Thoughts about graphics.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

This might belong in the hardware-forum, but I guess that my fellow x-planer is more often scanning this part of the forum so here goes.

 

I am seriously considering upgrading my graphics card. My ATI5870 has served me well, but I think it is time to "go nvidia". I have quite bad performance with even the slightest level of clouds in XPX. Having traffic on is a definite no-go as the frames just curls up in to foetal position and dies. I know there has been an issue with ATI and XPX. Have any of you guys changed from ATI to NVIDIA? What is your opinion? What I would like to achieve is to be able to have traffic on while flying in some nice looking clouds. I have HDR on, and frankly there is no going back from that.. What do you guys think about the 680/679? How much of a gain in performance can i count on?

 

Thanks for your time!

 

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[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

i have the ATI/AMD 6870 and got over 30fps with most settings maxed in the demo.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

i have the ATI/AMD 6870 and got over 30fps with most settings maxed in the demo.

 

Hi,

Do you have HDR on, and clouds and traffic? As long as I have a single car on the highway, the performance comes to a crawl.

 

 

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[FIVE-BY-FIVE 453]

hdr=yes clouds=yes, not max(i will wait for REX) traffic=kansas

[MdMax 233]

As long as I have a single car on the highway, the performance comes to a crawl.

 

According to Ben, performance issues with cars are coming from the CPU, not from the GPU:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/12/tips-for-better-frame-rates-pt-1/

 

I'm a GNU/Linux user, and I have the GeForce 8800GT. It's still a great video card as long as you don't need HDR, or a high resolution monitor. I think my next system will also be equipped with Nvidia, because of their good OpenGL support.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

 

According to Ben, performance issues with cars are coming from the CPU, not from the GPU:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/12/tips-for-better-frame-rates-pt-1/

 

I'm a GNU/Linux user, and I have the GeForce 8800GT. It's still a great video card as long as you don't need HDR, or a high resolution monitor. I think my next system will also be equipped with Nvidia, because of their good OpenGL support.

 

CPU?

That is strange. I can't set traffic at all without severe effect on perf. I would think 4ghz would be able to do that?

 

 

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[Pascal_LSGC 298]

if you are struck by ATI bug, the cars are effectively a GPU problem: http://developer.x-p...nce-on-windows/

I just got a new 680, it's very powerful, so much that the 32bits memory limit becomes the bottleneck very, very fast. (~3.3 gigs limit in the case of Linux) Also, doesn't do so well with max shadows (buggy), but that might be the driver. Clouds are no problem at all, anti-aliasing can be cranked up without a hiccup. HDR with 4x SSAA runs around 40 fps with heavy plane and nice scenery (world details distance at medium/far and buildings to max).

 

Please be aware: to take advantage of 680's full banwidth, you need to stick it on top of an Ivy Bridge motherboard and proc. If you have a PCIe v2, maybe you might consider the 500 family instead. I suspect X-plane is quite demanding with banwidth, especially when you play with shadows.

[MdMax 233]

I suspect X-plane is quite demanding with banwidth, especially when you play with shadows.

 

Yes, it is:

http://developer.x-plane.com/2011/10/whats-this-whole-pcie-thing-about-anyway/

 

[Oliver Ooi 85]

The developer of FSX once said that PCI 2.0 is a bottleneck for FSX autogen. But now people not seeing any significant performance in FSX when using PCI 3.0.

 

http://blogs.msdn.co...e-envelope.aspx

 

This website: http://www.behardwar...erformance.html also showing modern game never get any benefit from PCI 3.0. I do hope Xp10 is an exception though.

[Humpty 751]

The car traffic is cpu based , but air traffic requires cpu / gpu. your card is good. XPX support staff says to get a card with 2000 passmarks so that would start from a 6850 etc.. and a minimum of 560ti. I will pull around 30fps except no HDR or FSAA and everything maxxed out. But no clouds unless I get a rainy cloud I get no fps drop.

[Old_As_Dirt 160]

I found, years ago, that there is a delicate balance between CPU and GPU. A monster GPU without a CPU to carry it, is like throwing your money down a hole. With the proper CPU, GPU (and I don't have all the specs or the equipment to sort it out), RAM and apparently chipset, things just work. It has taken many years of trial and error, but I now have a i5 dual core with hyperthreading that runs at 3.2 to 3.4, a Raedon HD5770 1GB, and 8Gigs of memory and with the 11.12 Catalyst drivers - (newest are slower), FRs stay from 30 to 40. Probably, if I were to invest in a faster CPU and a chipset (motherboard) to support it, I would be ok with a better GPU. However, the human eye can only register so many FPs and it seems that 25 or so satisfies that need. Of course, I could open everything wide open and have problems, but the people who designed the program tell you that "there is no system that can handle the full potential". So, a balance seems to be the key to any Flightsim I have flown, and I have flown most all of them.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

The car traffic is cpu based , but air traffic requires cpu / gpu. your card is good. XPX support staff says to get a card with 2000 passmarks so that would start from a 6850 etc.. and a minimum of 560ti. I will pull around 30fps except no HDR or FSAA and everything maxxed out. But no clouds unless I get a rainy cloud I get no fps drop.

 

Well, I suspect that having HDR on draws lots of juice. Hard to live without it, though. I seem to need some AA to minimize shimmering (I cant stand the shimmering I get without).

 

*sigh* Guess I will have to get my wallet out and order a Ivy Bridge-rig with a 680.

 

 

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[Humpty 751]

Well, I suspect that having HDR on draws lots of juice. Hard to live without it, though. I seem to need some AA to minimize shimmering (I cant stand the shimmering I get without).

 

*sigh* Guess I will have to get my wallet out and order a Ivy Bridge-rig with a 680.

 

 

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you don't need an ivy to run xpx.

 

I use a phenom 960T and a HD 6750 2 GB.

 

You can use a SB with 8 GB and a 6850 or a a Nvidia 560ti . Or get a 69xx / 79xx (high end) or a Nvidia highend. you cpu is a SB and that should do well.

[Swe_Richard 1,172]

 

you don't need an ivy to run xpx.

 

I use a phenom 960T and a HD 6750 2 GB.

 

You can use a SB with 8 GB and a 6850 or a a Nvidia 560ti . Or get a 69xx / 79xx (high end) or a Nvidia highend. you cpu is a SB and that should do well.

 

Actually, it's a Nehalem I'm afraid.. It has worked well the 2.5 years I've had it. Especially since overclocking it. Feels like the components don't evolve as fast as they did ten years ago. Thank god for that.

 

I read somewhere that video RAM is really liked by XPX. should I consider a GPU with 4gb, or is that overkill?

 

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[Humpty 751]

Actually, it's a Nehalem I'm afraid.. It has worked well the 2.5 years I've had it. Especially since overclocking it. Feels like the components don't evolve as fast as they did ten years ago. Thank god for that.

 

I read somewhere that video RAM is really liked by XPX. should I consider a GPU with 4gb, or is that overkill?

 

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As XPX is more gpu eater , more the vram better as you can use uncompressed textures. But my guess is 2 GB should be sufficient, but if you need more future proofing then anything above 2 GB sounds good, I don't think you would need to upgrade your CPU.

 

On my system I have everything maxed out except NO HDR / and I am using AA x2 and AF x2 and no clouds and air traffic and I pull some decent frame rates , when I had emailed XPX support staff they told me to upgrade my 6750 to either a 6850 or a 560ti with more vram,

 

Air traffic would require CPU/GPU.

 

My suggestion is before upgrading the whole system why not try the higher end GPU's first. Definitely better to upgrade the whole system if you are going to do some other heavy stuff on it. Right now SB is still the king of performance , IB I cannot comment as I have no idea about the performance of those expensive chips, except that they have a heat issue somewhere.