Noob in need of help with settings.

[Sam22]

Hello all!!! 

I need help with my settings. I know there are a tone of youtube videos out there on do this and do that and it gets confusing. 

I have a I9 9900K, 4090 24GB, 64 GB DDR5, Z790 EDGE MSI MOBO, and Alienware 32 4K QD-OLED monitor. 

My game looks beautiful as is, but not sure on things such as Anti aliasing, VS using upscaling, Anisotropic filter, and Biggest of all is pairing DCS with NVIDIA control panel so my settings are the things shooting me in the foot. 

 

Any help would be very much appreciated so my settings don't conflict and my flying can remain beautiful and smooth (as possible of course.... LOL)

[LucShep]

With that kind of system there shouldn't be a big problem with performance, but that does not mean that you should crank it all up. It's DCS after all.
 

• Anti Aliasing.

MSAA x4 currently gives the best image quality, but is very heavy and will impact, regardless of hardware. MSAA x2 is "good enough" in 4K, but won't be perfect image wise.
TAA is probably a better alternative, it looks a little blurry (so you may wish to play around with the sharpeness setting to counter it) but does the job and has okay performance. 

Upscaling is a reasonable solution, though it's one of those things that work better for some than others.
I'd suggest to at least try DLSS at "Quality" if you're using a screen monitor (and not VR).
It can provide a big performance boost in situations where that's welcome, and works pretty good with latest DLSS .DLL.
 

• Anisotropic filter

Personally, I think more than "8x" is not necessary and becomes a waste of resources, but won't be really a problem there if you crank it to "16x".
 

• Settings that you should refrain from cranking up...

 "Forest Details Factor" and "Scenery Details Factor" are like LOD switches for details at distance, and can be complicated at a certain point.
I'd avoid more than "0.5" for those two. 

Similarly with "LOD switch factor", I'd avoid more than "1".

"Preload Radius" at 75000 (+/-) is a good idea.
More than "90000" the loading times become long and definitely impacts RAM (+ pagefile), even with 64GB of RAM.

"Wake Turbulence" is better disabled (tick off) as it can greatly impact performance when number of aircraft ingame increases.
(this particular setting is found under "Gameplay" settings)


Lastly, not sure what you mean with "pairing DCS with Nvidia control panel"(?), what are you looking for?

Edited July 19, 2024 by LucShep
added link

[SharpeXB]

Welcome to DCS

Your system, especially the 4090 should be able to run max settings in DCS with no trouble. Possibly the i9-9900K is a tiny bit older but I think it won’t suffer. Certainly the 4090 will handle all GPU related settings at max value even in 4K

Antialiasing: 4x, no reason to set this lower. Personally in 4x in 4K I can still make out jaggies on things like the railings of the Supercarrier etc. but that’s the highest DCS can do. Personally I like DLAA but it only looks good at higher frame rates. Experiment with this and MSAA. DLAA can benefit from a little sharpening on the slider below.  
Set DLSS to Off. You don’t need it with a 4090 and it will just make things look worse. 
Anisotropic Filtering to 16x. Again this is a low cost setting, no reason to lower it. This affects flickering textures on surfaces like the terrain etc. 

CPU related settings might need to be adjusted with a 9900K. Likely not but try adjusting Visibility Range. That’s the most impactful setting for the CPU. If you see your frame rate drop adjusting this it’s the CPU limiting you. Possibly the shadow settings can hit your CPU as well, so experiment with those.

Nvidia Control Panel start with setting it to Default. I don’t know how much any of these settings really affect DCS. 
Is your monitor G-Sync or FreeSync? If yes, turn off Vsync in DCS and just add a frame rate cap at your monitor refresh rate in NCP. If you still see tearing in DCS adjust this down by 2-3 FPS in Control Panel 

Edited July 19, 2024 by SharpeXB

[Sam22]

Thank yall for the replies. 

 

For @LucShep For pair DCS settings with NVIDIA control panel. I did not want to click something in DCS settings that would contradict something set in NVIDIA control panel. IE Anti- Aliasing off on NVIDIA control Panel and then click AA on in DCS settings. 

 

For @SharpeXB Yes I have G Sync monitor I do have the Vsync in DCS turned off. I will play with the settings for MSAA and DLAA. (TBH kind of hard to tell the difference) so if you have any good scenarios that like test the full range of DCS please let me know so I can appropriately further test. Yea since my monitor is 244HZ I just did FPS cap at 241. I had my DCS FPS set to 300 because it was just running fine so why not. 

 

Additionally, and I believe that it is just this update, but sometimes I jump FPS 180, 40,60,100, etc very randomly all over the place all in about .2 seconds. I assume that it is just the update. 

[Glide]

That's odd.  With your rig I would expect 180fps flat.  I get that with my 3080Ti I7.  Set the DCS FPS to 245, not sure what other cap you are talking about (241).   And if you are not seeing FPS above 180, then the limit is not taking.  Perhaps set the refresh rate of the monitor to 120 and the max fps to 120.

Edited July 19, 2024 by Glide

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, Sam22 said:

I will play with the settings for MSAA and DLAA. (TBH kind of hard to tell the difference) so if you have any good scenarios that like test the full range of DCS please let me know so I can appropriately further test.

I notice DLAA reduces the flickering of the grass. Try a ground start on the Channel map and see (P-47D Cold Start if you have that plane). That’s where I notice it most on those grass airfields. 

1 hour ago, Sam22 said:

For pair DCS settings with NVIDIA control panel. I did not want to click something in DCS settings that would contradict something set in NVIDIA control panel. IE Anti- Aliasing off on NVIDIA control Panel and then click AA on in DCS settings.

NCP will say “Application-controlled” by default which means DCS is controlling the antialiasing etc. So unless you deliberately enable it there what you see in DCS is what you get.