Realistic, honest hardware requirements for DCS

[LucShep]

Quote

System Requirements

Minimum system requirements (LOW graphics settings): OS 64-bit Windows 10; DirectX11; CPU: Intel Core i3 at 2.8 GHz or AMD FX; RAM: 8 GB (16 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 120 GB; Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 / AMD R9 280X or better; requires internet activation.

Recommended system requirements (HIGH graphics settings): OS 64-bit Windows 10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 3+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 120 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD) + extra space for paid content ; Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 56 with 8GB VRAM or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.

Recommended VR systems requirements (VR graphics settings): OS 64-bit Windows 10; DirectX11; CPU: Core i5+ at 3+ GHz or AMD FX / Ryzen; RAM: 16 GB (32 GB for heavy missions); Free hard disk space: 350 GB on Solid State Drive (SSD); Discrete video card NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 / AMD Radeon RX VEGA 64 or better; Joystick; requires internet activation.
 

I think it's pretty much a given that these requirements are borderline fantasy.

Can we please have some honest, realistic hardware requirements ?
Also, can we have it mentioning the respective resolution and framerate/refresh that they're recommended (f.ex, 1080P 60fps, etc) ?

 

[BIGNEWY]

We are looking to update the system specs. Disk space required for the base install needs to be updated, and I would like to see minimum RAM increased. 

Some people do still play on very low end machines however.

[draconus]

1 hour ago, LucShep said:

Also, can we have it mentioning the respective resolution and framerate/refresh that they're recommended (f.ex, 1080P 60fps, etc) ?

Sure but what mission and moment, which aircraft, map, what game and gfx settings, which driver and Windows version...? Because only with this specific info it can be any useful and only for tested hardware.

[LucShep]

3 hours ago, draconus said:

Sure but what mission and moment, which aircraft, map, what game and gfx settings, which driver and Windows version...? Because only with this specific info it can be any useful and only for tested hardware.

A regular quick mission with any of the latest modules (or most popular ones, F/A18, F16, Apache, etc) on any of the popular DLC maps (PG, Syria, for example) would be a great benchmark for that, I think?

The current suggested hardware requirements don't seem any realistic even with the free provided content, on free flight mission, at 1080P/60fps..

Edited December 2, 2022 by LucShep

[Evoman]

4 hours ago, LucShep said:

A regular quick mission with any of the latest modules (or most popular ones, F/A18, F16, Apache, etc) on any of the popular DLC maps (PG, Syria, for example) would be a great benchmark for that, I think?

The current suggested hardware requirements don't seem any realistic even with the free provided content, on free flight mission, at 1080P/60fps..

 

Are you referring to the minimum or required specs? 

I was able to run DCS just fine with an i5-6600K 16GB, GTX 970 loaded on a HD on regular offline missions at 1080P/60fps.

However I did notice performance drop in missions with lots of ground assets. But the performance improved dramatically when I moved DCS over to an M.2 NVMe drive.

By this comparison you will see why the transfer speeds of NVMe drives are even faster then the average SSD.

• Traditional 7200 RPM HDD: 160 MB/s
• SATA III SSD: 600 MB/s
• PCIe Gen 3.0 NVMe M.2 SSD: 3500 MB/s Seq. reads  – 3300 MB/s Seq. writes
• PCIe Gen 4.0 NVMe m.2 SSD: 7000 MB/s Seq. reads – 5000 MB/s Seq. writes

[LucShep]

On 12/2/2022 at 10:29 PM, Evoman said:

Are you referring to the minimum or required specs? 

I was able to run DCS just fine with an i5-6600K 16GB, GTX 970 loaded on a HD on regular offline missions at 1080P/60fps.

Im refering to both, minimum AND recommended.
Mentioning "LOW" or "HIGH" is meaningless in the current day, when resolution and framerate is not mentioned. That could be at 720P/30fps for all we know.

1080P/60fps with a GTX970 was easy with older 1.5x versions but not after that, certainly not with latest versions.
(FWIW, I had a Xeon W3690@4.6Ghz, 24GB, GTX970, game on 500GB Sata3 SSD when 2.5 came out in January 2018  ).

Notice that 2.5 was already consuming over 5.5GB of VRAM right away, at the time of its launch (and the GTX970 has only 4GB - actually 3.5GB+512MB!).
Now imagine the newer 2.8 with dynamic clouds system and its even bigger impact in performance in GPU usage (but not only), surpassing 8GB of VRAM quite imediately with any DLC terrain and newer module, plus the insistence on oversized texture and formats, on everything and especially on specular and bump maps....  

Edited December 4, 2022 by LucShep

[Bucic]

On 12/3/2022 at 1:31 AM, LucShep said:

Im refering to both, minimum AND recommended.
Mentioning "LOW" or "HIGH" is meaningless in the current day, when resolution and framerate is not mentioned. That could be at 720P/30fps for all we know.

1080P/60fps with a GTX970 was easy with older 1.5x versions but not after that, certainly not with latest versions.
(FWIW, I had a Xeon W3690@4.6Ghz, 24GB, GTX970, game on 500GB Sata3 SSD when 2.5 came out in January 2018  ).

Notice that 2.5 was already consuming over 5.5GB of VRAM right away, at the time of its launch (and the GTX970 has only 4GB - actually 3.5GB+512MB!).
Now imagine the newer 2.8 with dynamic clouds system and its even bigger impact in performance in GPU usage (but not only), surpassing 8GB of VRAM quite imediately with any DLC terrain and newer module, plus the insistence on oversized texture and formats, on everything and especially on specular and bump maps....  

 

I can only clock up to 40-50 FPS on LOW   With CPU usage at less than 30% on either of the cores.

Caucasus, F-5E free flight instant action, external view, ~2000 m altitude, ! FOV ~55 !

GTX 970

intel i3-12100F

16 GB RAM

1920x1080 fullscreen, no vsync, ~100% GPU usage, FPS limit set to 60 FPS

[draconus]

On 12/2/2022 at 6:55 PM, LucShep said:

The current suggested hardware requirements don't seem any realistic even with the free provided content, on free flight mission, at 1080P/60fps..

Who says you need 60fps to enjoy the game? Min. requirements are just to run it. I wish there was some benchmark but it can't rely on paid content.

[LucShep]

 

On 12/6/2022 at 6:36 PM, draconus said:

Who says you need 60fps to enjoy the game?

I don't know... pretty much everybody that has normal standards for the current day?
60fps is widely known as a normal threshold to where image/motion becomes far more enjoyable in PC and Console gaming - and it's what pretty much every developer has been aiming at (if not more) for quite sometime. 
Can it be done at 30fps? ...sure, just like you can do it at 800x600 resolution like in the old days... but who wants to use that crap anymore?
 

On 12/6/2022 at 6:36 PM, draconus said:

 Min. requirements are just to run it.

Just to run it? What do you mean?  At what visual screen standard?   720P/30fps ?   480P/15fps ?
If so, who spends 80,00 €UR on a painstakingly detailed module to run it like that?  Does that make any sense?

 

On 12/6/2022 at 6:36 PM, draconus said:

I wish there was some benchmark but it can't rely on paid content.

Me too as well. A propper in-game benchmark is long awaited.
But, not having any at this point, then we need to have a reference from the developer, so that it can be confirmed by the user base.
Instead of guess estimating the required hardware (check the hardware section littered with such questions, among other sections in these forums).

For example, the list of requirements could have an asterisc provided, like "using ABC module in DEFGH map on IJKL123 mission, at XYZ resolution/refresh", that we way we would have pointers, for a reference. 

I mentioned the most popular and hi-fi content (module and map) exactly because - being popular - there would be enough of a userbase to confirm or judge those requirements as correct or incorrect, using content with higher standards than the free stuff (which doesn't really represent the average performance with most of paid content).

As it is, it's pure fantasy land - noone can confirm if requirements are correct or trustful, because there's no idea to what they refer to (e.g, ...is it at 720P/30fps with game in very low settings?  ...is it using Free Su25T? ...is it a complex mission or free flight? etc).

Edited December 8, 2022 by LucShep