Hi all,

 

I've been very happy with the system I built last year, with one critical exception--the GTX 560Ti I went for has not proved quite equal to the task of running FSX plus addons. In particular, any significant cloud cover tends to induce stutters, even with relatively low levels of AA with no supersampling. I'm hoping an upgrade to a GTX 580 will work better (and I'm also helping it will eliminate some weird texture flashing and Z-fighting that may be a sign of defects in the old card--they've been there from the beginning). Any card recommendations? Newegg has a PNY Commercial Series VCGGTX580XPB-CG GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB in stock for $430 (no reviews on that one) and a ECS NGTX580-1536PI-F GeForce GTX 580 (Fermi) 1536MB for $380. Any thoughts on those two? Recommendations for a better place to buy from? I'm pretty lost with the finer points of video cards (especially the differences between the manufacturers) so any and all advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

Thanks,

James

I upgraded from a GTX 560Ti and then borrowed a GTX 580 from my friend for a while. And there was litterally zero FPS increase. The only FPS difference is that you can run higher AA level in Inspector, only in that case the GTX 580 will be around 1/3 faster.

 

BUT - Do not buy any GTX 5xx series at the moment. Because the supply is getting lower, the prices of those cards are starting to get higher again. Currently a GTX 670 is just as expensive as a GTX 580 but is around 30% - 50% faster in pretty much every game! So with you budget get the GTX 670. I recommend Asus with the reference design cooler, and the non-overclocked version (as the overclocked version seems to have unstable overclocks, and you can also overclock yourself.). In FSX, don't expect a big FPS increase. I might be worth it as an upgrade from the GTX 560Ti. You should notice around 2-5 FPS more and if you run high AA levels it will probably even be twice as fast. Don't expect ANY difference whatsoever in terms of (micro)stuttering. If you want that to go away then apply Word Not Allowed's VSync tweak which can also be found in this same forum.

 

I don't know what system you have, but a good overclocked CPU will make more difference. Like i7 2700K or i7 3770K overclocked to 4.5 GHz +.

 

If you already have this system but still getting low FPS make sure you have these tweaks in your FSX.CFG

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

Under [GRAPHICS] add HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AFFINITYMASK=14 It should be 14 when you have 4 cores and HT disabled.

Arjen,

 

Interesting thought on getting a GTX 670 instead--I had thought that those could actually create additional issues for FSX for no FPS increase? Although I do play other games FSX takes about 70% of my gaming time so it's the priority.

 

I have a i5 2500k overclocked at 4.6 GHz, so that's as fast as it's going to get (with this CPU at least!). I've got the highmemfix and affinity mask tweaks, and I use Word Not Allowed's VSync tweak, but unfortunately I've never been able to make bufferpools=0 work (autogen artifacts and instability)--another reason I think a new card is called for. I'm fairly sure the CPU is not the bottleneck for me in most FSX situations.

 

I'll put it this way--let's say I'm at airport X in FSX, weather is clear. In-cockpit FPS is 30, spot view FPS is also 30. Then I add moderate clouds--in-cockpit FPS remain 30, spot view FPS fluctuates wildly between about 7 and 30 FPS, creating severe stuttering. It seems like clouds are creating a special drain on the GPU--upgrading the card would potentially create a big increase in smoothness, no? FWIW I've settled on 8xS [Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS] for my inspector AA setting as a balance between smoothness and quality. I did try 4x MS but found the drop in quality a dealbreaker ultimately.

 

I really appreciate the advice! There's so much I don't know, and even with all of the GPU discoveries made recently it seems like there's still a significant amount of mystery about which particular sacrifices need to be made to appease the fickle FSX gods.

 

James

James,

 

If you are in the market for a new GPU, the best bang for buck is the EVGA GTX670 FTW edition. It performs almost identically to the 680, yet it is 90 bucks cheaper. In FSX, you will be able to run high levels of AA without suffering any performance drop.

Ben,

 

Thanks for the heads up! That does look like a great value. Isn't there a vsync problem with the 600 series cards that causes stutters and FPS drop in FSX, though? My understanding was that this was a known issue Nvidia was working on but do you know if that's been ironed out already?

 

Best,

James

 

James,

 

If you are in the market for a new GPU, the best bang for buck is the EVGA GTX670 FTW edition. It performs almost identically to the 680, yet it is 90 bucks cheaper. In FSX, you will be able to run high levels of AA without suffering any performance drop.

Ben,

 

Thanks for the heads up! That does look like a great value. Isn't there a vsync problem with the 600 series cards that causes stutters and FPS drop in FSX, though? My understanding was that this was a known issue Nvidia was working on but do you know if that's been ironed out already?

 

Best,

James

 

Not exactly sure. I do know that they are hard at work with resolving the issue. Although, not very many people are affected by the problem so I wouldn't consider it a large risk to shell out the cash for a 670.

Well, this is an interesting development--I noticed in another thread in this subforum that someone had solved stuttering in spot views by setting AF to "application controlled" in inspector. Lo and behold, this also solved the problem for me. But the best part is that the apparent reduction in load on the video (or something--you never really know, do you?) now apparently allows me to set pools=0 without artifacts or crashes. (!) What's more, I ran a quick test with heavy weather and AA set super low, and there was no apparent difference in performance--suggesting that AA wasn't really the bottleneck I thought it was.

 

In other words, I may not be in the market for a new card after all! I'll see how this goes for the next week, but this so far appears to have given my FSX a huge leap in performance.

 

Thanks, guys, for all your help--it was your answers that led me to find the answer to my stuttering problems, and to this new epiphany.

 

Best,

James

James,

 

If you are in the market for a new GPU, the best bang for buck is the EVGA GTX670 FTW edition. It performs almost identically to the 680, yet it is 90 bucks cheaper. In FSX, you will be able to run high levels of AA without suffering any performance drop.

 

EVGA Is definately one of the best GPU manufacturers, but I heard their GTX 670's have got some problems currently. I deliberately went for a non-overclocked GPU with aftermarket cooler. Non-overclocked so I don't have to risk unstable factory overclocks (like the ones from Asus), it's cheaper, and I can also overclock myself.

 

James, if you get an EVGA version with reference design cooler you'll have great service and warranty by EVGA, but your risk the chance of a faulty card, because EVGA have reported themselves that their GTX 670's have got problems. Although they called most of them back, you might still get a faulty version. And more importantly your temps will be a little higher,. I'm running at 1100 MHz, and temps have never exceeded 50C yet, the Asus heatsinks are really great! The card I have is the Asus GTX670-DC2-2GD5. So NOT the DC2T version! I heard those have unstable factory overclocks.

 

Ben,

 

Thanks for the heads up! That does look like a great value. Isn't there a vsync problem with the 600 series cards that causes stutters and FPS drop in FSX, though? My understanding was that this was a known issue Nvidia was working on but do you know if that's been ironed out already?

 

Best,

James

 

I heard the same thing initially, but I'm having zero problems with VSync in games like FSX, F1 2011 and iRacing. I'm running all of them with VSync on limited to 60 FPS, and FSX with VSync at 30 FPS. All run as smooth as silk. Apart from that no problems with this card in FSX. It runs slightly better than the GTX 580, it runs cool. Only minor problem I had was a RSOD (Red Screen Of Death), probably because i overclocked my card way too far (1150 MHz) and became unstable. Currently running at 1100 and zero problems.

Go with a 580. Reliablity and proven performance is crucial. New isn't always better "common sense"