Help me with my graphic settings - new RAM, new update

Hello.

Lately, I've bought extra RAM so now my computer's specification looks like that:

- i5-2500 3.4-3.6GHz

- GTX 960 4GB

- 16GB RAM DDR3

I also had Open Beta and everything was fine ( less, sometimes non-noticable fps drops ) but I updated today my DCS to the latest version which added Hornet and added some options like SSAA, etc. and it works a bit worse, especially when I'm turning the newest options on.

Firstly, I'd like to know what these new options are and if it's worth to use them to maintain good quality and work without any lags. Blur motion looks good however it makes my computer slower.

I'm going to buy Hornet and Hormuz, so I especially would like to set all graphic options to have good effects but without fps kicks, etc.

My graphic settings - using Caucassus Map at this moment:

• Res of cockpit displays also affects the mirrors, so you could get some extra frames as buffer by dropping that to 512.
  
• Shadows you may not notice too much difference while occupied with flying by having those at low.
  
• Anistropic filtering has been something that I rarely ever find impacting on FPS, so you could probably bump that upto 16x.
  
• Preload radius could also be bumped upto the max, possibly, as this is I believe more connected to RAM than anything else, at least worth experimenting with, because if you can raise this it'll reduce stutter induced by loading in terrain.
  

Strait of Hormuz; I've noticed that it benefits a fair bit by residing on SSD, if you have that available: then DoIt™.

Ok, I'll try.

So there's no huge difference between shadows?

What do you think about changing terrain textures and textures to low or medium? Some guys are doing it and saying it works.

What about trees and what the new options are? Especially SSAA and Rain Droplets ( I knot what it is but how does it look like with fps ) are what I'm interested of.

I had seen a dip of around 10FPS with rain enabled, I sometimes use MSAA, but it can harm frames when there's a high poly count.

It's probably hard to read, but it says 32FPS, that's in one of, if not the most frame intensive areas of the map.

Those are my usual settings, although for the above Hormuz flight I dropped textures to medium for the city flight, and without altering anything else I got no lower than 30 FPS, with MSAA on it'd half it, though be playable away from busy areas. Elsewhere I'd be getting 55-60 frames or more.

"There's no huge difference between shadows" as far as visual quality is concerned (I think that's what ouPhrontis meant), but it's more noticeable in framerate. I wouldn't go above "medium" If I were you, maybe even experiment with "low" for a while to see how it goes.

SSAA is an antialiasing method based on principle of rendering the image at resolution higher than native and then downscaling it to native. Might work well for HD resolutions and below, but it's extremely resource hungry, so forget about it.

Rain droplets drop the fps on my 1070 (up to 10 as well) even when they're not shown at all (not all planes have them implemented), so I'd recommend turning them off. It's just borderline-useless eyecandy with too much of a performance hit, unless you have lots of computing power to spare... which you don't.

With 16 gigs you can probably crank up preload radius, but don't expect much more - most of the options are CPU and GPU-dependent anyway, and you're limited by these components. You're already asking your 960 for a lot - extreme visibility range? High would still be good, same with resolutions of pit displays - 512 is more than enough. There's still quite a few fps to gain here. Even more on turning off MSAA, but I remember from our PM exchanges that you are faithful to it for good :D.

I noticed when I add F/A-18 to map, there're more lags.

Without is good

Lately, I pushed VR button and changed a few things and it works better.

Noticed that when ground textures are on high and textures are on medium and works much better thatn GT on High and textures on high too.

Game works better now and the difference between textures on medium or on high is unnoticable.

Yes, MSAA is really important. That makes this game looks much better.

Unfortunately, SSAA is easier but takes much so I can't use it.

The only one thing to check the difference is to set MSAA off and check SSAA.

Ok, I checked it many times and I claimed that MSAA was taking too much so I turned if off at all.

The rest is on high.

Now, I've still got almost 60 fps.

My question to you is - what in your opinion a few settings should be set in my computer?

- preload radius

- trees visibility

- visib range

These 3 settings are important and are responsible for graphic quality and sluttering.

Tested many variations but still don't know...