Effect of RAM Clock Speed on DCS in VR

[The Integrator]

Hey,

 

I am considering upgrading my current system and since I am having tempting thoughts about VR I have done a little bit of searching about what components are best for VR. My usual understanding of RAM is that the speed does not really make a difference and if anything it is the lattency/clock speed that is important. Since RAM with a higher clock speed will often have higher latency, there is no real difference. Now, I did a bit of searching and found this indicating that this may not be the case for DCS in VR

 

 

 

(this was a year ago so maybe things have changed). A few people say things similar to what I said above about latency being important, but the issue was never really resolved. I also read that clock speed in DCS VR can make a difference up to 3000MHz, but not after that. With the simply absurd price of RAM currently I want to get my choice right :P . Main contenders are things like this

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMK16GX4M2B3600C18-Vengeance-3600MHz-Performance/dp/B01AKWSUOU

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-CMK16GX4M2B3200C16-Vengeance-Performance-Desktop/dp/B0143UM4TC/ref=sr_1_109?ie=UTF8&qid=1518139147&sr=8-109&keywords=ddr4%2Bram%2B16gb%2B3000mhz&th=1

 

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Vengeance-3000MHz-Desktop-Memory/dp/B0134EW7G8/ref=sr_1_1?tag=skim0x3152-21&s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1492410834&sr=1-1&keywords=ddr4%2Bram%2B8gb&refinements=p_n_feature_five_browse-bin%3A677429011&th=1

 

each of which has latency/speed of 0.005. Ordinarily I would just get the cheapest (ha! As if there is such a thing as cheap RAM anymore!) but if I do decide to get VR it might be better to get the fastest one despite the extra cost and higher latency.

 

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

P.S. how would 16GB DDR4 (whatever speed I end up with :p ), i5-8600k, GTX1080 fare in VR? How about a 1070? Would a 1080Ti be necessary?

Edited February 9, 2018 by The Integrator

[cichlidfan]

VR is not a consideration. System performance is.

 

Personally, unless my machines were in dire need of an upgrade, the current prices of RAM and GFX cards would stop me from doing anything in that regard (unless money is just not an issue).

 

Of course, nobody knows how DCS v2.5 should run on any type of RAM since their is a root issue with RAM usage.

[FragBum]

Just an observation I have 32GB DDR4 rated at 3Ghz but only runs at 2.4Ghz reliably* (X99 main board) however even with my old 980Ti my CPU i7 5930 @ 4.3GHZ the CPU was and is now the bottle neck with a 1080Ti for VR.

 

Maybe faster load times?? but until DCS can utilize those 12 cores to keep the GPU busy I'm not sure how much benefit the faster RAM would be. If it's a new build well faster is better, right! :D

 

* I have an intel 750 series PCIe SSD and that seems to to be limiting the system however looking at CPU and main board upgrade maybe 8700K should get to high 4.somthing Ghz and SATA SSD's this time although the 750 SSD is damn fast. :)

 

Since fitting the the 1080Ti I have had to fall back to 4.1Ghz CPU clock boost. :(

 

Touch wood I haven't had an issue with memory leak issue indeed 2.5 seems to use less RAM than 2.2.x did.

 

16GB is probably fine for DCS but with Chrome and a few other apps open at the same time 12+GB of memory used is not uncommon in my situation. Chrome is a memory hog. With 32GB of RAM the page file is not that active at all.

[hannibal]

whats the best way to check cpu gpu bottlenecks in DCS?

[JIMJAM]

I built my own systems for 25+ yrs but for my 50th Bday I went to Falcon northwest's site and had them build me the fastest machine. Went VR about a month ago and have been having oom errors with DCS and other dedicated VR games. Suspecting my 16 gigs was the issue I called last week and talked to a tech who also was a simmer.

He said 16 is more than enough and actually talked me out of going to 32. He suggested waiting for the prices to go down and then buy 32 all at once of the exact same kind. I then ask about the speed. He said going from DDr4 2400 to 3000 would not be noticable. This is from a guy who builds high end rigs for gamers with deep pockets.

That said... If I was building a new computer and not upgrading YES I would get 32 and the fastest ram.

 

BTW- My OOM errors was solved by changing my virtual memory settings to a much larger number and making them identical- 4096- 4096- "static". Has not crashed again.

Edited February 9, 2018 by JIMJAM

[hansangb]

I built my own systems for 25+ yrs but for my 50th Bday I went to Falcon northwest's site and had them build me the fastest machine. Went VR about a month ago and have been having oom errors with DCS and other dedicated VR games. Suspecting my 16 gigs was the issue I called last week and talked to a tech who also was a simmer.

He said 16 is more than enough and actually talked me out of going to 32. He suggested waiting for the prices to go down and then buy 32 all at once of the exact same kind. I then ask about the speed. He said going from DDr4 2400 to 3000 would not be noticable. This is from a guy who builds high end rigs for gamers with deep pockets.

That said... If I was building a new computer and not upgrading YES I would get 32 and the fastest ram.

 

BTW- My OOM errors was solved by changing my virtual memory settings to a much larger number and making them identical "static". Has not crashed again.

 

 

Yeah, I thought it might be that. These days, auto works fine as well. Back in the days, it helped because you can guarantee that the page file won't be fragmented etc. Hell, I member trying to move it to inner tracks to reduce the circumference! LOL. All that stuff no longer applies. Glad you solved the problem.

[JIMJAM]

Been at it since Microprose F-19. Radio shack had a Tandy 20 mz machine I paid $3000 for which in todays money is over $6000!!!!

The game had ONE graphics setting "advanced iirc" that added a few more triangles, lines etc...

Went back and they had a 25 mz !!!!!! The salesmen was like "Why the hell do you need all that power for????

Been tweaking ever since and can recite FS9/FSX/P3D config in my sleep. Good luck.

[Drag80]

I think this is the worst time for purchasing RAMs and Graphic cards. Prices are insanely high.

[hansangb]

I can still play that theme song that played on the Tandy 1000 computer. Loved that game. And Gunship. I wrote in the Huey thread that Belsimtek's Huey reminded me of MicroProse's Gunship. And I'm still waiting to re-fly Flight of the Intruder! :) Too bad MicroProse couldn't hang around. I pretty much had every title, including Knights of the Sky. How far we've come.

 

Back on topic, that was interesting read. Maybe I'll test it in BIOS one of these days. Crank the memory down and replay a track or something.

Edited February 9, 2018 by hansangb

[FragBum]

whats the best way to check cpu gpu bottlenecks in DCS?

 

I'm just going by observation with msi afterburner and task manager.

 

Before upgrading to 1080Ti typical CPU usage for DCS was between 10 and 13% (total ave) with 2 cores about 30 to 50% with one virtual core at about 90 to 100% (core 6/12) and that kept the 980Ti at around 100% GPU usage.

 

Now with the 1080Ti (and DCS 2.5 OB) I get about the same total CPU usage however GPU is lucky to get over 60 ~65% usage (with better performance) this seems to be more a constraint of DCS code.

 

If I crank settings up the CPU and GPU usage remains about the same but ultimately ASW kicks in, then frame rate drops, with the GPU still having so much headroom the hold up is as I understand it CPU related. Also in general it seems people with simply higher CPU clock rates and quasy similar hardware are able to utilize their GPU better.

 

If I render video or (D800) RAW's to jpeg @ 10 to 15MB each I get all 12 cores at 90 to 100% whilst it's rendering, now thats CPU utilization. :)

[Strong05]

When I built my PC about 2 years ago for 1.5 my research on the forums here also showed that Ram clock speed is important to a degree. I played with the clock speed and did notice a few more FPS with higher RAM clock speed (forum said anything past 3000MHz netted minimal gains). I haven't played with it in 2.5 to see if it has an effect. But in general, RAM clock speed has a negligible effect on most programs.

[dburne]

There has been some pretty heavy benchmarking done in another flight sim, that shows a nice benefit in VR for having faster ram as well as cpu clock speed.

I would think the same would apply for DCS.

[Vullcan]

Returns drop off after 3000mhz, but i still noticed a bit more improvement going to 4000mhz ram.

 

The people who are really impacted are the 2500mhz and under club who think ram speeds dont matter in this sims engine.

[Sandman1330]

RAM clock speed is important if you run a Ryzen CPU because of the structure of Ryzen, where it is made of 4 core complexes connected by the infinity fabric.

 

The infinity fabric runs at the speed of your RAM, so higher RAM speeds will greatly reduce latency when threads migrate from one complex to another over the infinity fabric.

 

I haven’t benchmarked DCS, but I’ve seen a decent difference in Cinebench between 2133 and 2933 RAM speeds on my system.