2022 vs 2024 setups

[MJY65]

I was seriously looking at getting into DCS a couple of years ago, had gathered information on hardware and then decided to hold off.   It seemed like there was a fairly big move from displays to VR going on and I didn't want to get caught one the wrong side of it.   

 

Fast forward to today:   I'm still interested in getting into it.  Has VR matured enough to go all in on it?   If so, what do you recommend for a really nice set up?    Looking back at my notes, pretty much every piece of hardware that was considered top tier is now down in the middle to bottom.

 

Please help me put together a shopping list aimed at the smoothest set up and learning experience that will last me at least a few years before becoming obsolete.  My primary interest is modern jets.

 

Thanks

[speed-of-heat]

yes... but... it's not cheap 

[MJY65]

^^^^

 

I guess "cheap" is a personal threshold.   I'm willing to explore "nice" if it means paying a bit more up front.  What I'm not interested in is having to do a lot of patching things together to make the various hardware compatible with each other.   An expensive plug and play is preferable to a cheap Frankenstein.  

[The_Nephilim]

well biggest question for when getting a new pc and such is Budget. what is your budget for this project?

[MJY65]

I guess I'm not sure what "nice" costs.   I'd assume it would be $5,000-$10,000, but I'm here to learn.

[LucShep]

As others said, final budget is the most important thing before the discussion goes anywhere.

Another aspect to consider is that, while hardware has improved, so did the VR headsets (newer higher end stuff around).
Meaning, the newest (higher end) VR headsets also require far more "hardware horsepower" than before, and are expensive themselves.

If your intention is to go head deep into DCS VR, then be prepared to have deep pockets for it all...

DCS in VR is still a LOT more hardware intensive if compared to it on a 2d screen (even if 4K) with headtracking. 
For GPU, I'd say RTX 4070 Super 16GB is bare minimum, and ideally an RTX 4090 24GB, if you want a good VR experience. 
To match those, I'd say for CPU an i5 12600K or Ryzen 7600X is the minimum required (ideally i7 14700K or Ryzen 7800X3D).
You also want to have the game installed on good NVME storage, and have 64GB(+) of fast and low latency RAM. 

I honestly lost hope of a "democratic" VR usage for DCS at this point.
It's just too intensive for the average user, even if with a "decent system" (like myself), and requires too much sacrifice also in settings.
My own solution for VR was to revert to an older DCS version (see sig) that is much lighter on resources, and so far so good.

Edited October 12, 2024 by LucShep

[diego999]

7 hours ago, MJY65 said:

What I'm not interested in is having to do a lot of patching things together to make the various hardware compatible with each other.   An expensive plug and play is preferable to a cheap Frankenstein.  

 

"VR" and "plug and play" don't belong in the same sentence. If you don't have the patience to tweak, test, search, and tweak again for several days after you put everything together, VR is not for you. Once you find your right balance between eyecandy and performance, it all becomes much easier.

I'm going to paint a more optimistic picture than LucShep about hardware requirements. You can totally play VR with a modest PC, with compromises, of course. Forget about cranking everything to the max or playing missions with hundreds of units with a 3060ti like the one I have (with a Quest 3 and a 10400), but with mid settings, it's pretty enjoyable. You're going to need 64GB of RAM tho, that's non negotiable.

Whatever you choose, keep your rig and your VR headset balanced. A 4090 is totally wasted on a Quest 2, for example. Inversely, don't buy a Pimax 8K and pair it with a 3060ti.

Edited October 13, 2024 by diego999
typo

[SharpeXB]

8 hours ago, MJY65 said:

Looking back at my notes, pretty much every piece of hardware that was considered top tier is now down in the middle to bottom.

Welcome to PC gaming! Today’s top machine is tomorrows doorstop.

8 hours ago, MJY65 said:

It seemed like there was a fairly big move from displays to VR going on and I didn't want to get caught one the wrong side of it.   

I’m not sure that’s an accurate assessment. My guess is 75% of the players in this game play on monitors. Indeed the game was never intended specifically for VR.

8 hours ago, MJY65 said:

Has VR matured enough to go all in on it?

That’s a highly subjective question. Not much has changed in this regard in only two years. It wouldn’t matter if 2 years or 20 years elapse, it will always be more demanding to run 3D compared to 2D
For VR you would need to buy an extremely expensive PC and have to be satisfied with mediocre performance and constant tweaking. Such a machine would run the game flawlessly in 2D. 

Edited October 13, 2024 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

4 hours ago, MJY65 said:

I guess I'm not sure what "nice" costs.   I'd assume it would be $5,000-$10,000, but I'm here to learn.

That would actually be quite an excessive range. A top gaming PC would cost in the range of $5-6,000. I’m not sure how you could spend more unless that cost includes building a cockpit or something. I guess you could add a very expensive display for maybe $2k more. 
Again for 2D such a machine would run any game at its ultra settings in 4K at 100+ FPS. No machine can do that for VR no matter what you spend. 

[Aapje]

First of all, my advice would be to upgrade early next year. February or March, probably.

The reason for this is because a lot of new hardware is coming between now and then, and they are preparing by stopping production of some parts, so right now you have less choice and you pay extra for parts that soon will be replaced by better things.

If you upgrade early next year, you can probably get a 9800X3D + 5080/5090 system, and then pair it with a Pimax Crystal Light. That would be a very good setup and it should come in at the low end of, or below the $5k-$10k range.

[MJY65]

Sharpe,

That was a starting budget for a complete system.   I have nothing right now (typing this on a Mac), so I need a PC, display or VR, controllers, etc.   

[SharpeXB]

1 hour ago, MJY65 said:

Sharpe,

That was a starting budget for a complete system.   I have nothing right now (typing this on a Mac), so I need a PC, display or VR, controllers, etc.   

Ok that makes sense. That’s a fun an maybe a little daunting prospect to do this all at once

Edited October 13, 2024 by SharpeXB

[MJY65]

^^^^

 

Daunting is right!   I am in serious need of a shopping list from those that have BTDT or I'm going to make expensive mistakes.   Any suppliers that offer advice or set up based on a customer's performance wish list?

[SharpeXB]

2 hours ago, MJY65 said:

^^^^

 

Daunting is right!   I am in serious need of a shopping list from those that have BTDT or I'm going to make expensive mistakes.   Any suppliers that offer advice or set up based on a customer's performance wish list?

Any decent gaming machine will run DCS just fine. I would stay away from consumer stuff like Dell or HP. Go with someone who specializes in gaming PCs. Some names that come to mind are Digital Storm, Maingear, Origin, Apex, Velocity Micro. You could tell them what sort of games you want to run but they’ve probably never heard of DCS. The key thing I looked for was 24/7 lifetime tech support. Without that your PC is a big paperweight and unless you only game during working hours you need the 24/7 part. And lifetime means it’s not going to expire. The thing that makes DCS and sims in general different than typical games is it needs a CPU with strong single threaded performance. In fact if there was a way to screw up a build for DCS it would be missing this important requirement. That’s the thing that even an experienced PC vendor might miss about building a machine for this game. 
It also needs at least 64GB of RAM This game also benefits greatly from being on a fast SSD. Any top gaming machine will have one of those. And you will need a big one, don’t go with anything under 2TB since this game is huge and will only get bigger. I wouldn’t pay too much attention to the requirements listed on the DCS store page, they seem weak and kinda out of date. 

[Aapje]

I basically agree with the above. A PC supplier is unlikely to know DCS. Instead, I would create a shopping list based on advice you get here and then you can get someone to build something like that for you.

I could give specific advice, but it is a bit hard to do so if you decide to take my advice and wait a little for new components to become available, because then we have to speculate. But the basic gist of it would be:

The 9800X3D once it becomes available, preferably with a good air cooler (water cooling doesn't last as long and is more risky).

Any decent AMD motherboard that has the features you want (Wifi?).

At least a 850W power supply.

64 GB of DDR5 6000 or better

Lots of storage. 2 TB minimum, but a 4 TB drive is better.

And then a 4080, 4090 or preferably a 5080 or 5090.

That would drive the Pimax Crystal Light headset very well.

[kksnowbear]

If you want BTDT advice, I would strongly recommend you avoid any 'pre-built' machines unless there is absolutely no other choice.  They often use cheap components to 'make price', and I am speaking from first hand experience, having dealt with quite a few machines from the likes of iBuyPower, Alienware, etc.  If you could get an arrangement where they'd let you specify *all* the components exactly, it might be one thing, but a. I don't think they'd do it, and b. if they did, then their price wouldn't be all that great.  Again, they make price by cutting corners, and that's just reality.  And don't even get me started about workmanship.  I've seen hideous things that were just left by the assemblers these places hire.  Out of sight, out of mind...trust me, they're paid for speed, not quality.

Again, unless you have no other alternative at all, I'd avoid those places.

Better off to find an experienced local builder who stands behind the work offered, who will let you specify all the internal components (or at least identify them all for you), and who offers a level of support you can live with.  It's really not necessary or even a good idea to insist on 24/7 support (and I'd have a lot of questions about anyone offering that anyway, in terms of what form it takes etc...getting a "response" from a chat bot at 2AM, or someone you can't understand who answers the phone from somewhere in the far east is hardly what I'd call 'support').

Also, an 850W power supply is not really adequate for a 4090.  Although *some* models specify an 850 minimum, some models also specify a 1000W minimum.   This is largely determined by the power levels set in a GPUs BIOS.

Factually, there are reputable sources online that have shown 4090's can draw peaks in excess of 700W (and that's the GPU alone - so never mind a bunch of going on about the rest of the system).

You can run a 4090 on an 850 (I can already hear the squawking now)...but, factually, it will not run as reliably, or as efficiently, and likely not for as long as it would if you had a larger capacity PSU - and that's just an absolute fact of the way electronics work, which is indisputable.

Worse still, it may suffer lock-ups, reboots, and crashes.  From the BTDT perspective you specified:  I own a 4090, and it's one for which the manufacturer recommends a minimum 850W PSU (not even a 1000W).  I can tell you I did first-hand shop testing with five separate 850W PSUs, all reputable 80+ Gold models from very well-known names in the industry, and all rated for 850W *continuous* output at 50c (much warmer than ambient in my test environment).

These were not cheap, knock-off PSUs.  Yet of the five, two rebooted while stress-testing with my 4090.  It is also worth noting that all five of these units were proven to run a setup that was measured to draw nearly 700W without incident - yet two of them couldn't handle the 4090.  That means the 4090 system was drawing in excess of 700W before rebooting with two of the units.  (And for the record, no this was not some stupid Intel 14th gen space heater, either).

Plus, even if an 850 will run a 4090, all switched mode PSUs (what our PCs use) operate at their highest efficiency when loaded around 50%...again, just another electronic fact.  So even if you only assume a 500W load while gaming, you'd want a 1000W unit so that it's loaded somewhere around 50% at most.  This uses less power and generates less waste heat which is dumped into your room (thereby creating more load on whatever AC you're using - or just making it miserable).

(EDIT: Before the personal attacks get started claiming my recommendations are motivated by my trying to sell something, let me say this: It is true that I build systems for others, but I have zero interest in this case.  I don't generally do builds involving the "latest and greatest" components (though I have, when specifically commissioned).  The costs involved in most current-gen hardware, like the OP is interested in, are such that I can't typically offer much of a deal on it - so I rarely do anything with the most recent generation of hardware. Thus, my advice isn't motivated in this case by interest in selling anything.)

Edited October 14, 2024 by kksnowbear

[Aapje]

Dell/Alienware is really in a category of their own, since they don't just assemble components, but use custom designs, so you very often can't upgrade anything or replace faulty components with something off the shelf. And even worse, their custom designs tend to be really poor, so their systems often perform very poorly. So I would avoid them like the plague.

Gamer's Nexus has a list of prebuild reviews and the titles already give a good idea of what builders are good: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?app=desktop&list=PLsuVSmND84QuM2HKzG7ipbIbE_R5EnCLM

 

The issue with a local builder is that there is no organization to hold them accountable, so the quality they provide is purely dependent on their own personal abilities/experience/biases. Linus actually did a video on this and the experience was highly variable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzVS2Z_ZP_g

 

[kksnowbear]

 

1 hour ago, Aapje said:

The issue with a local builder is that there is no organization to hold them accountable, so the quality they provide is purely dependent on their own personal abilities/experience/biases.

Which is why I said "Better off to find an experienced local builder who stands behind the work offered".

There are builders out there who guarantee their work, 100%, no questions asked.  It is up to the buyer to do the "legwork".  One of the most important tools a consumer has is to insist upon references which can be verified.

Some of us don't require an organization to hold us accountable.  In fact, the argument could be made that someone doing the work as an individual isn't bound by company policies, need to make margin, appease the stockholders etc...(all reasons why I actually do this myself, having spent a good part of a career dealing with that sort of 'accountability').  An individual is free to make decisions based on other factors, such as customer loyalty, and is also more likely to take a genuine pride in their work than an hourly assembler who is constantly hammered to meet "key performance metrics".  Believe me, I've seen the worst of what that produces.  Some of us are blessed such that we don't do it for the money - and you won't find a company anywhere that can say that.

And having an organization for holding people accountable doesn't prevent companies from doing terrible work.  As I said, I've 'worked behind' a number of prebuilt machines from some of the biggest names out there, and they get away with plenty, I can assure you.

Edited October 15, 2024 by kksnowbear

[LucShep]

1 hour ago, kksnowbear said:

(...)
As I said, I've 'worked behind' a number of prebuilt machines from some of the biggest names out there, and they get away with plenty, I can assure you.

 

I have to agree with this.
Yes there are prebuilds that present quite good specs and worth a look.
But, so far, I haven't seen a single one that presents the most balanced selection of components, or careful assembly.

Cutting costs is seen in a variety of things in a prebuild PC, here and there, always. Sometimes more obvious, sometimes less.
From budget drives, and/or coolers, and/or motherboards, and/or RAM, and/or PSUs, and/or fans, and/or case, and small things like cable management are often done poorly.
(I've even seen screw threads and heads stripping on some).

And, heck, don't even get me on the mentioned proprietary custom designs on components (Dell/Alienware!)....
Yes they usually are absolutely horrible, and it's just sad how customers get to be so limited by that (actually cut from future personal upgrades) after paying top dollar for it.

Edited October 15, 2024 by LucShep

[MJY65]

12 hours ago, kksnowbear said:

Better off to find an experienced local builder who stands behind the work offered, who will let you specify all the internal components (or at least identify them all for you), and who offers a level of support you can live with. 

 

I don't live in a large city, so I'm not sure where I would find such an individual.  Since I'm not deep into the gaming community, my selection would be a total shot in the dark.  That's not to say I wouldn't seek out a custom build, but it probably is going to be someone recommended on this forum who may be located half a country away.

 

I don't mind learning new skills and can work with precision tools, but I simply lack the knowledge required to set something up from scratch.   I picture it turning into a $5,000 boat anchor due to some mismatch of components.  

Edited October 15, 2024 by MJY65

[LucShep]

1 hour ago, MJY65 said:

I don't live in a large city, so I'm not sure where I would find such an individual.  Since I'm not deep into the gaming community, my selection would be a total shot in the dark.  That's not to say I wouldn't seek out a custom build, but it probably is going to be someone recommended on this forum who may be located half a country away.

That's unfortunate, but it's not really that bad.

As much as it pains me to say it, perhaps a premium prebuild system is your best route.

I think if there was a selection of prebuild PCs to look at (depending on location, desired specs and budget), I'd seriously look at those from CORSAIR.
These guys have the advantage over most, because they build them with their own in-house components (which are usually very good quality, and are non-proprietary design).
So, they have all the experience and can fully stand behind them. But, they do cost a bit.

Have a look I say: https://www.corsair.com/us/en/c/gaming-computers/vengeance?filter=features_and_availability%3A%3Astock_status%3Atrue

Edited October 15, 2024 by LucShep

[kksnowbear]

35 minutes ago, LucShep said:

I have to agree with this.
Yes there are prebuilds that present quite good specs and worth a look.
But, so far, I haven't seen a single one that presents the most balanced selection of components, or careful assembly.

Cutting costs is seen in a variety of things in a prebuild PC, here and there, always. Sometimes more obvious, sometimes less.
From budget drives, and/or coolers, and/or motherboards, and/or RAM, and/or PSUs, and/or fans, and/or case, and small things like cable management are often done poorly.
(I've even screw threads and heads stripping on some).

And, heck, don't even get me on the mentioned proprietary custom designs on components (Dell/Alienware!)....
Yes they usually are absolutely horrible, and it's just sad how customers get to be so limited by that (actually cut from future personal upgrades) after paying top dollar for it.

Precisely.  Unfortunate but (generally) that is the reality.  At least in my experience - and I'm speaking from the perspective of someone with formal training in military avionics and decades of hands-on experience (as opposed to having a lot of money to just throw at the most expensive thing).

[SharpeXB]

The trouble with the term “prebuilt” is that it could mean anything. Any machine you didn’t put together yourself technically a “prebuilt” so maybe it’s necessary to clarify that. And putting together your own PC is simply not a good option for many people. There are certainly good and bad prebuilt machines and companies who sell them.

46 minutes ago, LucShep said:

I'd seriously look at those from CORSAIR.

FWIW I’ll second that recommendation since it’s pretty much what I have.
I do like the 5000 series case with the glass panels but if I had to do it again I’d tell them to skip the glass on the back side. You can’t see it anyways and it’s glass with a hole in it for fans and it can break during shipping

Edited October 15, 2024 by SharpeXB

[kksnowbear]

I think it's generally understood that "prebuilt" means a machine that you don't build yourself, and is made up of components which you are not entirely at liberty to specify (thus not completely controlling either components or build quality).

By comparison, a 'custom build' might not be one you built yourself, but you have the opportunity to specify guts in as much detail as you prefer (be it with or without assistance).

A 'self-built' (or DIY) machine is (rather obviously) one you build yourself, and thus completely control the selection of components and quality of build (for better or worse).

It is entirely possible to retain competent assistance without buying parts or labor from someone else; I've done parts, parts and labor, and labor only, as well as consultation (labor, but not actually building).

I have two issues with Corsair, in spite of agreeing that they might be among the better quality choices:  One, cost.  Without actually looking, I'm going to guess it's like I said earlier:  If you can specify a build from them that uses all top-notch components, the price is probably going to be comparatively high (and I'd guess not by a little bit, either).  Two, propriety.  Corsair is known for making their system components more and more part of their "ecosystem", and it's just getting worse as time goes on.  Mind you, they're not the only ones; these days everyone seems to be doing it (Asus, MSI...) but Corsair started before the others and seems - to me - more determined about using it to corner the customer into buying more stuff from them.

The entire PC industry spent a long time (and many bumps in the road) trying to become less proprietary and more open-standard.  This is why we even have 'clone' PCs these days.  Meanwhile, companies like HP, Dell and others have consistently tried to corner customers into buying from them exclusively with proprietary designs...and although Corsair isn't as bad as HP or Dell...they aren't free of fault in this area either.  I specifically avoid components which I know are proprietary and thus will often have issues working properly with other, more generic hardware.

Edited October 15, 2024 by kksnowbear

[hsth]

@MJY65 maybe you could give some sort of direction where you live? There might be someone on this forum that maybe lives not far away and could offer help.

Quote

I don't mind learning new skills and can work with precision tools

What does that mean? Do you have skills in working with electronic parts?

It seems to me that your biggest fear is selecting the right parts. If somebody lives not far away you could talk this through.

And finally, assembling the parts is actually simple. If you have the right tools and feel comfortable in using them.

I did it over twenty years ago, started with a water-cooled system and still build my own systems today.