Best PC for DCS?

[D.Va]

D.Va,

 

have you ever played DCS online ?

 

8GB is the BARE MINIMUM and won't get you far in DCS's everyday use.

 

We can argue about 16+GB yes or no, but 8GB is a bad advice, sorry to say so.

 

 

I had lots of screenshots posted here with "old" 1.5.x and it already consumed no less than 10-14GB when playing on well visited servers, and this is common knowledge, no need to argue about that 8GB, honestly, this is plain wrong.

 

If you give advice, do it properly :book:

 

I don't play online, at all, that's true.

 

A couple comments:

You need an additional cooler for that processor, the K models don't come with a stock heat sink anymore, I assume to save money because they expect you to OC it and use a fancy aftermarket one.

 

8GB is not enough for a modern computer for any purpose IMO, and we have been seeing reports of DCS 2.5 using a lot of RAM.

 

Optical drive: I bet you have an old PC you can pull it from.

 

Power supply: a fancy one could save you money in the long run if you live in an area with expensive power. Breakdown of the math here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/327742-28-80plus-bronze-silver-gold-platinum

 

Monitors are a tradeoff. For business desktop work I always recommend nice IPS panel monitors that are 60Hz and have excellent color fidelity at all angles. For gaming you will often see ghosting on these though because of the high pixel transition time. Gaming monitors generally use TN panels and have much faster pixel transition times even if they are only capable of 60Hz, but have lower total color gamut and can look bad at high angles (though this has improved a lot in the last few years). Most gaming monitors can do 120 or even 144Hz now though, and the difference is definitely noticeable. Monitors are also very durable and become obsolete more slowly than other components, so spending a little extra is justified. As I type this at my office I'm using a Samsung IPS monitor that I bought in 2006 that still looks fantastic.

Processors without stock coolers?! Madness!

8GB is more than sufficient for doing anything other than playing simulators, like ARMA and DCS. Windows uses 2GB and most games use 2-4GB. Widows+DCS 2.5 uses 7-9GB in my experience, but allegedly it uses a lot more if you play online.

I agree about image quality over refresh rate.

[Demon_]

By your experience? How do you know your DCS uses 9GB of RAM with your 8GB? It has nothing to do with the MP.

Edited February 8, 2018 by Demon_

[BitMaster]

I don't play online, at all, that's true.

 

 

Processors without stock coolers?! Madness!

8GB is more than sufficient for doing anything other than playing simulators, like ARMA and DCS. Windows uses 2GB and most games use 2-4GB. Widows+DCS 2.5 uses 7-9GB in my experience, but allegedly it uses a lot more if you play online.

I agree about image quality over refresh rate.

 

OK, start at ZERO again please ;)

 

I am willing to share my knowöedge with you, I`d be happy top do so, but you have to erase your false assumptions.

 

My Chrome browser sometimes takes 6GB alone, sure..many many tabs.

 

8GB is the minimum in todays standards, dont be guided wrongly.

[JG3Siggi]

I have a widget on my desktop that shows CPU and RAM useage on the fly. My card has 3GB and my system 8GB of RAM and when DCS has been loading stuff up I've seen the RAM hammered down as low as 300MB left (it fluctuates the entire time). If I stick with DCS I'll be getting another 8GB.

[D.Va]

By your experience? How do you know your DCS uses 9GB of RAM with your 8GB? It has nothing to do with the MP.

I have 16GB RAM.

[D.Va]

OK, start at ZERO again please ;)

 

I am willing to share my knowöedge with you, I`d be happy top do so, but you have to erase your false assumptions.

 

My Chrome browser sometimes takes 6GB alone, sure..many many tabs.

 

8GB is the minimum in todays standards, dont be guided wrongly.

I don't need to know anything you think you know. I just opened 70 tabs in Internet Explorer and it only uses 1.6GB RAM, so switch off Chrome or simply close it.

[cichlidfan]

I don't need to know anything you think you know. I just opened 70 tabs in Internet Explorer and it only uses 1.6GB RAM, so switch off Chrome or simply close it.

 

I would be interested in knowing what your experience is with 8GB of RAM. Since you have 16GB you haven't been testing the environment that you propose.

 

I haven't had an 8GB system in four years and would never consider recommending it to anyone. Prior to the past six months memory was so inexpensive that it would have been silly to skimp in that area.

 

Memory headroom does matter, regardless what you think.

[Demon_]

But we want to know. I would like to buy only 8GB of RAM if DCS run good with...

We know that some maps/missions use 12+GB of RAM reported by many pilots.

 

 

8GB

[BitMaster]

I don't need to know anything you think you know. I just opened 70 tabs in Internet Explorer and it only uses 1.6GB RAM, so switch off Chrome or simply close it.

 

Disqualified !

 

end of story for me, sorry

[BitMaster]

Absolutely,

 

You don't need advice. We have all understood that part by now.

 

You need :flowers: and a :drink:

[dax]

:)

Anyway... I haven't checked by myself but it was stated before that DCS uses 7-9Gb of RAM.

Ok, that should be sufficient to know that you then need more than 8Gb. Because if the application needs even just a tiny bit more RAM than what is available, you'll get some swapping and hence stuttering. Knowing that the OS and other background services are also using RAM... that's clear.

No one should buy less than 16Gb if planning to play DCS.

[hansangb]

I work with research, not hardware and hardware is irrelevant. I'm chiefly a gamer and I've benchmarked games I play since 2013 and all I care about is actual, real, practical performance. Specs and artificial benchmark scores are utterly irrelevant if the theory doesn't match in-game experience and I don't adopt any advice without empirical evidence, such as the dozens of defragging-style tweaks floating around this forum, spreading by word of mouth. That’s why I intend to write guides that cut all the additional fat and simply get people the performance they want, like I want.

 

 

I didn't have any need for advice about what happens when you run out of RAM from someone with 32GB RAM anyway...

 

 

You're right that there is a lot of old an outdated information floating out there. Defrag'ing is one, manually setting swap files so it's contiguous are prime examples. With SSDs and Win10 (or 7) it's a non sequitur.

 

Even artificial and cinebench's of the world can be meaningless because it won't predict how much a game is optimized. But it does give you a good place to start.

 

But the 8MB *is* wrong. You're also correct in that Windows will make do and the programs will still work. The problem is how much performance penalty are you willing accept for it?

 

With only firefox open, and other sundry Windows apps like AV, SnagitEditor, OneNote clipper, my memory usage was about 4.4GB. That's the system doing nothing else after booting. Firing up DCS raised it to 5.5 or so GB. I tried it with various resolution. And firing up an instant A10 mission raised it to 9GB+.

 

So as you said, Windows will do what it does and DCS will work in an 8GB system. But how would it support the 9GB requirement if has 8GB hard limit?

 

You could us the swap pagefile since that's what its for. But even with SSDs, access to it are tenth the speed of using RAM. Don't take my word for it, you can study up on the different lanes and CPU architecture, L1, L2 caches or google for "mit cutting cust power flash memory"

 

So while you're swapping (that's the: Windows will do what it does to make it work part that you referenced), you're getting tenth the performance.

 

So if you're wondering why people are jumping all over you for making "8GB is fine, don't worry about it" this is the reason why.

 

There was a time when 8GB was fine for all but AutoCAD/Photoshop/Matlab's of the world. But that's no longer the case. 16GB is the safe minimum recommendation for DCS.

[cichlidfan]

I work with research, not hardware and hardware is irrelevant.

 

Since memory is hardware, how is hardware irrelevant to this discussion? :doh:

 

In fact, this whole thread is about hardware. Please reference the thread title.

[David OC]

The PC specs (pre built) below would be my recommended minimum for DCS or for a general gaming PC, which could also handle minimum DCS VR, don't expect a lot tho, and would handle 1080p well and playable 1440p with some settings lowered.

 

Not the nicest looking PC, it's only 1200 usd tho, throw on a better cooler, little overclock perhaps.

 

ABS Battlebox Essential

 

Intel Core i5 8th Gen 8600K (3.60 GHz)

16 GB DDR4

1 TB HDD 240 GB SSD

Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GDDR5

 

or

 

CLX SET AMD Ryzen 5

 

Ryzen 5 1600X 3.6GHz B350 Chipset 16GB DDR4 2TB HDD 120SSD Win 10 Home 64-bitGeForce GTX 1060 6GB

 

.

Edited February 11, 2018 by David OC

[BitMaster]

The PC specs (pre built) below would be my recommended minimum for DCS or for a general gaming PC, which could also handle minimum DCS VR, don't expect a lot tho, and would handle 1080p well and playable 1440p with some settings lowered.

 

Not the nicest looking PC, it's only 1200 usd tho, throw on a better cooler, little overclock perhaps.

 

ABS Battlebox Essential

 

Intel Core i5 8th Gen 8600K (3.60 GHz)

16 GB DDR4

1 TB HDD 240 GB SSD

Windows 10 Home 64-Bit

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6 GB GDDR5

 

or

 

CLX SET AMD Ryzen 5

 

Ryzen 5 1600X 3.6GHz B350 Chipset 16GB DDR4 2TB HDD 120SSD Win 10 Home 64-bitGeForce GTX 1060 6GB

 

.

 

+1 ! Those will work, with the little limitations you mentioned.

 

In fact, I built a B350 kit for my pal's son for Xmas, 1600x, 16GB, SSD, wow..it flies.

Add the correct GPU for your budget and need and off she flies.

The 8600k has advantages, it would be a hard pick. For DCS I may give the Intel still this "1" point more, the damn IPC. For everything else, the 1600x is a superb CPU, done it a few times, run one too in office

[DonutDudeDD]

GRAPHICS OUTFIT Nvidia will unveil the GeForce GTX 20 series in April, according to online murmurs.

[BitMaster]

GRAPHICS OUTFIT Nvidia will unveil the GeForce GTX 20 series in April, according to online murmurs.

 

Rumours also say the 2080 will be about same performance as a 1080Ti, the 2080Ti late summer/fall is said to be the one that is 70-80% faster.

[0414 Wee Neal]

OOhhh D.Va

 

you do have a patronising writing skill! Not sure if you deliberately start out to offend or not but can I suggest that you tone it down please?

 

I am always interested in the acquisition of knowledge, but not if it comes with an unfriendly demeanour. I don't know you at all and am old and hopefully wise enough to form my own opinion if someone is full of Bull, the old adage of 'he doth protest to much' is a good yardstick when assessing a persons reaction to critique and your writing style comes dangerously close to this. Take this as you will.

[D.Va]

OOhhh D.Va

 

you do have a patronising writing skill! Not sure if you deliberately start out to offend or not but can I suggest that you tone it down please?

 

I am always interested in the acquisition of knowledge, but not if it comes with an unfriendly demeanour. I don't know you at all and am old and hopefully wise enough to form my own opinion if someone is full of Bull, the old adage of 'he doth protest to much' is a good yardstick when assessing a persons reaction to critique and your writing style comes dangerously close to this. Take this as you will.

I'm not really condescending. I'm frank. If I asked for computer advice and someone gave me advice that cost me $500, I would be angry. Wouldn't you be? For that reason, I give 100% no-nonsense answers and I don't take advice from anyone unless I can validate it for myself. Validation, that's where my opinions originate. That's why you won't see me messing about with core affinities, pagefiles, and other borderline hocus pocus and instead simply focusing on what actually works. I give advice. Follow it. Things work. If someone absolutely won’t listen to my advice, then I cannot physically stop them from spending another $500 on redundant components, but I won’t encourage it. For instance, I just booted with 8GB and 16GB: playing the same scenario I used 6.6GB and 9.9GB RAM, respectively. A-10C over Vegas. In both instances, I had identical (50 FPS) over a 30 second benchmark. Anyone care to explain this magic “making do” to me?

 

Because if I'm not entire mistaken, it's been a major claim from my opponents in this thread that running a 10GB RAM scenario with only 8GB of RAM should cause stuttering, which of there was none. None, I tell you.

 

I'm not going to claim to know how this magic works, but I can think of any number of ways a game can use less RAM that don't result in performance degradation.

Edited February 15, 2018 by D.Va

[Cake]

On another note, I think we are quickly approaching the point where 500gb is a minimum SSD size for single drive systems and 1Tb will be recommended build for the future, particularly if the terrain upgrades start rolling in and you want to run things other than DCS. I’d rather be in a situation where I CAN update video rather than NEED to update the SSD. I know this pushes the price a little, but I really liked the early pcpartpicker recomendation by Gladman otherwise:

 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/NvW2QV

Edited February 15, 2018 by Cake

[dburne]

On another note, I think we are quickly approaching the point where 500gb is a minimum SSD size for single drive systems and 1Tb will be recommended build for the future, particularly if the terrain upgrades start rolling in and you want to run things other than DCS. I’d rather be in a situation where I CAN update video rather than NEED to update the SSD. I know this pushes the price a little, but I really liked the early pcpartpicker recomendation otherwise.

 

Yep I will be doing a new build this year, and will be going with 1TB for my gaming SSD. Currently I have a 256GB, and it is getting tight.

[0414 Wee Neal]

agreed

[hansangb]

Hardware specs are absolutely irrelevant. Too many idiots (many in this forum) jump on i7s, excessive RAM, excessive VRAM, excessive motherboards, excessive storage units, excessive power supply units, excessive cooling, and CPI-chasing mice... this can easily add up to increasing the total cost of the computer by 50-100%. Discussions about specs (cherry picked marketing jargon without any direct relationship to performance, like "Cores" and "GHz", which are artificially inflated by AMD for instance) are never as rewarding as discussions that are directly about performance: the performance a computer delivers, rather than what its specifications state it should based on the hardware that's in it. Computers are magic to laypeople and most of the target audience for custom builds are in their teens, or too old to get computers.

 

Only because you think you know about computer hardware doesn't mean you know about gaming performance.

 

 

 

 

Slow your roll, junior. *IT IS TRUE* that depending on the optimization of game engines, that there is a point of diminishing returns. But to make such sweeping comments is beyond bizarre. It's simply wrong.

Edited February 15, 2018 by hansangb

[D.Va]

On another note, I think we are quickly approaching the point where 500gb is a minimum SSD size for single drive systems and 1Tb will be recommended build for the future, particularly if the terrain upgrades start rolling in and you want to run things other than DCS. I’d rather be in a situation where I CAN update video rather than NEED to update the SSD. I know this pushes the price a little, but I really liked the early pcpartpicker recomendation by Gladman otherwise:

 

https://ca.pcpartpicker.com/list/NvW2QV

 

I agree about the 500GB. I'm a video game collector and aficionado and have used a 250GB drive for years, but I've had another 250GB drive for flight simulation. A "250GB" drive is in reality only 232GB and Windows uses about 25 of that, leaving only about 200GB, which of 100GB is DCS 2.5 and 100GB is the Users folder. Adding another 230GB gives you space for another 50GB for DCS "future-proofing", two AAA games (which clock in at about 50GB today), and 80GB of assorted smaller games.

 

Yep I will be doing a new build this year, and will be going with 1TB for my gaming SSD. Currently I have a 256GB, and it is getting tight.

Question: what happens with your 256GB drive, then? I was on 250GB for a few years and then upgraded with another 250GB drive, which is worth considering if you want to get away a lot cheaper. Drives are not normally something that you'll want to throw away (cost inefficient and comes with many security concerns), so either you go 500GB or you go 1250GB.

 

Personally, I'm a strong advocate of small upgrades. Sometimes, all you have to do is change your wallpaper and the computer feels perfectly fresh

 

Slow your roll, junior. *IT IS TRUE* that depending on the optimization of game engines, that there is a point of diminishing returns. But to make such sweeping comments is beyond bizarre. It's simply wrong.

I'm not talking about the "point of diminishing returns". I'm talking about zero returns. $100 extra on an i7 instead of an i5 may get you a few percent more performance (depending on the game, sometimes more, sometimes less) and it's the same (variable) with VRAM upgrades, but if you spend $100 extra each on an advanced motherboard, overhead memory, overhead storage, "Pro" SSDs, and, an excessive power supply unit you get zero returns (in gaming performance). My point is not only that this is a complete waste of money for the gamer, but also that this money could be spent instead where it matters: upgrading the graphics card to the next tier, which gives you about 20%+ gaming performance. Diminishing returns is another, also worth contemplating, matter.

[Aluminum Donkey]

Good question.

 

I was hoping to keep it below 2000 €.

 

GTX 1080 Ti is a great card and DCS will make use of it. Claiming that an i9, 64GB of RAM, a terabyte M.2 SSD are somehow "better" is nonsense.

 

DCS seems to want more than 16GB of RAM, but that's a bug (until ED claims otherwise).

 

Four cores is fine. The i3-8350K processor should be great for DCS, and won't break the bank. It's the latest generation, is very fast out of the box, and can be overclocked.

 

Get the very best video card you can afford, 1080 Ti is a great one, but there's absolutely no point in going ridiculously heavy on everything else just for gaming, not even for DCS World. It's just going to burn a lot of cash, it won't make anything run better.

 

Just some honest input.

 

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