PC Upgrade Question

[kirrasdad]

Anyone/everyone,

 

I am currently looking to upgrade my existing Rig, See signature below. I would warmly welcome any suggestions on where to start in relation to known Bottlenecks in DCS and Lock on in particular. I am going to be flying FC3 and A10C primarily but I think the two are really the same in terms of optimizing components. So come on you wonderfully whacky DCS Gearheads, let me know where you think my hard earned $$$ will do the most good. Happy Holidays to all my Fellow DCS Diehards and long live the DCS series!! :helpsmilie:

[Pigmachine]

Never had a radeon card .. and my specs seems worse then yours, but works great except when spamming rockets or drop a lot of cluster-bombs!?

 

I'll personally will wait at least a year before getting a new one, and I had this one for 2½+ years.. new personal record for me in old computer.

 

Might be the fact that my 22" screen only supports 1680x1050 !?

[kirrasdad]

Never had a radeon card .. and my specs seems worse then yours, but works great except when spamming rockets or drop a lot of cluster-bombs!?

 

I'll personally will wait at least a year before getting a new one, and I had this one for 2½+ years.. new personal record for me in old computer.

 

Might be the fact that my 22" screen only supports 1680x1050 !?

 

Thanks Pig but I always remember hearing DCS and FC have specific bottle necking issues. Either RAM GPU or CPU. Now I am hearing its due to constant Re tiling of textures which sounds CPU dependent to me

[StoOopiD]

Anyone/everyone,

 

I am currently looking to upgrade my existing Rig, See signature below. I would warmly welcome any suggestions on where to start in relation to known Bottlenecks in DCS and Lock on in particular. I am going to be flying FC3 and A10C primarily but I think the two are really the same in terms of optimizing components. So come on you wonderfully whacky DCS Gearheads, let me know where you think my hard earned $$$ will do the most good. Happy Holidays to all my Fellow DCS Diehards and long live the DCS series!! :helpsmilie:

 

Whats wrong with it?

 

well u can get a sound card, which would relieve the cpu of processing sound, plus better sound.

 

http://us.store.creative.com/Creative-Sound-Blaster-Recon3D-Fatal1ty-Professional/M/B00654PTT2.htm

Edited December 27, 2012 by StoOopiD

[pacotito]

Dcs is more CPU dependant. With your current system the only thing I would really recommend at this time would be another 4gb ram. I went from an x6 1090 @ 4.0 to a 2500k @ 4.8 and gained maybe 5-10 average fps. Ultimately its up to you if you want to spend your money.There was a thread that compared fps on a preset track but I can't seem to find it. At the least I would advise you to wait and see what the next group of video cards and CPUs bring. I myself am waiting for the gtx700s for an upgrade.

Edited December 28, 2012 by pacotito

[emenance]

I have been able to jump back into Black Shark some and Flaming cliffs two. g940 still working good enough for me.

 

You need more RAM for one thing. i2500k systems on a p8z68 Asus is what i got. Im running raid 0 and accelerating it with a 60gb SSD. The harddrives are just 3gbs re3 drives that are still flawless so I kept them. I couldnt ask for more really. My system is fast and is crunching Black Shark and FC just fine. I ran auto tune up to about 4.4 ghz and stuck a fork in it. If you go with these board pay attention to the ram voltage and make sure you buy ram that matchs. Like my board need 1.5v ram. You NEED to ONLY put 1.5v ram in it.

 

Some other important things is the Intel Nic . I would not buy a MB that does not have an Intel Lan Support......Period

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813131792 365 bucks plus 80 bucks for new ram, 80 bucks for a ssd to use as cache drive.

Edited December 28, 2012 by emenance

[pacotito]

what voltage did autotune set for the CPU? From what I've seen autotune goes way overboard on CPU voltage.

[Madone]

:shocking:Wow wow wow, before looking to buy anything, did you try to play DCS World once? You said "I'm going to...", you have some good specifications here, you can run the game pretty well with that 955 X4, plus you're OCed. FC3 and A10C aren't different in performance, that's all DCS World now. You will sure have to make some choices in the options but high/med settings shouldn't be problematic.

 

If you don't have the game, try the free SU25 and see what's your perfomance results, for me it would be an error to update your PC before playing the game, it's even more true if it was some hard earned $$$ :weight_lift_2:

[Manuel]

I think you should consider a joystick upgrade rather then a rig upgrade. At least that was what I did. Went from a X52 pro to the well known TM A10 Warthog and I do not regret it even with 280€ spent when having a decent stick. TM is unique. The feeling, the cold steel you grab with your hand. Every time a pleasure!

[Madone]

I think you should consider a joystick upgrade rather then a rig upgrade. At least that was what I did. Went from a X52 pro to the well known TM A10 Warthog and I do not regret it even with 280€ spent when having a decent stick. TM is unique. The feeling, the cold steel you grab with your hand. Every time a pleasure!

 

Oh yeah that's for sure!!!:thumbup:

[Python]

I can't comment on the Radeon card, I had one before and didn't like it but that was an older gen card so if yours works well then I'd save your money for a while and wait for the next lot of cards to hit the market. I would definitely add another 4gb stick of ram though if I were you. I think the stutters are unavoidable in certain situations, Even mine stutters when dropping clusters of bombs and during multiple explosions etc. Maybe that will be patched out one day... fingers crossed.

 

Good to hear about the hog stick making a difference though, I'm saving for one myself, I was hoping I'd find one in the Christmas sales but no such luck.

[kirrasdad]

:shocking:Wow wow wow, before looking to buy anything, did you try to play DCS World once? You said "I'm going to...", you have some good specifications here, you can run the game pretty well with that 955 X4, plus you're OCed. FC3 and A10C aren't different in performance, that's all DCS World now. You will sure have to make some choices in the options but high/med settings shouldn't be problematic.

 

If you don't have the game, try the free SU25 and see what's your perfomance results, for me it would be an error to update your PC before playing the game, it's even more true if it was some hard earned $$$ :weight_lift_2:

 

See that's the thing I've been playing all titles since 2003 when LOMAC came out. So I'm very familiar with the performance. Most of my stuttering occurs when i first enter the game and look around. Seems like it is precaching alot of graphics or something. Then its fairly smooth unless there is alot of Ground Pounding and units moving about, etc. I think the faster/additional RAM might help with this, No?

[StoOopiD]

what in game settings are u running?

[Manuel]

See that's the thing I've been playing all titles since 2003 when LOMAC came out. So I'm very familiar with the performance. Most of my stuttering occurs when i first enter the game and look around. Seems like it is precaching alot of graphics or something. Then its fairly smooth unless there is alot of Ground Pounding and units moving about, etc. I think the faster/additional RAM might help with this, No?

 

More Ram will definitely help! I have 16gb installed and went there from 8gb. I noticed a very slightly better performance. But from 4gb to 8 or 12 it is a whole world! Just check taskmanager when flying. I recommend an Ram upgrade before considering anything else! And Ram is cheap! It really is!

[kirrasdad]

Guys based on your suggestions I have ordered the following from New Egg:

 

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-1866C9D-16GXM

 

and:

 

Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCIe (70SB135000000) 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

 

Hoping it increases Performance!!

[StoOopiD]

nice! that ram should run like 7-8-7-24 @1600mhz i think.

 

Here's a GSkill admin. how to set it up .:)

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=11742

That NB sounds a little crazy. i would do 1.2v on the NB cpu, NB @ 2400mhz.

 

if your 955 is OC @4ghz, then u got one of the good ones. I wasnt so lucky. i have a 955be in my second pc, she will only clock up to 3.7 no matter what i threw at it. i found out that i had a 955BE, C2 stepping:(

u must have the C3 stepping.

 

I think u'll like the sound card too. i might get one.

[SkateZilla]

Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D PCIe (70SB135000000) 5.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Express x1 Interface Sound Card

 

 

Core 3d is Garbage, You'd Be better off with a Cheap Used X-Fi Extreme Gamer from Ebay.

[Madone]

See that's the thing I've been playing all titles since 2003 when LOMAC came out. So I'm very familiar with the performance. Most of my stuttering occurs when i first enter the game and look around. Seems like it is precaching alot of graphics or something. Then its fairly smooth unless there is alot of Ground Pounding and units moving about, etc. I think the faster/additional RAM might help with this, No?

 

Ok, I got the same stutters that you're describing, in a ramp start, the PC loads the textures when I look around then it's gone, and I think, you could have it even with a very high end PC, I would be surprised if you were getting bad FPS with that CPU/GPU, my core i3 is in the same scale, but I can't oc it, at 4Ghz you beat me easily, plus you have a nice graphic card, I dunno what's your PC screen but you should have something smooth and nice. Personally I'm med/high settings, I hit 45 FPS average, that's enough for me, but I'm running a 19" screen though.

About the quantity of RAM, I think buying 16GB is an overkill to play, if you're encoding vids, using a ramdisk or softwares like 3DSMax, it can be useful. The frequency is more important... 8GB is enough.

 

The sound card should be really helpful, I'm looking to buy one. Tell us the result!!

[kirrasdad]

Ok, I got the same stutters that you're describing, in a ramp start, the PC loads the textures when I look around then it's gone, and I think, you could have it even with a very high end PC, I would be surprised if you were getting bad FPS with that CPU/GPU, my core i3 is in the same scale, but I can't oc it, at 4Ghz you beat me easily, plus you have a nice graphic card, I dunno what's your PC screen but you should have something smooth and nice. Personally I'm med/high settings, I hit 45 FPS average, that's enough for me, but I'm running a 19" screen though.

About the quantity of RAM, I think buying 16GB is an overkill to play, if you're encoding vids, using a ramdisk or softwares like 3DSMax, it can be useful. The frequency is more important... 8GB is enough.

 

The sound card should be really helpful, I'm looking to buy one. Tell us the result!!

 

Guys I have the results of my upgrade and would like to post screen shots. Can anyone tell me how? do I need to be on a file sharing site?

[kirrasdad]

Core 3d is Garbage, You'd Be better off with a Cheap Used X-Fi Extreme Gamer from Ebay.

 

I Dunno Skate, Installed yesterday and it's loud and Proud. Running 5.1 on my logitech speakers sounding very Immersive!

[kirrasdad]

nice! that ram should run like 7-8-7-24 @1600mhz i think.

 

Here's a GSkill admin. how to set it up .:)

http://www.gskill.us/forum/showthread.php?t=11742

That NB sounds a little crazy. i would do 1.2v on the NB cpu, NB @ 2400mhz.

 

if your 955 is OC @4ghz, then u got one of the good ones. I wasnt so lucky. i have a 955be in my second pc, she will only clock up to 3.7 no matter what i threw at it. i found out that i had a 955BE, C2 stepping:(

u must have the C3 stepping.

 

I think u'll like the sound card too. i might get one.

 

Stoop,

 

The SoundBlaster card sounds awesome, Full 5.1 on my speakers and as good as my home theater setup that cost me 800 bucks!

 

I'm Running the memory @ 1600 to start so far its very stable. Performance has improved very much per expectations. I'll post screens as soon as I learn how

[Madone]

Guys I have the results of my upgrade and would like to post screen shots. Can anyone tell me how? do I need to be on a file sharing site?

 

Yeah you can host your pictures on imageshack.us for example, then in the forum go advanced click "insert image" (icon with mountains) and enter the URL (direct link)...:thumbup: