the rule here. My system: i5-10600k (5.0Ghz, 4.6Ghz Ring), RTX 2080 Super, 16GB DDR4 3200 CL14. In VR I mostly get 80 FPS with the Rift S, but it does drop to the 40's or somewhere between when at low altitude or in a big mission. Generally medium graphics settings with 1.0 Pixel Density. More pixel density would drop performance under 80 fps due to GPU bottleneck. I do have shadows on (low).

More didn't seem necessary. I remember DCS topping out at around 12GB when I'd last played. I just tested before making this reply and it's maxing out on growling sidewinder server (15.4GB). So I guess I may add 2 more sticks.

I just threw a new build together over the weekend, specs as follows: CPU: i5-10600k (5.0 GHz) Mobo: Gigabye Z490 Vision GPU: RTX 2080 Super RAM: 16GB DDR4 3200 CL14 (G.Skill FlareX) SSD: Samsung 970 Evo Screen: Oculus Rift S I had taken a bit over a year long break from flight sims as I had to part out my desktop for a new laptop for a high travel job. So I'm switching over from effectively nothing. My previous desktop had an i7-8600k and GTX 1080 Ti, otherwise exact same hardware or at least similar. I've found this new setup with moderate detail settings (listed at bottom) gives a reasonably consistent 80 fps for the Rift S in both small single player missions and in my 1 evening of F99th with the JF-17. The same could not be said for the previous desktop, it basically locked at 40 fps at the same settings unless at high altitude. How much of that change is due to the new system and how much is because of DCS optimizations I don't know. As for the 5.0 GHz overclock, that was completely trivial to achieve. I set the clock to 5Ghz and the voltage to 1.3v. It runs cool and stable like that. I tried 5.1GHz but crashed on boot so I rolled it back to 5 and haven't messed with it again yet. I may try some further tweaking but for now it seems to work well. DCS settings: Textures/Terrain Textures: High Civ Traffic: Low Water: Medium Vis Range: Hihg Heat Blur: Off Shadows: Low Cockpit Displays: 512 MSAA/DoF/Lens/MotionBlur/SSAA/SSLR: Off Clutter: 0 Trees: 50% Preload: 150k Chimney: 4 Anisotropic: 8x Terrain Shadows: Flat Cockpit Illumination: On VR PD: 1.0 (looks better than Rift 1 with 1.7 PD) Bloom Effect: on (no idea what this does) MSAA Mask Size: 0.42 (default)

True and false. DCS is extremely CPU intensive on a single CPU core, and nearly all of that is feeding draw calls to the GPU for the graphics engine. The system and flight models are completely trivial for the CPU. On topic, I recommend waiting. For DCS specifically, I don't think an upgrade over an overclocked 7700k exists yet. There are vastly more powerful CPU's out there but they get that through more cores, which DCS won't use and so it's irrelevant. The next big leap in single core performance looks like it might be the next generation of Ryzen CPU's coming later this year. But it's too early to tell and so I recommend waiting.

What kills these projects is a lack of money. 3d modelers are cheap and plentiful. So making those pretty screenshots is relatively easy. But ultimately someone has to code it. And we all know how projects that are only 99.999999999% perfect are badgered endlessly. See razbam as an example. Experienced software developers able to build flight and systems models are very expensive on the open market. DCS does not offer the raw sales numbers to support them. So not only do they have to put up with the DCS community, they also have to be willing to take a big pay cut along with it. There are some willing to do it as a project of passion that can also afford the pay cut, but not enough to go around.

My 8700k, prior to selling, ran 4.8 GHz all cores all the time on below stock voltage. One would think the newer model would do at least as well as that.

Closest I have is a standard CZ-75B. I've had no problems with it, been a very reliable target and defense gun for the past 12+ years. God only knows how many thousands of rounds I've put through it in that time. Haven't replaced any parts on it, still works great. I did rent a Shadow 2 a couple months ago and it's a nice shooter. Compared to the standard, it has a nicer trigger and sights but less comfortable grip due to the cheese grater back strap. It's also wildly inappropriate as a defensive gun. Pure breed competition gun that one. For other firearms, it really depends on what interests you. I generally recommend getting some 22LR's though. They are fun in of themselves, and there are plenty of 22LR competitions for both pistol and rifle. They are also vastly cheaper to shoot even if the guns aren't any cheaper. $15 at walmart will get you a box of 500 22LR. That same $15 will get you a 100 round box of 9mm off the internet or just a 50 round box at a local store. Dump 1000+ rounds of ammo down range per month and that cost difference adds up to some serious money in a hurry. And if you are in any way serious, you will be shooting that volume or more. For some specifics, I think a 9mm carbine might go well with your Shadow 2 for competition use. I have a Ruger PC Carbine, it's a pretty nice shooter with rock solid reliability. Easy to clean too thanks to it being a takedown rifle. The CZ Scorpion Evo is an equally good option. For a rifle caliber pairing, the ever popular AR-15 is a prime choice. They are about as unique and exciting as your mom's minivan but are reliable can be fairly accurate. They are lego guns these days so you can make one whatever you want it to be in a wide range of calibers. Most 2 and 3 gun competition guys run these and they are generally considered the best home defense gun, or at least in the top 3. As for 22's, my favorite 22LR rifle is the Browning T-Bolt. It's stupidly accurate, has a silky smooth action and is a straight pull bolt action, which is more than a little exotic. It has really nice magazines and build quality too. Only problem is the Browning price tag, but you do get what you pay for. A cheaper but almost as fun option is the CZ-455 and 457. They are well made traditional bolt actions and come in a wide variety of flavors. I have the training rifle with it's super long sight radius and old school (party like it's 1899!) military style sights. Great for a back to basics rifle. Sticks out at the range too in the sea of black plastic guns. There is also the Ruger 10/22. It's cheap and it works, that's about all I have to say about it. Mine rarely leaves the closet. For 22LR handguns, you might want to consider the CZ-75 Cadet for the obvious reasons. For a pure 22 handgun, you can't go wrong with the Ruger Mk.IV or S&W Victory. Walther and Beretta have some options for replica guns too. I had a P22 for a while and it worked great but I recommend staying away from the 22LR PPK (real PPK is great).

I say wait as well unless you need more CPU cores for something else. I think there is a very good chance AMD will dethrone Intel in terms of best single thread performance and thus best DCS performance with Zen 3 but that hasn't been released yet. And since it isn't out, we don't know how well it will do. Intel hasn't done anything except rebadge their CPU's since 2015 and that is not going to change with this years release.

Generally crunch time comes from poor time estimates or scope creep. I think it's most prevalent in the game industry because it's a dream job for a lot of software devs, so they put up with stuff we wouldn't in other branches of development. In my branch it's almost unheard of (process automation). That said, it can happen anywhere in any job I suppose and sometimes it is simply unavoidable due to external requirements. Prime example is the payroll protection program in the USA. That was exceptionally time sensitive (lasted only a week for round 1) and so everyone in my industry was doing 6 week projects in 48 hours or less. But as said, that was an unusual situation in my field. I would not put up with that on any kind of regular basis.

I probably wouldn't download the F-15C even if it were free. The Su-27 I'd be willing to buy. Reason? I already have the F-18 and the F-18 = F-16 = F-15 for all intents and purposes.

Bottleneck is CPU, no question about it. The problem is DCS uses only 2 cores and 1 of them does most of the work while the second only does the sound engine (fairly trivial). The speed of that single core is the single most important item for determining how DCS will perform overall. When you pause the game, the physics and AI are also paused, leaving only the graphics engine occupying that main core. This is why you see a huge bump in performance when pausing. Unit spawns can also cause a major performance hit if you're using an old fashioned mechanical drive instead of an SSD of some sort. But that would be a very intermittent issue and mostly tied to mission start. It also tends to completely freeze the game until the asset is loaded.

Voted blue force fixed wing. Why? DCS is almost exclusively western fixed wing aircraft and ED is unlikely to try to change that anytime soon. My guess is it's either an F-15 or a WW2 plane. I have no interest in either at this time so neither would be "eagerly awaited" by me but I'm also that weirdo who wants the Mi-24, AH-1 and some more eastern jets (Su-22, MiG-25...).

Agreed on the RAM issue. There is a very big difference with Ryzen CPU's between 2400 and 3200+. Additionally, it absolutely matters if you have 1 stick or 2 sticks of RAM. Single stick puts the RAM into single channel mode while having 2 or 4 puts it into dual channel if you use the correct slots. Dual channel memory effectively has twice the bandwidth, so yeah, that's important and doesn't add to the cost. The good news is that won't bump the overall cost of the system up by more than maybe $15. 3200 MHz RAM is often the same price as 2400, so no point getting the slower RAM.

I've had 2 GPU's fail, one Nvidia and one AMD. Driver wise, I've had more problems with Nvidia over the course of 15+ years. The past few years AMD drivers have been better but it goes back and fourth and does depend somewhat on the particular games you play. I don't think either has an advantage in DCS or IL2 since neither Nvidia or AMD care about our tiny community. If I were in the market at that price point, the 5700XT looks to be the best option for a new card. I highly recommend spending that extra $40 to go from the basic 5700 to the XT model. Nvidia's product stack below the 2070 Super is pointless and shouldn't exist given how strong AMD is in that price range.

Puking your guts out just adds to the realism.:D Seriously though, I think everyone gets used to it after a while. I was nauseous the first week or so (daily use) and so kept it to short flights at first. Eventually it went away and I could play hours on end without issue. After a long break, the motion sickness can come back but goes away after a session or two.

Indeed, that CPU is trash for gaming and always has been. In general, server parts are designed to slowly serve lots of users rather than 1 user quickly. Xeons are particularly bad on that point.

Thanks for the report on it working for you, though I'm pretty sure you might be the only one who would consider 36 fps solid or even playable. I haven't been able to get the Quest to work on my machine with the link but was hoping that 72 fps would be far more achievable than 80 or 90 fps. Sadly none of the USB ports on my laptop seem to support the Quest, for whatever reason. One doesn't even allow the Quest to be detected, one connects but then instantly disconnects when I put the headset on and the other is a USB 2.0. I also have a Type C port but the only cables I have for that don't support data + charging. The cable I tried on the USB 3 ports is one that's verified to work on the Oculus forums.

Indeed, go with medium visibility range. The visibility range (distance buildings render at) is by far the biggest CPU hog in the game. In VR, CPU is generally the bottleneck unless going nuts with the super sampling.

Due to a move and a lot of travel, I ended up trading my desktop with an i7-8700k + GTX 1080 TI for a laptop with an i7-9750h + RTX 2070 (not a max-Q). The desktop could just barely manage 90 fps in VR at times (Rift CV1) but pretty much always got at least 45 fps in both DCS and IL2. The laptop can manage neither. The GPU is far short of the 1080 Ti but the real deal breaker is the CPU. The game simply is not playable in VR. At 1080p or maybe 1440 with some setting tweaks, I think it would work. But I can't go back to 2d flight sims. Outside of DCS and IL2, the laptop runs VR just fine but most games are multi-threaded. I plan to build a new desktop when the Hind is released, but that's a pile of money I don't have right now and I'm not too eager to hop back in until we have some new choppers to play with.

Finally some news on it :). I've been taking a break from flight sims for the past few months but I'll certainly be back once ED releases this one.