4K Monitors.

[Philip Ogden 2]

I have been using Prepar3d v2.4 quite happily for some time now on a fairly modest system, i5 2500K cpu, 8gb ram and an nvidia 6600ti GTX graphic card on a 27" monitor. This compares well with other systems I have seen at shows and the flight sim. groups I attend. I have recently become aware of 4K monitors but got a mixed reaction after looking at various forums as to how worthwhile they are. I decided, however, to bite the bullet and bought a Samsung 28" 4K monitor along with an nvidia 970GTX graphic card. I was expecting a modest, but perhaps not a dramatic, improvement, but what I got was far more than I imagined. The actual frame rate is reduced but the flight model is still smooth down to the mid 30s. What is really impressive is how sharp and vivid everything is even on the default aircraft which I thought were quite basic on my original system much preferring the Real Air aircraft which have always been amazing and are now even better. I can only wonder how much more improvement will be evident when they release  aircraft specifically for Prepar3d. The colours, details, instruments and textures really spring to life in a way I have not seen before and even older aircraft like the Flight 1 Hawker Hunter, originally made for FS2004 and FSX really shine. I think this is the next big step for the ultimate visual experience. Just imagine a 3 screen set-up!

[Guest]

Welcome to club 4K.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[MartinRex007 390]

I have a question, Does anyone know if using a HDTV at 1080 and setting DSR (using a GTX 970 or any card that supports DSR)  to the 4K option would provide similar results but better FPS because your video card would still only be pushing out the 1080 res and not the 4K.....I'm sure I'm probably missing something here, but I'm hoping someone who knows a lot more than me will chim in?

 

Thanks

[Skywolf 992]

Yeah, 4K is awesome for work, I have 6 4K monitors in 3x2 configuration.  I did try Prepar3d v2 in eyefinity mode on all 6 monitors for kicks - yeah, I am getting some low frames and the monitor panels in between the cockpit ruin the effect.  But all this was done on lowly 6 display port AMD 7750 card with 2GB (firepro w600 is same as amd 7750 eyefinity 6 version)

 

Right now, I am just trying to push for 1 screen at 1920x1080 with this card.  Card is complete bottleneck for P3dv2 but the i7-5820K does help.  But for work card is perfect.

 

I wish AMD had more displayport at least 3 per card for the R9.  4K requires Displayport and the MST hubs can't even push 4K (unnecessary expense).  R9-295x2 is dual card and P3Dv2 doesn't support it at this moment.

 

I hope this year's cards have more or at least 3 display port output.  The Firepro W9100 is technically R9-290 card with 16gb ram - but it is at whopping $3K cost.

 

Rob, are you using MultiScreen with 4K or only 1 screen?

[Appliance 51]

Well I'm thinking the ultra wide 21:9 34" monitors may be the way to go.  No bezel issues, less desk real estate involved and they are easier to 'drive.'

 

Just my 2 cents.  <_<

[Gordon Hutchison 76]

Welcome to the 4K revolution! Running P3Dv2 on a Philips BDM4065UC here.

 

Well I'm thinking the ultra wide 21:9 34" monitors may be the way to go.  No bezel issues, less desk real estate involved and they are easier to 'drive.'

 

Just my 2 cents.   <_<

 

I tried the LG 34UM95 screen before I got the Philips 4K - whilst it was a nice experience and did provide some of that "widescreen" feeling, the lack of vertical height of the 21:9 ration just didn't work for me at all.

[tutmeister 727]

With dsr your card is still rendering the 4k image even if the final image displayed is in 1080 so it takes the same hit. That said the gtx 900 series doesnt seem to get hit by higher resolutions as much as other cards. I used dsr on a 1200p display and then changed to 4k and can still get 30-40fps depending which aircraft I'm in.

[Guest]

 

 

Rob, are you using MultiScreen with 4K or only 1 screen?

 

For my main P3D sim PC just one 4K -- smaller Sony 49".  In the future I may go with a larger 4K and sit further back from it ... I just recently decide to go the 5960X route (I was planning to wait for Skylake - but desktop version keeps getting delayed) when I discovered how to get more stable OC (on water cooling) out of the CPU so I'm looking at a 15-20% increase over my 3960X but I'll also get 2 extra cores that will help with my other real world work duties.  The RAM is a little crazy expensive at $1000 for 32GB just to get reliable 3000Mhz at 15 CAS 1.35v supported.  But no point in cranking up the CPU frequency if one doesn't have the memory bandwidth to support it ... so it is what it is.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[LOELI12 7]

Hi,

maybe a dumb question. What minimum graphics card, resp. how much graphics memory do I need to operate a 28" monitor at 3840x2160 ? 

Thank you

[Guest]

Bruno,

 

4GB minimum, the max I've used has been 4.6GB VRAM ... (in terms of P3D, for FSX I have no idea).

 

Cheers, Rob.

[FlyIce 354]

I honestly think if you go 4K you may want to shoot for large 4K TV screens. 4K on 28" might be an overkill. I recently upgraded to a cheap Seiki 65" 4K and was very satisfied. Since I have been using 4x DSR at my previous 1080p plasma, the performance hit at running native 4K is almost none. Color on plasma's beats LCD hands down though, that's one thing I'm missing.

[steve310002 1,198]

I am about to move to Prepar3d once 2.5 is released. Right now I am running FSX on a 4K 55 inch Sony TV and I can say the results are astonishing. The extra detail is incredible. Its like a new sim and completely immerses you.

 

I have a Asus 970 Strixx GPU and the difference in fps when I change from 1080p to 4K is literally only a few fps. I was expecting a huge performance hit but there isn't. I guess it's because the graphics engine is so old that it doesn't put demands on the card like a more modern game engine would.

[LOELI12 7]

Thank you Rob. I thought it, that 4GB is necessary.

[jabloomf1230 2,452]

4GB video RAM should be enough for most 4k applications. Keep in mind that Rob is going to upgrade to an X99 mobo, which uses faster DDR 4 system RAM, so if the video card does need to "spill over" and use some mobo memory, the speed loss won't be that great.

[Guest]

 

 

4GB video RAM should be enough for most 4k applications.

 

Agree, it only becomes an issue when one increases graphics settings and textures -- 4096 32bit for example.

 

But to clarify, even with very fast RAM, you will ALWAYS want to use as much VRAM as possible as it is still considerably faster than RAM (even DRR4 at 3000Mhz) and VRAMs path to the GPU is far shorter with a much wider path. 

 

Cheers, Rob.