MSAA is, without question, the biggest performance hit with this sim. I'd been doing without it, thinking I could at least run the thing. The jaggies weren't bad, but they were there. Someone here mentioned that MSAA gave minimal framerate issues, so I started using it. Okay, some stuttering, but not bad, really. But then, I started running bigger missions. When I did that, I had to turn off the MSAA. It was a compromise.
Well, this might be old news. But I thought, "Maybe I'm not the only one not aware of it."
If you have an NVidea card, turn on FSAA. Turn OFF that MSAA in game. I have FSAA on 2X. Make sure you turn on "enhance" in the NVidea card settings. You won't see any AA if you don't. I think that's why I see some people in forums are saying it doesn't work. I know that DCS doesn't have any FSAA to enhance, so that really makes no sense. But, that's the only way it works.
The performance difference is dramatic and it looks every bit as good as MSAA. And more importantly, runs without stutters.