Shall I get the GTX 680 or not?

[ArjenVdv 190]

I have just upgraded from a GTX480 to the GTX680. Not a mind blowing FPS improvement but an improvement nevertheless. The GTX680 runs cooler and quiter but of course that is not the issue. The GTX680 will have a lot of extra head room to tolerate certain tweaks. The rest of your system is a good spec, don't bottle neck it with the GPU and remember, yes, FSX is CPU intensive but it is fast becoming very GPU intensive with some of the more recent tweaks/mods (such as BP=0) that have made the sim's graphical perform better for many.

 

Thanks for your input! A few questions for you:

 

1. What is the actual difference in FPS

2. Is there any stutters

3. Do you have Word Not Allowed's VSync tweak applied? If not, I would be curious to see from you what results you get.

 

Thanks!

[Iceman2 110]

Hi Greg,

 

Thanks for that you have given me some hope.

 

I found that in a default airplane and over somewhere small like KPSP I can hold 30FPS and Word Not Allowed's tweak works like a treat but as soon as I jump into the NGX and descend into the LAX area towards the FSDT airport the FPS are all over the place way way worse than my 590. The stutters are shocking and the sim becomes almost unflyable with FPS of around 15-28. (24-25 GTX590) Maybe something to do with the NGX gauges and new cards which has been mentioned on another post.

 

Can you test that for me if you have those addons.

 

Quote: originally using a mix of ******* and Word Not Allowed's tweaks in the fsx.cfg, was getting worse performance than the GTX480

 

Im going to go and install the 301.10 drivers and do a clean CFG so thanks for the INFO.

 

 

IM

[Iceman2 110]

hi All,

 

The 301.10 drivers seem to be an improvement over the newer ones although only ever so slightly. I still get major fluctuations in FPS when in high demanding airports.

 

I dont know for sure but I'm wondering now if I was getting some sort of benefit from the SLI card (GTX590) when it comes to high resolution 3 X 30in multi screens using NV surround.

 

My conclusion using the GTX680 4g:

 

- 680 is faster at loading scenery than the 590

- Night lighting seems more brilliant (using UT & GEX) and smaller detail much more noticable (simply amazing)

- No major improvement in FPS from the 590

- Major drop in FPS when using mult screens compared to the 590

- VSync issue is a problem with the current drivers (fix coming in June according to Nvidia)

 

Using the VS tweak in the FSX.CFG & setting "application control" in NI seems to remove most of the stutters if at high demanding scenery like the NGX at FSDT airports and you're unable to keep FPS locked at 30. (Word Not Allowed's tweak)

 

In all I probably wont go back to the 590

 

IM

[RaptyrOne 1,463]

Thanks for your input! A few questions for you:

 

1. What is the actual difference in FPS

2. Is there any stutters

3. Do you have Word Not Allowed's VSync tweak applied? If not, I would be curious to see from you what results you get.

 

Thanks!

 

Actual FPS difference is marginal under heavy loads (detailed 3rd party airports and add on aircraft). Perhaps 2-3 FPS. But this needs to be explained further... With my FPS locked at 30, it sits there almost all the time. Honestly, it is stuck on 30 nearly permanently. In FSX default aircraft, it never goes below 30FPS - even at dense add on airport/sceneries, whether on the ground or in the air. Zero (and I do mean zero) stutters, shimmers). Liquid smooth. Using the PMDG 744 or J41 or NGX at dense airports it does take a drop but never below around 18-20FPS which does become noticeable but the important thing is that there is no juddering or stuttering. This is with all FSX sliders set to Kostas recommendation also - most sliders on the max, except water on high 2X and cloud draw and density and AI aircraft, boats and cars on low to mid settings. I am not running DX10 / light bloom but plan to give it a try as I have not "switched" that on in several years.

 

I do have Word Not Allowed's tweaks applied and here is the important note - follow his recommendation and delete your fsx.cfg file (backing it up of course!). This is I suspect, because the v-sync settings that get applied to the fsx.cfg in ******* [bojote's] tweaking tool cause quite a significant FPS drop and severe stutters (I even experieinced sound stutters coinciding with the graphical stutters) at dense airports with heavy add on aircraft. I think it is the force fullscreen vsync=1 setting that clashes with Word Not Allowed's recommended v-sync settings. Without exception I am now running my fsx.cfg 100% in accordance with Word Not Allowed's recommendation and it really is fantastic. I am using 2x SGSS, not bothering with 4x SGSS as I can't see any difference but believe the load on the GPU is much greater. Just remember to also manually add the Allow_Shader_30 = 1 setting back to the fsx.cfg if you are running the Shader v3.0 mod by ******* (which I am). If you don't do this your graphics will be a giant mess.

 

Iceman notes that there is a known issue with v-sync (his post above) that will be fixed with the next driver in June. I'm not sure what that issue is, but I can't say I have an issue with v-sync in FSX. With Prepar3D coming alive, lets hope that the sim gets renewed attention from the nVida driver guru's and that in general, we will see tangible benefits to FSX from these future driver updates.

 

Out of interest, I am running on a single 24 inch LCD as the primary screen (1920x1080) VC and a 20 inch LCD secondary screen which I use to drag 2D panels across to - example- FMS, GPS, radio panels etc.

 

To answer Iceman's other question, yes, I do have PMDG's NGX but I have no add on sceneries for LAX / FSDT (unless you are referring to the default airport/scenery) - will be happy to try and let you know. Of course, if you are driving 3 x 30 inch panels - stuff of dreams :-) , bound to have a negative effect on FPS vs my setup.

[Iceman2 110]

Nice Post Greg,

 

and thanks to Word Not Allowed for making FSX enjoyable on our newer hardware. Good to see you're having good results from the 920, I ditched my 980 for a 2600K because I just couldnt get rid of the stutters, would love to try it now with this new Word Not Allowed setup.

 

Dont worry about the LAX test, I think I'm done with testing and tweaking for now which is what I seem to be doing more of these days. Its time to go flying and enjoy.

 

 

IM

[WebMaximus 372]

So...I'm done with my new FS rig...a 2700K @ 4.8 GHz and a GTX 680 and I could pretty much copy and paste what Greg already said in his posts above but to sum it up and when I compare to my previous FSX rig...a 920 @ 4 GHz and a GTX 480 the difference at first before I tried Word Not Allowed's approach on how to setup FSX was not that impressive and I was almost a bit disappointed but then after starting with a fresh FSX.CFG just as Greg says above and then following Word Not Allowed's guide to the letter I now have a more fluid and better looking FSX than I ever had before and I guess that makes me the happy camper nr 2 in this thread

[whitav8 98]

Those of us who are trying to decide on a 680 (I currently have a 580) for three monitor use (like Iceman2 and TechGuyMaxC), please take a look at a new thread on the subject of benchmarking our performance. I will call it 680 vs 690 because I am wondering if we are losing FPS due to pixel fill - i.e. 3 x 1980x1080.

 

Thanks much

Dave