Bought a 4k screen for Prepar3d...

[Guest]

 

 

Ultra-HD and the video card it has become a niche market and we are all too familiar with the progress rate there

 

In technology, today's high-end is tomorrows mid-end and by 3 years it's bottom-end ... it's has always evolved this way and always will.  Not everyone desires or requires the high-end of the market and they are very capable of making the most out what fit's their wallet ... hardware costs doesn't define niche ... if anything it motivates and drives support even more.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[gboz 157]

In technology, today's high-end is tomorrows mid-end and by 3 years it's bottom-end ... it's has always evolved this way and always will.  Not everyone desires or requires the high-end of the market and they are very capable of making the most out what fit's their wallet ... hardware costs doesn't define niche ... if anything it motivates and drives support even more.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Rob have you tried the Sony 1080p.

(Apparently tiled MST displays cannot do 1080p out of a video card.)

 

gb.

[Guest]

 

 

Rob have you tried the Sony 1080p.

 

Not sure I understand this?  But the first time I fired up my PC with this new Sony 4K is defaults to 1080p ... so 1080p seems to be working fine, actually just about any resolution seems to be working fine ... I can down size to 2560 x 1600 using any scaling approach.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[gboz 157]

Not sure I understand this?  But the first time I fired up my PC with this new Sony 4K is defaults to 1080p ... so 1080p seems to be working fine, actually just about any resolution seems to be working fine ... I can down size to 2560 x 1600 using any scaling approach.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Yes, down scalling was what I meant.

Good to know the Sony can do that.

Does it do the 1600/1080p at 60hz?

 

Thanks,

gb.

[Guest]

 

 

Does it do the 1600/1080p at 60hz?

 

Sony can yes, the nVidia HDMI 1.4 port no ... HDMI will only do 1080p at 60Hz ... 1600 over HDMI 1.4 is 30Hz ... the only 60Hz available on the nVidia card above 1080p is the DVI-D will do 1600p at 60Hz and the DisplayPort will do 4K (2160p) at 60Hz.

 

I've been searching for a DisplayPort to HDMI 2.0 60Hz adapter ... they apparently just don't exists which is odd.  I'm sure they'll eventually hit the market, but for now I can't find one ... if you have any sources please let me know.  I don't usually play 3D shooters so my need for 60Hz is pretty low, but would be a nice to have without having to dump all these nVidia Titan Blacks for whatever their "new" card will be.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[macwino 14]

This discussion has tweaked my interest in ditching my 3-23 inch screen nVidia Surround setup for P3D and substituting in the 49 or 55 inch Sony monitors mentioned above. I'd appreciate any thoughts from anyone who's made such a switch, or considered it but decided to stick with 3 monitors. I'd also appreciate some input on the relative merits of the 49 v. the 55 inch size. I plan to look into the 2 sizes tomorrow at Best Buy if they're on display, but some practical input with P3D would be most helpful.

 

Thanks,

Robert

[Guest]

What's your view distances from the monitor?  This will determine the best size in terms of noticing shimmers/AA issues.  I'm about 2-3 feet away from mine (49").

 

Some things you need to consider ... 30Hz doesn't work so well in twitch type games (3D shooters) ... you'll want 60Hz for that so  you'll need a monitor with DisplayPort if you have an nVidia GPU so you can run at 60Hz.   OR, you'll have to run at 1080p to get 60Hz on the Sony.

 

But for flight simulation 30Hz actually works out very well ... that is my target fps also so it ends up being a very good match.  Flicker seems to be a thing of the past on these newer 4K monitors.  The Sony will do 120Hz, 60Hz, 30Hz and it'll also do 3D ... so if that's something you might want to do for flight sim, worth thinking about.  The monitor has wireless, bluetooth, ethernet all built it ... this is good because Sony release updates for the TV/monitor this way also.  As far as heat, it radiates very little heat (considerably less than my prior 2560 x 1600 monitor).

 

Performance wise (Titan Blacks) this is what I noticed:

1920 x 1080 --> 2560 x 1600 = 20% drop

2560 x 1600 --> 3840 x 2160 = 20% drop (from 2560 x 1600)

 

4K is definitely here, and very easy on the eyes.

 

Happy shopping!

 

Cheers, Rob.

[macwino 14]

Rob, my view distance will be the same as yours. It can be as close as 2 feet and as far away as 3 feet. So I guess you're recommending the 49 inch size. 

 

Thanks for pointing out the heat issue. I'd not given it a thought, and that's a very important consideration. My 10-year old living room plasma is suffocating when standing close to it and it's good to know that won't be an issue.

 

I will only use it for P3D so I think I'll be fine until nVidia comes out with an upgraded HDMI connection. In the meantime, I hope my 780/6GB card will suffice.

 

I've been running my 3 monitors at 5988 x1080, and 3840 x 2160 will be even more taxing. But the thought of having a real size cockpit and panel - and being able to read the gauges - is very enticing and I'll just have to dumb down a few settings if necessary.

 

Thanks for your input - and for getting me started on this adventure. And thanks for all your videos, which I really enjoy, and your constant advice in the forums. It's invaluable.

 

Robert

[Guest]

 

 

But the thought of having a real size cockpit and panel - and being able to read the gauges - is very enticing and I'll just have to dumb down a few settings if necessary.

 

Yeah it's always a compromise ... these are the settings I'm currently using with a Titan Black: http://www.robainscough.com/P3D_V2.php

 

Most welcome -- it's nice to get positive feedback rather then some of the hate I get which can blur the line between passion and obsession.

 

Happy simming.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[macwino 14]

Well, I've been using a 55 inch Samsung curved 4k monitor for a week now and I couldn't be happier. I had planned on getting the 49 inch Sony model Rob had discussed, but it wasn't on display or available and I decided to try out the Samsung instead. There are some downsides but I think that, for me anyway, the overall experience is far superior to the 3-23 inch monitor setup I'd been using for the past 7 years.

 

I decided to give a single screen a try because of this thread. Seven years ago, I went from an Apple 32 inch monitor to a 3 screen setup, which I've upgraded over the years, and felt fine about it. I was taken in by the panorama back then. Today, the difference between 3 screens and a much larger single screen than the Apple tipped the scales the other way.

 

Maybe using 3-28 inch 4k screens would have worked better for me than the 3-23 inch screens I was using. It was my backup setup if the single monitor didn't do it for me. But once experiencing the 55 inch 4k curved screen I didn't even want to bother with the hassle of trying out another setup. It completely overwhelmed me. I would have posted earlier, but I just couldn’t stop flying.

 

First, the benefits:

 

I sit 2 feet from the monitor and it's like being in a real cockpit. The panel is real-life size and I can read the gauges, which I couldn't do with 3-23 inch screens and always had to use popups where available. TrackIR handles the peripheral vision that I'm losing. And the loss of panorama can be mitigated somewhat by zooming out when I just want to look around. Everything (within the LOD limits, of course) is extraordinarily crisp. It’s a mesmerizing experience.

 

Using Rob’s 4k settings and his Orbx Vector and ASN setup, and tweaking Orbx NCA in the Bay Area, there are no framerate issues. I’m either at the 30 fps max or sometimes at 15 fps. For some reason, nothing in between. There’s full aircraft control at 15 fps and nothing seems amiss. 

 

Thank you Rob for all your time and effort in configuring these settings. It is much appreciated.

 

BTW, I run a 4790 overclocked to 4.6, an EVGA nVidia 780 with 6GB of RAM, and 8GB of 2400GHz memory. And I’ve been testing with the A2A C-172, the A2A Cherokee, and the Aerosoft Airbus Extreme. For my testing, my scenery included Orbx NCA, Global, and Vector, Orbx KTVL and KMRY, and KSAN and KLAS payware airports with MegaScenery 2 for Southern California and Nevada, Megascenery High Res for Los Angeles and San Diego, and MegaSceneryX for Las Vegas. GSX for airport services, ASN for weather, Opus for views, GTN 750 for the A2A planes. I did no testing in dawn, dusk or night situations. Nor did I test with the payware KSFO active in the Bay Area. (Perhaps I didn’t want to upset a good thing with an airport that’s a problem to begin with.)

 

Strangely, if I reduce the resolution I do not get any framerate improvement. I can’t explain this behavior, but it is what it is. I can see the resolution has changed, but the framerate counter can’t. Kind of like the mystery of there being only 2 framerates, 15 and 30 fps. So I leave it at the full 4k resolution. I’d love for Rob to comment on these anomalies.

 

Now, the downsides:

 

On occasion there is what I would describe as some rippling in the scenery and in the posts supporting the roof of the cockpit. I don’t know if this is what is called screen tearing. It is very infrequent and can generally be avoided by not making extreme view shifts with TrackIR or the hat switch, and, I suppose, by slowing down the Opus view transitions if it were to happen in the cockpit.

 

I’m getting some flickering of some scenery objects, but I don’t think this is due to the 4k monitor. I had the same problem with my 3-screen setup and I just don’t seem to be able to eliminate it.

 

And then there’s the issue of OOMs. So far I’ve only experienced an OOM once with this monitor, and I’m not sure this had anything to do with its high resolution. It was on a taxing flight in the Cherokee from KMRY, up through San Francisco Bay, up through the Napa Valley, and then across to Squaw Valley (I was visiting my favorite places) and then down Lake Tahoe to KTVL. I OOM’d about 10 miles out from KTVL. I think it might have been avoided if I’d used lower water settings than those used by Rob, who has a much more powerful machine than I have. I intend to try the flight again with lower water settings and see how it goes. I also intend to replicate Rob's Australia-New Zealand flight to see what happens.

 

Another thing I noticed on this KMRY-KTVL flight is that available VAS went down to about 500 over the Bay Area, which is to be expected, and never really recovered, even though the rest of the flight was quite rural. As has been discussed elsewhere, this is an issue introduced in v2.3 that needs to be addressed by LM. I also was doing a lot of view changing between VC and Locked Spot, as there was so much to see, and this could have contributed to the continuing low VAS as well.

 

Sorry for the long post, but I wanted to present my experience so others who are contemplating such a switch might gain an idea of what to expect.

 

BTW, there’s another benefit to this screen. Movies, albeit in 1080p at the moment, look amazing. The clarity and depth is unbelievable. It is as close to a movie theater experience as one can get. And sitting about 3 feet from the screen is very immersive and allows every detail to be seen. Please bear in mind, however, that I have a first generation plasma over 10 years old so my basis for comparison may not be the same as yours.

 

Robert

[Guest]

Thank you Rob for all your time and effort in configuring these settings. It is much appreciated.

 

Most welcome, really glad it's working for you ... I saw the curved monitors also and thought what a great idea ... glad you are liking them.

 

 

 

I OOM’d about 10 miles out from KTVL. I think it might have been avoided if I’d used lower water settings than those used by Rob, who has a much more powerful machine than I have.

 

Not so sure, your CPU is newer gen than mine and the 780 is close to a Titan black on performance.  As far as OOM's around KTVL, I've never OOM'd there ... but I always start P3D from a saved .fxml (with my aircraft of choice for intended flight).  What I have noticed is that changing aircraft (even just a few times) within a single P3D session causes increased VAS usage.  Also changing settings within a single P3D session can cause excessive VAS usage.  I'd recommend you get your desired location and aircraft and setting all squared away, then save the flight, exit P3D and load P3D from double click on the save flight .fxml file (this can save as much as 300-400MB in VAS).

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Overload 91]

I ended up getting the Sony XBR 49X850B ... very happy with it.  The only downside is that Sony provide HDMI 2.0 ports but my Titan Blacks have HDMI 1.4a ports ... so basically this means the Titans can only operate 4K at 30Hz.  My Sony will work at 30Hz without issues, but I'd rather have 60Hz or 120Hz which the Sony also supports.  nVidia unfortunately have no plans to put in HDMI 2.0 ports ... but "I think" the Display port on the nVidia will support 60Hz 4K ... so I guess I'll have to see if there is a Display Port to HDMI 2.0 dongle I can use to get 60Hz.

 

 

I picked up on this from the recent GTX 980 release:

 

"The mounting brackets on cards following Nvidia’s reference design will have one dual-link DVI connector, three DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces, and one HDMI 2.0 port. HDMI 2.0 support is particularly important because it supports 4K resolution at a refresh rate of 60Hz (the older HDMI 1.4b standard is limited to a refresh rate of just 30Hz, which is fine for movies, but terrible for games)."

 

Could be handy?

Eugene

[peppy197 165]

You wont be getting P3D at 4K and 60 fps near anything other than clear air at FL500 (in a piper cub)

[Overload 91]

You wont be getting P3D at 4K and 60 fps near anything other than clear air at FL500 (in a piper cub)

 

 

It's 60Hz not 60FPS.

 

At the moment I can only get 30Hz refresh rate from my 780i to my 4K projector, as the 780i HDMI is the old 1.4 standard. The GTX 980 card uses a HDMI 2 output which gives out 60Hz.

 

I've never found the 30Hz limit a problem, as when running most aircraft the scenery etc isn't changing too fast for the graphics to keep up, more a problems for the faster "shooter" type games.

 

I run with P3D at 30FPS most of the time, except for a couple of complex payware airports, and it's very smooth. But I do have the benefit of running the iFly 737 Cockpit builders software driving a JetMax home cockpit, with networked PC's, so the graphics workload is shared.

Eugene

[Guest]

This company here: http://www.paradetech.com/

 

Is apparently coming out with a DisplayPort 1.2 (what is on the back of existing nVidia cards like my Titans) to HDMI 2.0 adapter sometime in Q1 2015.  It's apparently a little more involved than just wiring ... company is located local to me in Silicon Valley area (Santa Clara).  I'll keep an eye on it.

 

But as pointed out 30Hz actually works really well for Flight Simulators ... it can work well for 3D shooters, but you need to limit you mouse and/or TrackIR response so that you can't do unrealistic motions ... I never did understand why 3D shooters let you twitch around in motions that aren't possible for humans and vomit inducing.

 

You can hit 60 fps at 4K, it just depends where you are located, KSEA ... no, but default Langely yes and in more remote regions you can stay well above 60 fps.

 

Cheers, Rob.