One of the most awaited updates for DCS World is out. Version 2.7 brings new clouds to the sim, which, without any question, adds up to realism a few notches. In more ways than just visual.
The changelog is quite big and, granted, you won’t find any big helicopter-related entries there. And the ones we do find are all cloud and weather related, though.
The obvious star of the update is the clouds and the new weather system and with good reason.
Fly into the clouds and you will feel it. The air feels different. You’ll notice the turbulence, and everything gets more alive. The world doesn’t just look better, it feels better.
Framerate impact and VR
One of the main concerns everyone has is, obviously framerate. Especially in VR, where we can get nauseous if our VR doesn’t stay up there and stable.
While not using VR, I actually noticed an increase in FPS, even with overcast weather and clouds set on ultra. Strolling around Syria, on a custom-made, no AI mission (and, again, no VR), I was getting numbers close to 120FPS, with around 90 being the minimum.
I got the same numbers on the Persian Gulf, with the Huey, although as I flew closer to the center of Dubai, I saw some drops to around 70FPS.
Enter VR and things get a bit uglier.
I couldn’t come up from 30FPS and it was usually a bit lower than that, keeping itself at some 28FPS pretty constantly but with a few jitters.
I tried to reduce the clouds quality to high and, honesty, couldn’t see any different in the way the clouds look. But I gained some FPS, stability and no jitters. The framerate counter glued itself to 30FPS (with the occasional 31-33) and the experience was pretty good, even when using the overcast + rain preset!
Of course, your experience may vary. I do have a beefy computer, although I am still using an HTC Vive, so my VR headset is not really demanding too much (if you can call it that) from my computer. If you have a medium range rig, you may need to tweak some settings.
I am leaving mine below. Just remember that I did manage to get better results with lower quality clouds. In the screenshot below, you’ll notice could quality is set at Ultra. Setting to high did give me better performance results and I couldn’t notice any major negative image impact.
Edit: a couple of readers asked me about my computer specs. Here it is: NVidia GeForce RTX3080, Intel i9 10900, 32GB of RAM.
Well done, Eagle Dynamics. Well done.
