PC Upgrades -

[Grubenstein]

Hi All, 

Been VR DCS gaming for a few years now (first CV1 and now Quest 2). PC starting to chug a little bit using Quest 2 and thinking of upgrades. 

My PC spec is currently:

CPU - i7-9700K CPU @ 3.6GHz - Cool Master Liquid cooled

RAM - 32Gb

GPU - Geforce GTX 1070 8gb

DCS SATA 1tb Hard Drive install (OS on SSD)

I am thinking my GPU needs either overclocking (a bit) or a new card. 

Or change drive to SSD. Its in game slowing though rather than loading so thinking GPU. 

Looks amazing in Quest 2 just not as smooth as was in CV1 with supersampling (a lot!)

Thanks

 

[draconus]

Yep, new GPU for in game performance (OC will get you what? 5-10% if lucky?), though the SSD will help with some stutters (when loading stuff during the game) and of course mission loading times.

Edited December 14, 2021 by draconus

[Lurker]

If you can afford one (or find one) I'd go for a graphics card upgrade. Just don't expect miracles. I did a lot of upgrades to get satisfactory performance in DCS World and well....it's still not satisfactory, but maybe my expectations are too high. 

[Grubenstein]

Thanks Both, I guess we need to wait for Vulkan API also!

Any Card recommendations?

[Boosterdog]

Are you running a liquid cooled K series CPU at stock?  Wont overclocking that help a little? I dunno for VR , just asking. 

[draconus]

3 minutes ago, Boosterdog said:

Are you running a liquid cooled K series CPU at stock?  Wont overclocking that help a little? I dunno for VR , just asking.

VR puts most demands on the GPU. There are some DCS missions/setups that can create much higher CPU load but these are not common.

[Boosterdog]

2 minutes ago, draconus said:

VR puts most demands on the GPU. There are some DCS missions/setups that can create much higher CPU load but these are not common.

Ah - thanks. Not VR so was just thinking aloud. 

[Grubenstein]

8 minutes ago, Boosterdog said:

Are you running a liquid cooled K series CPU at stock?  Wont overclocking that help a little? I dunno for VR , just asking. 

Hi Boosterdog, Yes I have a Cooler master liquid cooling system and running at default speed. My Motherboard BIOS doesn't seem to let me overclock however.  I have an Aorus H370 Gaming 3 WIFI v F13 or Aorus App Centre Software

[Boosterdog]

Just now, Grubenstein said:

Hi Boosterdog, Yes I have a Cooler master liquid cooling system and running at default speed. My Motherboard BIOS doesn't seem to let me overclock however.  I have an Aorus H370 Gaming 3 WIFI v F13 or Aorus App Centre Software

I understand. Good luck and lets hope 2022 brings some good news engine wise!

[Grubenstein]

Thanks for all the help all appreciate it. Just need to find a card that's under £400. Ready for Apache!!

[draconus]

Yep, H370 chipset prevents you from overclocking and using K to its full potential, such a waste. At least you have cool CPU

btw: It should throttle up to 4,9GHz in Turbo mode so it's not like it's at 3,6GHz in DCS.

A decent card under £400? You might have to rethink that or just wait. I decided to go with the latter.

Edited December 14, 2021 by draconus

[edmuss]

I've just upgraded my 1070 to a 3070 and performance is more than doubled in VR, got pretty similar specs except my cpu is clocked higher, unlikely to be making that much difference though.  At a pinch I would grab a 250 gig ssd and dedicate it to DCS alone, will help out with smoothness and loading, a sata ssd of that size is dirt cheap now and will be a massive improvement.

My 1070 (asus rog strix overclocked to 2100 core and 9000 memory) could drive the G2 @60hz along between 35 and 50 fps at half resolution, mostly high settings and motion smoothing kept it all nice; couldn't do 90hz though because it couldn't consistently hold above the 50 fps threshold for WMR smoothing to work.

The 3070 founders edition runs between 50 and 60 fps at full resolution with more shadows and stuff turned on, still at 60hz to give more headroom for the smoothing to work.

Sign up to FEpartalert channel on telegram, this will give you notifications when the FE cards come back into stock, my 3070 cost £469 which is the msrp.  If you're lucky the notification will come in when you are able to drop everything and instantly buy a gpu, got to be super quick though

[Eldur]

On 12/14/2021 at 12:05 PM, Grubenstein said:

Thanks for all the help all appreciate it. Just need to find a card that's under £400. Ready for Apache!!

Too bad your board doesn't let you OC that CPU, but I guess it's still good anyway. But for that price tag you could sell your 1070 at the moment. Hard to get anything for that amount, unless you manage to snipe a drop.

On 12/14/2021 at 12:21 PM, edmuss said:

I've just upgraded my 1070 to a 3070 and performance is more than doubled in VR, got pretty similar specs except my cpu is clocked higher, unlikely to be making that much difference though.  At a pinch I would grab a 250 gig ssd and dedicate it to DCS alone, will help out with smoothness and loading, a sata ssd of that size is dirt cheap now and will be a massive improvement.

My 1070 (asus rog strix overclocked to 2100 core and 9000 memory) could drive the G2 @60hz along between 35 and 50 fps at half resolution, mostly high settings and motion smoothing kept it all nice; couldn't do 90hz though because it couldn't consistently hold above the 50 fps threshold for WMR smoothing to work.

The 3070 founders edition runs between 50 and 60 fps at full resolution with more shadows and stuff turned on, still at 60hz to give more headroom for the smoothing to work.

Sign up to FEpartalert channel on telegram, this will give you notifications when the FE cards come back into stock, my 3070 cost £469 which is the msrp.  If you're lucky the notification will come in when you are able to drop everything and instantly buy a gpu, got to be super quick though

Thanks for the insight. I've been trying to get a glance at such drops, never worked out for me. I wish I had that luck... but your given performance data actually encourages me to maybe just settle for a 3070 instead of trying to get something like the 3080ti which is much more expensive. I'm having a 1080 and get similar results like you with that 1070. The improvement of the 3070 over that would totally make it worthwhile. Just don't wanna spend 1300€ on it, even though that's what they always asked for if you tried getting a 2080ti before the 30 series launch, and they're said to be performing similarly well, even though the 3070 has less VRAM.

[edmuss]

35 minutes ago, Eldur said:

Thanks for the insight. I've been trying to get a glance at such drops, never worked out for me. I wish I had that luck... but your given performance data actually encourages me to maybe just settle for a 3070 instead of trying to get something like the 3080ti which is much more expensive. I'm having a 1080 and get similar results like you with that 1070. The improvement of the 3070 over that would totally make it worthwhile. Just don't wanna spend 1300€ on it, even though that's what they always asked for if you tried getting a 2080ti before the 30 series launch, and they're said to be performing similarly well, even though the 3070 has less VRAM.

The drops seems to be pretty regular on a monthly schedule, I've been watching them since end of october this year; in that time I've seen one UK drop and two EU ones (France/Spain/Italy/Germany/Netherlands so 5 different retailers on the continent).  I had just missed the previous UK drop so it is working out to be about monthly at least, I would anticipate another UK one in the next fortnight.  The 3070s sold out in minutes but the 3090s hung around for about half an hour, only 1400 quid though.

The 3070 vram sits at 6.5-7.8gb usage same as the 1070, doesn't seem to cause any fps change regardless; I suspect that DCS isn't actually using all of it, I think it's just allocating it to make you panic
For those with more vram, what percentage is shown as being used?

 

[Hector45]

30 minutes ago, edmuss said:

The drops seems to be pretty regular on a monthly schedule, I've been watching them since end of october this year; in that time I've seen one UK drop and two EU ones (France/Spain/Italy/Germany/Netherlands so 5 different retailers on the continent).  I had just missed the previous UK drop so it is working out to be about monthly at least, I would anticipate another UK one in the next fortnight.  The 3070s sold out in minutes but the 3090s hung around for about half an hour, only 1400 quid though.

The 3070 vram sits at 6.5-7.8gb usage same as the 1070, doesn't seem to cause any fps change regardless; I suspect that DCS isn't actually using all of it, I think it's just allocating it to make you panic
For those with more vram, what percentage is shown as being used?

 

My VRAM always shows 99% usage while playing DCS.

[BitMaster]

Regardless of any GPU issues, man, get a SSD !!

 

[edmuss]

UK founders edition stock drop for 80ti and 90 just pinged!

https://www.scan.co.uk/nvidia/products/3080ti/gxv2mrezi5wovc

Edited December 16, 2021 by edmuss