Digital Combat Simulator (DCS): Black Shark reviews

Have been waiting a long time for some of this calibre to come along to fill the “gap” in aviation sims. from the ease of install to the integration 6dof and the great visuals, DCS Black Shark has all the bases covered. if you are in to the immersive full realism of sims, this will slake any thirst you have for switches, buttons, and start up procedures. on the flip side if you are an arcade flyer then switch the settings in the options and your blowing things up with the greatest of ease.one thing that has me impressed so far is the lack of need for patching. running sweetly straight out of the box. however, because its so immersive with the “full real” settings, you would really want/need a hotas system with the capacity of macro programming and a keyboard with programmable keys ( logitech g series etc), other wise its a case of playing twister on the keyboard to activate switchs as well as trying to keep the A/C inside the flight envelope. if you are after a true heli sim, then this is the one as its going to take years to learn all the things that a Ka 50 has to offer. for me, this will be a keeper.

I have to say that I have been using simulators for some time and to the point where I was looking for something with a little more challenge and realism, i.e. close to the real requirement to fly a helo, this is the best ever and despite hacing to go back and forth a number of times to learn the controls once you have mastered set up, start up, take off and landing the rest turns into an absolute ride of fun and skill. The cockpit graphics are excellent and the detail and movability is superb. You have to have a suitable joy-stick for he job as using the mouse and keypad take away any of the real flying skills you want. Have a great time.

It"s a very nice addition to the aviation sim market . Install is easy but takes awhile so is a good time to read the nice and glossy quick guide manual that came in the box . Visuals are as good as it looks and the amount of detail is amazing .It can be very in depth in simulation mode but there is also a game mode where things a simplified so you can get the hang of things. And for the tech aspect on frame rates I'm getting a max of 32 fps dependent on whats going on where it gets to the low 20's . This affects the overall smoothness of the sim where it stutters at 20fps and below . I'M using 2gb ram, cpu is a dual core amd 2.7 ghz and is only using about 65% max during sim . My graphics card is approx 3 yrs old ,512mb ati X1950pro. I had to set the anti aliasing settings in the cc center to 8× and 16× then set the others to performance , also put the in game settings to low to get the 30fps which makes the sim run smooth for me.I"ll be up grading to the ATI Radeon HD 4850 at some stage which is the recommend card on the DCS box . I'll post another review when i get the updated card . Part 2 I did update my card to a Nvidia GTS450 which is supposed to be a bit better than the 4850 , I didn't get the fps i was looking for , only about another 10 Fps . Reading the forums flight sims rely much more on the cpu than graphics so it appeared the bottle neck was my cpu .I'm now running windows 7 64bit 8Gb Ram intel i7 2600 cpu and Nvidia GTX560TI and couldn't be happier , with 70–110 fps can handle those intense battle scenes with ease . This really is one great sim and will be looking forward to the release of DCS A-10c Warthog .

I was looking for a good helicopter sim and gained an excellent one. Great partner for my X52 FCS. Awesome gameplay and graphics great buy and would heartily recommend it to others.

yes – THIS IS A REAL FLIGHT SIMULATION

None better than The olde federations greatest portable war machine the little known kamov Army heli.The flying tank . The smoothness & outstanding terrain quality has you aghast at what Eagle dynamics has done .The cockpit a truly interactive living thing.its easier to mouse switch the switches to boot her up n fly the switch syntaxs being extensive to the max . BUT the PDFs are available on the install . It does require a really good graphics card to pump the textures but it is not a memory hog .It seems that MP setups wil benefit as its evident cores are assymetrically in use . A good fast HDD subsystem is a must to move it all .Usually physics are done in the CPU and my Dual 2GHZ XEON doesnt do more than 50 % .

I love this game & am a hard -ass PC pilot always searching for the next best thing to the real simulator & associated interfaces.Fixed or rotary SIM the Russians have done it again ; like S.TA.L.K.E.R. & also with the CRYsis engine its evident !

This is DEFINTELY it !

LTC – BeirA

This product is one of the most raved about I have seen in a long time. I was skeptacle about how good it was until I actually tried it, but this simulation is everything the other reviews said it is. As is the norm with males, I jumped in without reading the manual and spent half an hour trying to start the engines. Once I read the manual, it took 2 seconds in cheat mode. The proper sequence takes considerably longer, but it is such a feeling of accomplishment once done, as you have to do everything in sequence and once you take off, you are so immersed it the program, it is hard to think of it as a sim. The model is the most realistic I have seen and at 49yrs old (still in my first childhood) I can not believe how hooked I am with it. The lessons for the novice are well worth doing and if done in sequence, you only need to refer to the manual for key presses. FSX is out for me now as it does not compare. Well done DCS!!

This sim goes the extra mile to model the behaviour and systems of the helicopter, and is definitely the most convincing flight sim I have ever played.

NOTE: DCS BLACK SHARK 2 HAS BEEN RELEASED AND CAN BE PURCHASED QUITE CHEAPLY AS A DIGITAL DOWNLOAD OF THE DIGITAL COMBAT SIMULATOR WEBSITE. IF YOU PURCHASE BLACK SHARK 1 YOU WILL NEED TO PAY AN ADDITIONAL US$19.99 TO UPGRADE…

WOW !! What can I say. This is what I have been looking for for a longtime.I am playing arcade mode at the moment as the reality mode would be too hard to tackle.
If you want a good simulater this is the one.