It's pretty much a monopoly handled by Intel (AMD have exited the desktop consumer market)

 

Unfortunately yes, Intel are back to "their ways" now that they don't have any competition ... I recall when AMD was top dog for CPUs and Intel scrambled to recover the top spot.  This is the very same reason why I would NEVER want to see XPlane go away - competition is good.  Intel doesn't really have any (competition) right now and it shows ... for most people 16 cores on a single physical processor just means 14 idle cores the consumer is paying for.  Having 16 cores for P3DV2.x will make no noticeable difference in performance nor the terrain loading ... better GPU's however will make a huge difference.  Anyway, point being we can't rely on CPU development for "significant" performance improvements.

 

But it's history repeating ... everything is mobile focused now, drop the desktop development ... it's the same type of mistakes that were made back in the dot.com days ... for whatever reason the businesses sector feels they must "drop everything" because XYZ is dead (usually decisions made by executive types that don't understand the technology and it's relevance to consumers).  Microsoft has made this mistake many times ... maybe the new CEO will actually learn from history?  Fortunately I've managed to steer my company thru all the hype and kept a steady and profitable course that makes sense for the real world.

 

I have no idea what DX12 will bring nor it's implications on the coding side ... my hunch is it will not be a "transparent" update to DX12 (read lots of work) - but it is dangling out their in the graphics world.

 

Cheers, Rob.

I have no idea what DX12 will bring nor it's implications on the coding side ... my hunch is it will not be a "transparent" update to DX12 (read lots of work) - but it is dangling out their in the graphics world.

 

Porting Prepar3D 2.x to DirectX 12 shouldn't be complicated. It is going to work fine on DirectX 11 hardware, and Microsoft demonstrated Forza 5 on PC with DirectX 12 (originally a DirectX 11.X game). If it's anything like Mantle, it's going to be easy to port.

 

But, if it's anything like Mantle, this means that the developer is going to be responsible for a lot more things (the API won't decide for them). This could potentially make it hard for Prepar3D 2.x to get DirectX 12 support, but of course the benefit is that the developer has finer control of the hardware, especially the GPU.

 

I feel that DirectX 12 for Prepar3D 2.x is a necessity. Even if they do move the entire autogen work to the GPU, there's still a lot for the CPU to do (AI, physics, aircraft systems), which means it will be hard to make it a GPU-bound application with all that overhead in the main thread.

If DX12 is a Win8/9 - only situation... don't hold your breath on seeing that any time soon in the training world.

 

So... I'd hold off on DX12 discussions until it's known what Microsoft actually puts it in. They're having a heck of a time getting people to purchase Win 8... they may force people to move to Win8/9 just to get DX12... and I don't see the training industry moving that route.

If DX12 is a Win8/9 - only situation... don't hold your breath on seeing that any time soon in the training world.

 

So... I'd hold off on DX12 discussions until it's known what Microsoft actually puts it in. They're having a heck of a time getting people to purchase Win 8... they may force people to move to Win8/9 just to get DX12... and I don't see the training industry moving that route.

 

Windows 8 isn't going to be that different from Windows 7 after the upcoming September update. Start Menu is returning, and possibly Aero Glass. With the ability to skip the Metro interface (already in 8.1), it might actually be worth upgrading because the September update will also introduce optimisations that reduce OS overhead.

My OS isn't 'overhead' now... sorry... Win8 offers nothing for the price at this point.

 

My current system performs extremely fast and has zero OS issues. Why should I spend money on something I really don't need?

 

And remember, I'm in the training industry... we're not going to grab Win8 without a serious need and there just isn't one... now or in the foreseeable future.

 

 

GPU bound is where we want to be for flight simulation.

 

I totally agree with that. Although the PCIe standard has been changed, version 3.0 has a tremendous amount of extra bandwidth at this point and the slots are backwards compatible. That favors GPU upgrades.

 

On the other hand, Intel keeps changing the pin arrangement on its CPUs, rendering old motherboards obsolete. A GPU-limited app is definitely a bit more future-proof. My system always ranges between 35 and 65% CPU use with P3d 2.2 (pretty evenly spread out among all 12 cores), but by cranking up the IQ settings I can easily push the GPU use to 99%. That doesn't necessarily mean that my system is GPU limited, as there might be one or two specific CPU threads that could still be a bottleneck, like what was happening in previous P3d releases.

 

 

My system always ranges between 35 and 65% CPU use with P3d 2.2 (pretty evenly spread out among all 12 cores

 

Have you tried AffinityMask=4092  ?

Holy smokes, I just did a flight out of Oslo with ASN and the building and tree density was incredible!  Did Orbx concentrate on Norway or something?  This is with FTX Global, Vector, Aerosoft Oslo, and ASN for weather ... 

 

 

Cheers, Rob.

Nice video Rob.  I think they're using some open source database with the position of buildings over there.  I don't know what it is called off the top of my head.  I'd go for that over photoreal.  It would be really nice on top of.

Bet it's OSM... OpenStreetMaps.

OpenStreetMaps

 Yes, that's it.  Thanks.  There are projects all over in it, but we haven't done much with it here in the US.  Pity.

It is OpenStreetMap indeed, but FTX Global Vector is only about vector data. So I can't see how that would affect the buildings.

 

denali, don't worry because in Vector 1.2, the data source for the North America will be switched to USGS which will make things a lot better. Here's a comparison: http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/75994-vector-v12-massive-improvement-to-na-heres-a-preview/

Have you tried AffinityMask=4092  ?

I always run AM=4095. I haven't experimented since version 2.0 was released, but other than allowing P3d to access core 0, I've never seen any difference in frame rates or smoothness in version 2.2.

denali, don't worry because in Vector 1.2, the data source for the North America will be switched to USGS which will make things a lot better.

 

Can you give me a rough idea what the perf hit for full Vector (in the configurator) over default FTX Global?  I know FTX regions are a lot harder than FTX Global alone.  I wasn't fond of the lack of a configurator for just this sort of control so may jump in if the perf hit isn't substantial.  It appears from what 2.2 offers it may be the wrong time to ask this question as the perf hit might be substantially more in 2.2 or so it would seem.

 

Thanks!

I always run AM=4095. I haven't experimented since version 2.0 was released, but other than allowing P3d to access core 0, I've never seen any difference in frame rates or smoothness in version 2.2.

No perceived benefit w/ HT enabled I guess is what you're saying?  I am using 62 for my SB-E...

Can you give me a rough idea what the perf hit for full Vector (in the configurator) over default FTX Global?  I know FTX regions are a lot harder than FTX Global alone.  I wasn't fond of the lack of a configurator for just this sort of control so may jump in if the perf hit isn't substantial.

 

Thanks!

 

I don't have Vector so I can't tell you for myself, but I've been watching the official Orbx forums closely. It seems mid-range systems suffer a substantial performance hit, but on high-end systems people don't notice a difference. There is always increased VAS consumption though.