Mind you I am running at 6000 x 1080

:blink: :blink: :blink:

I'm just impressed :lol:

It makes me happy. God bless the nvidia 680!

During the night, it's another story: you must use HDR !!! Fortunately, you can also bring other graphical settings and visibility way down and still enjoy the amazing global lighting with excellent framerate.

 

Pascal, very good point. I'm going to try HDR again at night and turn some stuff down. When you guys speak of the night "lighting", your talking about the street lights, city lights, car lights, etc. because when I fly at night in XPX it's so dark I really can't see anything? I have my monitors calibrated, so I'm confident that's not an issue. Perhaps that's what you people are referring to, it is dark, and that's more realistic. I never really liked the night flying in FSX, it never really seemed "dark", it was like there was always a full moon. Not being a rw pilot, I really don't know what I'm supposed to be looking at, what's "more" real.

 

I guess you can look at it both ways. I'm very impressed with the performance with no HDR. I'm trying to find out "why" it appears to be such a hit for everyone so far, when the resolutions are higher. I want to find a way to use it, without having to make drastic sacrifices. If it's "always" going to be such a hard hit on performance, is it worth further development? Just a scenario / question I'm curious about. I fly without it, I've shown and stated why. Could it be tweaked, as in removing the AA options that we are currently given, and maybe let us use Inspector or CCC to control the AA, or even just the regular AA options, while using HDR? That might help / allow us to tweak our own systems, thus allowing us to make HDR a more viable option. Just one thing that comes to mind.

 

Not at my system right now, is there an option to select "none" AA already when using HDR? If so, I wonder how well adjusting Inspector or CCC outside of Xplane would work.

 

 

Great thread guys. On my system, there is quite a big jump between HDR on and HDR off. Mind you I am running at 6000 x 1080 so I guess there should be. I can't recall what the exact figures are and I'm away from my machine at the mo, but at a rough ball park if I'm pulling say 17-18 fps with hdr on, I can expect say just under 30 with it off. Of course it's all location dependant.

 

Jess B

 

Jess, please provide us with some numbers. You are pushing a lot of pixels, and I would be very much interested in how HDR runs on your system. As I stated earlier, I'm considering a 30" monitor at 2560x1600, your pushing almost 65% (math ok?) more pixels than that, wow. That would be a "post card" let alone a "slide show" on my system. :smile:

 

Glen

No probs.

 

Here are the figures for the rendering settings you used.

 

No HDR - WDD Very high 6000 x 1080 2d panel - 25 fps

No HDR - WDD Very high 6000 x 1080 3d panel - 23 fps

 

HDR on - WDD Very high 6000 x 1080 2d panel - 21 fps

HDR on - WDD Very high 6000 x 1080 3d panel - 17 fps

 

No HDR - WDD Medium 6000 x 1080 2d panel - 38 fps

No HDR - WDD Medium 6000 x 1080 3d panel - 36 fps

 

HDR - WDD Medium 6000 x 1080 2d panel - 28 fps

HDR - WDD Medium 6000 x 1080 3d panel - 23 fps

 

All these are done with your settings, including your POV at 95.

 

 

I'm just thinking about XP or FSX with 3x 1920x1080 55-65" screens in front of me at 30fps...holy crap..i think i gotta go check myself...

Jess, I don't know what to say after looking at those numbers, thanks for posting. What POV do you run with your setup?

 

The situation where I was getting 60fps, your getting 23...hmm, and with a lot turned off, sitting static. Mind you, your pushing a lot more pixels. There's no way I could ever fly with a smaller, lower resolution monitor again. I'm at 45" horizontal view (19" monitor x3) now, but would go to 30" at a higher resolution, but still have concerns. Why doesn't someone make a 30-35" monitor with a "nice" resolution that doesn’t cost the same as a mortgage on a house. ^_^

 

Were talking in another post here about feel, and the like, when your flying on a computer. Well, it is greatly enhanced when you fly with a large horizontal view, as opposed to basically just the panel on a single monitor. My peripheral view is fantastic at 3840 pixels, and I shake my head when I gust fly / test on one monitor, you really can't see anything, there is no peripheral view to speak of. I suppose there is if you mess with the zoom levels some, but then it looks unrealistic.

 

Edit: Aaron, you posted while I was typing. Yes, it does make one rethink a bit. Jess is running at a very high screen resolution, that has to be factored in the discussion / evaluation.

Hell, now they have 42" tv's for $350...x3 = $1100 and they're 1920x1080...

Hell, now they have 42" tv's for $350...x3 = $1100 and they're 1920x1080...

 

Ya, I need to try to save a bit of space, and power. I'm totally off grid on solar, and I can save a bit of power going to a single monitor, when compared to 3. The 30" at 2560x1600 would work, it's has a much higher resolution overall when compared to my 3 monitor setup now. I'd still be loosing one third the horizontal view though, don't like to loose the peripheral.

I don't know what to tell you glen. My system isn't quite as powerful as yours, just a 2500k i5 running at 4.5ghz. As for FOV, I run it at 120 over 3 27" monitors. It's pretty sweet.

 

One possible thought, what level of visibility are you testing at. Mine was set to CAVOK. with real weather at KSEA, the visibility was much lower and fps much higher. Just a thought.

 

Jess B

I don't know what to tell you glen. My system isn't quite as powerful as yours, just a 2500k i5 running at 4.5ghz. As for FOV, I run it at 120 over 3 27" monitors. It's pretty sweet.

 

One possible thought, what level of visibility are you testing at. Mine was set to CAVOK. with real weather at KSEA, the visibility was much lower and fps much higher. Just a thought.

 

Jess B

 

I just picked "clear" and "daytime" from the main screen when Xplane starts. I didn't set any weather at all, so whatever that initial "clear" is. I kind of thought / was hoping your numbers would be a bit higher, our systems are fairly close and your using a 680. I suppose high(er) resolutions are fine, as long as HDR is off. Frame rates in the low 20's are just to low for me, especially with nothing going on. FPS are just numbers, but there's now way it's going to be smooth, if your already that low, and then get into heavy weather or scenery. Anything in the mid 20's, and I can already feel / see a difference in smoothness.

 

Not saying anything negative about your system Jess, :smile: just saying I can't run with numbers that low.

Wattage wise, most TVs will pull enough electricity to cost roughly $13-18 per year using $0.11 per killowatt hour rate 8 hours a day, 5 days a week...can you spare $50 a year for running 3x 55" TVs as monitors?

No problem Glen, it is what it is. I just double checked my settings and those are the numbers. I consider your settings to be fairly high in some areas. I tend to run HDR at 2 x SSAA + FXAA. Anisotropic at 16x. World wise, trees at populated, cars at Siberia, shadows to medium and water complete. Away from Seattle, this is fine for me. Clouds are a big drag though.

Aaron, it doesn't work that way. Off grid solar costs are a lot more than residential rates. It takes years to recoup your initial investment. I have to conserve every watt I produce, especially this time of year, with the limited amount of sun per day. Summer is different, but this computer is never on in the summer, I'm outside flying.

 

Then I have my battery bank that's only so big. Then you can't draw down more than 50% of your battery bank so as not to shorten their life span. There's a lot more too it, too much to discuss here. Point being, any way I can save a watt, helps in the long run. I've been living this lifestyle for 10 years now, so I have recouped my initial costs, but I still have to conserve every watt. I can't just go plugging a bunch of stuff into the wall, like most do with regular hydro.

 

Just to add, I'm never without power, which is a bonus.

Musk, for testing and benchmarking purposes, doing it with no clouds and fps taxing options disabled is the wrong way to do things IMO.

 

I think it's best to find an airport which you know is highly detailed, set clouds as a thick overcast, enable HDR and then start tweaking from there.

 

IOW, try to find a good range of settings which produce the minimum amount of performance you are willing to accept. If you can do this in a taxing situation, then once you start flying, it will for the most part, perform above par.

 

Sent from my Galaxy Nexus using Tapatalk 2

 

 

Efrain, been there, done that, when I normally fly and test. HDR is just not an option. I have to sacrifice too much to make it viable, something I'm not willing to do. Except maybe at night when you can't see anything anyways.

 

I can fly into CYYZ, a very heavily populated area, with addon airport scenery, with my settings cranked as per the test, only difference is AA at 16 times, and the fps and smoothness are fine, provided HDR is off. Turn HDR on, and I'm turning everything down settings wise, frame rates are in the teens, that's just not an option. We haven't even got into bad weather yet, or filled the airports with ai traffic, or atc.

 

I just wanted to test and see if my numbers were in line with others with similar systems, and they seem to be, their too low with HDR on.

 

Glen

 

Were missing a point here I think.

 

My settings are already low/medium(ish). There's no weather. There's no ai traffic. There's no atc. There's no shadows. There's no water reflections. There's no addon airport. There's no addon aircraft. These haven't even been factored in yet. To me those are settings, very important to complete the simulation.

 

So, fly into a airport in a storm, say JFK, with say 20-30 ai aircraft in the vicinity, with the radios full of ai chatter, factor in some shadows, put some reflections on the water. We haven't done any of that, and our numbers are already dreadfully low with HDR on. That's what I'm getting at, it's not viable.

 

If you fly in the boonies, on a nice clear day, going 100-150kt's your probably ok, too limiting to be a viable option in my books, just my take.