Specs up to date?

I want to buy the Tomcat but am not sure if my computer will work with it. It runs DCS open beta well on medium settings. I have a Nvidia Geforce GT710, An Intel i5-3470, ang 16GB of RAM. If it will not work, what upgrades do I need to make? Thanks.

I suspect you'll need/want to upgrade the Geforce GT710.

I'm using a GTX1050Ti 4GB with medium textures (high had stutters in A2A combat).

It's ok in SP or light co-op missions (45-60 fps) but textures take a while to load (lots of blue sea initially).

My own missions are ok but the F-14B carrier cold start training mission has a full deck, so the fps drops to about 15 if I look to the right - I was still able to complete it as you are head down most of the time.

I can't comment on performance in the included SP missions as I haven't flown them.

I'd set the GTX1050Ti as a minimum but ideally you'd get a better card.

My Specs.

i7 860 @2.8GHz , 12GB DDR3 , GTX1050Ti 4GB, 1TB SSD, 4+2TB HD, MSFFB2 joystick, X52 Pro Thottle, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

Note:

• I'm running DCS and the OS off a 1TB SSD, YMMV.

• I don't fly on the bigger MP servers as my system can't handle the number of AI units and FPS drops below 20, but it's a general issue, not F-14B specific.

youll need ram graphic card and SSD

Im pulling on average 70 fps on all maps with high graphics settings

CPU

Intel Core i5 3570K @ 3.40GHz 45 °C

Ivy Bridge 22nm Technology

RAM

32.0GB Dual-Channel DDR3 @ 802MHz (11-11-11-28)

Graphics

4095MB NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 Ti (Gigabyte) 40 °C

Storage

465GB Seagate ST500DM002-1BD142 (SATA (SSD)) 34 °C

232GB Crucial CT250MX500SSD1 (SATA (SSD))

Upgrade at least your GPU.

I've flown the AV-8B on the PG Map with no problems before and was struggeling a bit with the addtional performance cost of the cat.

Only tried Multiplayer once, but with no issues.

This is what you get with an I5 4690@ 4.4 Ghz, 16GB DDR3-1600 and RX580 8GB at 1920x1080:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM4Z7Ou0aWI&t

I suspect you'll need/want to upgrade the Geforce GT710.

 

I'm using a GTX1050Ti 4GB with medium textures (high had stutters in A2A combat).

 

It's ok in SP or light co-op missions (45-60 fps) but textures take a while to load (lots of blue sea initially).

 

My own missions are ok but the F-14B carrier cold start training mission has a full deck, so the fps drops to about 15 if I look to the right - I was still able to complete it as you are head down most of the time.

 

I can't comment on performance in the included SP missions as I haven't flown them.

 

I'd set the GTX1050Ti as a minimum but ideally you'd get a better card.

 

My Specs.

 

i7 860 @2.8GHz , 12GB DDR3 , GTX1050Ti 4GB, 1TB SSD, 4+2TB HD, MSFFB2 joystick, X52 Pro Thottle, TIR5, Win 10 Pro x64, 1920X1080

 

Note:

 

• I'm running DCS and the OS off a 1TB SSD, YMMV.

• I don't fly on the bigger MP servers as my system can't handle the number of AI units and FPS drops below 20, but it's a general issue, not F-14B specific.

What graphics settings are you at? and thanks for showing me the 1050 ti.

What graphics settings are you at? and thanks for showing me the 1050 ti.

An example of the F-14B framerate with my settings

https://youtu.be/FAr0_l6vugU

 

An example of the F-14B framerate with my settings

 

https://youtu.be/FAr0_l6vugU

Thanks!

I needed to reduce the textures like that because of the cockpit for the Hornet as well BTW when I still had my 970 in the rig. It's way more demanding than all the other modules as well.

I was asking ED to integrate a separate exture option just for that... but there still is the problem that the quality differs quite a lot between the modules. Even low has crispier textures than let's say the Ka-50 or A-10 at medium...

Having to go back to the options everytime you switch assets is pain... remembered me a bit of the time when we had to exit MP, fire up the SP client, do our changes there, exit SP, fire up MP, join server again - just to change a few keybinds! That literally was hell. So glad this is pastance. But I hoped for more options being accessible in flight in 2.x, but I was let down. At least since I've got my 1080 I don't have to alter the texture settings anymore depending on the plane I want to fly

I would aim a little higher than a 1050. Chances are you will quickly outgrow it and basically have wasted that money. I have a 1070 and its only just fast enough for the F14 in online missions using custom medium settings:

With that I can usually maintain ~60FPS. With mirrors when Im flying high enough. A 1070 gives you 8GB which makes a real difference in DCS. But I still have no hopes of using my triple monitors let alone a VR set.

You can get some fantastic deals on used 1070s and even 1070Tis from ex crypto miners. Do not be (overly) afraid of buying a used mining card, especially recent nVidia cards . Contrary to popular belief, these cards have generally been underclocked and undervolted (nvidia cards where never really used for bitcoin, but for other cryptos that use vram intensive algorithms, core speed didnt matter to miners, electricity bill did), and run in open air rigs with ample cooling. The main worry is dust and fans, but replacement fans are cheap and not so hard to find.

FWIW, I bought my 1070 from a miner who advertised it as such. Dusty as heck, but fans are fine and the card works flawlessly. When I bought it, I paid less than 1/2 the new price of a 2060 which is generally slower at games like DCS.

16GB is enough. I read some scare stories that 16GB might not be enough on online missions, but I have never come close to maxing out my ram. Your CPU is also adequate.

As for SSD.. I have no experience running DCS on anything other than my NVME SSD. But I would be curious to hear how good or bad it works. I imagine loading times will be.. well, long, but once loaded, is it not flyable? Like I said, i dont know, just curious.

I would aim a little higher than a 1050. Chances are you will quickly outgrow it and basically have wasted that money. I have a 1070 and its only just fast enough for the F14 in online missions using custom medium settings:

 

 

With that I can usually maintain ~60FPS. With mirrors when Im flying high enough. A 1070 gives you 8GB which makes a real difference in DCS. But I still have no hopes of using my triple monitors let alone a VR set.

 

You can get some fantastic deals on used 1070s and even 1070Tis from ex crypto miners. Do not be (overly) afraid of buying a used mining card, especially recent nVidia cards . Contrary to popular belief, these cards have generally been underclocked and undervolted (nvidia cards where never really used for bitcoin, but for other cryptos that use vram intensive algorithms, core speed didnt matter to miners, electricity bill did), and run in open air rigs with ample cooling. The main worry is dust and fans, but replacement fans are cheap and not so hard to find.

 

FWIW, I bought my 1070 from a miner who advertised it as such. Dusty as heck, but fans are fine and the card works flawlessly. When I bought it, I paid less than 1/2 the new price of a 2060 which is generally slower at games like DCS.

 

16GB is enough. I read some scare stories that 16GB might not be enough on online missions, but I have never come close to maxing out my ram. Your CPU is also adequate.

 

As for SSD.. I have no experience running DCS on anything other than my NVME SSD. But I would be curious to hear how good or bad it works. I imagine loading times will be.. well, long, but once loaded, is it not flyable? Like I said, i dont know, just curious.

would an RX570 8gb work? and loading times are EXTREMELY long (5-10 minutes) but once you're in the cockpit you're fine. and thanks for the tip about the crypto cards!

RX570 you mean. I dont know. Generally speaking a RX570 and 580 offer pretty good performance for the money, pretty much unbeatable when you buy new cards, but it would be closer to a GTX 1060. But performance between AMD and nVidia can vary substantially on specific titles, and good benchmarks for DCS are nowhere to be found; most people seem to use nVidia, so its a bit of a gamble if an AMD card will do better, worse or similar compared to an otherwise equivalent nVidia card. I simply do not have that answer.

The only thing I can say is that for a completely different flightsim (condor), the main performance bottleneck is texel fillrate according to the developer. You can see texel fill rate of a few videocards in the last chart on this page:

https://www.anandtech.com/show/13762/nvidia-geforce-rtx-2060-founders-edition-6gb-review/13

if (and thats a big if) DCS has similar bottlenecks, then a 570 may not be a great choice, seeing how the 580 fairs. But for those shopping in the high end, the Vega56 might actually be a bargain, although again, ive yet to see any meaningful benchmark comparison that prove that.

Oh and to complicate things even more; if/when DCS moves to Vulkan API, what little we do know may be completely irrelevant. AMD cards seem to do pretty good using Vulkan though.

Upgrade at least your GPU.

 

I've flown the AV-8B on the PG Map with no problems before and was struggeling a bit with the addtional performance cost of the cat.

 

Only tried Multiplayer once, but with no issues.

 

This is what you get with an I5 4690@ 4.4 Ghz, 16GB DDR3-1600 and RX580 8GB at 1920x1080:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM4Z7Ou0aWI&t

:joystick:

:joystick:

I did see that, but its not a repeatable benchmark where everything stays the same except the videocard.

Still, I will duplicate your settings and give it a try on a my machine on the same map using the F14. I do have a very different CPU (ryzen 2600) and DDR4, but it may give an idea. I will post my results later.

edit: could you post the replay? Replay may differ from flying real time.

Ok I replicated Cornelius' settings, used same map, same airport (I think), same plane. Similar conditions ( I had some clouds, but I dont think that matters)

I used my machine which is:

Ryzen 5 2600 (~4.2 GHz maintained boost clock) which I think is also quite comparable to Cornelius CPU

1070 GTX

16 GB DDR4 2133 (dont ask)

I uploaded the video here:

I think I can say I have fairly significantly higher frame rates, the performance difference between his 580 and my 1070 is roughly inline with most games I think. Doesnt appear nVidia or AMD makes a huge difference for DCS.

However, I would also say this flight is not that representative of most of my online flights, where there are dozens of other players, ground objects, and what have you. Hard to say for sure as I normally fly with different settings and I also find Caucasus harder on my system than Persian gulf and online missions definitely puts a higher load on the machine wich lowers framerates.

Finally, do look what happens when I turn on the mirrors a few times near the end. Frame rates fall quite dramatically... below 40 at times. When flying high enough, I can use them normally, but only just.

Oh, and before I forget: I recorded that while flying, its not a track. Tracks seem buggy as hell with the F14 and/or openbeta. Im not sure how much of an impact that has, but I would expect playing back a track to be faster than flying it, as no physics or ai or ballistics or whatever need to be calculated. But I have not tested it.

Ok I replicated Cornelius' settings, used same map, same airport (I think), same plane. Similar conditions ( I had some clouds, but I dont think that matters)

.

Thanks for that!

@ Vertigo72

Sorry, but I recorded this "live" and didn't save the replay, since they are broken (what you also mentioned)

When I made benchmarks to find out best possible settings, I saved a track in which I have flown a short distance over Dubai with a roll etc. Something like this will work, since there's nothing the plane can collide with and no takeoff/landing.

And yes, your 1070 should perform better as an rx580, which is a tick faster than an 1060.

The mirrors run better at high altitudes because it's easier for the engine to render less (blue sky or far distant ground) than at low level. For me mirrors are unusable, because of the immense frame drop.

@ Vertigo72

Sorry, but I recorded this "live" and didn't save the replay, since they are broken (what you also mentioned)

Tracks seem pretty broken even when using the stock module. I tried making a benchmark track just using the Su25, but every time you play it, its slightly different. AA and SAM missiles may show or not show. Sometimes they even dont seem to hit, and a plane that was destroyed by one, during some playbacks will just tumble with no visible damage. Camera switch timings are different. its weird?

On the plus side, playing back a track seems to result in pretty much the exact same framerates as when recording it. I think all the ballistics and perhaps even some of the AI stuff is recalculated when playing back a track? Which may also explain why they can be so different.

And yes, your 1070 should perform better as an rx580, which is a tick faster than an 1060.

The mirrors run better at high altitudes because it's easier for the engine to render less (blue sky or far distant ground) than at low level. For me mirrors are unusable, because of the immense frame drop.

Mirror frame drop is rather inconsistent for me. Sometimes its pretty minor, 5-10FPS, even on the ground (or on a carrier). Other times its huge. Havent found the pattern yet, although generally speaking, up high is indeed less of a problem and it could well be related to how complex the scene behind you is. It could also just be that high up, you have spare cpu/gpu cycles, or maybe even less vram in use? Either way, mirrors are a must for me, especially in the tomcat. I need to be reminded of how cool I look :D

[...]Either way, mirrors are a must for me, especially in the tomcat. I need to be reminded of how cool I look :D

I'm suffering from the same disorder. But I gotta get through this, I'd guess this is some kind of confront-therapy8)

Runs fine on my 8700k, 16gigs of ram with GTX970. 60 fps most of the time depending on the mission

You can read my specs in the signature. (I have to stick with 8 GB of RAM because mine is an upgraded prebuilt PC and it seems that the BIOS doesn't allow to have more than that).

I play with high settings @1920 X 1080 because I really like the look so much and because I also guess spotting things in the sky or on the ground is more realistic with high settings.

It seems that I am little sensitive to FPS an therefore if I have to lock them @ like 22 I'm pretty ok with that.

With FC3 aircrafts I can have like 50 FPS, but with the F14 it's different.

For instance, in my ground attack mission, if I release a cluster bomb and I press F6 to enter its point of view, the sim crashes at the bomb splitting moment and the same happens if I look at the bomb from the plane. I have to release it, wait until it's landed and exploded, and then I can look at that area and check the damage.

I can do A2A combat in single player but in MP it's unplayable, whereas I have almost no problems with the F15 (except for the fact that I suck, but that's a different story :)).

There is a training mission about takeoff from the carrier with other planes on the deck and I had to lower the settings level a lot to make it playable.

(I have to stick with 8 GB of RAM because mine is an upgraded prebuilt PC and it seems that the BIOS doesn't allow to have more than that).

I find that hard to believe. Can you post your motherboard? If you are unsure, run cpu-z and look at the mainboard tab. Im fairly sure you will be able to install 2x 8GB modules, and unless you are saving up for a new rig, it could be worth it, as 8GB honestly isnt enough for the F14 / online.

There's a sticker on my Asus motherboard which says

P8H77-M PRO/CM6870/DP_MB

CM6870 is the PC model.

I've read more than a thread on forums where people asked for help because they were having trouble expanding the RAM of that model and in none of those threads there was anyone saying that he had eventually found a way to succeed...

Asus has a list of approved modules for your board:

https://dlcdnets.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/LGA1155/P8H77-M_PRO/H77_memory_report.pdf?_ga=2.212202454.357895971.1556912573-1596746078.1556912573

Plenty of 8GB dimms of which you can even use 4. You may need to ditch your existing modules though.

Thank you for the help but apparently the list that you've posted, which holds good for the P8H77-M PRO bought independently, doesn't apply to my version because it's a prebuilt version with its own specific UEFI/BIOS which doesn't allow to expand the RAM. For instance, I've never found settings which let me adjust the timings and the voltage. As I've written, I researched on the internet in the past about it and found only people who had problems in expanding that specific model and no one having success.

Besides, we are starting to be quite off-topic here...

But thank you again for the list; I appreciate the help.

With FC3 aircrafts I can have like 50 FPS, but with the F14 it's different.

For instance, in my ground attack mission, if I release a cluster bomb and I press F6 to enter its point of view, the sim crashes at the bomb splitting moment and the same happens if I look at the bomb from the plane. I have to release it, wait until it's landed and exploded, and then I can look at that area and check the damage.

Reading the latest changelog of OB I've found out that it was a bug: I've updated both the driver of my graphics card and DCS and now cluster bombs work.