BritTorrent Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Hi guys, I recently made the transition from Falcon 4 to DCS and I got the A10 module. Really enjoying it so far, DCS is a really well made sim and I love how detailed the A-10 is. Really looking forward to sinking the hours into learning how to fly it. Only trouble is, performance isn't great. Now first of all, it's not terrible either. I run the game on Medium and I mostly get 30+ FPS when I'm in the air, especially if I'm on my own. If there's a lot of stuff going off, multiple aircraft and ground targets, tracer fire etc then I seem to get FPS in the low 20's/high teens. When I'm on the ground, I'm getting anything from 15-25 FPS. Like I said, it isn't terrible. I can certainly fly without too many problems, and even when the FPS is low it doesn't last for long and it's still fluid enough to be adequate. But I'd like to get a consistent 30+ FPS so it feels smooth and I don't have to worry about flying into areas with a lot of activity. My question is, what is the best upgrade I can buy in order to help my FPS. This is my current PC. On my current budget I have enough money to buy an i7 4790k and motherboard, or a similarly priced graphics card. Based on your guys experience, which upgrade will help me out the most in terms of performance? I know a powerful CPU will always help out in a flight sim, but the fact that my FPS tanks when a lot of stuff is on screen suggests it may be my graphics card that's letting me down? Thanks in advance for any help! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nirvi Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 If you can, wait a few weeks until DCS 1.5 arrives in september. (hopefully) The new engine coming with 1.5 should give you a better performance. Serious uglies Discord 4YA - Project Overlord WW2 Server My DCS Videos Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
outlawal2 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 That is a good machine.. The first thing that smacked me in the face is that you are running a mechanical HD. HIGHLY recommend moving that 1 TB mechanical drive as a secondary and buy a fast SSD. Prices are coming down all the time and it makes a big difference in DCS... Make sure you get at least a 500 Gig drive or you will run out of space pretty quick... After that, I would wait for DCS 2.0 and see how that pans out. You have a good machine now, you should be able to tweak for better performance.. (And the SSD will make a big difference) :thumbup: "Pride is a poor substitute for intelligence." RAMBO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BritTorrent Posted August 21, 2015 Author Share Posted August 21, 2015 If you can, wait a few weeks until DCS 1.5 arrives in september. (hopefully) The new engine coming with 1.5 should give you a better performance. That is a good machine.. The first thing that smacked me in the face is that you are running a mechanical HD. HIGHLY recommend moving that 1 TB mechanical drive as a secondary and buy a fast SSD. Prices are coming down all the time and it makes a big difference in DCS... Make sure you get at least a 500 Gig drive or you will run out of space pretty quick... After that, I would wait for DCS 2.0 and see how that pans out. You have a good machine now, you should be able to tweak for better performance.. (And the SSD will make a big difference) :thumbup: Thanks for the replies fellas. So from what we've seen of DCS 1.5/2.0 so far do the pefromance upgrades seem significant enough to make difference? Probably does make sense to hold off until it's out at least. I was worried about 1.5 to be honest because I was worried the update would actually cause performance to drop due to improved textures and effects etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art-J Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 The DCS doesn't properly support multicore CPUs (using only 2 cores) and definitely doesn't like ATI cards at the moment. Hence Your performance issues. The first isn't going to change with upcoming DCS 1.5/2.0, so, just like now, Intel CPU with lower number of cores but higher clock per core sounds like a good idea. As for the gfx card, nobody really knows how switching to DX-11 will affect performance on AMD cards. If You're not in hurry, I would wait (after all, september is not that far away) and see what experiences people will get here when 1.5 is up. i7 9700K @ stock speed, single GTX1070, 32 gigs of RAM, TH Warthog, MFG Crosswind, Win10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyforDCS Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Clock for Clock, or Mhz per Mhz :) The AMD CPUs are woefully under-powered in any single threaded program or application compared to their Intel counterparts (this is where DCS is currently, and it wont be changing in the immediate future with 1.5 or 2.0). I think an upgrade to an Intel CPU (and MOBO), would be very significant in your case. But by all means hold off until EDGE is released. Current specs: Windows 10 Home 64bit, i5-9600K @ 3.7 Ghz, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB Samsung EVO 860 M.2 SSD, GAINWARD RTX2060 6GB, Oculus Rift S, MS FFB2 Sidewinder + Warthog Throttle Quadrant, Saitek Pro rudder pedals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bigian Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 That's interesting, the new engine might make it slicker? I'd assumed I would be crawling back to my bank of wife with some story about yet another upgrade. On the back of the last three years real world flying for a PPL she was presumably going to explode! I can't wait for world 1.5 and of course Hawk EFM and maybe, just maybe Nelis and World 2 :-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacks Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I am on a similar quest for more performance. I know everyone says DCs 1.5 should bring a performance boost but it may not. I would prefer to get the performance to where I want. It now and if DCS 1.5 does give better performance I can use the gains to turn up the eye candy. For me the biggest performance gains were overclocking my i5 from 3.4 GHz to 4.5GHz. This gave me a very noticeable boost! I used the same cooler as you to achieve this overclock. After the overclock I noticed the only stutters (other during very busy scenes) was when the scenery was loading in the background so I bought an SSD and no more stutters. Now I run my system at 50FPS which can drop 30 FPS when on the ground with other aircraft nearby or when there are lot of explosions and tracer fire. I have noticed that I get more stutters when all my VRAM is used (which happens a lot online) so my next purchase is a GTX 970 with 3.5GB VRAM. I have heard that Windows 10 is giving some people a boost in FPS (about 10%extra). There are some texture mods that increase performance by tweaking the high.lua and some tweaks that you can do to the graphics.cfg and options.cfg files that can boost FPS. The other way to improve FPS is to play around with your in game graphics options and graphics card control panel to find the combination that works best for your system. System Specs: i7 8700k @ 5.0GHz (not delidded), ASRock Extreme4 Z370 MOBO, EVGA GTX 1080 SC 8GB, 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, Samsung Evo 240GB SSD, Samsung Evo 500GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Noctura NH-D15S Heat Sink, Acer VE278H 27" 1080p Monitor, Ocukus Rift CV1. Controllers: TrackIR 5, Thrustmaster HOTAS X, Saitek Throttle Quadrant (with DIY removable collective mod), Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals. Just trying to keep my number of takeoffs and landings equal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 16gb of ram provides the same boost as an SSD for 500% less money. If you have 16gb you can turn the preload radius to maximum and that way DCS wont use the drive at all but instead load everything into the RAM. This is personal experience by the way. I wont reccomend you upgrading your CPU. Why? Because DCS is likely the only game you'll play that uses one core and for the other hundreds of games that use multi threading you are more than ok with your amd. You need an nvidia card like 970 or 980. The new radeon 380 is also a very good option for the money. IMHO do not buy an SSD at all, get 16gb of RAM, DCS wont use all, but if you have 8 DCS will use around 5, when you get 16 DCS will use 7 or 8 which is why you wont need the SSD. This is my personal experience, hope it helps. Intel Core i5-8600k + Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | Gigabyte GTX 1070 Aorus 8G | 32GB DDR4 Corsair Vengance LPX Black 3200MHz | Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 3 | WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | WD Green 240GB | WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 3 | WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 | EVGA 650 GQ 80+ Gold | Samsung CF391 Curved 32" | Corsair 400C | Steelseries Arctis 5 --- Razer Kraken X Lite | Logitech G305 | Redragon Dyaus 2 K509 | Xbox 360 | Saitek X-52 Pro | Thrustmaster TWCS | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
scottb613 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Hi Folks, I've got an i7-2700k overclocked to 4.5 on air and it was a substantial increase in performance... Question - any opinions on memory speed ? I've read on other forums of the potential improvements in performance from going from 1600 to 2666... Any similar experiences with DCS ? Seems like a relatively inexpensive boost if it works... Regards, Scott Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pulstar Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 If you want more VRAM, AMD R9 cards have 8GB! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacks Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I prefer Nvidia cards of I'm honest System Specs: i7 8700k @ 5.0GHz (not delidded), ASRock Extreme4 Z370 MOBO, EVGA GTX 1080 SC 8GB, 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, Samsung Evo 240GB SSD, Samsung Evo 500GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Noctura NH-D15S Heat Sink, Acer VE278H 27" 1080p Monitor, Ocukus Rift CV1. Controllers: TrackIR 5, Thrustmaster HOTAS X, Saitek Throttle Quadrant (with DIY removable collective mod), Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals. Just trying to keep my number of takeoffs and landings equal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grunf Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 The new engine coming with 1.5 should give you a better performance. Usualy the new engine means better looking graphics, higher details etc, but also higher hardware requirements. Is the EDGE so much more optimized compared to the old engine? Sounds too good to be true. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jacks Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Usualy the new engine means better looking graphics, higher details etc, but also higher hardware requirements. Is the EDGE so much more optimized compared to the old engine? Sounds too good to be true. :D +1 System Specs: i7 8700k @ 5.0GHz (not delidded), ASRock Extreme4 Z370 MOBO, EVGA GTX 1080 SC 8GB, 32GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3200MHz DDR4 RAM, Samsung Evo 240GB SSD, Samsung Evo 500GB SSD, 1TB HDD, Noctura NH-D15S Heat Sink, Acer VE278H 27" 1080p Monitor, Ocukus Rift CV1. Controllers: TrackIR 5, Thrustmaster HOTAS X, Saitek Throttle Quadrant (with DIY removable collective mod), Saitek Pro Flight Rudder Pedals. Just trying to keep my number of takeoffs and landings equal! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilky510 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) Usualy the new engine means better looking graphics, higher details etc, but also higher hardware requirements. Is the EDGE so much more optimized compared to the old engine? Sounds too good to be true. :D Most likely. the performance might not increase your top end fps, but the low fps dips you get at airbases and other parts of the map should be gone: Why and how? Right now in the current DX9 the CPU is doing all the work, and as it is right now and the future DCS doesn't use all 4 cores. So what makes DCS 1.5/2.0 different is they're moving all the goodies over to the GPU, which was bottlenecked on the CPU. You will get more average FPS atleast with the newer version of DCS. Edited August 21, 2015 by wilky510 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Art-J Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 I guess it's all relative. Draw call limit of DX9, which hampers out performance now, will not be an issue anymore with DX11, so the potential for somewhat better performance will be there. But, at the same time we'll be cranking up eyecandy like crazy and using more mods, putting more strain on our poor PCs. Old map will take it, but NTTR with these gazillions of houses and cars in Vegas will choke my not-so-fast hardware I'm afraid :D. i7 9700K @ stock speed, single GTX1070, 32 gigs of RAM, TH Warthog, MFG Crosswind, Win10. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NakedSquirrel Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Usualy the new engine means better looking graphics, higher details etc, but also higher hardware requirements. Is the EDGE so much more optimized compared to the old engine? Sounds too good to be true. :D One of their big goals is optimization, and from what Wags has mentioned in some of his QA videos, it seems he is getting better performance and better graphics, so hopefully it holds through on most machines. A good example of a game that has a new engine with better graphics optimization would be ARMA 2 to ARMA 3, which allows you to render out further and with better detail than the previous engine. I recommend waiting for DCS v1.5 and seeing where your bottleneck is with the new engine. I have the 8350 as well and have been thinking of going back to an i7 because it seems the sim genre is completely void of multi threading. Heck, I might just overclock a dual or quad core and save some cash lol. Modules: A10C, AV8, M2000C, AJS-37, MiG-21, MiG-19, MiG-15, F86F, F5E, F14A/B, F16C, F18C, P51, P47, Spitfire IX, Bf109K, Fw190-D, UH-1, Ka-50, SA342 Gazelle, Mi8, Christian Eagle II, CA, FC3 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wilky510 Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Also, to the OP: I heard the AMD cards don't fair too well with the current version of DCS (DX9) as quite a few people have pointed out on these forums, i'd wait for DCS 1.5/2.0 at this point of time. Then i'd see if you would need an upgrade or not depending on how your performance is in the new engine. If the FPS is bothering you that much, you could go for a Nvidia card. Seen people saying it nearly doubled their FPS with DCS, not because Nvidia is "better", Just AMD cards aren't very optimized for the current DCS engine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demon_ Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) I run the game on Medium and I mostly get 30+ FPS when I'm in the air, especially if I'm on my own. If there's a lot of stuff going off, multiple aircraft and ground targets, tracer fire etc then I seem to get FPS in the low 20's/high teens. When I'm on the ground, I'm getting anything from 15-25 FPS. This is the CPU (artificial inteligence) This is the video card (small particules) Edited August 21, 2015 by Demon_ Attache ta tuque avec d'la broche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 tracer fire is also cpu Intel Core i5-8600k + Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | Gigabyte GTX 1070 Aorus 8G | 32GB DDR4 Corsair Vengance LPX Black 3200MHz | Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 3 | WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | WD Green 240GB | WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 3 | WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 | EVGA 650 GQ 80+ Gold | Samsung CF391 Curved 32" | Corsair 400C | Steelseries Arctis 5 --- Razer Kraken X Lite | Logitech G305 | Redragon Dyaus 2 K509 | Xbox 360 | Saitek X-52 Pro | Thrustmaster TWCS | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demon_ Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Question - any opinions on memory speed ? I've read on other forums of the potential improvements in performance from going from 1600 to 2666... Yes, improvements of only 2-3%. Attache ta tuque avec d'la broche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joni Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Yes, improvements of only 2-3%. Agreed. Intel Core i5-8600k + Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO | Gigabyte GTX 1070 Aorus 8G | 32GB DDR4 Corsair Vengance LPX Black 3200MHz | Gigabyte Z370 Aorus Gaming 3 | WD Black SN750 NVMe 500GB | Samsung 850 EVO 250GB | WD Green 240GB | WD Caviar Black 1TB SATA 3 | WD Caviar Blue 500GB SATA 3 | EVGA 650 GQ 80+ Gold | Samsung CF391 Curved 32" | Corsair 400C | Steelseries Arctis 5 --- Razer Kraken X Lite | Logitech G305 | Redragon Dyaus 2 K509 | Xbox 360 | Saitek X-52 Pro | Thrustmaster TWCS | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demon_ Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 BritTorrent, give us more info, what is your game graphics settings? Attache ta tuque avec d'la broche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sporg Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 Hi guys, I recently made the transition from Falcon 4 to DCS and I got the A10 module. Really enjoying it so far, DCS is a really well made sim and I love how detailed the A-10 is. Really looking forward to sinking the hours into learning how to fly it. Only trouble is, performance isn't great. Now first of all, it's not terrible either. I run the game on Medium and I mostly get 30+ FPS when I'm in the air, especially if I'm on my own. If there's a lot of stuff going off, multiple aircraft and ground targets, tracer fire etc then I seem to get FPS in the low 20's/high teens. When I'm on the ground, I'm getting anything from 15-25 FPS. Like I said, it isn't terrible. I can certainly fly without too many problems, and even when the FPS is low it doesn't last for long and it's still fluid enough to be adequate. But I'd like to get a consistent 30+ FPS so it feels smooth and I don't have to worry about flying into areas with a lot of activity. My question is, what is the best upgrade I can buy in order to help my FPS. This is my current PC. On my current budget I have enough money to buy an i7 4790k and motherboard, or a similarly priced graphics card. Based on your guys experience, which upgrade will help me out the most in terms of performance? I know a powerful CPU will always help out in a flight sim, but the fact that my FPS tanks when a lot of stuff is on screen suggests it may be my graphics card that's letting me down? Thanks in advance for any help! I would recommend an upgrade to that i7 4790K, and then with your current cooler you should be able to give it a good overclock. This should be able to boost your DCS experience quite a bit, and if you play other simulation games like ARMA 2 and 3 or other flight simulators, you should get better performance there too. I think your graphics card is fairly good and it is probably already being bottlenecked by your CPU. I believe the action that tanks your FPS is due to your CPU not being able to cope. A simulation game like this is heavily dependent on real time calculations, so the more goes on at a given time, the more work the CPU has to be able to do. I have two experiences to share: One is that I got a massive boost when I overclocked my i7 2600K from 3.5 to 4.2 GHz. This I could easily do with a cooler with slightly less capacity than yours. I estimate that it gave me 20-30 % better frame rate and made it more consistent. The other is that I have a friend with virtually same setup as mine, incl overclock, except I use a nVidia GTX 670 and he uses an AMD Radeon 7970. We have basically same performance in DCS. I hope this helps a bit. System specs: Gigabyte Aorus Master, i7 9700K@std, GTX 1080TI OC, 32 GB 3000 MHz RAM, NVMe M.2 SSD, Oculus Quest VR (2x1600x1440) Warthog HOTAS w/150mm extension, Slaw pedals, Gametrix Jetseat, TrackIR for monitor use Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Demon_ Posted August 21, 2015 Share Posted August 21, 2015 (edited) I hope this helps a bit. This helps more than a bit.:smilewink: Note: The i7 4790K is really expensive. Maybe the i5 4690K at 4.2Khz or more... Edited August 21, 2015 by Demon_ Attache ta tuque avec d'la broche. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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