frostycab

Recently built a new PC as my old one just couldn't handle DCS anymore, so I've been away from it for a little while. Tonight I tried jumping into the A-10C II for a flight and couldn't begin the engine start cycle. The throttles won't move out of the cutoff detent. I initially set up my control bindings the same way as for the old A-10C, but wondering it there was an issue I disconnected my HOTAS just to test things. The keyboard bindings won't work, and even trying an autostart fails. Did something break in 2.9 or am I missing something obvious?

Well, all the arguments for and again AMD or Intel, the system is built now, and she's a sexy little beast! It is running rather warm, I'll admit. I ordered some of the wrong size fans to run up the side, so they'll be added soon. Aside from that I'm wondering if I shouldn't mount the pump the other way up to make sure no air gets trapped. There's definitely some thermal throttling going on, as core temps are regularly rising to 100C under heavy load, so it'll be worth checking the thermal paste has good coverage. I'd like to have another stab at the cable management too, as having been through the process now I can safely say I could do better on the back side, but after several hours of assembly I just wanted to turn it on and try it. Please bear in mind this is only the second time I've ever tried to build a system, so no hate please. LOL Performance (even if it is throttling) is amazing! I have never seen DCS run so smoothly, and I genuinely never believed VR could be as rewarding as it is now. I'm going to have to do a lot of research regarding how best to set up my Index now that I have a system that allows for tweaking the settings. (Having spent as much as I did on this system I think I may have to put off getting a Reverb or Pimax for a few years!) I never really got a grip on things like pixel density and all those settings, and I also need to work out how to get Steam VR settings just right too. Once again, in FPS games it's stunning. CP2077 and Starfield are smooth as butter. Cities Skylines 2 is stable and smooth. The Hunter: Call of the Wild looks fantastic, and I can actually hit targets in ARMA for the first time in ages. Don't even get me started on Solitaire and FTL hehe Thank you everyone for your help and advice regarding choosing the right components for this build. You are amazing people and deserve many virtual beers!

I don't mind you asking. I do mind being reminded about it. LOL However, that pain is being temperred by the fact that I just got a notification that everything is due for delivery in the next couple of hours. The total atm is just over £3500, though I may add a couple more fans if needed, and might get the upright GPU bracket for the case once they become available. They're on preorder everywhere with no expected date.

You're about 10 minutes too late. LOL I just put the orders through, but thank you for the input. Rightly or wrongly I was probably always going to stick with Intel for this build as I confess I haven't really followed AMDs offerings for for about 12 years now. It could be the wrong decision, but I suppose I'm just comfortably in bed with Intel these days.

Please forgive me! I obviously spent far too long staring at my screen yesterday and completely misread that page you linked to. I just skimmed through the body text on the first page and never even noticed that it actually linked to several more pages of info. LOL Having been through it now I might have a last look to see if I can find something a little bit better. I must confess that I thought all PSUs in a group (Gold, Platinum or Titanium) were much of a muchness, so I now see therre's still a little bit more to it. Onnce again, thanks for all the valuable insights!

That one review you found for the PSU barely qualifies as a review, but I've heard good things about Thermaltake over the years. The cable placement isn't going to be an issue given the size of the case, and it's £70 cheaper, which I know sounds a bit silly given how much I'm spending, but it is what it is. I've also read good things about the Lian Li coolers and fans. The case fans apparently offer 5-10% improvement in airflow and static pressure over quite a few others as they're slightly deeper allowing for better blade angle. Time will tell! As for storage, yes, I've got a 2Tb Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME that I can pull from the old rig, along with 2 more SSDs and a plethora of HDDs. (I used to have an *awful* internet connection, so downloading 100GB+ games could take a week, meaning I got into the habit of just adding more space to store things as opposed to deleting and then redownloading later.) Interestingly, just this evening I found an article from just 2 months ago citing the CableMod adaptors as being the point of failure in numerous instances. Worryingly, the article says that in one case MSI refused an RMA and told the user to direct their complaint to CableMod. Use of the CableMod adaptor also invalidate the warranty on the card too, it seems, so I think I'll just play it safe (if you can call it that) and stick with the 12VHPWR connector. The article went on to say "CableMod itself admits that the failure rate of the adapter is higher than the equivalent 12VHPWR cable and suggests that users switch to using a different solution if they want to avoid trouble." Full article is here if it's of any interest to anyone. Anyway, I'm going to speak to the places I'm ordering from tomorrow just to double check that there are no obvious conflict with the specific parts I've chosen, and also to check that the websites are right and everything is actually in stock (because I've been caught out before and ended up waiting weeks for "in stock" items!) and possibly put the orders in for delivery on Friday. I was planning to hold off until Black Friday just to see if by some miracle something nice might appear, but something is failing miserably on this system right now. I can't even watch Youtube without all sorts of flickering and dancing images, and it's randomly crashing Windows and restarting itself 10 times a day. If anyone wants to weigh in with any final words of advice then you have about 12 hours to do so. In the meantime, thank you so much to everyone for all the great advice and taking the time to help. I wish every gaming community was so wonderful!

In all honesty I only know the little bit I do because I've spent a lot of time on Youtube watching J2C and GamersNexus. 99% of it goes over my head, but ever so often something sticks, even if it's just "DON'T BUY THIS!!!" LOL

OK, I think I've pretty much locked most of it down now: ASUS TUF Z790 Gaming PLUS WiFi motherboard i7-13700K @3.6GHz 64GB Corsair Vengeance RGB Black DDR5 6400 CAS32 ASUS RTX4090 TUF OC 24GB Thermaltake ToughPower GF A3 1200W 80+GOLD Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF AIO 360mm ARGB Water Cooler 4x Lian Li UNI SL140 INF Addressable RGB Black 140mm Fans (Add more if they can't cope) Lian Li O11D EVO XL case The only thing I'm still unsure about is whether to spend more on the PSU, but I'm hoping it'll be ok. Have I missed anything out? The only other thing I can think of is a tube of thermal paste.

On the subject of the GPU, can anyone tell me what the current situation is with melting power plugs? Are there any adaptors/solutions that I should be ordering at the same time as the rest of the parts to minimise risk?

I won't lie, having a 3-year warranty is a nice bonus, but I think Youtube has left me a bit jaded when it comes to pre-built systems. Build quality isn't always up to scratch, and a warranty doesn't really make up for the hassle of going through the RMA process and making do without your precious gaming rig while they fix it. Also, a warranty is only ever any good if the company is around to honour it. They seem to have been trading for over 6 years, but it's not unheard of for companies to disappear almost overnight for one reason or another, and when it happens a warranty becomes pretty much worthless. It's unlikely, but it's one reason why I personally don't see a warranty as a big incentive to buy from system integrators on the whole. I looked at the link you posted, and on the face of it the whole thing does seem pretty similar. There are a couple of small things I noticed in the listing that I don't like: They are glaringly non-specific about the GPU. All they say is "ASUS RTX4090." No mention of which specific card you will get. They don't even mention the GPU in the spec sheet. The pcpartpicker website lists a dozen ASUS 4090s, and that's probably not a comprehensive list, so if you're fussy then that rig could be a bit of a lottery, though it's a safe bet it'll have whatever they can get at the cheapest price at the time of building. I'm currently researching the subject of coil whine, which I only first heard about last night, and it could play a major part in choosing a specific card in my situation. Same applies to the RAM with 22 variations on the Vengeance 2x16GB theme at pcpartpicker. Probably not as crucial, but I'd still like to know before ordering. Ditto for the fans. Going by what others have said here, and having seen some videos looking at power draw from the i9-13900K I'd be asking around to see if the 1000W PSU has enough headroom when you really push the whole system. As anyone reading htis thread can see, I'm a bit of an idiot when it comes to specs, but I just can't reconcile the info on the spec sheet with the motherboard info from ASUS. Maybe they've got some older variants in stock that they need to use up, but it just doesn't read the same way. USB ports seem different, as do the PCIe slots. The case is hideous, but that comes down to personal taste. LOL On the plus side, they do seem to have good reviews on TrustPilot, and seem to actively engage with reviewers, though I don't know the outcomes. I'd love to hear from the really experienced people here to see if any of my prejudices are justified or not.

Thanks. Yeah, I just saw your edit. The G-Skill is a bit cheaper at its base price, but only at Newegg, and the shipping and duty would actually make it quite expensive. Corsair do 6200 for £235, or 6400 for £242. (Add about £25 to either if I bother with the RGB versions.) 6800 would push the price to £310, and I'm guessing I probably woudn't really notice much improvement, especially if I never see a side-by-side comparison(?). The big thing is that in years gone by I've always set a budget and ended up wishing I'd spent a bit more, so I'm looking into trying things the other way around this time. It's gone 3am here now, so I'm off to bed, but I'll defo be checking in on this thread when I wake up, so forgive me if I don't reply to any more comments tonight.

Thank you for the info. I confess (perhaps it's fairly obvious!) that I don't really understand much at all about individual components, so it's interesting to hear your thoughts on the i9 vs the i7. I suppose that idiots like me just assume bigger numbers mean better performance. I just had a look and userbenchmark.com does indeed only report about a 5% improvement with the i9 against the i7, and it would save the better part of £200 on the build. The motherboard I selected comes in at £250, right in the middle of your suggested price range, so that seems to be something I got right. To be honest I completely forgot that Black Friday is just around the corner, though in reality here in the UK the "deals" aren't ever really deals as prices tend to inflate a bit beforehand to make them look better when the sales hit, and with import duty it's not economical to order from the US or EU now. (Thanks, BREXIT!!! *bleurgh!*)

Thank you so much for the input! I was wondering about the PSU, but I was erring on the side of caution, and as you rightly point out I can probably drop down to a 1200 without too much worry. With regards to the case, I'm definitely leaning towards the Lian Li O11D EVO XL. It's vast, and comes with the option of vertically mounting the GPU on the side, which would allow me to put extra fans right behind it to aid airflow. It'll comfortably take 420mm radiators on the top, bottom and side and/or up to 11 fans I've had a bit of a rethink regarding the GPU itself too, partly due to pricing and partly due to availability and back-ordering. Having read quite a few reviews I'm now thinking of the ASUS RTX4090 TUF OC 24GB. The general concensus seems to be that it's one of the best cards in terms of cooling and runs quieter than most. Price is between £1800 on back-order and £1900 for immediate delivery. So as things stand right now the revised parts list is: ASUS Z790 TUF Gaming WiFi motherboard i9-14900KF @3.2GHz 64GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR5 5200MHz ASUS RTX4090 TUF OC 24GB Corsair RM1200x PSU Lian Li Galahad II Trinity SL-INF AIO 360mm ARGB Water Cooler Lian Li UNI SL140 INF Addressable RGB Black 140mm Fans (Start with 4 and see how it copes?) Im still hunting for deals, but so far I've managed to price it all up at £3600GBP. It's a daunting prospect if I'm honest, especially as I recently bought a home and it's costing a fortune to get it redecorated, but it's my birthday tomorrow and I feel like I need a treat. As I think I said, I can reuse a 2TB M.2 drive from my current PC, as well as the other SSDs and HDDs for general storage. If I leave the primary M.2 in it then I can still use it as a day-to-day web/email/photos system and just use the new one for gaming. I could even use the old rig for streaming or recording if I get so inclined, or just donate it to my brother like I did my old i7-6700K/GTX1070 setup. My biggest concern is that I'm going to get something wrong and end up being disappointed with how it all performs, so I need some reassurance. LOL

Good to know, thank you. Basically, apart from the fact that DCS won't even run on my system at the moment (God knows why!) I'm trying to get past my VR issues. While I used to consider it fairly wonderful, having now seen the type of performance and detail that others get on YouTube I'm jealous. Even though I used to be able to fly quite happily, and used to utterly destroy friends in warbird dogfights, I've always had loads of performance issues. When I check with the FPS VR app I'm getting constant orange and red graphs with non-stop reprojection, even on the lowest settings. I'm hoping to build something that will give me a nice green graph and make it possible to see ground targets better.

Thank you! Do you think I'm going overboard at all? Will all those parts pair well with each other? I've heard in the past that sometimes certain brands/skews work better with specific other components, while others struggle to leverage their full capabilities when paired with non-optimal partners. Whether this is a holdover form 20 years ago or not I don't know, but it's something I'm wary of.

My current rig just doesn't seem to be up to scratch for flying in VR, and continually crashes within 10 minutes of loading up now that 2.9 has dropped, so I'm considering spending a bit of cash and building myself a new rig that will keep me happy for the foreseeable future. Current rig: MSI Z-390 Gaming Edge motherboard i9-9900KF @3.6GHz 32GB DDR4 3200 ASUS ROG Strix RTX2070 Super Samsung 970 EVO NVME system drive Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVME storage/gaming drive Thermaltake Tough Power Grand 850W PSU Valve Index CoolerMaster 240mm AIO I think I built this for around £1500 back in early 2019, and while it'[s served me well in most regards I've obviously never been able to match the performance in DCS that I see others flying with so I'd like to upgrade. The problem is that I genuinely have no real understanding of what is needed, nor how to pair components in such a way that they compliment each other and reduce bottlenecks. As such, I'm coming to you to see what input you can offer. I've had a little look around at a couple of component websites and put together a starter list, so I'd be grateful if people could advise on where I've gone completely wrong, and where I should perhaps scale things up or down. Planned rig: ASUS ROG Strix Z790-H Gaming motherboard i9-14900KF @3.2GHz 64GB Corsair Vengeance Black DDR5 6000MHz RTX4080 (£1200-£1400) or RTX 4090 (£1700-£2000) but unsure which brand/skew to go for Cannibalise existing sytem for drives. (I have older spares to throw into it if I need to use it again) EVGA SuperNOVA 1600W PSU Need suggestion on fans and AIO. If I do splurge on this system I'll probably get a Lian Li O11 Dynamic EVO XL case, so something to bear in mind. (I don't think my current case has enough room for a 40-series card.) Is this overkill? Underkill? Can I save a bit or should I spend more? It looks like this will be in the region of £3300-£3500. Before you ask, I know nothing about overclocking, and to be honest I've always been scared to even try it, so everything will probably be left at stock speeds. It's probably worht mentioning what else I play as that may have some bearing on things. A few FPS games, Elite Dangerous, Starfield, Cities: Skylines 2, MSFS, KSP2, and the odd bit or Project Cars or similar. Thanks in advance everyone!

Early days, so maybe I'm missing something. Played around with HRM function of the A/G radar and used it to cue the TPOD to look at some ground features (for example Batumi airfield.) Pod snapped to the right location, but was looking 1000ft in the air rather than at the point on the ground. Correct behavior?

I've got to say that having spent roughly 1000 Euros on Virpil gear about a year ago I'm more than a little disappointed with the lack of useful documentation for the software. It's great kit, but it's only great if you can take advantage of all of its features, and sadly the software to make that possible is virtually impossible to decipher. I messaged their support team a few days ago asking if they had any plans to update the documentation (such as it is), and this is the response I got: "Sorry about that. Currently we are working on the manual update. Unfortunately I don't know when it will be finished and uploaded. If you need an assistance please let me know." It's a bit of a let down.

Ah. Missed that.

When you made the mission, did you set yourself up on Blue or Red? My understanding is that you get no GPS on the Red side, so that could account for why you’re not seeing any satellite connection.

So, so coming back to actual question and leaving the facetious comments behind us, you say the stick is causing issue with keyboard inputs, right? If so, it's possible that the stick's input value is jumping slightly, meaning that when you try to make a keyboard input the sim always gets a stick input a ms or so later. If I just touch my stick I can see the input values change by 1 or 2 points, not enough to affect my flying but this would end up bringing any keyboard input that you've made back to center. That would definitely explain why you're getting "only a little wiggle that can barely be seen" since the stick is constantly pulling back to neutral. Do you have a deadzone set? That's all I can think of for now.

I might be wrong about this as I don't tend to watch tracks very often, but I do fly in VR. IIRC manually adjusting the view just once will interrupt the recorded head movements and leave you in manual view control for the rest of the track.

I just took down 2 Hinds, so not sure why you're having problems. Granted, George had trouble tracking them with the laser if they were moving laterally at high speed, for a straight line shot works fine.

I asked Casmo about this during one of his Twitch streams. He said both roles are fully interchangeable, and it's not uncommon for crews to swap seats on alternating sorties. Doing so means that both crew members remain fully capable in whichever seat they fly in, and means that they are also intimately familiar with both seats in terms of operation, tactics, limitations etc.

I'm not sure if this is purely an Apache issue or DCS-wide, but every time I put on my NVGs the brightness reverts to its default setting, meaning I get blinded whenever I put them on and have to turn the brightness all the way down again. Surely they should be able to "remember" what they were set to when you took them off 30 seconds earlier.