DCS 2.7 | Side-by-Side Comparison of EVERY Graphics Option [BENCHMARKS + VISUALS]

[@JD96893]

i wish i'd found this video ages ago, i stopped playing DCS awhile back because i was so fed up with performance. After watching your video(and messing around in DCS for an hour) I was finally able to get some decent performance! I also discovered how badly Marianas runs compared to Persian gulf!(like 2x performance). Quick tip, if your on a low end card(like a RX570 4GB) the actual textures dont make much difference(maybe 2/3 fps low vs high on both!), going from 2xmsaa to off made a huge difference. Visible range is another big one.

[@RKDriver]

I noticed that to on Marianas. Very choppy flying over the islands even above say 1000' but the other maps are smooth on the same settings. Didn't seem to matter whether there were a lot of objects to display or not.

[@JD96893]

@@RKDriver you just have to keep testing settings, there have also been some recent improvements to performance! I have noticed that between multiplayer and solo there is less difference in fps. Marianas however will not run on certain hardware. Like an RX570 for example(thankfully i have since upgraded to a 6700XT and am very happy with it). I think Marianas simple requires more Vram than other maps, but i could be wrong. My RX570 had only 4gb, my new gpu has 16gb.

[@vedrancolak3890]

I noticed that your CPU sometimes goes as high as 90%, I run i5 10700K and I never got it over 20%, it's usually hanging at 17% most of the time. Perhaps I could squeeze more juice if my CPU would compute more? What do you think?

[@alloutlife88]

Certified gigachad, finally a video that shows the differences. Huge thumbs up

[@daciandraco6462]

@Ramy Omar Giga, bandits on your six! Giga!!! Works for me. None of that "Goose" and "Maverick" nonsense :/

[@Pokri-eg9ud]

Oh boy, you have just outdone yourself. This is truly invaluable content, you answer many long unattended questions for this niche community. Thank you very very much. Keep up such great work.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Glad you enjoyed it! I was looking for these answers myself since DCS 1.2! Something had to be done. It's not perfect, not scientific at all, but I hope it will help. 😎

[@giantrob5390]

This is THE BEST video for DCS players seeking graphics quality versus performance "hit" that I have had the pleasure to find on the internet. Thank you for your hard work! I will be sharing this video with everyone I know that plays any PC game with hardware limitations.

[@RicCrouch]

1:56 “Martha, why is there a Harrier parked on that rooftop?” “Shut up and drive, Fred!”

[@CommanderSteinsch]

LOL!

[@FlavorfulGaming]

He's checking his fps Fred, duh.

[@RicCrouch]

@@FlavorfulGaming “That perv ain’t supposed to be doin’ that in PUBLIC!!!”

Holly shit dude, you are really giving useful information. Thank you for your work.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

I appreciate it, Elias.

[@terega-nui]

Thank you for providing what I needed but was too lazy to do 😅

[@CommanderSteinsch]

You’re welcome 😊

[@lukasplsko]

U came to my recommended quite couple of times during the last days and u finally convinced me to sub.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

And thanks for the sub!

[@MrTone71]

Same. Appreciate the time and effort.

[@sevencoloredmage8726]

Smoke density does not change how dense smoke itself is. It rather controls how many chimneys will put out smoke when looking over the landscape. Thank you for the helpful video! Seeing the differences in visual quality makes it easier to find nice settings for oneself.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Ok, thanks. I had considered this, so I flew around Sochi and noticed no difference in the number of visible smokes around. I'll check again.

[@ralfidude]

Hey bud, good job on going through all that, well done!

[@BatLunette]

To notice cockpit global illumination you have to fly close to water, or fiels, or desert and play around with plane orientation. Also transitioning from one zone to another changes color of cockpit illumination. It also changes depending on a time of day. Load up early in the morning and take screenshots every 2-10 minutes, you will see a difference while sun is rising.

[@BrownBearSimulation]

Nice job man! Appreciate the amount of work that goes into this as I am currently doing this test and compiling results for VR users. Stay tuned for the video if you are a VR user!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Yes, I would love to see VR results!

[@BrownBearSimulation]

@@CommanderSteinsch VR results are up: kzbin.info/www/bejne/baPNd5-LfdWFiMk

[@CommanderSteinsch]

@@BrownBearSimulation Thanks for sharing !

[@jcrewz9300]

Thank you for doing this video. This was EXACTLY what I was looking for to see how much of a difference the settings would make and which ones I could I use and not use to get the game experience I'm wanting without having to purchase an even more powerful gaming computer than I've already bought. Perfect video. Thanks again.

[@tijmenvn]

Awesome video! Even for finetuning in DCS 2.9 this has been very useful! I hope you make an updated version for 2.9 soon! As a few important things have been added since. Like SSS, DLSS, DLAA. Also interesting to see what the ~average FPS hits are now when using the MT version of DCS

[@johndouglas1343]

Nicely done - thank you for putting this together and providing some useful commentary about what each setting does and doesn't affect. I learned a lot from this - very helpful.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Thank you. Hopefully more people will be able to tweak their DCS for a better experience!

[@Sirmellowman]

dude. amazing. this is SUCH a help!!!!

[@OfficialUSKRprogram]

You used the classic DCS intro song, I love you

[@stuartjames7820]

Brilliant video thanks. I keep my card pegged at 60FPS as I have TrackIR and dual screens for MFD export. This video has really helped me get the best settings whilst keeping 60FPS. Things like dropping tree quality and visib distance from their max has quite a perf benefit for no real drop in immersion.

[@bryanp2780]

Damn dude, thanks for all the work you poured into this, awesome information!

[@krostouin]

Now apply it to your rig, notice the result difference, and say welcome to the PC world.

[@bryanp2780]

@@krostouin definitely not new to the pc world

[@talbotmcinnis]

This was super well done. Wish I had this years ago!! Keep it up!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Thanks so much!

[@MrPhantom453]

A lot of work there brother, but worth it's weight in gold. Highly informative and as they say, "A picture paints a 1,000 words!" Well done sir and thanks for sharing. P.S. with that sort of effort you earned an easy sub!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Thanks for warm words!

[@kondor99999]

Extremely helpful. Thank you from all of us who constantly tinker with every possible permutation of settings. This saved me a lot of time!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

You're very welcome!

[@tomhunter9873]

Since my PC is below minimum required specs for DCS, running the game some what smoothly, but still making it enjoyable to watch has been a fight I have been having for about 3 years. This video really helped me by seeing the differences. Thank you good sir and I wish to see more helpful content

[@CommanderSteinsch]

I hope you'll be able to join us in the skies soon!

[@kpdelaney6460]

those clouds are incredible! Even on low they look photorealistic

[@straywolf77]

Awesome video dude. Thanks for your efforts. Very interesting results and it makes me think that there are some graphical settings that are best suited for choppers and maybe Combined Armed type play, i.e., close to the ground and/or slower moving aircraft. I play 100% in VR and there are some settings that are 100% worthless under VR since the eye candy is, by default, much less. Your video confirmed it for me and I can adjust accordingly to squeeze out those extra FPS.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Absolutely. The custom preset feature is a godsend to quickly switch settings profiles according to our various needs. Enjoy!

[@4TEXbmsX]

Thanks for the comparison! Great work.

[@marksainsbury2422]

Dude! That is a fantastic bit of effort and comparison. Massively valuable. I'm on a 2070, but otherwise we're quite similar. I'm playing with what I want, and your vid has allowed me to see what I might expect if I do X or Y or Z and I'm a little better informed about what I might be able to just bump right up for no FPS impact, and what I need to be more choosy about. Just brilliant. I had some items low because I thought they would have a large effect, and I've now bumped them right up, and I had other things high (just because) when I now see they might impact FPS a lot, while not really adding much to what I think is important. Wow! Thanks for this great reference!

[@vitorarbex]

Great Video, allowed me to turn on some eyecandy that did not had almost no performance hit on my machine, Thank you.

[@TheGreatRepeller]

Im not so much about framerate numbers as I am about smoothness. Many time during this presentation the frame rate seems to stutter really badly yet your framerate remains unchanged. It is a youtube thing perhaps? This was over all extremely helpful, thanks mate! I was able to turn down some stuff (clouds, water, cockpit lighting and AF) and not notice much if any negative difference in visuals yet still got a lot more frames.

[@blackcatactual]

Interesting how you did the shots and captured everything. Another point of interest might be testing how graphics settings affect the ability to spot planes or ground objects like tanks.

[@herveledref636]

Thank you for this excellent tutorial which allowed me to significantly improve my settings and the quality of my displays without almost any impact on my FPS - Bravo

[@dallas88b]

Excellent, thank you, a terrific resource you created here... lots of work by you and most appreciated.

[@brittoncooke1890]

That was clearly a lot of work. I definitely found a few surprises in there. You don't own enough modules...

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Haha, yes it was a bit tedious to do. But the things we do for love!

[@aarnoman1088]

Well done, truly useful resource that is well laid out, to the point, and full of information. Thank you for your hard work!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Much appreciated!

[@user-HAX777]

Спасибо!!! Отличная работа!! Бравооо!!!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Пожалуйста!

[@ebubekircagrsen7824]

Just wow. This is a damn hardwork.

[@fubarace1027]

Very useful video! Good stuff, thanks for doing it! PS, I know what SSAO brings to the game, 5 less FPS!!!

[@Name-ps9fx]

Thank you for making this! Now we can compile a list of all settings, their effect on FPS, as well as seeing how each setting makes a visual difference. I saw several that were the same _or better_ at a lower setting.

[@darrenburdick2058]

Great job on this video. I have been wanting something like this for a long time.

[@Aflecow]

I have my sharpening set to MSAA 4X and SSAA 1.5X yet when I zoom out the aircraft still looks a little pixelated, I have a 1920x1200 monitor (1080p), could it be that?

[@Sergplayz]

anti aliasing isnt perfect, gaming graphics arn't perfect, sorry for late reply

[@palomer_27]

I just found this video at 2am hoping to improve my horrible sub-30 FPS at low altitudes tomorrow, and I really think this is gonna help, thanks for the great content dude

[@rg6569]

THANK-YOU, this is BY FAR THE BEST comparison I have ever seen online. I owned my OWN animation company in the '90s so I know this sh*t. You have to KNOW what your playing with and how to get the best of what you own. Congrats again on a FANTASTIC side/side comparison!!!......P.S. Microsoft STOLE EVERYTHING from Commodore Amiga operating systems!!!!! Prove me wrong!!!

[@Valherak]

What we never ask for, but we all needed ! Merci beaucoup !

[@CommanderSteinsch]

C'était avec plaisir !

[@elmadjliss9361]

Nice work Steinch ,really needed it !.....maybe sometime on Vr could be cool, thanks again!

[@MrPhantom453]

Would be nice, but this is a tonne of work and you'd have to do it over for each type of headset I would think. Now if he wants to kick off with the Rift S, I'm happy with that!! 😉

[@homersrevenge3691]

Brilliant and a hell of a lot of work to make that video. 👍 Thank you for all your hard effort.

[@Dany182_Gaming]

Wow big thank you! Just what I needed. You earned my sub!

[@acdcdave1387]

FYI, the biggest difference not shown in this video about the Water setting is that only on 'HIGH' will the water have reflections. This is crucial for immersion because when flying over a small lake near mountains or hills, the 'HIGH' setting will show the reflections of those mountains and hills etc, off the surface of the water. Anything lower than that setting seems to avoid reflections and kills the immersion for me. I definitely recommend the 'HIGH' setting for Water ;)

[@acdcdave1387]

@@ARSAMES007 I don't really know how else to say it, anything lower than HIGH appears to have no reflections on the water so if there's a massive hill or mountain nearby, you won't see it reflected on the water. Just looks silly and unrealistic. So I highly recommend water set to HIGH to avoid that

[@jeromez.2672]

great, your vid helped me a lot understanding the settings. Got some serious frame issues ending in crashing the game on Syria (Cyprus RAF Akrotiri).

[@mdu2112]

Thanks for the tests. I think chimney smoke density is the percentage of active chimneys not the density of the smoke itself.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

You are correct

[@dannyboy5775]

Excellent comparison video. Just what we all needed. Cheers.

[@Crunch104]

SSAO, check out some of the tall buildings in Dubai and you will notice the lighting differences. great work on this vid! Thanks.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Will check, thanks!

[@mad_magz]

Great video thank you! FYI I just realised Cockpit Resolution only updates when you exit to desktop and start the game back up, in case anyone else wonders why the setting does nothing.

[@larata1646]

Super...lot of time to do this...very useful...thanks...

[@yort92-gaming]

This is great! Good to know some of them seemed to change with the update. Playing with the settings can be tedious but worth it - this will definitely help me out!

[@jeeveseventynine9263]

thanks for this, very useful info and saves up a lot of time figuring out how to setup graphics.

[@f0nik]

I've spent like 5 hours performance tuning DCS to work with my Quest 2 and a laptop with an RTX 2060, and this video helped me get like ~5fps more for a better looking game in 10 minutes.

[@MrPopcup]

Can you give me your settings please? how much fps on average do you get? I have a Y540 with 90W RTX 2060 and I just bought Rift S, thank you in advance and happy flying!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Base settings at the beginning of the video I believe

[@Sergplayz]

this guys the gigachad we all needed but didn't deserve

[@VFS23_Silver_Knights_Xoxen]

Many thanks for the effort, very helpful and eye opening at some points.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Glad it was helpful!

[@patientmental875]

Thanks for this my game is running better than ever with no visual loss!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

I'm super glad it helped!

[@oprect1887]

This thumbnail lmao, love it

[@wilbuzllf5057]

Beautiful work and comparison! I was gonna do something like this my self but found this so no need and no way I could reach your quality of work either. I just bought a Radeon 6900xt and after being able to pretty much max everything including MSAA x4 and SLAA x2 I was still sometimes reaching the mid 30s FPS. I’ll do some more experimenting between the two to find the sweet spot. MSAA and SLAAcompletely off makes a huge difference in visuals as well as FPS but some AA is clearly worth sacrificing for the reflections we didn’t know we wanted. Thanks again!

[@ysasmendi]

When can we expect a 2.8 MT update to this magnificent guide?

[@fullspeedfly1370]

Thank you for your service!

[@krzysztofgawe1089]

thank you for patience and precise work.

[@imZeroedIn]

This is the video I needed thanks for the effort you put into this it has helped me alot!

[@bradule1980]

Huge thanks my pylote brother

[@thechumpenify]

Really good video, must have taken a fair bit of time to put together so thank you.

[@GuitarooMan93]

wow such an amazing video, thanks that was really helpful ! Exactly what I was looking for ..

[@pyroscot]

Very well put together mate very well presented many thanks. I just have everything on max except SSAO and SSLR. Run it in 4k on my EVGA 3090 FTW3 ULTRA Gaming 24gb card 😎

[@JayDKBGames]

Excellent video I'll definitely share it in my group as well as play with the settings. Just got a 3080ti that Im trying to get the best FPS and graphics out of this definitely will help.

[@kon1351]

Fantastic work . WOW. !

[@geonerd]

Excellent! Thank you.

[@skyraven6284]

* Salute * Very well done and informative, thanks!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@Passajero]

"The quantum computer we need to play at max settings is not available to us yet".............what a comment....so true.......30 years ago we were playing with a Spectrum ZX and Amstrads 464 with green/monochrome monitors Arkanoid with blocky monolithic graphics and today we have the pleasure to choose between ambient occlusion and droplets on the glassy bubble canopy and still complain........come on.....Enjoy the magic of present tech even if you make out of it 30fps......its still magic......long way since back then.....:-)))) Great work buddy....actually Excellent!!! Well done for yr time and effort but above all for sharing it with us all. Fly safe from Athens Greece 😅😅😅

[@luizengrazia5169]

Wow...awesome vid, man! Thx a lot!

[@captainhepp1980]

Really, genuinely useful. Thank you!

[@fredericchen6380]

Thank you very much for your hard work. Very useful informations.

[@DCSWORLDPAK]

Excellent job! A service to the DCS community!

[@b0bl00i]

Great job pal! Much appreciated.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Any time!

[@Power5]

Amazing comparison. If my math is correct, I can use all the highest settings and my game will be going in reverse. This could really help me.

[@simonhouel1984]

Nice work ! Cheminey density is not the density of the smoke, it's the ''percentage'' (or proportion if you like) of chemineys that will be smoking.

[@King2Stone]

You're content is extremely useful, and entertaining, keep it up. I wish they would overhaul the Huey in due time, quite a dated module at this point.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Yes, buy she still feels great. A real helicopter from a by gone era!

[@King2Stone]

@@CommanderSteinsch For sure, the flight model is excellent.

[@narges78]

Cant get any better .. bless u m8

[@JulienMR]

Amazing work, thank you so much!!!

[@Drutten35]

very good and instructive... Thanks for a great vid i learned a lot

[@saladinohpc]

Dude, excelent video! Congrats!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Thanks a ton!

[@triggerdcs]

o x56 é preciso compre agora !

[@Rundumsfliegen]

This Video is just what i needed, thank you a Lot!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Glad to hear that!

[@Ryzler13]

Ambient occlusion is the light reflection off other surfaces. So you get tunnels and overhangs which are lit by light bouncing off other surfaces below them and not just global light sources.

[@The_Original_Brad_Miller]

Thank you! Very well done!

[@rcaddict72]

brilliant video. these things are at the core of a gamer's life. can u make the exact video with ultra versus off?..i found that these comparisons are subtle in between grades and more obvious difference s would be noticeable between the extremes side by side..

[@Jimmybrianmike]

Thank you for the great video. Amazing now i know what i need and whatnot

[@damcopter]

Thank you very much! Very useful video.

[@Nonor30]

Great Video, thanks a lot! :D Soo I'll desable the Depth of Field (I actually mind it when I want to watch stuffs in sceneries) and also the Motion Blur that doesn't look necessary in my opinion ; both are very FPS killer and now I know it thanks to you ;)

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Enjoy a faster dcs!

[@Nonor30]

@@CommanderSteinsch I will yes thanks :)

[@Nonor30]

Just a question pls : which software do you use to display FPS, CPU, GPU usage?

[@CommanderSteinsch]

@@Nonor30 MSI afterburner

[@Nonor30]

@@CommanderSteinsch OK, thank you!

[@redcamarada]

best video ever, you made my day

[@spencerwarren9219]

Killer video thanks

[@superdude4402]

This is very helpful, thanks!

[@pancakeoperator]

Freaking amazing video man, thank you

[@richwhilecooper]

Superb video. Well done.

[@BIGNEWY]

thanks for sharing.

[@CommanderSteinsch]

My pleasure!

[@ConvexRook]

early adopters? VR is over 4 years old get on board!! Great job need less to say. Appreciated!!!!

[@CommanderSteinsch]

Thanks! Regarding VR, I played Wolfenstein 3D with a "VR" headset in 1994. Ha! Still ain't mainstream, but getting there! And yeah, I plan to be part of the early adopters soon 😁