Hi guys,

So I've upgraded from a GTX 760 to 1080.

Can anyone recommend or point me to a thread with recommended settings both NVIDIA settings and in-game settings for a 1080 to get me started...? I'm not using VR...

System:
AOC 27inch Gaming Monitor, 1920x1080, 1ms GtG, 144Hz, 80M:1 DCR
GIGABYTE GA-Z97X-Gaming
Intel Core i7 4790K
GIGABYTE GeForce GTX1080
Kingston 16GB (2x8GB), PC3-15000 (1866MHz) DDR3, HyperX Fury Black
Samsung 1TB SSD, 840 EVO Series
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium

I run an i5-2500 with a 1060, and I can run 1.5 on high with trees at 9000 and grass at max and get 45-60fps over land (60+ over water). You would probably have no problem maxing those sliders. DCS 2 isn't quite as smooth with the same settings, but that is also likely due to my processor and the increased object count.

A couple things that you should definitely do though:
1) Uncheck VSYNC. Otherwise you may be locked in at 30fps over land and 60 over water.
2) Deselect Depth of Field. This is a frame killer and is only useful for cool screenshots.

Cool, thanks, will try that tonight. What about settings in the Nvidia panel anyone have any suggestions?

Nothing apart from usual stuff like forcing single screen mode and turning on max performance in "energy management", but coming from another NVidia card, you already know that. V-Sync as per personal preferences. Generally, in-game settings will have more noticeable impact on performance. Are we talking about DCS 1.5.7 or 2.1.1. anyway?

Thanks for the tips so far.. Art_J both 1.5.7 and 2.1..

I've posted some screenshots, and my settings below... I think it looks ok, and I think the fps are ok too although this was just the stock F-15 cold start at Nellis mission..

Couple more questions:
1. In DCS settings should I change the Res of cockpit displays?
2. Should I change the Texture filtering negative LOD bias or the Maximum pre-rendered frames in Nvidia panel?
3. Has the F-15 HUD changed? ie did it use to be clearer/crisper text? And what is that bright dot in the middle?

I don't own any modern planes in DCS, so can't comment on HUDs (apart from the fact that apparently people have various issues with them). I would expect bluriness to be caused by FXAA, but looks like you've got it turned off, so I don't know what the source of the problem is.

As for the in-game settings, I've got GTX1070 and after standard routine of deleting options.lua and shaders folders after every update, I always begin with default "high" preset and go from there. I guess you do the same, though with 1080 you can crank options further than me. Many would say your GTX1080 is an overkill for a single 1080p monitor, but I'd say with current meh optimization of DCS 2.1.1., there is no such thing as a hardware "overkill". Personally I turn in-game MSAA completely off, 'cause: a) with deferred shading on it's a new framerate murderer in DCS, though you might not feel it; b) it also causes in-cockpit PBR to go haywire with colours and shadows for some reason. With it off, the cockpit colours and shadows are not perfect, but much more natural. Enabling AA via Nvidia drivers doesn't work with deferred shading by definition (only exception being FXAA), so it doesn't matter how you set it in NVidia ctrl panel, as it won't engage anyway. Personally, to maintain any anti-aliasing, I inject FXAA and SMAA externally using ReShade, which yields greater performance at a cost of blurry fonts and slightly shimmering buildings. So it's always a compromise. I also experiment with lowering, or turning Aniso filtering off as well, because even though it doesn't impact fps almost at all, some say 16x might increase the damn stuttering and that indeed seemed to be the case on my card.

Increasing resolution of cockpit display affects only the planes, which have any TV cockpit displays, so you will know if you need it.

By the way, how can you fly with default gamma 2.2? Isn't everything a bit too washed out for you? Most people use lower settings, I cranked it down to 1.5.