reece146

Yeah, the older Mac equipment was very nice. I've got a fleet of MBPs and Minis spanning ~2001-2016). They are all running Linux now. The Minis make decent enough Kubernetes nodes for the home lab. My wife's iMac is still running MacOS but that'll get switched to Linux also sooner than later (don't fix what isn't broken is the approach on that one).

There's nothing special about Mac hardware - it's just a screen built to Apple's specs by LG, Samsung, Sony, whomever got the bid for that batch of units. I expect what you are encountering is not a hardware issue really and more the infamous 'DCS stutter'. You can search these forums reading till your eyes bleed and not find a cause for it. < SPECULATE WILDLY > My 'gut' says it is some just in time (JIT) code that loads textures, map objects/blocks and/or other assets and it gets hung up in the logic tree somehow and loses pace with what is supposed to be drawn on the screen. Slow disk or RAM - not sure - I still experience it on a machine with fast CPU, RAM and NVME storage - makes me lean towards code logic being an issue... I'd just pick a res and focus on that for now. 2560x1600 is basically the 16:10 version of 1440p in gaming. If the frame rates are high enough it's probably a good res to focus upon. 1920x1200 is in between the normal 1080p and 1440p gaming resolutions. It's all about bandwidth. If the machine has enough bandwidth to fill the graphics pipe at the higher res smoothly then I'd run that. FWIW, my own experience has been that higher frame rates lead to mastering the difficult aircraft like the Spitfire quicker. The Spit is lady in the air and a PITA on the runway. If you are dealing with low frame rates while trying to discern visual cues for rudder and brake during take off and landing you are in for a hard time of it. HTH

RE: your build. If you are not going to buy till the new year... don't stress too much about the specific components at this point. In general: Fastest, low latency RAM you can afford. Currently 3200 CL14 (14-14-14-??) and 3600 CL16 (16-16-16-3?) are the reasonable priced ones. Fastest single core performance CPU you can get. By 2021 Ryzen 3 4XXX and Rocket Lake - re-asses then. Mobo - just pay attention where the PCIe lanes/channels are routed so you get the connectivity/performance you want. Also pay attention to the VRM design in case you end up over clocking. Nowadays I don't really think there are any bad choices but educate yourself anyway. Video Card: 2070 Super seems to be the expensive value proposition these days. Whatever the 2021 equivalent to that card is... I'd also look at whatever Sapphire has going on with AMD in 2021 with their Nitro+ line if you are AMD inclined. Storage: buying new I'd do M.2 NVME 1TB or larger. SSD is ok also if you want to save a few bucks. FWIW, DCS stable + OB + lots of skins and mods (almost all ED + several free ones) takes ~600GB on my system so size accordingly. Cooler - wait for the CPU choice. Case - add spices to taste. Power Supply: IMO 750-850 W is overkill and gives a certain amount of future proofing. I like the full modular power supplies that are available now. HTH

This is what put me off Asus as well (bad tech support). I used to be a big fan but a bad experience with a ZenPad 3S (abandoned product) and two Asustor storage arrays put me off them. The large array died within 3 months of warranty and no concessions made on replacement parts prices, screwy support from the other side of the planet - time zone issues made the support process last much longer than necessary. I relearned the lesson of never use vendor encryption tools - if it wasn't for that I would have never bothered getting that unit fixed. Second storage array died just out of warranty also so I said 'eff it' and sh!t canned it altogether instead of bothering contacting Asus. I'm back to rolling my own NAS/SAN devices. And they don't seem that interested in after sales support RE: revised drivers, BIOS, etc. At least not across their entire product line.

Very cool skin.

I did the Gigabyte Aorus Pro AX. Depending on your intentions you might want to take a look at the mobo manual before buying and make sure you have the CPU lanes going to the devices you want them to go to. I wanted the first two PCIex16 to split to x8 + x8 with two cards just in case - now that I have it built I'm not so certain that is a use case I'll ever use. This board has all the overclocking stuff that people like but now that I'm using it I'm not so sure I'll bother overclocking. CPU is NOT stressed at all in single player - haven't tested in multi player but it's got so much head room doubt it'll be an issue. For cooler I went with the 'be quiet' Dark Rock Pro 4. Really nice piece of kit. It is kind of low hanging though - I can just get the first RAM stick in and out from under it (G.Skill Trident Z DDR4-3200MHz CL14-14-14-34 - F4-3200C14D-32GTZ). You can probably use that info to get the RAM physical height if you are curious about that with that cooler. I got lucky it works - did not design around the RAM to cooler height. I have to remove the cooler's exterior fan and all the other sticks to get the #1 slot stick in and out though. Not a big deal - how often will you do that really... This is the first PC I've built in like 15 years - things have moved on quite nicely. I'm really impressed with the quality of all the parts I bought - not the expensive junk we were buying/building in the 80s-90-00s.

Got the 10700k system running last night (no OC, 64 GB CL14 3200, fast NVME storage, 2070 Super Gaming X factory OC). I'm no longer CPU bound on the Channel map in either 1440p or 4K. I'm not in front of the data so won't give numbers but lots of headroom. Runs smooth as glass everywhere EXCEPT an occasional stutter when low over the town of Dover and screwing around zooming buildings in the Spit. I think this is a code problem and not hardware - like a block of data is loaded or swapped out and is slow for some reason. It doesnt happen consistently. Could also just be Windows being Windows (POS). Runs cool - CPU max is 60 degrees, GPU is 70. Case is a 'be quiet 500DX' - really nice case but I dont have much experience with these things. GPU is maxed at 100% in both resolutions but you'd never know without the data. MSAA x4, Ani x16, high most things. I turned on SSLR in 4K and couldn't tell a difference in performance by seat of the pants. Happy with the machine, it's a bit of a beast. I probably won't bother OC at this point and will add a new 3xxx series GPU in the fall. Really need a better screen.

Channel map is memory hungry. Here is my experience with it (machine has 32GB): From: https://forums.eagle.ru/showpost.php?p=4398662&postcount=2 It's a big map in memory but so worth it IMO.

One thing that always gets glossed over in the benchmarks comparing Intel to AMD is that even when they are sometimes mostly equivalent there is still a sizable difference in the 1% and 0.1% frame rates between platforms (Intel having higher/better numbers). I think these benchmarks are a lot like bench racing car engines - people will quote top HP and TQ numbers but completely ignore the area under the curve.

The number of lanes is an important consideration. In my case i made sure to get a motherboard that has 2 PCIe_x16 slots that can both do x8 when both are populated while giving 4 lanes for M.2 connected to the CPU for an NVME drive. That's 20 lanes. The rest of the lanes go through the chipset. A lot of Intel based motherboards offer two or more PCIe slots but then do things like x8,x4[,4] which may or may not matter depending on use case. Probably doesn't matter with Crossfire/SLI/NVLINK since the bandwidth is going over NVLINK but if you are not joining the cards separately then it matters I think.

Sorry - direct link:

Agree, Ryzen is architecturally and technically superior and from what I've read stable overclocking is in the 100-200MHz range (i.e. meh). When I build a new workstation for... like... work... (so many threads... bwaahahahaha) I will likely spec Ryzen 9 but for single core gaming Intel is still the one to go with IMO. Caveat - Intel for DCS. Any other gaming software it seems like a wash.

Back to original post: what is you situational awareness (SA) like? If you don't have VR or TrackIR or something of that nature you are going to struggle. With TrackIR and 1-on-1 or 2-on-1 it's hard not to kill the AI aircraft in my experience. 2-on-1 (you are always 1 since AI wingmen are useless) the AI might get lucky but generally... it's hard to lose in the Mustang or Spit against a single AI adversary IF (big IF) you have good SA. I don't have the P-47 yet but watching videos on it that aircraft looks like it'd have no issues against the FWs and might get strung out against the Me109 if drawn into a turning fight. It's all about SA.

I was thinking about putting something together. We'll see if I get the cycles to do it.

https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html That's before OC <Synthetic benchmark comments apply>

And a pony!

Hmm, I guess something could be written in Perl/Python/bash whatever if you can read the database of locations, parking spots, targets, whatever. Might be something I'll look into. I'll have to look at lua I guess, may be able to just write the script in lua.

Yes! I've also been 'bush flying' in the Caucasus Mountains in the Yak with a similar mind set. Inspired by this: ${1} Would love to see a glider but I don't think DCS models thermals? Maybe a powered glider would get us most of the way there.

Yes, this would be great. I like the idea of taking off at one field in sunny skies and landing at another field in the dark with high winds and rain (or vice versa). No seriously, I'd be making missions that have exactly this!

FWIW, I'm using an old i7-3770K and 2070 Super based system. It has 32GB of 1600MHz DDR3 RAM. It is very playable/usable with decent settings (not VR). That said, after finding/starting with DCS in December I am now "all in" and a new 10700K based system is being picked up today. I'd suggest looking for a used system that uses a top of the line CPU of the era it was new. Pair with a new GPU like a 2060S/2070S or a 5700XT. If you can find a good deal on a used 1080Ti that would be good but at that point a new GPU starts to make more sense since they are still expensive (no potential old hardware problems - 2070S is roughly equivalent to the 1080Ti minus the VRAM). 16GB is fine to start - it's not big deal to throw a few hundred bucks at it for RAM later - that's what I did (16GB -> 32 GB). For me I ended up with two machines for DCS in the end but now the older machine can be turned into a dedicated Assetto Corsa machine and back seat in the L39/Yak52. Hehe. I guess it depends how much of a priority this is with respect to how much you want to spend. Another option is to price out a new system based upon the AMD 3600X and 5700XT to see how far away you are on the pricing with respect to used equipment. So many options. Btw, if you are new to DCS and don't have a TrackIR-like device then add that to your budget - that is "game changing" and I would make it a priority when juggling your costs. HTH

Spit has a tiny rudder compared to the L-39.

A standalone mission editor that can be installed on any computer to create missions but does not require DCS installed to function. User story 1: As a mission creator I would like to create missions on my laptop when away from my gaming computer (while on an airplane, bus, etc). User story 2: Mission creation collaboration between authors can be shared on the fly when not sitting at a gaming computer(s) via simple file sharing and 'linting' in standalone mission editor programs. I'd like to create missions while travelling, sitting in front of the TV, fire, lake, whatever without needing a whole DCS install to do it. Also concerned about potential licensing issues with having DCS installed in too many places (Game rig + server VM + laptop + ? ). Just an idea.

I posted this in a different thread:

Where are we at with this ship? No pressure - just curious - take your time. :)

Channel map uses more than 16GB of RAM - at least on my system. This plot is taking off and running touch and goes at High Halden in the Spitfire, flying north to the Thames, Manston, Dover then landing at High Halden again. Machine is i3770K OC @ 4.5GHz, 2070S, 1440p, msaa_x4, Ani_x16, high most things, OBS recording but using iGPU for encoding. Pretty much stutter free, pagefile.sys removed, all the craptastic background programs like steam, logitech hub, etc., etc. disabled. HTH