The MAGIC FIX For Better Performance in DCS World 2.9!

Today I wanted to highlight a magic bullet for increasing your performance in DCS World when it comes to load times and that lowest 99th percentile dip in your FPS.

Lately I have been extremely frustrated with DCS World 2.9 and its performance and more specifically the consistency of its performance.

I recently went a bit overboard with my home cockpit refresh and built an entirely new rig for playing DCS World and Video Editing.

This PC is a monster with an intel i9-14900K, RTX 4090, 64 GB of Ram… the works.

Now normally you’d think that this would translate to a huge increase in DCS World’s performance… and it did…. With the huge caveat of much higher highs when it came to FPS, and much lower lows in the 99th percentile… and weirdly long load times for missions and then textures once I was in the cockpit.

And on top of this it was extremely inconsistent, sometimes I would hop in the cockpit on a simple empty mission with no other units around and it would be a stuttery, screen tearing mess that was nearly unplayable…

Then on my next play session I would fly in a DCS Multiplayer server with 50 other pilots and get fantastic performance I could have only dreamed about a few years ago.

This inconsistency and huge ups and downs in FPS had me ready to tear my hair out as I tried every combination of graphics settings possible trying to fix this frustrating inconsistency!

After trying everything possible within DCS World’s settings and options I decided to look outside of the realm of graphics settings and look deeper into issues of inconsistent performance of applications across the board in windows 11.

This is where I finally found the culprit… Windows Defender… As usual… and I feel really stupid that I hadn’t caught this earlier.

So let's dive into how we can keep Windows Defender to stay the hell away from DCS World and all other apps you use to enhance your DCS experience!

0:00:00 - Intro
0:03:00 - Excluding DCS From Windows Defender

►►System Specs DCS/Gaming PC:
GPU: GeForce RTX 4090
CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-14900K CPU @ 5.60GHz
Memory: 64 GB RAM 3600mhz
Current resolution: 2560 x 1080, 144Hz

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dcs f15e, spudknocker, dcs apache, dcs news, dlss

[Spudspike]

Hey guys! Due to an issue with the video I had to delete and reupload it, that being said I am still extremely happy I found this fix, as i was ready to pull my hair out when it came to performance issues in DCS World!

[KYRedleg]

I work in cybersecurity. There is definitely a risk associated with exclusion. I think all of Spuds recommendations are relatively low risk except one. You always want to be as narrow as possible when excluding a folder. I wouldn’t exclude the entire saved games folder, just the relevant sub folders. As for mods etc, I recommend downloading them to a non excluded folder before installing them so Defender can get a look before they are loaded. Thanks for info Spud!

[jts]

Dude you just saved my sanity. I have been TEARING my hair out over performance inconsistencies in W11 and this just fixed DCS VR for me AND even helped by applying the same technique to STALKER GAMMA. You are the GOAT

[jefftucker]

thanks for this! i hope every DCS player sees this video because it is easy to do, easy to revert. making the exclusions should help many users; i hope. i love your videos.

[MDL]

Thank you for sharing this information. I followed the instructions in the video and have seen around a 10-15% increase in frame rates. Frame rates are much more stable and gameplay is very smooth. Thanks again for sharing.

[WarPig]

DCS Creates a boatload of temporary files on your C drive. If your C drive is close to full move all of your games to a different SSD and it will run buttery smooth.

[generalgrevous]

I use the Task Scheduler and set Winows Defender Scan to once every 2 months and seems to do the trick, and to be honest seems to be easier than your way of doing it. Of course it means nothing else will be scanned but I have a computer that is dedicated to DCS so not too worried and have been doing it for close to 3 years. But your way seems to me more practical if you're worried about other apps. 🙂👍

[hustlinmagic]

Two things I did that made a huge difference were forcing DCS to only use the performance cores. And also disabling cores that were getting stuck on 100% utilization in the main menu. In VR it was a night and day difference.

DCS really doesn't seem to use 13 and 14th gen CPU's well unless you use software to manage it yourself.

[Tide]

Man I really thought it was my computer parts holding me back whenever I loaded into the F-15E. Thanks Spud!

[DirtMatters]

Just upgraded my AMD 5900X system to RTX 4090 and boomed, the exact same thing, as you described it happened to my DCS game play. I’ll have to try this trick tomorrow.

[mco]

Wow. This gave a noticeable performance improvement in VR. Well played, sir.

Don't get yourself infected with any viruses...but this does indeed work.

[bigandy]

Hey Spudknocker followed your advice, totally worked thanks !

[geskes]

This is absolutely amazing, just had my best NoE apache flight ever.. suddenly it's super smooth down low too. Also cockpits are completely loaded now right when you enter the sim.. thanks for sharing!

[BlackHornetSim]

You had me at TrackIR! I've been struggling with random stuttering for weeks now with its smooth as silk, other times it's a stuttering mess and it's completely random. I'm definitely going to try this along with another fix I saw today. Cheers bud 🍻

[Aspar]

You are the man!, this is GOLD! 72 stable FPS in Enigma Cold War server...no words to thank you for this info.

[AdmiralQuality]

Hey that's pretty good! I made the changes before doing a proper "before" test but the MT version does feel a bit more playable to me now. (It hated my old i5-7500 before and I would often be forced to fly with the ST version, which is getting buggier with every update and will soon be completely abandoned.)

I'll try putting it back as it was tomorrow and do some more controlled A/B tests. But this should help!

Thanks Spud!

[HardPass]

Thanks for all the EXCELLENT content and teachings Spud!! Much appreciated!

[tructruc]

i have done the same with AVAST ! It works very fine ! THX .
In fact my rig is a 13600K + 64go DDR5 @6000 at cas 32 and a RTX 3070TI + TrackIr 5 . I run at 2560*1440 . I usually have a steady 120 fps ( vsynch at 120 hz and fps limited at 120 ) . Some times i had a drop of fps for no reasons and i detected that was a strange CPU usage. That's the root cause. Bingo you find the right solution ! I have tested 3 times for long sessions ! and that issue is gone ! Your are the king man ! THX again

[kmcnelley]

I’d be very keen to hear how you went through the PC upgrade process. Did you go the Intel 14900K for gaming and video editing? If you were interested in only DCS would you consider 7800X3D?

I’m still sporting the Intel 6700K and it’s running 100%. Definitely looking into upgrading this year.

[gofres]

Great tip, looking forward to trying this out tomorrow!
I agree with the same issues of inconsistent fps and in the least logical places. I'm locked to 60fps at 4k but do get moments of it dipping to 20ish for no apparent reason.