BeastyBaiter

RM750x's last forever and have nearly double the power output that system needs. I don't see any reason to go with anything fancier.

I have the EVGA 1080 Ti SC2 icx. It works well, though the fans were a bit loud when under heavy load. I ended up modding it with EVGA's hybrid cooler kit. Pretty much dead silent now while staying below 70C.

I counted my whole setup after building my current machine, it worked out to $3500 I think. That includes controllers, monitor and even the TrackIR5 that's been sitting in a drawer since getting a Rift.

US pricing, Demon. That $75 AIO probably costs $18,000 in Canada.:P

An overclocked 8700k + gtx 1080ti only uses about 450W for the whole system. And I have never come across a system killed by the psu. Blown psu's I've seen plenty of times, but toss in a new one and they always boot right up. In any case, I recommend a 550W to 750W bronze rated or higher PSU from a reputable brand such as Corsair. You also don't need to spend an arm and a leg on cooling. A good AIO only costs $75, everything beyond that is purely cosmetic since all those pumps are actually just rebrands of the exact same Asiatech pump (no joke, they really are). The only meaningful difference is fan noise but you may want to replace those anyways.

Yep, that build is way outside your budget. I recommend looking at the i5-8600k, a basic Z370 motherboard, 16GB of RAM, and a gtx 1170 when it comes. Cut corners like its crunch time at the circle factory on the rest to stay in budget.

DCS will use more than 2 threads on the Caucuses map but not on the NTTR or PG maps. The extra threads are only used during rapid head movement though. Not sure exactly what they are doing, might be related to speed tree but niether NTTR or PG maps have many trees, so I haven't been able to record more than 2 threads being used. Typical MP CPU usage can be seen in the video below. Looks super single threaded to me given I am recording, have monitoring software running and all the VR stuff in the background. This is why clock speed is so important in DCS. In the video above, my overclocked i7-8700k struggles with 45 FPS in VR. I really need a 10.0 GHz CPU to hold a locked 90 fps with the current engine. This should change once the game is properly threaded with a Vulkan based engine, but that's a long ways off. Until then, overclocking the snot out of our CPU's is the only solution.

It's probably not an option on your board.

I'll be happy and that's the only opinion that matters according to me. :P

DCS will stutter or completely freeze for network traffic. This is in game though. That 5 minutes of 2 fps when loading up 104th isn't loading stuff into memory or VRAM, it's downloading stuff from the server. I've verified this by monitoring task manager on many occasions while hopping into a match vs loading the same mission for SP. Having the game freeze up for your smart TV is odd though. I might look into that, its hard to believe but I suppose it's possible.

DCS is only capable of using 2 cores and 1 of them is for the sound engine. 30% usage is basically 100% as far as DCS is concerned. In fact it's more than 100%, but there are always background tasks taking up a few %. You should see a modest fps boost by adding a 10-15% cpu overclock.

That isn't how hyperthreading works. Disabling HT can allow higher overclocks sometimes but it has no measurable impact on single thread performance with modern cpu's. I have verified this with the 8700k and Ryzen 5 1600x in DCS, other games and benchmarks. DCS is still very much single threaded for the graphics engine. I have noticed the free map (and only that map) will load up other cores when rapidly changing view direction but it seems to be a busy wait (wasted CPU cycles) related to speedtree. That said, DCS 2.5 runs vastly better than 1.5 did. It may still be single threaded, but it allows twice the fps compared to the old version. That means VR players can get a reliable 45 fps in 2.5 instead of the 22 fps 1.5 often gave. Certainly not ideal still, but playable at least.

For your case, I recommend either the Oculus Rift ($400) or Samsung Odyssey ($400-500). The Odyssey has better resolution while the Rift is the better overall system. This is doubly true in VR shooters. Both take a bit of setup but the Odyssey doesn't require external sensors, and so is slightly simpler. For controls, the X-56 is an excellent option as is the cheaper X-52 Pro and the vastly more expensive TM Warthog. The first two feature a twisty stick for rudder, the Warthog does not and so you will need pedals on day 1 if you grab that. Obviously pedals can be added later to the first two.

Had a blast on 104th last night and decided to share a video of the replay. Let all those who think you can't spot planes in VR take note, it is no problem at all.:smilewink: First 1:50 is sneaking up on them, shooting starts at about 2 min. Sadly the fps is a bit low in some parts of the recording, it was a locked 45 fps during play though.

My advice is to sell the DDR3 (you can get more than you paid) and start fresh. Selling off the DDR3 should cover at least half the cost of the DDR4 replacement. Beyond that, the i5-8600k and a mid priced Z370 motherboard should serve you well and be a huge upgrade over what you had. If you would prefer to stick with AMD, the Ryzen 5 2600 and a good B350 motherboard are arguably the value gaming king at the moment.

The F-5 and Mirage are your best bets I think. The F-5 is easy to use but hard to master. It also has an easy to read cockpit, making it one of the better VR options. The Mirage is a bit more complicated but definitely more capable. Unfortunately, it also has the world's tiniest instrument font and so is next to impossible to read at 1440p without zooming in. In VR, it's tough even with zoom. Though the Hornet is simple at the moment, the radar is frustrating to use and so I don't recommend it for a first plane. The Albatross is a fun little plane and very easy to learn, but its capabilities are so limited that I can't recommend it.

i7-8700k at 4.9GHz and 1080 ti, same issue. The free and SoH maps give 45 fps even with lowest settings, NTTR does 90 though. Problem is cpu usage (100% on single core)

Depends on budget. For USA buyers: < $100: TM T.16000m $100 to $200: X-52 Pro or TM T16000m FCS HOTAS. Each of these has their advantages. Infinite budget: X-56 or Warthog. For pedals you can get: $100: CH Pedals. These are clunkly and narrow but also completely indestructible. They will outlast you. $300: MFG Crosswinds. Widely considered the best, expect to wait months to get them though. Longevity has yet to be determined.

The 8086k is a collectors edition 8700k, so it should work on any Z370 board.

I'm able to keep a locked 45 fps in DCS SP and MP, but that's pretty sad given I'm running an i7-8700k @4.9 GHz and a GTX 1080 ti at 2 GHz core. Graphics settings are largely irrelevant up to high-ish detail. This is due to DCS's single threaded graphics engine strangling the GPU. Above high-ish detail, the gpu can bottleneck. And don't tell me to upgrade, there is nothing to upgrade to!

Here's a video from the benchmarking thread I made. I do not have process lasso or anything else like that overriding core assignments. At a consistent 20% cpu usage, that's only 2.5 threads being used and that's with a million background tasks, including recording. Pretty sure DCS is only running on 2 threads, with thread 11 being the main and the second being thread 9.

Beta only and been that way for years. Stable doesn't typically offer any more stability than beta and so might as well just have the latest stuff.

A baseline benchmark for a variety of systems would be helpful. Thus I have an attached track (F-18 ) and my own results. I've also made a pair of videos showing system resource usage (not recorded during bench runs). This does bump GPU usage up a little. Of particular note is the CPU usage. Despite claims to the contrary, DCS very clearly uses only 1.5 threads both in VR and at 1080p. It is also the bottleneck at these fairly high settings despite the mission being empty save for the player aircraft. System specs: i7-8700k at 4.9 GHz, GTX 1080 Ti @ +20% power, +50 MHz core, +100 MHz memory and 16 GB DDR4 3200 CL16 First up is 1080p stock configuration (enter bios, hit restore defaults, this also sets RAM to 2133, I also restored stock 1080 Ti settings). FPS min: 91 Max: 177 Avg: 130.65 VR stock configuration: Min: 39 Max: 91 Avg: 51.69 Overclocked 1080p: Min: 107 Max: 196 Avg: 155.27 Overclocked VR: Min: 41 Max: 91 Avg: 59.27 Settings used: 1080p video: VR: Track file: DubaiBench.trk Edit: set fraps to 120 second benchmark.

Really wish DEKA the best success with this. The JF-17 is the only fixed wing aircraft in the pipe that I'm truly looking forwards to now that we have the F-18. It's good to see they are making progress with it.

I skip msaa entirely and crank the detail up instead. Besides, 1.3 PD is already an awful lot of AA. I've been thinking about switching back to 1.6 or 1.7 PD and accepting 45 fps though. Getting 90 fps is a real problem even at potato settings due to cpu usage.