Running DCS World in Azure

Hi!

I've been experimenting running DCS World 1.2.10 in Azure.

So far I've been able to successfully run DCS World multiplayer with TARS on a custom mission and 4 pilots flying with the Azure cloud server performing flawlessy.

Server: Basic Large (A3), 4x CPU, 7 GB RAM. Windows Server 2012 R2. Tried A2, but it ran out of its 3 GB of RAM and everything went haywire. A3 costs $0.30 / hr of running, it can easily be switched on and off. The CPU's are actually 2.2 GHz, despite the control panel stating the old value of 1.6 GHz.

Config changes: Make sure you set render3d=false in the DCS World\config\graphics.lua file, you might also want to change the max_fps to 20 or so since no one is watching the game there anyway.

Firewall settings: Open 10308 both TCP and UDP in and out. Remeber to set up a TCP 10308 endpoint in the Azure config panel as well.

Teamspeak / TARS: Set allow_object_export = true in the network.cfg file found in saved games/dcs/config/network.cfg

Remaing challenges: Cannot start DCS World singleplayer.

Launcher.exe + DCS_updater.exe: Hang forever just before splashscreen. The taskbar icon changes from green to steelgrey and then nothing happens. The CPU is loaded 80-90%, but nothing happens.

DCS.exe: I get the splash screen, followed by a black DCS World screen with the blue top bar line with the letters DCS centered. The CPU load is almost nothing.

I have tried changing compatiblity modes and running as admin, with the same results.

Since multiplayer is working, whis issue would normally not bug me much, but in order to activate LotATC I need to enter singleplayer and fiddle with the options.

Does anyone have any tips for

a) get the singleplayer DCS world running or

b) manually activate LotATC by config file changes?

Found the following related errors in the log file:

00001.583 INFO DXRENDERER: Creating Resource "Unicode" of type 5

00001.603 ERROR DXRENDERER: Fullscreen render initialization failed, fall back to windowed mode

00005.888 ERROR DXRENDERER: Transparency AA:, S_OK

00005.923 INFO DXRENDERER: Creating Resource "Unicode" of type 5

00005.957 INFO DCS: srRes = 422860543, srGoodValue = 422860543 skip

00005.957 INFO EDCORE: (dDispatcher)enterToState_:1

00006.451 ERROR DXGUI_EDGE_RENDER: Cannot load texture ''

00006.608 INFO EDCORE: (dDispatcher)enterToState_:2

00006.835 INFO EDCORE: (dDispatcher)enterToState_:3

00031.442 INFO EDCORE: (dDispatcher)enterToState_:6

DxDiag:

Dirext X verstion: 11

DirectDraw Acceleration: Not available

Direct3D Acceleration: Enabled

AGP Texture Acceleration: Not available

Update

We have now tested the server with 10+ players and the unplayable rubberbanding reoccured. Unfortunately, it seems like the multiplayer server NEEDS a GPU to run the game in a satisfactory way.

This means that we are abandoning our cloud server approach, and going to buy a physical, traditional server.