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.

Hehehehe very good mate!



Read somewhere that the FPS can't go much beyond 50-60 FPS with all the eye candy no matter what the system because of some poor optimisations.

Try this one out, turn off all your lights when in flight. I saw an increase of 20 FPS! I received a response on the ED forums that this is because one of those 'poor optimisations'.

I noticed that trick on Black Shark, on BS 1 the flashing beacon would cost you 10fps when in use.... so it stayed off at all times!
in BS2 its about 4 FPS that go.


Maybe Im just picky, I do get up to about 60 fps on very rare occasions, but when Im at the airfields on my tod its mid 20's... I was getting mid 20's with my previous card.. so theres a bottleneck on the system somewhere it's running at exact same resolution as before (max res of my monitor is 1680 x 1050) but does look a lot nicer at the moment, even with all the bells and whistles turned off its still very smooth, no jaggies etc...

i5 750 overclocked to 4.1GHz, ATI HD 5770 no OC, 8GB DDR3 RAM, Win7 Home 64-bit.

Non-OC CPU vs OC CPU -- faster loading times and I think a few FPS boost as well, 2-5FPS on my test mission.

I've not tried an OC'ed GPU vs non-OC'ed GPU since I'm happy with my framerates. Funny enough, med settings vs high settings gave me the same FPS so I went with the high settings. Blackbird, even if both your hardware can be replaced, I would advise getting the best GPU you can afford first, and OC your CPU. When you upgrade your CPU (and mobo), the new GPU will just carry over with no problems.

Alright, seems the graphics card wins then. Thanks for the posts.

Let us know how you get on with your new card. Looking forward to hearing what you go for.

For reference, I have a HD 5770 and it runs the game fine. However, go for the best card you can afford. Myself, I am hoping to get a 6950/6970 sometime in the near future.

I tend to take my time and address issues thoroughly so I have ordered a new system, since my current one is 4 years old anyway. So this is what I went for:

Antec P-280 case
Intel Core i7 2600k processor
Corsair Hydro H100 cpu cooler
XFX AMD 7950 3GB Dual Dissipation graphics card
16 GB Corsair 1600 DDR3 ram
Corsair Performance Pro 256 GB ssd
ASUS P8Z68-V PRO/GEN3 Socket 1155 motherboard
Cooler Master 800w Silent Pro Gold power supply

+ my existing displays and other periphals I did not have to replace.

That'll make a decent system for a few years to come, and definitely overkill for DCS A10C or any other game currently on the market

Very nice system!