Dear All,

 

I'm currently running a w7x64 , i7 3970K (OC to 4.5 Ghz) cooled by a H80 hydro, 16 GB RAM. On the graphic side I have an Asus Geforce 680. I run FSX on a 3 screens (5760x1080 in portrait mode) nvidia surround. 

My FSX performance is typically 30 (i.e. locked 30)  but can go down to 18 - 20 at major airports +PMDG NGX+bad weather+dusk or dawn (AS2012 with 1024 clouds)  (standard Word Not Allowed tweaks).

I was considering upgrading the card to a titan hoping to get 30 most of the time. Getting ready for the pmdg 777 :-) (supposed to be comparable or better to the NGX fps wise)

Any thoughts on that ?

 

Best

Well I dont think a titan or any card above a 680 would help. FSX is CPU based and getting 30 FPS with addons in a big city seems almost impossible to me.

I went from a 680 to a Titan. Similar system. Should be a definite increase. I run unlimited on DX10 and see fps near 100 unless I run a limiter. I do have autogen turned down 1 notch an only use UT though.

Using the monitor in Nvidia Inspector, you can keep an eye on the % utilization of your GPU. Try flying all the scenarios you're likely to fly and see if your 680 is ever pegged at 100%. Once you hit 100%, the GPU starts to limit your FPS. Otherwise, it's CPU bound. Of course, a reasonable FPS target rate is assumed (30 being what most of us strive for) - buying a Titan to go from 50 FPS to 60 would be a complete waste of money IMHO.

 

In my testing, a high level of AA filtering combined with a screen full of solid clouds (or spray from a prop on a rainy day from behind) can kill the GPU. BP=0 is also reported to load up the GPU.

Great feedbacks, thanks a lot to all of you. The limiting factor seems to be clouds. Bad weather is the thing that mostly  decreases by fps. I was hopping that a powerful GPU like the titan might overcome that bottleneck.

 

Best

I run unlimited on DX10 and see fps near 100 unless I run a limiter.

 

I'm afraid this doesn't tell anyone much of anything.  I saw 'fps near 100' a lot of the time in my 5 year old Q9650 w/ GTX280--all I had to do was look straight up in the sky ;o)

 

Since you and I have the same basic box how about doing a standardized test?  Do you have FTX PNW scenery, the PMDG NGX & REX-E+ installed?  If so, here's a simple 'acid test' to try:

 

 

1.  Set every single variable in FSX to maximum:  that's all traffic of every type, clouds out to 110M, ground & aircraft shadows on, every possible setting to the absolute maximum possible in the customized settings dialogue in FSX.  Set UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0 in fsx.cfg

 

2.  Set FTX Night Lights to ON--this is a big one so don't skip this step!

 

3.  Install REX cumulous cloud set #24 at the 2048 density setting.

 

3.  Change LOD in fsx.cfg to 6.5 after you've maxed out all settings in FSX, then closed FSX so that 6.5 does not revert to 4.5.

 

4.  In nV Inspector:  vsync at 1/2 refresh rate, frame limiter at 30, AF 16x, AA_MODE_METHOD_SUPERVCAA_64X...., and 8x Supersampling.

 

5.  Start FSX & load up the NGX engines running at KSEA 34R at dawn, weather set at Major Thunderstorm.

 

Report your FSP.  DX10 mode off for this test ...

I'll give it a try when I get home. It will probably result in an OOM in DX9 mode.

Running at ksea then what ? just sit there ? as I have a titan - it is better but I was not wowed as much as I thought I would for the price

On a 3 screen setup with that test autogen will kill CPU long before it can feed enough to the GPU...but I'll check it anyways. Just not sure what this proves

I went from a 680 to a Titan. Similar system. Should be a definite increase. I run unlimited on DX10 and see fps near 100 unless I run a limiter. I do have autogen turned down 1 notch an only use UT though.

FPS of 100? Sounds like you're throwing softballs at your hardware. By only UT (I assume you mean Ultimate Terrain, not Ultimate Traffic), do you mean no addon airports, no Orbx, no Active Sky or REX, no AI program, no PMDG, etc.? If so, then I suppose 100 sounds about right. Try the test Noel suggested for an better gauge of CPU v. GPU performance. Apart from allowing you to use higher levels of AA, I doubt that the Titan is going to do anything for you once you crank the heat and fly as most of do.

@KSEA with above posted settings results in a "ERROR:please turn down traffic settings(simconnect over 1000 simultaneous requests) " messages constantly spamming my screen. FPS counter 13-15 on average. (probably because it can't maintain 30 so drops to the next which would be 15) CPU and GPU usage are very low.

 

Addons: REX Essentials +OD, Ultimate traffic 2, ORBX PNW and  FTX-Global, PMDG...and too many airports to list 

 

Not going to remove UT2 or FTXG to use his config, it's not worth the hassle

 

I'm pretty sure FSX is at it's VAS limit because video memory usage never goes above 1340, sometimes it goes higher for a split second then drops back down. I believe in DX9, whatever is written to video mem must also occupy system memory. So this is probably FSX trying to free up resources...

 

Another interesting thing is with those settings FSX framerates no longer agree with the frame rates shown by EVGA precision. FSX shows half of what precision does.

 

 

At any rate...TITAN is still a good buy if you play anything else in addition to FSX.  X-Plane 10 can eat all 6GB of video mem if you want it to and DCS series is not far behind. Both will exhaust the standard 2GB of a 680 on a surround setup without blinking, turning your sim into a slideshow. If you've got the disposable income to get it and you want it go for it. I don't regret purchasing this card for a second - it is a huge upgrade over a 680 for surround use.  If you use one monitor then go with something cheaper you don't need it.

how about a 780 its much cheaper than the titan and maybe 10 % less performance . but again i wouldn't pay an extra 400 $ for 10-15 % performance increase . also i may be buying it to replace my old gtx 560ti 

.  in this link Word Not Allowed compares the 580 , 680 and the titan in fsx : http://#####.wordpress.com/fsxp3d-gpu-comparison-aka-gtx-titan-for-fsx-test/  in different scenarios . 

780 might be a good choice as I have not looked into it sounds like a better bang for the buck but not sure.

At any rate...TITAN is still a good buy if you play anything else in addition to FSX.  X-Plane 10 can eat all 6GB of video mem if you want it to and DCS series is not far behind. B

 

Thanks for trying that--I'm seeing right at 14 fps, except I'm only using one screen.   Fortunately, we don't need to run FSX with those settings.  

 

I designed this machine not so much for FSX but for another, better simulator engine that can better exploit lots of system ram, video ram & video bandwidth, DirectX 11, and of course multicore/hyperthreaded.  I'm very happy w/ FSX performance--such a nice upgrade from my old box of nearly 6 years duration.  I don't hold out for much improvement in FSX but either P3D, XPlane 64, or something new I feel will give us the bump we need to take advantage of modern hardware better and in doing so improve our simulation experience w/ more detail & realism.

Thanks for trying that--I'm seeing right at 14 fps, except I'm only using one screen.   Fortunately, we don't need to run FSX with those settings.  

 

I designed this machine not so much for FSX but for another, better simulator engine that can better exploit lots of system ram, video ram & video bandwidth, DirectX 11, and of course multicore/hyperthreaded.  I'm very happy w/ FSX performance--such a nice upgrade from my old box of nearly 6 years duration.  I don't hold out for much improvement in FSX but either P3D, XPlane 64, or something new I feel will give us the bump we need to take advantage of modern hardware better and in doing so improve our simulation experience w/ more detail & realism.

hello noel 

MANY people have asked your question (including me)and the anwser is  : ............................

up to today there is no flight simulator that is fairly new and uses your hardware in its full potential other than xplane 10. even if we reach the time where hardware gets crazy fast . it still wont run fsx with everything "MAXED OUT" and get awesome frames 

 

Regards