Hi,

I currently have an Intel Core 2 Quad 9300 @2,9 Ghz with 6 GB RAM and an ATI 4870 512 MB graphics card. I can play A10C Warthog, but add a few other A10C models nearby and my framerate reduces to like 12 fps.

My question: is my cpu or graphics card the bottleneck? Or - god forbid - both!?

Thanks

Regards,
B.

GPU would be the biggest stumbling block, you have quite an old card and 512Mb is a low amount of vRAM, as soon as you start getting a few high poly 3d models in view you'll have problems. A newer card with 1.5Gb of vRAM or more, would help no end. You don't need a really high end card for DCS, a 560Ti/570 depending on your screen resolution or AMD equivalent will do the job very well.

As far as your CPU, it could be better but it'll do the job. The most important thing for DCS is raw clock speed. Although DCS does run in more than one thread (contrary to popular belief), 1 or 2 of those threads is doing most of the work, so everything else equal, higher clock speed is better than more cores.

Can anyone with a similar system but better gfx-card confirm this?

I may just upgrade my whole computer. Want to be able to play Arma III as well when it comes out. But then again, that isn't until next summer so I might wait a bit. Decisions decisions

I would definitely agree with upgrading your graphics card. That processor would still hold its own with most current games. Upgrade the graphics card.

Edit to add weight to what I'm saying...

I have an i5 2500k processor and it never gets above 50% on DCS A-10 before the graphics card maxes out which is a 5850. Check out these comparisons to note that your 4870 is probably maxing out before your processor because your GPU isn't far behind mine.

CPU

GPU

You could also chart your GPU and CPU usage while gaming and check those afterwards i.e. leaving task manager open on the performance tab would be a help to gauge your cpu usage.

I would think GPU upgrade too. My system has a Q9400@3.2, 8GB and a 5870. I don't have A10 installed, but it's in my Steam list. Might install it and do a run tomorrow, unless someone else does one with a similar system. Does A10 have an internal framerate counter?

What are your in game graphic settings and resolution?

In my experience changing the GPU didn't provide as much gains as I thought it would, went from a HD 4890 to a HD 6950 and FPS did not increase that much, what did change my FPS for the better was changing my hard drive for an SSD

Wow that's really surprising I didn't think that a SSD would make much difference in-game. How much RAM do you have Valleyboy?

He's Welsh, he prefers sheep

Baddum Tish ! hahaha


I have 8 Gb of DDR 2 Sheep :p

I might have some misterious setting I havent figured out yet to unleash some FPS from my card.... I can turn up the eye candy without it hurting FPS, but it hasn't increased as much as I would have liked... must be a bottlekneck on my PC somewhere I havent found yet...

CPU running at 3.7GHz (was at 3.8 but had a crash when I flew into vehicles in DCS A-10, well, a crash crash as in DCS has stopped responding.. set back to 3.7GHz and all is well... o/c'd Phenom 2 965) 8 Gb RAM, 64Gb SSD and a 6950 graphics card... should be smoking along!

1920x1200, everything medium except textures (low) and shadows (low), no HDR lightning, no tree shadows, 512 px mfcd's, 2x AA, no TSSAA. Doesn't matter too much tho, any high poly objects tear my fps down, no matter how low the settings.