As a troubleshooting step, remove all mods from your DCS installation. (Kneeboard pages are OK. Sound mods, modded aircraft and other assets should be removed. In some rare cases even liveries have caused crashes, such as if a module’s 3D model or textures were updated and an old livery was installed.)

Launching DCS through SteamVR runs the game use the older OpenVR API rather than directly using the OpenXR API. This causes a significant performance hit (though the exact amount may vary by system).

In most cases, you should install the latest drivers for your GPU. In some cases a new driver may have a performance issue for VR and you may need to install an older version.

The only reliable brand we’ve found is StarTech. While they are expensive, they are the gold standard for commercial systems. We particularly recommend this 4 port card, which has 5Gbps of bandwidth per port rather than sharing a single channel across all ports. You can then attach a hub to each of the ports to share the bandwidth across physical devices as required.

Rename the Saved Games folder to %userprofile%/Saved Games/DCS.backup, then launch DCS. It will reset all of your settings including graphics settings, controls, player profiles, etc. to default. If this fixes your crash, you can then copy the files from the backup back into the Saved Games folder a piece at a time (or reconfigure the game from scratch).

Real-time antivirus scans can reduce performance for programs that need to read many files from disk during runtime. You can disable real-time scans of files that DCS accesses while DCS is open. The files will still be scanned by regular scheduled scans when DCS is not running.

DarkField Denver

FSR also causes visual artifacts, such as ghosting/blurring on moving options and when switching MFD pages.Your mileage may vary based on your headset and vision.

Disable Hardware Accelerated GPU Scheduling in Windows settings. It increases input latency and stutter, especially on mid to high end systems when using VR.

Every time that DCS World is updated, your graphics driver is updated, or you change your graphics card, you should delete the following directories in your Saved Games folder:

Certain SSDs have reduced write performance when close to full because the size of dynamic SLC cache decreases on a full drive. Depending on the model of SSD, you should keep free space at around 25%. This number may change depending on if the SSD is overprovisioned or has DRAM cache.

Darkfield experience

This can hugely reduce the number of pixels needed to render, improving performance. However, in a combat flight simulator it can also cause problems tracking small, fast moving objects outside of the focus area, such as a dogfight opponent, tracer fire, or the lights on the carrier during a night trap. It may require some tuning and user preference. Results may vary depending on the specific headset and the user’s vision and preferences. If your system is CPU bottlenecked, this might decrease your performance overall.

You need to select a PSU based on results from bench testing by knowledgeable people with the appropriate equipment. Check any power supply you plan to purchase against the Cultist Tier List (see spreadsheet for newer data not yet on the website), as well as LTT Labs’ PSU testing testing. Only buy if it is Tier B on the Cultist list and/or recommended by LTT Labs.

Ensure that the following options are enabled in DCS’s VR settings as well. These checkboxes only appear if Quad Views Rendering is installed and DCS is launched with VR enabled.

Note: If you are using a Meta Quest Pro, you’ll need to install OpenXR Eye Trackers to enable eye tracking on PC. You will probably need a verified Developer account.

If your institution subscribes to this resource, and you don't have an Access Profile, please contact your library's reference desk for information on how to gain access to this resource from off-campus.

Very large kneeboard pages can cause a performance impact. Use image editing software to scale your kneeboard pages down to the resolution of your display. OpenKneeboard’s guide to sizing has useful tips for both VR and 2D.

You should lock your headset to the lowest refresh rate that you can use comfortably. This helps reduce the visual impact of stuttering. I personally find a refresh rate of 72Hz to work best for me, but if you are impacted by VR sickness or motion sickness, you may need a higher setting such as 90Hz.

If you must use Steam, launch the game normally through the desktop client with VR enabled in DCS settings, rather than through SteamVR.

While playing the game, press RCtrl + Pause to open a frame rate counter widget. You can use this to check your current framerate and whether you are currently CPU bound or GPU bound. You can use this to measure the performance impact of settings and tweaks.

Asynchronous Space Warp (ASW) is a technology that improves perceived smoothness in VR, at the tradeoff of locking the framerate to an integer divisor of the headset’s refresh rate. This feature is great if you can maintain your headset’s refresh rate. However, if your framerate dips below the refresh rate even slightly, it will immediately drop to 1/2 the refresh rate. It can also cause judder when using helmet-mounted displays.

Darkfield illumination

Every so often, delete Track files from your Saved Games folder to free up disk space. You can find .trk files in Tracks\Multiplayer.

An SSD is absolutely essential. When installed on a spinning disk, DCS can take over 20 minutes to load into a mission and may crash during loading or during gameplay.

When purchasing RAM, match the frequency and timings of the RAM to the CPU manufacturer’s recommendation. The recommendation may vary by specifc CPU and motherboard. AMD provides a table of their test results with overclocked memory here. On Intel systems, you are generally limited by the motherboard. Check with the manufacturer of the RAM, as some provide tables on their websites for selecting an appropriate kit. Do not buy a higher frequency of RAM than recommended for your configuration because it may be unstable in combination with your CPU.

Disclaimer: These citations have been automatically generated based on the information we have and it may not be 100% accurate. Please consult the latest official manual style if you have any questions regarding the format accuracy.

Note that if you choose to use both Quad Views Rendering and OpenXR Toolkit together, you should set settings like Turbo Mode and foveated rendering/render scale in QuadViewsCompanion and leave them at the default setting in OpenXR Toolkit.

Virtual Desktop is a third-party VR streaming application. Although its primary use case is for displaying 2D content in VR, it also provides advanced options for improved stream quality for VR content. In my testing with Meta Quest devices, I was able to see a higher level of clarity using Virtual Desktop compared to Meta Quest Link. Your experience may vary depending on your hardware, especially your network bandwidth and wireless access points.

Some USB devices such as HOTASes may exhibit jitter or other issues when connected directly to a computer’s USB power. This is especially a problem with the Saitek/Logitech X52, X55 and X56. In many cases, this can be resolved using a powered USB hub. I’ve personally found powered USB hubs from SABRENT to be good quality for the price. Some of these hubs also have individual switches for each port, which is handy for quickly disconnecting your flight sim devices to play other games where those devices cause problems (looking at you, Elden Ring).

USB selective suspend is a feature intended to reduce electricity usage by powering down idle devices. This can cause problems for flight simulators, such as disconnecting your peripherals during a long cruise, or in some cases, causing devices like head trackers to stop working after a few minutes of use.

Compound microscope with dark-field condenser (dark-field microscope), glass microscope slide, coverslip, and physiologic saline.

You should ideally use two sticks of RAM and not four sticks. Most systems have lower performance with four sticks due to motherboard and CPU bandwidth limits. If you use overclocked RAM, you are more likely to have stability issues with 4 sticks than with 2.

⚠️ SK Hynix SSDs have an issue where write performance drops in half after several months of use, requiring the drive to be erased to reset. This is not a problem for a drive dedicated to DCS only, since write speed is only a factor during updates, and even then only if you have a very fast internet connection. However, we recommend against using SK Hynix SSDs as general purpose drives.

Some motherboards have a separate USB controller for the front and rear I/O, which may extend this limit. Other motherboards may have multiple controllers for the rear I/O. Consult your motherboard manual to determine which physical ports correspond to which controllers.

Update your graphics drivers to the latest available version from nvidia.com/drivers or through GeForce Experience. If you are running an outdated driver version, some options like DLSS and SSS may be grayed out in the in-game options.

One way to disable data exports is to edit the Export.lua script within your Saved Games folder. Open \Scripts\Export.lua in a text editor. Add two hyphens (--) in front of a line to disable that line. For example, my Export.lua contains lines for TacView, DCS-BIOS and SRS:

Occasionally, something in the Saved Games folder triggers problems in DCS. I personally had this problem with F-15E Strike Eagle crashing when it came out, and this fixed the issue for me.

Flight simulator devices can push past these device and bandwidth limits, especially when using some of the more advanced head trackers/webcams, VR headsets, and USB displays. If you notice these devices having issues, you may need additional USB controller chips.

From chancre or condyloma lata: Gently abrade the lesion with a dry gauze. Dab away any bleeding. Touch slide to exudative fluid in base of lesion. Overlay coverslip and view immediately under dark-field microscope using ×40 and ×100 objectives. From mucous patch: Touch slide to mucous patch. Overlay coverslip and view immediately under dark-field microscope using ×40 and ×100 objectives. From skin lesion: Gently scrape surface of skin lesion with edge of a number 15 scalpel blade. Dab away any bleeding. Touch slide to exudative fluid rising from skin lesion. Overlay coverslip and view immediately under dark-field microscope using ×40 and ×100 objectives.

Darkfield immersive

Third party antivirus such as Kaspersky, BitDefender, McAfee, Norton, MalwareBytes, etc. is not recommended. These cause problems with DCS in particular because they flag the Digital Rights Management (DRM) encryption of the game files as a possible threat and quarantine or delete game files randomly. Third party antivirus also tends to cause general performance issues. We recommend using the default Microsoft Defender antivirus, and optionally adding an exception for DCS.

Since DCS uses an older graphics engine, high amounts of VRAM is more important than ray tracing performance. 12-16GB+ of VRAM is ideal.

You MUST install DCS on an SSD (solid state) instead of an HDD (spinning disk). The base game is 160GB, a typical large install is around 700GB and a complete install is over 1TB. A dedicated 1TB or 2TB high performance SSD is recommended.

To try this, use both Quad Views Foveated and Quad Views Companion. The former implements the feature, and the latter provides a GUI for changing the settings in %localappdata%\Quad-Views-Foveated\settings.cfg.

You can then manually switch between these presets, or use SkateZilla’s launcher to automatically launch using one or the other.

If you have the 7900X3D/7950X3D, or a Ryzen X3D CPU with dual CCDs, install the Xbox Game Bar and run it while playing games. AMD’s software uses it to detect when a game is running and change CPU scheduling behavior to allow maximum performance.

Darkfield microscopy

There are no perfect VR headsets, but there are a few worth consideration for DCS. Based on our testing, we currently recommend the Pimax Crystal Light as our primary recommendation and the Meta Quest 3 as a budget option.

DARKFIELD RADIO

You can add a USB PCIe expansion card to your system and move some devices to the expansion card. We have tested a few of the cheaper and lower end PCIe cards and found them lacking. The very cheapest cards do not actually contain a dedicated controller chip and are simply internal hubs. With other cheap cards we encountered issues such as:

Ideally, use an upgraded CPU cooler. We’re fans of the Thermaltake Phantom 120 series of air coolers and the Arctic Liquid Freezer III AIO liquid cooler.

Download Visual C++ Redistributable 2017 from https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe, install it, and restart your computer.

These folders contain shaders, which need to be rebuilt whenever either the game or graphics card driver is updated. DCS does not seem to consistently automatically rebuild these, resulting in performance issues. Deleting the folders will force DCS to rebuild them; this may cause a one-time increase in load times or some stutter during gameplay, but these will only happen once for each shader and the game may run smoother afterwards.

DCS World requires 16GB+ RAM minimum for small missions on the Caucases map. 32GB RAM is required for large multiplayer servers and the Syria map. 64-96GB RAM is recommended if you have the budget available.

Mods in DCS can cause bizarre, seemingly unrelated issues. Reflected of Reflected Simulations has documented some of the utterly strange bugs that can be caused simply by having a mod installed.

Additionally, you can save custom graphical settings into three different slots in the Options > System tab, using the presets buttons in the bottom right. You can use one for your 2D settings and another for your VR settings.

PSU wattage alone is not a good indicator of reliability under load. 80PLUS ratings are not useful for determining overall power delivery and efficiency across a range of scenarios. The 80PLUS rating only test efficiency at a few specific loads, and does not test for performance or reliability. Manufacturers can and do game these ratings!

We also recommend using IEMs for audio instead of the mediocre speakers included with most headsets. For budget IEMs, I like the 7HZ x Crinacle Zero:2 and Moondrop CHU II.

Your motherboard has a limited number of USB devices and limited amount of USB bandwidth it can support. Each USB controller chip can support 127 USB devices- but note that a single physical device often consumes multiple virtual device slots!

If you use data exports such as TacView, Winwing’s SimAppPro, DCS-BIOS etc. You should disable these when playing large missions. These export a large amount of data from DCS on every frame, contributing to slowdown.

The page file is used by Windows for infrequently accessed data that would otherwise consume RAM. For most users, the default setting is fine. However, some users have found that manually setting the page file size improves performance. This is especially useful if your PC contains multiple types of storage with different speeds, such as both SSDs and HDDs. It’s also useful if you don’t have a lot of free space on your page file’s drive, to help Windows plan better with the limited space.

Be sure to enable DOCP/EXPO in your motherboard settings as it’s often disabled by default. I measured a 13% CPU performance gain in 3DMark toggling it on and off on my AMD system.

Dark-Field Microscopy. Examined under a dark-field microscope at ×40 or ×100 power, spirochetes appear as motile, bright corkscrews against a black background. (Reproduced with permission, from Morse SA, Holmes KK, Ballard RC, Moreland AA (eds). Atlas of Sexually Transmitted Diseases and AIDS. 4th ed. Saunders Elsevier; 2010. Copyright © 2010 Elsevier, Ltd.)

In the AMD Software, navigate to Preferences, and next to AMD User Experience Program, click Learn More and then Leave. If left enabled, this setting runs a telemetry service on your computer. I found this service was consuming a lot of system resources and making my system generally sluggish on boot. Leaving the program made my computer substantially snappier and my applications started much faster.

Adjusting Precision Boost Overdrive 2 (PBO2) optimizes power consumption and thermals. Depending on your CPU cooling setup, this may also slightly improve performance.

Quad Views Rendering is a technique that renders the focus area within your headset at a higher resolution than the rest of the headset. If your headset has eye-tracking, the high-resolution render area will follow your gaze; otherwise, it will be centered within your headset.

A tradeoff is that you may not be able to charge your headset and use the link cable at the same time, which may limit how long you can fly at a time. This third party cable allows connecting both a charger and link at once, which extends battery life sufficiently for very long flights.

This tweak doesn’t improve in-game performance, but can save disk space and doesn’t hurt performance. Download Compactor and use it to compress the DCS World game directory and the Saved Games folder. The compression algorithm it uses is built into Windows and has virtually zero performance impact on CPUs made after 2010. On my computer, this shrunk DCS World’s disk usage by over 110GB with no in-game performance impact.

If you find it uncomfortable or painful to twist your torso and neck to look behind you/over your wing, you can use XRNeckSafer to provide an assist.

If you are running an Intel Alder Lake CPU or AMD Ryzen 7000 Series CPU or newer, upgrade to Windows 11 to use the new Thread Director. Alternatively, you may be able to disable your efficiency cores (E-Cores) in your motherboard settings, but this may impact performance and power consumption in other applications.

There is a log file located in the Saved Games folder at \Logs\dcs.log. It can sometimes provide clues for why DCS has crashed, but can be difficult to interpret.

If you have a Meta Quest headset, a link cable will provide the best video quality. Meta sells an official link cable if you don’t have one, and more affordable third-party cables are also available.

💡 The CPU BOUND/GPU BOUND indicator is not accurate in all cases. To find out if you are CPU limited you must compare frame render time to framerate to determine if your GPU is rendering frames faster than the framerate.

⚠️ If you use mods or play multiplayer, this tweak increases your risk. Use your best judgement about whether to use this tweak. I personally wouldn’t use this with any mod for which I haven’t read the source code. If you use the 3D Editor for DCS Web Editor, this also increases your vulnerability to malicious scripts in mission files.

DLSS as implemented in DCS doesn’t work great in VR headsets, causing noticeable ghosting. It is possible to override the DLSS implementation to one that doesn’t cause ghosting using an unofficial tweak.