Hi all

 

Thought I would quickly share my experience.

 

Have until not long ago been running FSX on a 2500K OC'd to 4.4ghz with a GTX660 Ti GPU. Things were ok'ish in FSX - medium/high settings, PMDG planes, FTX Global, UTX and a couple of UK2000 airports. The overclock was getting unstable as hardware was getting older so I upgraded to a 4790K processor a couple of months ago. I did this as it clocks at 4.0-4.4Ghz stock and I didn't want to go through the hassle of overclocking again (haven't the time these days!). My results have lately been disappointing and are perhaps worse than the 2500K I had been running.

 

FPS in the PMDG 777 and UK2000 Heathrow have been stuttering (particularly in taxying turns) at the 15fps-25fps range. Outside view stutters at the locked 30fps range. Things very smooth once up in the cruise. Stutters and bad frames were particularly caused by ASN injecting complex weather. I limit cloud layers to 3, don't have any AI and Autogen on Sparse - so I really was quite disappointed. NVidia inspector settings on pretty low too - 4xS AA, no SGSS. BP=0 tweak doesn't work - lots of artefacts and visual corruption and massive stutters.

 

So.... I bit the bullet in a last ditch effort to bring the fun back to simming (ie. stop playing around with FPS and tweaks, and actually start flying again!.... I know I know, alien concept for many) and bought a 780GTX (overclocked version). Got a great deal - £230 (£170 off list price) (Google it and you will see the on-line store I got it from). I have just installed, cleared shaders, and tested using my own "standard" frame rate test scenario.

 

WOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I am now at 30fps and smooooooth in the same situations. Autogen bumped up to Normal, 2xSGSS added in NVidia inspector - I cannot get over just how much of an improvement! BP=0 now works too - not sure if it improves things massively, but have left it set anyway. I know the GTX 660 Ti was mid-range at best, but I thought FSX was largely CPU bound, so didn't really expect so much of a difference.

 

Then to top it off, I dusted off my shelved Prepar3D, updated to 2.4, and installed the Majestic Q400, ASN and FTX Global. Cranked up the visuals (cloud shadows, HDR, etc...) and gave it a test using heavy thunderstorms over New York at night. Result? 25-30fps throughout, NO STUTTERS. Have to wait and see what PMDG does to it when released - I know the Q400 is very light on FPS.

 

I am truly stunned. Wanted to share this experience with others to see if...

A. whether anyone else has found this from a similar GPU upgrade? and

B. to let people know that if confirmed by others, this investment may be worthwhile for you!

 

Thoughts?

 

Cheers,

Rich

BP=0 with the 4790K was probably the problem.  You overloaded the GPU and it couldn't handle it.  Yes the main sim is CPU bound but when you start adding in the addons with massive textures that can drag the medium level cards down.  I don't know about the 660, but apparently my 560 was a prime example of this (listed all the time in FSX tweaking guides as an example of a card that can't handle much hi-res stuff before choking).  So as part of the new system I'm building I bit the bullet and went with a 780 over the 770 I'd been planning on since it's supposed to work great at BP=0 with a 4770K and supposedly a 4790K as well (which is the cpu I went with).

A 4790K + 780 combination is one of the best combination for a smooth ride in FSX or P3D. When I say smooth, I mean smoooth.

Running at 2560x1440 on 27in Dell monitor.

Cheers,

BP=0 is totally unnecessary with that kind of hardware, in my experience.

 

Just leave the whole BP tweak out altogether B)

Bert

 

Interesting, thankyou. I left it in in case im not seeing a improvement in my test scenario but might be in say heavy clouds. Is there any downside do you think?

 

Rich

Can you please try the DSR feature?

It should render FSX at higer resolution and scale it down to your native monitor resolution.

Giving you much sharper image!

 

 

bought a 780GTX (overclocked version). Got a great deal - £230 (£170 off list price) (Google it and you will see the on-line store

 

Please can i know which store did you purchased from. 

 

 

Best Regards

Great report, I am also running the 2500K OC'd to 4.9 and have the 550Ti.  Was planning to upgrade to the GTX970 in the coming weeks.

Great report, I am also running the 2500K OC'd to 4.9 and have the 550Ti.  Was planning to upgrade to the GTX970 in the coming weeks.

Great report, I am also running the 2500K OC'd to 4.9 and have the 550Ti.  Was planning to upgrade to the GTX970 in the coming weeks.

Fingers crossed for you!

 

Its a wonderful feeling having a flight sim back rather than a FPS Tweaking Simulator. So much so, I'm planning a rare long haul for tomorrow. EGLL to KJFK I think. And no tweaking needed for once... Woohoo!!!

Fingers crossed for you!

 

Its a wonderful feeling having a flight sim back rather than a FPS Tweaking Simulator. So much so, I'm planning a rare long haul for tomorrow. EGLL to KJFK I think. And no tweaking needed for once... Woohoo!!!

 

Nice, can't wait for that myself.  Starting my sys rebuild tonight or tomorrow........replacing my now dinosaur i7-860 with a 4790K.  Gonna be like going from a C172 to an SR-71 lol.

Would you recommend the 780 over the 970? 

 

I heard the 970 was the best bang for the buck video card right now.

 

I have a 660TI and am also planning to upgrade.

 

Regards.

to the OP. What resolution are you running at?

My experience is lttile different.

Was running an i5 2500 non K (with turbo boost enabled it was running at 3,5ghz)  combined with a 560ti and upgraded to  gtx 770 2gb.

I saw some small improvement, but the overall performance in FSX  was poor (in low altitudes or on the ground).

pmdg 737  + ftx ireland + aerosoft dublin + ASN + REX 4 = low 10's fps during landing / takeoff / taxi, some times single digits  . 

Autogen normal , Traffic very low or 0, shadows off,  graphic settings high.

Also, my framerates were steady regardless the resolution i was using (from 1280 X 1024 up to 2560 X 1440)

Yesterday i  installed an i7 4790k   + msi gaming 5 MB + a zalman cooler. With turbo boost enabled, the cpu is runing steady at 4,4Ghz.

I can't describe how smooth the game is running now with higer settings

The framerates   increased 300 % (in the above mentioned senario from 11 - 12  to 33 fps  as an example).

It's a total different game. My resolution is 2560 x 1440 resolution (U2713hm) + little AF and AA.

The true test then would be to go back to the 560i and see if things are still as great as they are now.. I bet not  ^_^

The 560 ti died , so i can't go back . 

The conclusion is , that  the i7 4790K + 770 /780 (or above) combination  runs guaranteed fsx  smooth, even with heavy addons.

 .