I though id put down a little (ok a long) summary of my journey with DCS since the start of 2016. In a way its an exercise for me to perhaps understand why a game I grew to hate has once again found a (not inconsiderable) space on my hard drive.
In the past i havent really held back in my critisism or frustrations about DCS. I once called it a money pit and I still stand by my view that the cry "its an alpha" has become the "two weeks be sure" once given to Clod.
In Early 2016 I downloaded DCS. Having played about in the SU25T for a day I found my poor little rig (then using as 750TI GPU) could run the game pretty well in its 1.5 version. I had no idea what any buttons did or what Bitching Olga was getting so excited about but it played smoothly so i dowloaded the NTTR (Nevada map) and bought the Huey......and here the woes started.
Whilst the NTTR map worked well (as a desert should) even in V2.0 "its an alpha" form, the overall impression was....hmmm. The suburbs of Vegas looked great. Moving cars and trucks and trains added to the immersion. But the Vegas strip? Now ive never been there but i have seen U2s "Still Havent Found What Im Looking For" enough times to know its like Blackpool but dryer.. In the NTTR map Vegas just about achieves a Formby in November. There are no show lights, no pazzaz. Yes its a flight sim but Vegas is Vegas. And its still like Formby even now.
But all this was irrellevent since the Huey had a mind of its own and I couldnt get there anyhow.. Apparently the FFB was broken and had been for 3 months prior. In 2.0 and 1.5. This made the machine un-flyable for an FFB user like me.. So having just paid £45 for it i was a bit pissed at Belsimtek and ED for not even bothering to tell anyone about this kinda fundamental problem on the purchase page. Another red cross in box and the game sat unloved for serveral months.
A Better GPU (slightly) and the clamour and hype surrounding the Normandy map saw me get my wallet out once again. The Huey was now fixed enough for me to discover that I'm a really bad helo jockey but whilst the (still unfinished) 109 was great and P51 enough, Normady was a disaster for me. With any form of decent grphics its was a slide show. Moreover the use of generic DCS iron bridges, missing towns and the lack of important landmarks such as Pegasus Bridge made mockery of the claims that the map was "the most accurate representation of Normady 1944 to date" . Britain was apparently modelled on a Neolithic era map and is devoid of anything but in fairness this was never said to be any different. All of this was nothing compared to the Spitfire.
I dont get the hype about this thing. It looks nice and may even behave like the real thing but damn that cockpit is ugly. I know many like it but, to me and even with all the fancy lighting bells and whistles, it still looks flat and cartoon like. Clod pits knock the thing into a cocked hat IMO. And even now "its an Alpha" -after how many years? As for GA - forget it - sticky bombs that you couldnt set the fuses on.......and lets not talk about the DM.
Red Crosses all over the place then and the game was banaished from my PC to make room for Zombie Killing and Assassination FPS games various.
For a month.
Amazingly the 2.5 Openbeta (well at least its not a Alpha) arrived in January as promised. Having literally nothing to do for 8 hours, i downloaded it. Before doing the same with any modules a quick flight in the SU25T around the Caucuses seemed to go well and the improved grphics, whilst not earth shattering, were more than good enough to my eye. NNTR and Normany downloaded still proved that my rig wouldnt handle Normandy but the margins were less so there is hope (and its a 1060 so i kind of expected it). The Spitfire still looked ugly and flat from the cockpit.
But still - the the NTTR and Caususes map worked. And looked good. hmmmm.
Working on the common wisdom that DCS is fer yer Jets and putting aside the insipid experience of the original Lock On from the early 2000s - i bit the bullet. I wasnt convinced eoungh to pay $70 for something fast but equally it didnt want to have my viewws tainted by some ported product from LOMAC. The F5 always struck me as something designed by Gerry Anderson. the F86 and Mig 15 have no real environment or campaigns of note and the Albatross or CF101 had no appeal. As for the he Hawk - some due diligence revealed its FUBAR'd at present.
Not that any of this mattered because there is an aircraft that perfectly suits a WW2 sim player in terms of its speed. It also has the one thing a WW2 values most of all. A bloody big gun. At $40 the A10C fitted the bill perfectly and it has some DLC nice training campigns too.
This has proved to be a great buy!! - I am absolutley enamoured with it especially since the "study sim" aspect suits my currently self enforced absence from MP. Like a guitar its easy to learn the basics but hard to master. This keeps me coming back. The campaigns however where a shock - these are no hand held walk throughts and whilst there are lessons and tutorials you still need to read the 700 page A10C manual in chunks and find your sources from the many user guides (Chucks being the premiere one here). And you need to practice. Those manouvers need to be spot on for your virtual instructor to pass you.
Its a blast though. And the 3rd party user content like the OVGME program for managing mods or the Custom kneeboard builder add to the fun.
For a newby on the A10C there is even more good news in the shape of Baltic Dragons upcomming basic tutorial campaign.
Performance wise (see the sig for the rig) at 1080P or my newly favoured 1680 x 1050 PC res, it runs well with decent settings and is able to use both the deferred shading and MSAA at X2. There are bugs, the maverick MFD eats frames and can cause stutter, some sytems are reported a little wonky and the deferred shading doesnt work well at night. MSAA also eats frames. For the MP tough there does seem to be a lot of issues with menory leaks but this is being looked at. But its an Open Beta. And for an open beta its look pretty sharp.
The other thing is the potential cost. The A10 is a modern jet. It likes buttons - it LURVS HOTAS. Fortunatley I have a TM warthog Throttle so half the battle is won. My sidwinbder however falls short, forcing me to use some keyboard command for stuff that i use a lot (you are constantly accessing the Data, Counter measures and Target managments systems - all of which ideally need a 4 way switch on the stick) - its not unusable - far from it - but it does give one GAS (Gear Acquirement Syndrome) - so buyer beware and have your excuses for your spouse ready!! And remember I have the throttle - and that goes a long way - without it I think it would be problematic to get the best out of it.
Then there is disc space - download the maps and few modules and you've kissed goodbyre to 100GB of disc space. This said modules are easy to manage and swap in and out (provided you are happy to put up with EDs awfully slow download speeds).
Currently i would say my I5 and 1060 is at the "just about playable with enjoyment" end of the scale. So again players cruising in there with Pentium 2s and Voodoo Rage 3D cards may have a shock. Fortunately you can try the map and some basic aircraft types for free to test.
So in summary:
Im really glad i gave DCS another go with the jets. I let my early disappointments and the whole WW2 thing colour my views of the sim as a whole.
I do think its best suited for modern Jet simming at present but, if you go this route, the depth and scope of what you can get out of it and its active community of mission bulders, app makers and skinners is incredible.
The WW2 stuff is still the least attractive thing in DCS for me and the attention really does seem to be on the F18 and the Hormuz map. I wouldnt go DCS for WW2 at this point in time. Not because its especially bad (with the right rig) but because Clod and BOS just do it better in terms of overall content and "designed from the outset for WW2 " game engines. But thats a very personal thing and DCS will always have the "Study sim" thing those those who just want to get to really undertand an aircraft.
The Warthog is a BEAST! Buck for hour of entertainint its alreadly paid for itself 3 times over during the past month. An i aint even dropped a bomb yet!
So there we go - if nothing else i hope this goes some way to redressing my previous negativity towards DCS in thisforum and perhpas is some use to those of you thinking about dipping a toe.
S!
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