How to Reinstall DCS

[PacFlyer23]

This week DCS suddenly became unplayable for me as the FPS dropped from 90 (capped in game) to 9 or less. Basically frozen at the start of any mission or instant action, to the point to exit the forozen game I have to do a hard pc reset to restart my pc.

I've been working with ED tech support and they've had me try everything from unplugging other displays (Winwing) and go to a single display, changes in BIOS setting (disabling parking, intel Hyper-threading, RAM boost), turn off Reshade, and all low graphic settings in game. Nothing has worked. They now want me to do a reinstall. 

I've never done a reinstall (did do a repair this week but that didn't fix anything), and not sure how to reinstall DCS. I know I can delete folders and DCS files, but I'm afraid if I don't do it right I'll lose everything. Is there a way to reinstall so I won't lose all my saved game data and aircrafts (purchased modules and profile/HOTA bindings and setups)?

I'm not a pc/computer person, so I really need basic simple step by step instructions.

[scommander2]

The user data is saved at C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS, this is included HOTAS bindings, the camping data... etc.

Has ED tech support suggested to rename "DCS" directory to another different name (likes DCS.old), then run DCS once to recreate a new "DCS" directory for testing all hardware?  By renaming the directory, it is kind of resetting DCS to default (hope the DCS installation directory has no other files dropped by the user).

If rename the DCS directory is able to gain the performance back.... we can copy something back to DCS.old, likes HOTAS settings.

About the core parking, there is the topic at:

FPS drops may be related it.

Edited April 11 by scommander2

[PacFlyer23]

They said "Please try reinstalling the game."

So I am trying to understand how to do that with minimal loss of things.

I did use Park Control - their suggestion - to turn parking off for my cores, and no improvement.

[scommander2]

"C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS" is where all settings are stored.

 

[PacFlyer23]

9 minutes ago, scommander2 said:

"C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS" is where all settings are stored.

 

Thanks.

So now what are my first steps to reinstall DCS?

[Czar66]

42 minutes ago, PacFlyer23 said:

So now what are my first steps to reinstall DCS?

Delete your DCS root folder -> Downoad the installer from the website -> install it again via downloading the files where you want it to be.

Aren't you a bit fixated into a complete re install of the sim? A few others had similar issues that were results of mods. Could you maybe try the less abrupt method of renaming your DCS folder inside 'Saved Games' to see if it solves the problem as it will build a new one from scratch?

If it does, you'll only need to copy and paste your old bindings from that old folder into the new one. Usual path for the 'input' folder that contains your bindings. C:\Users\<user ID in windows>\Saved Games\DCS\Config.

If the issue returns with the old bindings pasted back into the current DCS folder in 'Saved Games', you just found the culprit and a 'input' folder wipe and re do of your bindings ingame, would solve it.

Edited April 11 by Czar66

[scommander2]

In my opinion:

1. copy "C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS" and paste the local directory (for backup purpose)

2. Go Windows settings->app->installed apps and search DCS World, then uninstall it.

2.3 it is up to you to delete the current "C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS" since we have the backup already.

3. then proceed the DCS installation and all mods should be installed (not for Steam version)

Launch DCS and see what happens...

If needed I can show how to copy the HOTAS settings from the backup back to "C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\Saved Games\DCS" again.

[scommander2]

7 minutes ago, Czar66 said:

try the less abrupt method of renaming your DCS folder inside 'Saved Games' to see if it solves the problem as it will build a new one from scratch?

I agree with @Czar66, why not rename DCS directory first before uninstalling DCS.  Unless ED tech support had asked to do so already?

 

[sleighzy]

Running a slow repair of the game, as well as ticking the remove extra files option, will get it back to a clean slate with needing to reinstall everything. Rename the Saved Games\DCS as has been mentioned previously as a repair or reinstall will not touch that location in case there are any issues there.

Can you also drop your DCS log file here for further review. Make sure to load completely into a mission.

Edited April 11 by sleighzy

[JohnRedcorn]

If you are using a standalone (non steam) version of the game. Then check the game installation dir. There is a "distr" directory. Open it and try to install the VCRedist and DirectX packages which comes with the game before reinstalling the whole game. Don't know if it will help, but worth trying.

I'm pretty much sure that reinstalling it won't help in any way. But if you want to completely reinstall it then click on the "Start" button, search for "Control panel", in "Control panel" look for the "Programs. There is an "Uninstall program" option under the "Programs", click it and you will see a list of all installed programs on your PC. Choose "DCS world" and click "Uninstall" button on the top of the list. This will work for any version of the game even for Steam version.

After uninstalling it, open the "Saved Games" dir, which is by default in your "C:\Users\<USER_NAME>\" dir and rename or delete the DCS dir.

Pay attention that if you'll delete it, you will loose all of your controls setup. So it is better to rename it. If you will rename it then after running the DCS for the first time, it will create this dir automatically and you'll be able to import your controls setup from the old (renamed) dir.

Anyway. Renaming or deletion of DCS dir in Saved Games dir might help much more then reinstalling the whole game. Usually there might be some mods in Saved Games/DCS dir which may cause the problems. It also may contains some old config which may also cause a problem. The game itself doesn't contains any config files and this is why reinstalling it may not help at all. It is better try to repear it, running the repear option from "Eagle Dynamics" folder in "Start button" menu.

Edited April 12 by JohnRedcorn

[PacFlyer23]

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and explanations of things. I will try the renaming of the Saved Games folder before trying reinstall of the whole game. I am not using the Steam version.

However first I'm going to add more RAM. I currently have 32 GB of RAM, but it's 4 x 8 GB sticks (DDR4). Last week I noticed when seeing some stutters and checking % memory usage I was at 60% doing a simple free flight in the F/A-18, and when I did a treetop level river run it when to 70% of RAM. So I bought some additional RAM in the form of two 32 GB sticks for 64 GB total that arrived today. I'll swap out my current 32 GB sticks for this replacement 64 GB, then hook every thing back up (WW MIPs), rename the Saved Game folder, and see if this fixes it.

If not, I'll try the full repair option... and as a last resort the delete the game folder and full new reinstall that ED suggested. 

dcs.log

Edited April 12 by PacFlyer23

[sleighzy]

23 minutes ago, JohnRedcorn said:

There is a "distr" directory. Open it and try to install the VCRedist

For the C++ Redistributables download and install/repair the latest x64 version from here vs the one that ships with the game https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist?view=msvc-170

Renaming the Saved Games\DCS folder also has the side effect of removing the fxo and metashaders2 folders in there…which is a good thing. You should always delete those if experiencing issues… and definitely after every DCS update. 

[PacFlyer23]

Well no joy...

I installed the 64 GB RAM, renamed the DCS folder in Saved Games, ran the full repair from the launcher, kept just 1 display hooked up via usb. Started DCS and went into instant action to try a free flight... still got just 7 FPS, which is unplayable compared to the 90 FPS I was getting before this all began. 

dcs.log

[scommander2]

Went through the DCS log analyzer, and there is the report:

Advice
 
If you have stability or performance issues pointing to your GPU, rollback the GPU driver to version 566.36
Verify that this is configured correctly in Windows:
Game Mode disabled
Hardware accelerated GPU scheduling disabled
Core Isolation disabled

 

Edited April 13 by scommander2

[PacFlyer23]

Awesome. Thanks for running my log in the analyzer.

How do I rollback to the earlier NVIDIA driver, just reinstall it over the current one I have which is 572.83.

[scommander2]

By looking at the dcs.log, something is not right to me:

common cores: {4, 5}
render cores: {0, 1, 2, 3}
IO cores: {6, 7, 8, 9}
unavailable cores: {}

i5-12600K has 6 P-cores and 4 E-cores.

That means DCS should use P-cores from 0 - 11 for either common and render, IO cores for 12-15 for E-cores.

Lots of cores are missing based on the log.

Let's defer the DCS log analyzer.

2025-04-13 00:54:28.139 INFO    APP (Main): CPU cores: 10, threads: 10, System RAM: 65306 MB, Pagefile: 12288 MB

i5-12600K has the "Hyper-Threading" feature and we should have 16 threads in total.  Has the BIOS "Hyper-Threading" option been disabled?

 

Edited April 13 by scommander2

[PacFlyer23]

I had been using Process Lasso, but stopped a few weeks ago and uninstalled it from my computer. Could it have left some residual settings in place? I do have ParkControl, attached is a current screen shot of it.

[scommander2]

Can we check the task manager for the CPU performance?

[PacFlyer23]

Okay, I took screen shots of both Task Manager and Resource Manager.

I wonder if this is why ED wants me to delete the game and reinstall it...

[scommander2]

Sent my question in PM.

[PacFlyer23]

I also took a screen shot with DSC running - free flight mission.

[inZane]

If you use the ED launcher, disable it and try again. I have had others have issues and it was the launcher.

[PacFlyer23]

Update:

Well thanks to everyone for trying to help me with this issue. I ended up pulling the GPU (4070 Super) and sending it to Gigabyte to check. They reported back it was fine, and advised the sort of problem I was seeing could be due to issues with the MB or Power Supply. A little backstory is had replace the PC's original 4070 with a 4070 Super over a year ago - and I just have to wonder if the tech that did the install hooked it up wrong.  So I just decided to punt and get a whole new system. It arrived two weeks ago and I've been getting it up and running. I went with a little more higher end PC setup  - AMD 9800X3D and NV 5070 Ti, with 64GB. I'm not a PC person, but it hasn't been too challenging. I have been surprised by the amount of "muscle" memory on flying the F/A-18 that I've lost in a month of downtime... like remembering that the TP laser needs to be reset after each LGB drop... did a 90 minute training mission last night and I have no idea where that second GBU-12 ended up