LucShep Posted October 29 Share Posted October 29 (edited) As the title says. This fella has his head on his shoulders, and what he implies (especially from 10:01 time mark and onwards) makes absolutely all the sense in the period we are currently in. Personally, I agree that, yes, game design needs a reset, a complete redesign of the business model for the development of new games. Everybody in the gaming industry should pedal back on the "eye candy" development, and respective higher HW requirements involved. What everyone needs is "better" games, not "prettier" games. Considering where the economy is right now, and where it's going (not for the better?), when only a portion of the userbase can afford that elusive top 10% performance incredibly expensive hardware (and then replace it and repeat every 3 or 4 years), it stops making sense going in the current direction. Edited October 29 by LucShep 1 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 DCS is very far from the point that it could stop improving graphically. Yes it’s conceivable that in the distant future games will stop evolving when they become indistinguishable from really. We are nowhere near that yet. And hardware always falls in price as it improves in capability. 1 i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) What's been implied there is that, instead of insisting with demanding and overkill VFX and other related solutions, effort goes into other more relevant things. It makes sense as things have been going. Take for instances the current fad of Ray-Tracing. It's a sh!t show everytime you run it because it impacts heavily on the GPU for some pretty minor visual gains. It becomes detrimental if developers get lazy and build primarily for it, instead of the widely more usable Rasterization. Or insisting on very demanding details that only a tiny percentage (its own devs perhaps?) will actually notice or wish for (the "sound that only dogs can ear" as he mentions in the video). It is also relevant for DCS, because it too is a bit of a victim to this. The devs could (should) really rethink some things. For example, there is currently focus on overkill texturing sizes and formats, beyond what is usually recommended. Insisting with the .DDS 32-bit textures when they don't make any difference in-game over 8-bit textures (much lighter). Or how DXT5 is widely used, even for those without transparency, for which DXT1 should have been used (much lighter again). Or how the sizes are outrageous in so many cases, 8K textures when they could be 4K, or 4K could be 2K, or 2K could be 1K (not only but especially with Specular and Normal/Bump maps), etc. A lot of wasted performance, bandwidth and storage, with nothing really gained with that trade-off. VFX tech and solutions are not the same as great artwork and attention to detail. You can have trully impressive results with the latter, with optimizations that don't impact quality. But not necessarily with the former, even if it's the best and latest tech or solutions, usually at a cost of resources impact and, therefore, performance. See, for example, how a very old game like Grand Prix Legends held on so firmly for years and years during the 2000s, for the time that it ran on that jurassic OpenGL (even in a time when DX9 became ubiquitous in racing-sims). So good that community artists (i.e, modders) then took it even further, and instead of it becoming dead (as most of its time already were) it still went on, embaracing highly advanced modern games (well, they were back then) in that mentioned period. All thanks to artwork, not for its VFX tech. Or, as another more recent example, how Ghost of Tsushima (especially the PC version) without any RT (doesn't have it) puts to shame so many AAA games that do use RT, all thanks to an outstanding artwork and attention to detail (and some very good optimization). Edited October 30 by LucShep spelling(?) 2 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 The thing to realize as well is that hardware prices don’t really escalate. They continue to seek essentially the same price point as customers are only willing to pay so much for a game or console. Accounting for inflation the PC I owned 15 or 20 years ago is the same price as the one I have now except it had a 40GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM. A 1985 Nintendo NES was the equivalent of $510 in today’s money. The same price as an Xbox today. Gaming PCs are rather a luxury good and just aren’t as mass market price conscious as consoles. Like a Bentley is to a Honda. It’s always possible to spend excessive amounts of money on one irregardless of value. Certain components like graphics cards see this outlandish demand driven by crypto mining, not games. And yet the whole system mentioned above even considers a machine equipped with the most expensive graphics card today. So yeah there’s this far away state of equilibrium that’s conceivable as the cost to make games balances out with the fact that they start to be come indistinguishable from reality and further improvement isn’t possible or economical. But games and especially DCS are nowhere near that now. i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) 5 hours ago, SharpeXB said: The thing to realize as well is that hardware prices don’t really escalate. They continue to seek essentially the same price point as customers are only willing to pay so much for a game or console. Accounting for inflation the PC I owned 15 or 20 years ago is the same price as the one I have now except it had a 40GB hard drive and 512MB of RAM. A 1985 Nintendo NES was the equivalent of $510 in today’s money. The same price as an Xbox today. Gaming PCs are rather a luxury good and just aren’t as mass market price conscious as consoles. Like a Bentley is to a Honda. It’s always possible to spend excessive amounts of money on one irregardless of value. Certain components like graphics cards see this outlandish demand driven by crypto mining, not games. And yet the whole system mentioned above even considers a machine equipped with the most expensive graphics card today. So yeah there’s this far away state of equilibrium that’s conceivable as the cost to make games balances out with the fact that they start to be come indistinguishable from reality and further improvement isn’t possible or economical. But games and especially DCS are nowhere near that now. Let's separate things first. Consoles are not comparable to PCs. The consoles are sold at a loss (and always were, since the early Atari days). The gaming consoles business is entirely made around games, packs and peripherals, that's what makes money in that market. The problem there for consoles is that the advances in requirements are becoming increasingly difficult to be met, if the idea is to keep maintaining prices. Both on consoles prices, and games production time and cost (which is now in the many millions for any given AAA title). First was the jump from 720p to 1080P, then to 4K (which usually is just upscalled 1440P). Then the jump from 30fps to 60fps. Manufacturers are now finding really difficult to build consoles for these requirements at same prices, which means prices may increase, and then may impact sales. Meaning, either the games cut on demanding VFX, or targets will not be met (price or performance, choose one of the two, can't have both). As for PC gaming, the prices are not same now as they were before (even with corrected inflation for the period). PC hardware has had considerable prices increase in crucial areas. For example, let's go back in time to those 15 years ago and see what were the prices of hardware then: - A good mid/high-range GPU back in 2009 was a Radeon HD 4890 1GB, which then cost on average 250$ (in today's money that's $366). - A good mid/high-range GPU today is an RTX 4070 Super 12GB, and that is on average $600 as of this date. This is a high-end gaming system in 2009 (same system I built back in the day): CPU: Intel i7 920 ----------------------- $285 Cooler: Scythe Mugen2 ---------------- $37 Motherboard: MSI X58 Pro ------------- $180 GPU: Radeon HD 5870 ----------------- $400 Memory: Patriot 6GB DDR3 1600 CL8 -- $170 HDD: WD 1TB 7200 RPM --------------- $100 PSU: OCZ 700W 80+ Bronze ----------- $100 CASE: CM HAF922 --------------------- $80 TOTAL ---------------------------------- $1352 - in today's money that's $1990 Today, for same equivalent segment system in latest/modern specs, you'd have to pay double the price. The whole point is that far away state of equilibrium has been broken just in recent years. In 2020 we could probably point out to the pandemic and to the mining craze, but both have ended for years now, that's no longer the reason. Now we're just being ripped off (for example, RTX4080 at $1200 and RTX4090 at $2200 .....errr... go fly a kyte please?) Then we see a focus on "quick production" (and lack of optimizations) in games, with insistence on proprietary solutions that aren't really viable (six years later for ray tracing). A PC gaming system is a luxury, indeed, as is the entire hobby. But people can't keep up with current prices increase, they resolve to not upgrading for the largest extent they can, or sticking with older games or new ones with lower requirements (already a given looking at Steam sales). Where it relates to DCS? Well, where do you think the newcomers with the FS hitch are coming from? Or what do they come equipped with? Then they see the official PC HW requirements and "very cool, lets goo" only to realize later that is extremely optimistical (then go to other competitors with far less "real" HW requirements). ED modules/maps sales and income stability depends on those fellas too. BTW, even on consoles, XBOX is slowly flopping now. And when the cost of games productions is 10x or 20x times more expensive, it's getting to a point where something has to change, wouldn't you agree? Edited October 30 by LucShep spelling(?) 4 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheFreshPrince Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 (edited) In the past, the best graphic cards were developed for PC gaming. Then came Bitcoin, now it's AI. PC gaming is not that important to NVIDIA anymore. The other markets are so much bigger, that's why the stock price took off through the roof. Maybe one of the reasons why the prices are so high. For comparison, NVIDIA Q2 financial results state a revenue of $2.9 billion for gaming and AI PC of a total of $30 billion, that's only 10%. 88% of NVIDIAs revenue comes from "datacenter" chips (=AI). It makes sense for NVIDIA to focus on those and production capacities are highly limited, so graphic chips get much more expensive. But one has to acknowledge that older graphic cards are still very capable and buying the most expensive new ones isn't really necessary. Edited October 30 by TheFreshPrince 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MiG21bisFishbedL Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 (edited) 12 minutes ago, TheFreshPrince said: For comparison, NVIDIA Q2 financial results state a revenue of $2.9 billion for gaming and AI PC of a total of $30 billion, that's only 10%. And for a technology that has told us to put glue on pizza, recommended that pregnant women smoke, and that Geologists recommend we eat 1 small rock per day, that $30 billion is paying for itself. Edited October 30 by MiG21bisFishbedL 2 Reformers hate him! This one weird trick found by a bush pilot will make gunfighter obsessed old farts angry at your multi-role carrier deck line up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 It was definitely possible to spend the same money on a console or PC 20 years ago which had the computing power of a smart phone today. The simple truth is customers are willing to pay these prices because they see a value in these components and consoles. Perhaps it’s possible to justify a higher price point simply because today’s games are so much more appealing. It’s one thing to spend $3,000 on a PC to look at 2004 graphics vs 2024. If people didn’t buy these you wouldn’t see them priced that way. Indeed they do buy them, those $2,000 4090s were sold out upon launch. The reason these graphics cards are on a long waitlist at launch is that they are actually priced too low if you can believe that! And DCS is nowhere close to this theoretical equilibrium. In three weeks we will see a game that shows what players will expect a flight sim to look like in 2024. So the race continues, DCS needs to catch up 44 minutes ago, TheFreshPrince said: In the past, the best graphic cards were developed for PC gaming. Then came Bitcoin, now it's AI. ^ this i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) On 10/30/2024 at 4:49 PM, SharpeXB said: The simple truth is customers are willing to pay these prices because they see a value in these components and consoles. Perhaps it’s possible to justify a higher price point simply because today’s games are so much more appealing. It’s one thing to spend $3,000 on a PC to look at 2004 graphics vs 2024. If people didn’t buy these you wouldn’t see them priced that way. Indeed they do buy them, those $2,000 4090s were sold out upon launch. The reason these graphics cards are on a long waitlist at launch is that they are actually priced too low if you can believe that! I build PC systems and upgrades (or assist in the process if not present) as a hobby. Most people upgrade their 4 or 5 year old system with a faster and newer GPU, or a faster CPU swap, or larger capacity RAM, but rarely all at once. Complete new systems are less common then before. I have a bunch of people asking for help all the time, and if I have ten complete systems to build, one is a high end system. And pretty much all of them are, funny enough, always for simming (racing and/or flight). You're thinking of a small percentage of fortunate people that can afford (at once or on credit) such expensive systems, they're a drop in the ocean. People are definitely not spending as much as you think, and not as much as before. They're actually more weary than during the pandemic, when big bucks were being spent. You look at the plethora of high-end systems mentioned in signatures at the VR forum section, but I could bet any given module or map that those are a tiny minority of what composes the DCS user base. On 10/30/2024 at 4:49 PM, SharpeXB said: And DCS is nowhere close to this theoretical equilibrium. In three weeks we will see a game that shows what players will expect a flight sim to look like in 2024. So the race continues, DCS needs to catch up If you're thinking of the upcoming commercial and VFR flight sim sequel (yet another), you better also understand that's one with a much more casual userbase. On that one, only a percentage of people spend money on flight controllers (cheap gamepads gallore), while in DCS spending extra on head-tracking and a decent HOTAS is pretty much a given. Also, 30FPS is still considered "very normal" there. That's not practical in DCS, and the current version of that one pushes just as hard (maybe less) than DCS at 60+ FPS on a busy MP server. It's not comparable, there's nothing to "catch up" in DCS other than bug-fixing, and getting back performance loss since 2.7.0 with the new clouds system was introduced. DCS is very much its own thing, and going after that other one (catch up in "look like") is a very bad temptation.... (NASA computer requirements then?) Edited Friday at 09:11 PM by LucShep spelling(?) 2 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 5 minutes ago, LucShep said: If you're thinking of the upcoming commercial and VFR flight sim sequel (yet another), you better also understand that's one with a much more casual userbase. But as far as graphics are concerned that’s a lot closer to the “reality limit” than DCS. And neither would actually be mistaken for the real world. 7 minutes ago, LucShep said: You're thinking of a small percentage of fortunate people that can afford (at once or on credit) such systems, they're a drop in the ocean. It’s really not possible to say what a “typical computer” costs. That range could be anything. But don’t be under the illusion that in the old days computers were cheap https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/technology-has-advanced-so-rapidly-that-a-laptop-computer-today-is-96-cheaper-than-a-1994-model-and-1000x-better/ i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 20 minutes ago, LucShep said: On that one, only a percentage of people spend money on flight controllers (cheap gamepads gallore), while in DCS spending extra on head-tracking and a decent HOTAS is pretty much a given. I think they have mentioned that 25% of the players there are “simmers” and 75% casual gamers. But that game has a player base that completely dwarfs DCS. Myself I won’t be able to help taking an extended DCS vacation for quite a while to just gawk at the graphics i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) On 10/30/2024 at 5:23 PM, SharpeXB said: But as far as graphics are concerned that’s a lot closer to the “reality limit” than DCS. And neither would actually be mistaken for the real world. Yes, but DCS doesn't need better graphics, which would impact even more the performance (and in fact pursuing it would probably heavily affect ED in the process). The budget that Asobo has to spend at once and continuously.... that's not comparable either. What DCS needs (really, really needs) is to be better itself (a better core, better optimization/performance, better AI, better ATC, etc). On 10/30/2024 at 5:23 PM, SharpeXB said: It’s really not possible to say what a “typical computer” costs. That range could be anything. But don’t be under the illusion that in the old days computers were cheap https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/technology-has-advanced-so-rapidly-that-a-laptop-computer-today-is-96-cheaper-than-a-1994-model-and-1000x-better/ Yes it is. Look around and enquire whatever "vendor" or system builder (inclusively those in this forum) and all of them will tell you that a $3000+ full system for gaming is not so common, and less now than it was during the pandemic. The response you'll get is that the vast majority of new sim/gaming systems being build are mid/high-ish range (RTX4070S / RX7800XT / 7900GRE GPU, 13600K / 7600X / 5700X3D CPU with semi-affordable mobo, 32GB RAM, 750W/850W PSU, affordable mesh case). Do not mistake "Gaming system" with "Enthusiast system" (these last ones, like yours, are a minority). And I didn't say computers used to be cheap. What I did say, and exemplified, is that today's PC hardware is about 2x more expensive than it used to be, some 15 years ago (the period you mentioned). Edited Friday at 09:13 PM by LucShep spelling(?) 1 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 23 minutes ago, LucShep said: Yes, but DCS doesn't need better graphics Well that’s just a matter of opinion. I for one think it does, it’s quite dated looking in many ways. And if someone doesn’t want all the eye candy they can just turn down the settings. 25 minutes ago, LucShep said: What DCS needs (really, really needs) is to be better itself (a better core, better optimization/performance, better AI, better ATC, etc). When you follow the discussions here you realize DCS needs everything. That’s the trouble with customers, they tend to want it all. 27 minutes ago, LucShep said: today's PC hardware is about 2x more expensive than it used to be To the extent that true it’s because again customers see a value in that. If they didn’t they wouldn’t buy it and the market would correct itself. There are options for every budget. Nobody is forced to buy a BMW if all they need is a Honda. 31 minutes ago, LucShep said: Do not mistake "Gaming system" with "Enthusiast system" (these last ones, like yours, are a minority). Well nobody needs an enthusiast system. Saying prices are skyrocketing for hardware is like saying car prices are skyrocketing because an Aston Martin is $300k. Just because it’s possible to spend lots of money on something doesn’t mean everyone needs to. The hardware requirements for this game are actually rather tame. i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) 15 hours ago, SharpeXB said: To the extent that true it’s because again customers see a value in that. If they didn’t they wouldn’t buy it and the market would correct itself. There are options for every budget. Nobody is forced to buy a BMW if all they need is a Honda. Well nobody needs an enthusiast system. Saying prices are skyrocketing for hardware is like saying car prices are skyrocketing because an Aston Martin is $300k. Just because it’s possible to spend lots of money on something doesn’t mean everyone needs to. What do you mean? One could buy pretty much any RTX2070S for less than $350 right before the pandemic. You can't buy a decent RTX4070S for less than $550 now even at discount. Have you seen the prices on the motherboards? Your "affordable" X870/E and Z890 is around $300 right now (and will probably increase in a month from now). Before the pandemic the very same models for then equivalent exhistent sockets (X570 and Z490) were $150... Even a "non enthusiast" gaming system is 2x the cost. Heck even entry level ones are. 15 hours ago, SharpeXB said: Well nobody needs an enthusiast system. Saying prices are skyrocketing for hardware is like saying car prices are skyrocketing because an Aston Martin is $300k. Just because it’s possible to spend lots of money on something doesn’t mean everyone needs to. The hardware requirements for this game are actually rather tame. hmmm??? "the hardware requirements for this game are actually rather tame" ? Please don't kid yourself. 64GB is an actual requirement now for DCS MP, because most people don't have enough VRAM on their GPU, even with textures set at LOW. DCS swaps a lot. And most of the textures are stored in compressed .ZIP format. The bigger the texture size, the longer DCS will take to extract from the .ZIP file and then swap. Have you seen the size of the textures that are used, and how many, in the core files, in the maps, and especially in the modules? And notice, it doesn't only do that on the modules you own. For example, I don't have the F-4E but, if I'm on MP and someone else joins with an F-4E, I have to load all of his 4K DXT5 32-bit textures. And so on for other modules I don't own (etc etc). When the VRAM limit of the GPU is hit (and on any 8GB or 12GB it will be hit in MP), it then goes to consume your Swapfile/Pagefile if there isn't enough RAM (when that can easily go to 40GB usage on its own, if in MP). And neither RAM (best case) or Swapfile/Pagefile (worst case) will be anywhere near the speed of dedicated VRAM on the GPU (and why this is such a big problem with DCS!). And, again, considering that most of the DCS userbase is very unlikely to be with 16GB(+) VRAM GPUs and 64GB of RAM, the stuttering complaints are pretty aknowledged and recognized across the board... "Rather tame", did you say? You got to tell me which other game/sim requires a 16GB(+) VRAM GPU and 64GB of RAM just to make it "non stuttery" in MP... Now, back to the prices. How much again for 64GB RAM and a 16GB(+) VRAM GPU?? lol Edited October 31 by LucShep 2 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 4 minutes ago, LucShep said: One could buy pretty much any RTX2070S for less than $350 right before the pandemic. You can't buy a decent RTX4070S for less than $550 now even at discount. Well then don’t buy a 4070 if you can’t afford it. There are plenty of things I don’t buy that I can’t afford. But they price those things on what they feel market at large will bear. That doesn’t mean ‘Gaming is broken” arguably Nvidia is giving gaming what it wants. 8 minutes ago, LucShep said: hmmm??? "the hardware requirements for this game are actually rather tame"? Please don't kid yourself. Yeah honestly those requirements don’t seem right at all. Like they list the same thing for VR which is about 3x as demanding as 2D. But this is far from the most difficult game to run. Unless you’re trying to in VR because the high settings were intended for 2D. 13 minutes ago, LucShep said: 64GB is an actual requirement now for DCS MP So get more RAM. That’s an easy upgrade. And honestly most players don’t go online so it probably isn’t an issue for them. i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 (edited) 7 minutes ago, SharpeXB said: Well then don’t buy a 4070 if you can’t afford it. There are plenty of things I don’t buy that I can’t afford. But they price those things on what they feel market at large will bear. That doesn’t mean ‘Gaming is broken” arguably Nvidia is giving gaming what it wants. Yeah honestly those requirements don’t seem right at all. Like they list the same thing for VR which is about 3x as demanding as 2D. But this is far from the most difficult game to run. Unless you’re trying to in VR because the high settings were intended for 2D. So get more RAM. That’s an easy upgrade. And honestly most players don’t go online so it probably isn’t an issue for them. No, the solution is to fix the problem (and make it a priority). Instead of being negligent and, with it, make your customers feel forced to spend on expensive hardware that shouldn't be all that required in the first place. Here, more than enough written (and proven/tested) on the matter, for quite some time now actually... Edited October 30 by LucShep added links 2 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 (edited) 26 minutes ago, LucShep said: No, the solution is to fix the problem (and make it a priority) Everything in this game is a priority. Some things more than others… PS it looks like those 32-bit maps were fixed a year ago. Edited October 30 by SharpeXB i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LucShep Posted October 30 Author Share Posted October 30 2 hours ago, SharpeXB said: Everything in this game is a priority. Some things more than others… PS it looks like those 32-bit maps were fixed a year ago. When? I did not notice any such changes. 1 DCS 2.5.6 (a lighter alternative) | A-10A cockpit retexture | Shadows Reduced Impact | CGTC - Caucasus retexture Spoiler Win10 Pro x64 | Intel i7 12700K (OC@ 5.1/5.0p + 4.0e) | 64GB DDR4 (OC@ 3700 CL17 Crucial Ballistix) | RTX 3090 24GB EVGA FTW3 Ultra | 2TB NVMe (MP600 Pro XT) + 500GB SSD (WD Blue) + 3TB HDD (Toshiba P300) + 1TB HDD (WD Blue) | Corsair RMX 850W | Asus Z690 TUF+ D4 | TR PA120SE | Fractal Meshify-C | UAD Volt1 + Sennheiser HD-599SE | 7x USB 3.0 Hub | 50'' 4K Philips 7608/12 UHD TV (+Head Tracking) | HP Reverb G1 Pro (VR) | TM Warthog + Logitech X56 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SharpeXB Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 Just now, LucShep said: When? I did not notice any such changes. I dunno, the thread says “fixed” and it’s closed. i9-14900KS | ASUS ROG MAXIMUS Z790 HERO | 64GB DDR5 5600MHz | iCUE H150i Liquid CPU Cooler | ASUS TUF GeForce RTX 4090 OC | Windows 11 Home | 2TB Samsung 980 PRO NVMe | Corsair RM1000x | LG 48GQ900-B 4K OLED Monitor | CH Fighterstick | Ch Pro Throttle | CH Pro Pedals | TrackIR 5 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dragon1-1 Posted October 30 Share Posted October 30 (edited) Yeah, the forum staff sometimes do that when they want to pretend it's no longer an issue. In some cases, there had been many locked threads on the same, "fixed" issues. It doesn't mean anything was actually fixed. Edited October 30 by Dragon1-1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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