D.Va

What year would you put on the two versions (for scenario design purposes)? 2008 and… 2014?

I have updated this thread with new information.

EDIT: I'm completely rewriting this thread because the issue is more complicated than it initially appeared. Here's what's going on: I'm playing my standard test scenario which I've been using for years: flying the A-10C over Vegas at low altitude. I'm sporting a 3070 and a 2560x1440/165 monitor. If I run all minimum graphics options I get a solid 165 FPS (technically speaking 162 FPS) with 90% GPU usage exactly as expected. If I set any of these graphics options I get 82 FPS and 15% GPU usage: Visib. Range Ultra or Extreme MSAA 2X or 4X SSAA 1.5X or 2X SSAO On All other graphics options are still absolute minimum. It makes no sense for all of these graphics options to use identical amounts of performance! Obviously, there's some kind of weird bottleneck which is making poor performance happen for no reason. It's not the CPU. It's not the VRAM. EDIT: It appears to be NVidia Control Panel-related... I'm using all standard options except Low Latency Mode Ultra, Max Frame Rate 162 FPS, and Vertical Sync On, which are the optimal choices for G-sync monitor users. I'll continue to investigate. EDIT2: After a lot of fidgeting around the issue is mysteriously gone. As far as I can tell, I still have the exact same NVidia Control Panel and in-game options as when the issue was happening. I'm afraid the only moral of the story is if you don't get >80% GPU usage, it's a fixable problem... I'd recommend reseting and re-setting your NVidia CP.

Hey, I'm starting DCS VR right now and my first problem is scaling. Common issue, apparently. According to an old prescription, my inter-pupillary distance is 58 mm (I'll measure it professionally again soon). However, in DCS, without "Force IPD" the A-10 stick is way smaller than my Thrustmaster stick. If I set "Force IPD" to 48 mm and quickly move my VR headset (Oculus Rift S) on and off my eyes, I see basically exactly what I see in reality. In other words, -10 mm IPD appears optimal to me right now, but I haven't checked to see if this messes anything else up. I also haven't made any other comparisons yet. I'm going to compare flying at a few thousand meters, the F/A-18 stick, and the Viggen. How is the scaling working out for you?

Hey, I just saw my DCS install is 177 GB... I've got basically all modules and no 3rd party content. Is it me... or? A year ago DCS was about 100 GB.

Thank God.

Wow, that's a great reference!

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but shouldn't the following create a dot that's only 10% opaque? In fact, all labels currently appear opaque to me, is this intentional? What else is "opacity"? [10000] = dot_symbol(0,0.1)

Almost certainly a VRAM issue. It's maxed out. Firstly, yes, performance on the Caucasus map is highly variable, for instance flying north low altitude above Kobuleti you will always get performance drops, but you are also flying the F/A-18C, which (still?) uses more VRAM than the other aircraft. I used to play with 4GB VRAM and maxed it out when flying the F/A-18C, just like you are and that caused performance drops. Try additionally lowering texture quality (cockpit and environment) and try another airplane in the same location. If performance drops persist, then you've just found a particularly poorly optimised part of the map. What you want to do really is get that VRAM use down from 4GB to 3.5GB. It's possible, but maybe difficult in newer releases. (Drops all the way into the 30 FPS range are usually VRAM-related, in my own experience) By the way here are my recommended options for a GTX 1060, which I think is about equivalent to your graphics card: Textures HIGH (unless you've got VRAM issues) Terrain Textures HIGH (unless you've got VRAM issues) Civ. Traffic HIGH Shadows HIGH Heat Blur HIGH Res. of Cockpit Displays 1024 EVERY FRAME Depth of Field OFF Lens Effects DIRT+FLARE Clutter/Grass 1500 Preload Radius 150000 Chimney Smoke Density 0 Gamma 2 Rain Droplets ON Disable Aero Interface OFF Vsync OFF (Force this outside of DCS!) Full Screen ON Scale GUI OFF Water MEDIUM Visib Range ULTRA Shadows HIGH MSAA 2X Motion Blur OFF SSAA OFF Trees Visibility 100% Anisotropic Filtering X4 Terrain Object Shadows FLAT Cockpit Global Illumination OFF

Classical master racism... measuring "quality and electrical performance". Don't ask why... just measure it and waste money on theoretical specs.

Do you have benchmarks?

Today I made a... "stylish" landing in the A-10C and ended up in a grassy area. I've never closely examined the Clutter/grass performance until now, but for reference, when in a situation like this it decreases performance by 10% when set to 330 meters (surprisingly short!) and 20% when set to 1500 meters... I will have to update the recommendations to reflect this shortly. Personally, I think I'll fly with 330 meters. At least in the A-10C in Caucasus theatre.

Of course, I meant setting MSAA X2 instead of X4 only makes a small visual difference!

Yeah, I saw this today.

Tier??? OK, if you don't know anything I don't.

Edit: I've updated the first post. Wow, I was just flying the A-10C over Caucasus and was quite disappointed in my performance. At SSAA X0, I could max everything and at SSAA X2, I got about 45 FPS with everything else at minimum, which meant SSAA X1.5 was my starting point for performance benchmarking. Maxed, I got 52 FPS, but setting Water Medium, Anisotropic Filtering Off, Global Cockpit Illumination Off, and Terrain Shadows Flat resulted in 65 FPS… the only other options that affected performance were Visib Distance (small difference, apparently this only affects buildings today!) and Trees Visibility (moderate difference, but what’s a forest without trees?)… then I REMEMBERED! I had completely forgotten about MSAA and while there’s no performance difference between X0 and X2, the difference between X2 and X4 is big! If I max out, then set MSAA X2, I get 65 FPS. In other words, setting (only) MSAA X2 made the same difference as setting (all following) Water Medium, Anisotropic Filtering Off, Global Cockpit Illumination Off, and Terrain Shadows Flat. If they’re set together, I get 77 FPS. For absolute reference, 52 to 65 FPS is a 25% increase and 77 FPS is a 20% increase over 65 FPS and a 50% increase over 52 FPS. This was certainly interesting! MSAA X2 doesn’t make a super big difference in image quality and I’m going to test it out in different airplanes on different maps. I might have to update my recommendations shortly!

Okay, 500W! According to online calculators, a 9600K, 2X8GB RAM, 2060, 1 SSD, and a 24" monitor, using the computer 8 hours per day with 4 hours of gaming per day, uses 370W and 420W is recommended, a 2X16GB RAM, 2070, 2 SSDs, and a 27" monitor with a Blu-ray drive, using the computer 16 hours per day with 8 hours of gaming per day, uses 432W and 482W is recommended instead. Based on this, a 520W unit is enough. For instance, the $50 Corsair VS550 (Standard) or the $75 Corsair 650M (Bronze, modular) are appropriate. However, I would look for a fanless/passive one (incidentally, they're higher rated), but that's just me. As for rating, it doesn't really make a difference. The only important factors are acceptable wattage, fan sound, and price. In theory, more efficiency saves you money... theory. But, if you actually do the math, a Corsair 550W Gold modular unit only pays for itself after more than eight years compared to a 550W Standard unit and after more than six years compared to a 650W Bronze unit. However, I could recommend the Corsair 650W Bronze unit because it's modular, easier to work with.

Here's my general recommendation. I haven't changed my recommendation in 5+ years, except additional memory, however, it's probably still the same today as always. Current generation i5 Air cooling (Cooler Master or Noctua are common) 16GB RAM (Corsair, G.skill and Kingston are common) Basic motherboard (MSI Z390A Pro, for instance) 512GB SSD... you can add another one later! Case priorities: first quiet, second performance, third appearance. Spend ALL money you saved following my advice on the graphics card (NVIDIA X50, X60, X70) As for power supply unit... get ANY Bronze rated 450W+ modular for $100 OR if you intend to couple it with a quiet case and fans, get a semi-fan/passive or fanless/passive one for slightly more dollars, but don't fall for the ratings marketing or get more than 650W, if it costs you more that way obviously. Sound level is more important than anything, IMHO. Always follow this advice for cost-efficiency in gaming. Forget overclocking... don't spend a single dollar on it, unless you've verified the investment is cost-efficient. Also, I wouldn't get 32GB RAM or 1TB SSD unless you already know you need it. If you follow this advice you will save $200+ and can upgrade the RTX 2060 into a RTX 2070 instead (according to Swedish pricing). Also, don't forget your monitor, speakers, headphones, mouse, keyboard, controllers, TrackIR, HOTAS, and pedals make a bigger difference than a few percent of performance! Oh and forget about "future proofing", it's the greatest cash wasting myth in all of gaming. You're already "future proof", just be ready to upgrade the graphics card after 3-5 years, ideally. I only upgraded my graphics card(s) since 2013.

If you're already running in SSAA X2, then you're already running in 1440p, speaking of performance. That's how super-sampling works. I suggest checking out a 1440p monitor in a store to see the increase in resolution clarity.

I have SteelSeries Arctis 7 and the clip snaps on to the metal on top perfectly. https://steelseries.com/gaming-headsets/arctis-7

Works oppositely on my system, as described above. I don't know what affects this, but I'm running DCS OB 2.5.4 (unupdated) with Windows 10 64-bit and an MSI RTX 2060 Gaming Z.

Wrong. That's exactly how Vsync works (unless it's Adaptive, in which case it won't do anything against screen tearing under the refresh rate) and that's exactly how the DCS Vsync works, benchmarked! Also, Vsync causes significant input lag and can probably cause other problems. I played Overwatch today and I felt like it was running in 120 Hz, because no input lag, that's amazing.

Civilian Traffic OFF to HIGH makes only a small (4%) difference and Heat Blur OFF to HIGH makes no difference, but it's possible I'm not testing them in situations where they "activate". Anisotropic filtering Off to 4X is a BIG difference in quality, but 4X to 16X is not really noticeable and DOES degrade performance by almost 10% according to both my new (2060) and old (1060) benchmarks, which is quite significant! I always keep mirrors off. Maybe I should try turning them on at altitude like you.

I've benchmarked the A-10 flying over Dubai tonight! I started with all options at minimum, obviously. The following options don't degrade performance by any significant amount individually and together they degrade it by only 2.5% and as such, I recommend always keeping them on. They are as follows: Textures HIGH Terrain Textures HIGH Head Blur HIGH Shadows HIGH Res. of Cockpit Displays 1024 EVERY FRAME Lens Effects DIRT+FLARE Anisotropic Filering X2 Rain Droplets ON Also, in order to maintain an acceptable level of image quality, I set the following options: Visib Range HIGH MSAA X4 SSAA X1.5 Terrain Shadows FLAT I used the above options as a baseline. Then I set the following image quality enhancers: Civilian Traffic HIGH Water MEDIUM Clutter/Grass 1500 Trees Visibility 100% Anisotropic Filering X4 This degraded performance by 10%, which is acceptable and greatly increased image quality in my opinion. Question is: what next? The following options degrade performance slightly (~5%): Anisotropic Filtering X8 (Small difference in quality, but also in performance) Global Cockpit Illumination ON (Small difference in quality, but also in performance) Together, these options give me a 20% performance degradation versus baseline... which is probably not worthwhile. The following options degrade performance moderately (~10%): Water HIGH (Water colour changes completely) Visib Range ULTRA (Performance degradation is proportional to increase in quality) Anisotropic Filtering X16 (Small difference from 8X, regarding performance and quality) Together, these options AND Global Cockpit Illumination give me a 20% performance degradation versus baseline. Worthwhile? The following options degrade performance heavily (~20%): Visib Range EXTREME (Performance degradation is proportional to increase in quality) Terrain Shadows DEFAULT (Small difference in quality at a great cost) Motion Blur ON (Recommend off) And finally, SSAA X2 degrades performance the most heavily (~33%). I'm still working on recommended option sets based on the findings above. I already have the "always on" and "10%" degrade sets mentioned above. My 10% degrade set matches my recommended options for the old maps, except Visib Range is HIGH instead of EXTREME and Anisotropic Filtering is X4 instead of X16. Persian Gulf needs optimisation! Okay, here are my A-10 Dubai recommendations now: Textures HIGH (MEDIUM if VRAM problems) Terrain Textures HIGH Civ. Traffic HIGH Water HIGH Visib Range ULTRA Heat Blur HIGH Shadows HIGH Resolution X Aspect Ratio X Monitors X Res. of Cockpit Displays 1024 EVERY FRAME MSAA 4X Depth of Field OFF Lens Effects DIRT+FLARE Motion Blur OFF SSAA X1.5 Clutter/Grass 1500 Trees Visibility 100% Preload Radius 150000 Chimney Smoke Density 0 Gamma 2 Anisotropic Filtering X4 Terrain Object Shadows FLAT Cockpit Global Illumination ON Rain Droplets ON Disable Aero Interface OFF Vsync OFF (Force this outside of DCS!) Full Screen ON Scale GUI OFF This time, I've bolded stuff that's not "maxed". This basically gives an identical image quality to maxing everything out, except Visib Range Ultra, which stops a few buildings from rendering far away. Also, Anisotropic Filtering 4X makes a small difference if you squint, but it's only barely visible, and obviously, SSAA X2 makes a slight difference. Water MEDIUM and Cockpit Global Illumination OFF can give a ~5% boost and only changes colouring. Edit: also, if you run out of VRAM, set Textures to MEDIUM! If I fly the F-14 instead of A-10, I get 20% lower performance, but if Textures are HIGH, I run out of VRAM and get 40% lower performance!

Hey, in case anyone's missed it I can recommend attaching the TrackIR clip to your headphones instead of wearing a gaming cap! It works really great. Tracking angles are still +/-35 degrees.