Long start times from desktop to main menu

[Simicro]

Hi all,

I'm retuning after a long absence... I'm running of fresh install of DCS. All is fine and I get a some fluid flights... except the loading time at start to get to the home screen knowing that I've set the program to bypass the Launcher.

Start from desktop: 00 sec
Login screen : 40 sec
Nvidia ad creen: 42 sec
DCS splash screen: 42 sec
DCS home screen: 76 sec

My PC: i7-14700KF, 32 Gb DDR5, 1.8 Tb SSD, RTX 4070Ti Super 16 Gb, Windows 11

I attach the log.

I read the forum and already tried:
- Full repair of DCS through the Launcher
- Excluded \Program Files\Eagle Dynamics in my virus scanner settings (Win 11 default anti-virus)
- Excluded \Saved Games\DCS\
- Deleted \Saved Games\DCS\ 
- Preload radius set to 50 000 instead of 150 000 (even if you see 150 000 in the current log)
- Disabled completely antivirus

... to no avail.

dcs.log

Edited August 17 by Simicro

[Akula]

Disable hyper threading and try it again. 
 

ED broke hyperthreading support (again) a few updates ago. 

[silverdevil]

7 hours ago, Simicro said:

... to no avail.

also. DCS is arguably much slower when being scanned by AV software. if you are comfortable, you can add exceptions of DCS folders to the AV software.

[Simicro]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

Disable hyper threading and try it again. 
 

ED broke hyperthreading support (again) a few updates ago. 

 

Thanks, much appreciated. I'm not very knowledgeable or confident with the BIOS and I don't want to break something, especially that my other sims run flawlessly. So I will think about it. Do you have other suggestions?

4 minutes ago, silverdevil said:

also. DCS is arguably much slower when being scanned by AV software. if you are comfortable, you can add exceptions of DCS folders to the AV software.

 

 

Sure, as I said I excluded already the main DCS folder as well as Saved games. And I do not use any addon or software related to DCS and triggered by DCS.

[BIGNEWY]

On 8/17/2025 at 4:59 PM, Akula said:

Disable hyper threading and try it again. 
 

ED broke hyperthreading support (again) a few updates ago. 

Sorry but you are incorrect. 

On 8/17/2025 at 11:21 AM, Simicro said:

Hi all,

I'm retuning after a long absence... I'm running of fresh install of DCS. All is fine and I get a some fluid flights... except the loading time at start to get to the home screen knowing that I've set the program to bypass the Launcher.

Start from desktop: 00 sec
Login screen : 40 sec
Nvidia ad creen: 42 sec
DCS splash screen: 42 sec
DCS home screen: 76 sec

My PC: i7-14700KF, 32 Gb DDR5, 1.8 Tb SSD, RTX 4070Ti Super 16 Gb, Windows 11

I attach the log.

I read the forum and already tried:
- Full repair of DCS through the Launcher
- Excluded \Program Files\Eagle Dynamics in my virus scanner settings (Win 11 default anti-virus)
- Excluded \Saved Games\DCS\
- Deleted \Saved Games\DCS\ 
- Preload radius set to 50 000 instead of 150 000 (even if you see 150 000 in the current log)
- Disabled completely antivirus

... to no avail.

dcs.log 85.11 kB · 10 downloads

Thanks for the log, we have a fix coming in the next patch for people experiencing longer load times, it should help. 

[Akula]

8 minutes ago, BIGNEWY said:

Sorry but you are incorrect. 

I don’t think so….. I currently have hyperthreading disabled again and DCS runs incredibly well. fast load times, preload radius loads very quickly vs seeing a slow transition of water to ground terrain then buildings and so on. 
 

To be fair I will add that I did change my memory clock from 5400 to 5600 using “memory try it” in my BIOS. I suck at manually tweaking my memory so I had to use MSI’s feature. That little adjustment sped up my load times, BUT - if I re-enable hyperthreading it basically kills any hope of flying without some sort of lock up. 
 

I really do think that there is an issue here and I hope ED really does take another look at hyperthread support because it is like night and day when it’s disabled vs enabled. In all my experiences hyperthread enabled ruins the game vs hyperthread disabled fixes every long load and stuttering issue. 

I will do a little research into tweaking my memory manually and see if it’s a memory issue conflicting with the CPU but it doubt it’s a factor since I never had to do anything like this after the update that was released almost a year ago that directly addressed full and hyperthread support. That update was amazing.  Since then it has been touch and go with hyperthread support. one update fixes it and another ruins it and so on. 
Curious to know how others are doing with this. 

[BIGNEWY]

2 minutes ago, Akula said:

I don’t think so….. I currently have hyperthreading disabled again and DCS runs incredibly well. fast load times, preload radius loads very quickly vs seeing a slow transition of water to ground terrain then buildings and so on. 
 

To be fair I will add that I did change my memory clock from 5400 to 5600 using “memory try it” in my BIOS. I suck at manually tweaking my memory so I had to use MSI’s feature. That little adjustment sped up my load times, BUT - if I re-enable hyperthreading it basically kills any hope of flying without some sort of lock up. 
 

I really do think that there is an issue here and I hope ED really does take another look at hyperthread support because it is like night and day when it’s disabled vs enabled. In all my experiences hyperthread enabled ruins the game vs hyperthread disabled fixes every long load and stuttering issue. 

I will do a little research into tweaking my memory manually and see if it’s a memory issue conflicting with the CPU but it doubt it’s a factor since I never had to do anything like this after the update that was released almost a year ago that directly addressed full and hyperthread support. That update was amazing.  Since then it has been touch and go with hyperthread support. one update fixes it and another ruins it and so on. 
Curious to know how others are doing with this. 

Long load time issue has nothing to do with hyperthreading, for sure some CPU's work better without it, especially ones with E cores. 

But disabling hyperthreading on one system may not be correct for another. 

As mentioned we have a fix coming for the long load times. 

thank you 

[71st_Mastiff]

for some reason DCS opens up how many time just to start?

It's A PITA! when starting in VR. up to 3 minutes.

[BIGNEWY]

1 hour ago, 71st_Mastiff said:

for some reason DCS opens up how many time just to start?

It's A PITA! when starting in VR. up to 3 minutes.

Something isnt right there, I would suggest making a new thread with your dcs log and dxdiag 

thanks

[miguelaco]

I'm happy a fix for loading times is in the works, but at the same time, I don't think HT On vs Off should be disregarded, if not as a direct cause to the issue, at least as something that might point to it. It's clear many users find that disabling HT helps with load times, both in these forums and the discord server. In my case, I made 12 runs, 6 with HT on and another 6 with HT off. The results are as follows:

• Desktop to launcher average of 37s with HT on vs. 13s with HT off.
• Launcher to menu average of 85s with HT on vs. 41s with HT off.

I don't think it makes much sense to assume as normal behavior that disabling HT cuts loading times by more than half compared to HT enabled. I really think this should be looked at by the developers as it may point to a possible issue with Intel CPUs.

I'm running DCS on a 14900k, btw.

dcs-hton.log.zip dcs-htoff.log.zip

Edited August 25 by miguelaco
attached logs

[Akula]

Quick update:

BIOS, Nvidia and Intel Arc update hit me last week so I just updated *everything* and tested again with hyperthread support enabled. Double clicked the regular BIN executable (not the MT executable) 

From desk top to DCS main menu with HT enabled 

- 2:03, as in two minutes, three seconds

From desk top to DCS main menu with HT DISabled 

- :43, as in forty three seconds
 

This isn’t a user issue. I hope ED looks into this because it looks like hyperthread support is broken in DCS. 
 

For better transparency I did notice that the max CPU temp to bring up the DCS main menu was 73 with HT enabled and 58.5 with it disabled. Seems par for the course. - Confirmed all cores UNparked. 

 

 

Edited yesterday at 05:56 PM by Akula

[Czar]

18 minutes ago, Akula said:

This isn’t a user issue. I hope ED looks into this because it looks like hyperthread support is broken in DCS. 

i5 12600k here, hyperthreading is enabled (never disabled it) and have no problem with getting into the menu within 30 to 40 seconds. Cores unparked and when they were parked, the issue was not present either.

Something else being affected by hyperthreading might be the issue. HT is pretty dominant these days across all setups, if it was it everyone would see forums melting over it.

HAGS on, Game mode on (why both of these are on in my system atm is a long story. HAGS off vs on makes no difference in loading times), nvidia driver 1 version behind from the latest, no VR installed, trackIR app running and no HOTAS app on (VKB HOTAS, its preferences are stored in its hardware). 64gb Ram, 30gb pagefile on a ssd nvme, DCS on a SSD nvme.

Just trying to give more details from a setup that is not experiencing the issues.

Also, set Shader Cache Size on nVidia control panel or something equivalent on AMD, to Default or some other value but OFF, if you even changed it from Default to OFF.

That induces huge loading times with it OFF.

[miguelaco]

I also have HAGS and Game Mode enabled, and I’m running the latest Nvidia drivers. The results I’m seeing are very similar to the ones I posted earlier, consistent across the last five driver versions. I normally fly in VR, but for these measurements I tested without VR enabled. My CPU cores are unparked as well, otherwise the usual warning would show up in the logs.

From what I can tell, the issue is definitely CPU-related, I know there are a lot of factors, but it's clear that there are several users with the same behavior I described and I thought it could give some hints to what's going on here with this issue.

If anyone else is seeing the same behavior, it would be helpful if you could share your load times with HT enabled vs. disabled.

[Akula]

46 minutes ago, Czar said:

i5 12600k here, hyperthreading is enabled (never disabled it) and have no problem with getting into the menu within 30 to 40 seconds. Cores unparked and when they were parked, the issue was not present either.

Something else being affected by hyperthreading might be the issue. HT is pretty dominant these days across all setups, if it was it everyone would see forums melting over it.

HAGS on, Game mode on (why both of these are on in my system atm is a long story. HAGS off vs on makes no difference in loading times), nvidia driver 1 version behind from the latest, no VR installed, trackIR app running and no HOTAS app on (VKB HOTAS, its preferences are stored in its hardware). 64gb Ram, 30gb pagefile on a ssd nvme, DCS on a SSD nvme.

Just trying to give more details from a setup that is not experiencing the issues.

Also, set Shader Cache Size on nVidia control panel or something equivalent on AMD, to Default or some other value but OFF, if you even changed it from Default to OFF.

That induces huge loading times with it OFF.

12600K is what jumped out here as the 14th gen CPU's did have a VERY rocky start. It's over now and the voltages are under control so it's now degrading just as normally as any other CPU. Ran a Cinebench test to see if it is scoring lower than it used to and so far it's holding steady. Score remains unchanged from one BIOS to the other. 

I checked HAGS and all the other recommendations, all good. Shader cache doesn't seem to help unless you leave it on Driver Default. 

 

Curious to see what others on a 14900K are experiencing.

[Czar]

1 hour ago, Akula said:

12600K is what jumped out here as the 14th gen CPU's did have a VERY rocky start. It's over now and the voltages are under control so it's now degrading just as normally as any other CPU. Ran a Cinebench test to see if it is scoring lower than it used to and so far it's holding steady. Score remains unchanged from one BIOS to the other. 

I checked HAGS and all the other recommendations, all good. Shader cache doesn't seem to help unless you leave it on Driver Default. 

 

Curious to see what others on a 14900K are experiencing.

Understood. At least a fix is coming.

It is an interesting issue as the 14700k or 14900k would be my go to upgrade soon-ish.

Edited yesterday at 08:58 PM by Czar

[Akula]

34 minutes ago, Czar said:

Understood. At least a fix is coming.

It is an interesting issue as the 14700k or 14900k would be my go to upgrade soon-ish.

I would have NEVER told you this in Feb 2024 when I built my rig but TODAY, in Sept 2025 you should be OK. 

From my chair the problem stemmed from Intel's neglect in setting the Intel defaults for the Motherboard manufacturers and instead of perfecting the Microcode themselves, they left it to the motherboard manufacturers to do it. This ended up with the most base default setting driving up the CPU voltage and heat creating a level of degradation that wasn't normal and would basically kill these CPU's in 6 months to a year if left unaddressed. 

As it stands, Intel forced all the manufacturers to follow the same template for the microcode so that the advertised and labeled "intel defaults" really were safe parameters set by Intel. 

All that to say, you should be fine. - Now if you are looking at another CPU and MB combo, I'd also recommend AMD's 9800 X3D.... If I had waited long enough I would have opted for that build.  

[Czar]

2 hours ago, Akula said:

From my chair the problem stemmed from Intel's neglect in setting the Intel defaults for the Motherboard manufacturers and instead of perfecting the Microcode themselves, they left it to the motherboard manufacturers to do it. This ended up with the most base default setting driving up the CPU voltage and heat creating a level of degradation that wasn't normal and would basically kill these CPU's in 6 months to a year if left unaddressed. 

I was about to write about this on the previous post but my knowledge about the issue is limited. I saw it on JayzTwoCents report on a yt video but that was it. If I recall correctly, my motherboard wouldn't induce the issue as it is a basic motherboard for personal reasons AFAIK. Of course I would read a lot more nearer the upgrade. Thank you for the writing.

2 hours ago, Akula said:

All that to say, you should be fine. - Now if you are looking at another CPU and MB combo, I'd also recommend AMD's 9800 X3D.... If I had waited long enough I would have opted for that build.  

It is something to consider too, although I'm leaning more towards the intel upgrade, depending on the 14th gen condition at the time. Thanks!

[SAM77]

New bios was released couple days back for my mobo. I updated my bios today to the latest version along with Intel ME. Now I have this issue with long loading time. I turned off Hyperthreading in bios and it loaded much quicker. In addition, with HT on exiting from game to desktop takes significantly longer than before. I will live with it for now. Hopefully the fix mentioned will solve it. I plan on reinstalling win11 anyway when MiG29 is released. If the problem still exists, I will consider reverting to the previous bios version. 

I ignored the golden rule "If it isn't broke don't fix it"

[miguelaco]

That's interesting, I updated my BIOS to latest versions as soon as they were released to mitigate the degradation issues. I'll wait for the fix and if it doesn't solve it, then I'll revert to older BIOS versions.

Thanks for sharing your observations.

Edited 6 hours ago by miguelaco

[Akula]

I don't think this is a BIOS issue. I think the issue comes from the various updates DCS has made that inadvertently impacted multi-thread support. Something happened because DCS got nothing but praise when they released an update that specifically addressed a significant improvement to Multi-thread support, and they delivered. Since then I think one update was released in 2024 to address a multi-thread bug but nothing after that. We've all been down this road before where one update fixes A, B, C, D but breaks X.

It's not the Devs faults as they can't be expected to beta test every single different configuration out there but when it comes to a vital feature like Multi-thread support, it's a feature that needs to be tested after every update on various machines to ensure compatibility/stability. This is free performance that we cannot use due to a bug in the updates that wasn't there before. 

 

Obviously I'm not a DCS dev but if I was one I'd get my hands on a 14900k machine and start running some tests. This does not look like an isolated incident.