Recommended settings for PC using an AMD Radeon HD 6870

[thunderb]

If this question has already been asked then please respond with a link to that discussion thread. What would be your recommended settings for a PC sporting an AMD Phenom II X4 940 with 8 GB of memory and an AMD Radeon HD 6870 graphics card to get a decent frame rate (30 fps) while playing DCS World? This would be either on the ground taxing, taking off, landing, and of course in the air.

[Chameleon_Silk]

hard to say since I dont have phenom II X4, which may not get 30fps on the ground period regardless of settings.

don't have any ground clutter on, max eveything except HDR, antialiasing (put on 2 or 4x) turn off TSAA

leave cockpit shadows on but try different shadows settings from the options. you should be able to use high textures and high visibility but again its something you will have to play around with.

if 1080P seems to chug to much try 720P, if you have a 1920x1080 display then try 1280x720 (but only as a last resort to try and get more frames) if your display is 1920x1200 then try 1280x1024.

[El Jefe]

Here's what I did with an i5 and a 6970 (settings toward the end of the thread). You can try it out and tweak more from my starting point.
http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/342213-33-best-graphics-card-warthog

[El Jefe]

The only other thing I'd say is to turn the mirrors off. If you have a clickable plane, just click on them. I can't remember which key turns them off, you'd have to look that up on your own.

[Chameleon_Silk]

'M' turns em on and off.

also keep in mind depends on the mission, there are missions that i get 70 fps on and there are some that are 30 in flight or worse sitting on the runway.

[kazereal]

Originally posted by Chameleon_Silk:

'M' turns em on and off.

Better check that for each plane. On P-51 that's mixture setting..
Shutting down engine while in dogfight might not be a great move.. ;)

[El Jefe]

Water has a huge impact on FPS. Missions away from water will run smoother than those near water.

[Chameleon_Silk]

who needs mixture anyways :P

perhaps its different key for prop planes, also I think the water thing depends on hardware because missions near water run great for me even with water on high with no real gain from having on medium.

[kazereal]

Originally posted by El Jefe:

Water has a huge impact on FPS. Missions away from water will run smoother than those near water.

Set water to low.
Actually missions near water may run smoother as there's less polygons and more of shader code instead. Depends on your GPU of course.

[kazereal]

Originally posted by Temp TS: 47.55.118.46:

who needs mixture anyways :P

perhaps its different key for prop planes, also I think the water thing depends on hardware because missions near water run great for me even with water on high with no real gain from having on medium.

On P-51 you do ;)

It's not even adjusted in other prop planes in DCS as FW-190D has automatic adjustment of the mixture, but there's MW-50 switch that you might want to bind there..

[El Jefe]

Originally posted by kazereal:

Originally posted by El Jefe:

Water has a huge impact on FPS. Missions away from water will run smoother than those near water.

Set water to low.
Actually missions near water may run smoother as there's less polygons and more of shader code instead. Depends on your GPU of course.

Not quite. From the manual:
WATER
 LOW. Basic water without 3D surface.
 NORMAL. Water has 3D surface and shelf.
 HIGH. Water has 3D surface, shelf and full reflections.

And:
Note: If you wish to increase frame rates, the most import graphics settings to adjust lower are VISB RANGE, WATER, and SHADOWS.

Of course your resolution plays into it greatly as well. I'm running 3840x1024 on a triple monitor setup.

And all of this will change with the release of EDGE. Can't wait!

Additionally, there's an in game FPS counter, one simple, the other verbose. L-Ctrl + Pause will pull up the simple one. Hit it again, and it will go verbose. You can see what part of your scene is taking the longest to render and adjust your settings accordingly.

[Chameleon_Silk]

umm what kaereal said is correct, there are less polygons to render and if your gpu has shaders that are faster then someone elses card you may not get any increase in performance as you lower the setting.

I'm just saying setting things to low doesn't mean it will be faster, for some cards shadows on medium will get same frames as shadows on low etc.

the DCS manual or any automatic setting of options is never optimal, only you the user yourself can know exactly what the strong points and weak points of your computer are.

[kazereal]

Btw, I would really suggest keeping visibility range as high and reducing from other things: anti-aliasing can take a big chunk of performance (depending on card) and so on.

You really need that extra rendering distance in various cases.

For example:
* aligning with carrier deck as early as possible (at least until it's routine)
* dogfights of course (spotting the enemy)
* ground attack on infantry, artillery etc.

That's my suggestion anyway.

[kazereal]

Originally posted by Temp TS: 47.55.118.46:

umm what kaereal said is correct, there are less polygons to render and if your gpu has shaders that are faster then someone elses card you may not get any increase in performance as you lower the setting.

Thanks, that's what I meant :)

[kazereal]

Btw, set clutter/bushes to minimum (0) and trees visibility to minimum (1500) also.
This reduces amount of objects on ground and can reduce stutter.
Preload radius can be at maximum usually, may increase memory usage but helps in caching more area in RAM instead of loading from disc: may need to adjust for your hardware.