Hello,

 

I'm using P3D v3 for a couple weeks now but I'm having a hard time getting decent FPS when using several high quality addons simultaneously. FlyTampa's Toronto (lite textures), NGX and REX clouds (overcast) plus high settings in P3D gives me about 11-15 FPS. I have an i7 2600 quad at 3.4, 8GB of RAM and a GTX560 4GB. I'm aware the 560 has come of age, hence my thoughts on upgrading to a newer, more powerful one. I've monitored the usage of the CPU, RAM and GPU with MSI Afterburner while running the aforementioned scenario and noticed that my CPU usage is about 18 to 24% only (with some cores not even used), RAM around 50% while my graphics card is close to a nuclear meltdown (99-100%)...

Upgrading to a stronger card will be an improvement obviously, I'm wondering though if there is a chance of increasing my FPS significantly to around 25 with said scenario?

As always with this stuff it depends on your budget, you haven't said how much you are prepared to spend on an upgrade.

 

I know you say your CPU usage is low, and it does seem like your GPU might be the bottleneck, but in an ideal world CPU and GPU should be upgraded.

 

In the mean time, if you're using high settings and getting only 11 frames per second, then you will have to knock those settings back.

My budget is not a problem, I'm looking for a decent price obviously but if I have to spend more I'm okay with that.

 

At first I thought of looking out for a whole new system. But after monitoring the usage it appears good FPS are achievable just by upgrading the GPU.

 

The problem are all the addons I'm using. Running the sim for the first time without addons I've adjusted the settings and found that I get about the same frame rate with low and high settings so I figured I might as well set them high.

 

I'm thinking about a 980 ti 4 or 6GB.

Your situation was similar to mine.  Prior to moving to P3Dv3 I new I had to upgrade my system especially the GPU.  I had an i7 2600k Sandy Bridge CPU and Nvidia GTX 680 GPU.  Decided to hold on to the CPU and upgraded the GPU to AMD's Radeon R9 Fury X with 4GB High Bandwidth Memory.  Very much impressed with this GPU. I get a steady 30-40 frames with Orbx scenery, ASN, REX4 textures and various airport add-ons. 

Your situation was similar to mine.  Prior to moving to P3Dv3 I new I had to upgrade my system especially the GPU.  I had an i7 2600k Sandy Bridge CPU and Nvidia GTX 680 GPU.  Decided to hold on to the CPU and upgraded the GPU to AMD's Radeon R9 Fury X with 4GB High Bandwidth Memory.  Very much impressed with this GPU. I get a steady 30-40 frames with Orbx scenery, ASN, REX4 textures and various airport add-ons. 

 

I have to say 30-40 fps would be heaven on earth.

 

I just worked through another thread discussing EVGA cards and the 980ti in particular and I guess I'm fairly educated now on GPUs. I read about the 980 ti hybrid which was suggested as the best to go for but on amazon someone complained about the noise level. Anyone know more about this? Also, would that one be a reference card as those seem to blow the hot air out the cage (I'm not really fond of upgrading the cooling system as well)?

Hello,

 

I'm using P3D v3 for a couple weeks now but I'm having a hard time getting decent FPS when using several high quality addons simultaneously. FlyTampa's Toronto (lite textures), NGX and REX clouds (overcast) plus high settings in P3D gives me about 11-15 FPS. I have an i7 2600 quad at 3.4, 8GB of RAM and a GTX560 4GB. I'm aware the 560 has come of age, hence my thoughts on upgrading to a newer, more powerful one. I've monitored the usage of the CPU, RAM and GPU with MSI Afterburner while running the aforementioned scenario and noticed that my CPU usage is about 18 to 24% only (with some cores not even used), RAM around 50% while my graphics card is close to a nuclear meltdown (99-100%)...

Upgrading to a stronger card will be an improvement obviously, I'm wondering though if there is a chance of increasing my FPS significantly to around 25 with said scenario?

 

Hi

 

I came to this forum with almost exactly the same question in mind. I have almost identical specs to yours and I also have recently moved over to P3D v3. I was expecting to see a nice increase in frame-rates and stability. Instead they are the same - disappointingly low when you have heavy aircraft and scenery add-ons. With the ORBX England package, I was getting about 9 FPS when flying low using the P3D F-22. I don't have all the sliders to the right, and I have turned off all reflections. So, yes, I was surprised and disappointed. Especially after playing other simulators like DCS where I get much higher framerates. Even games like War Thunder, where you have amazing scenery and many players connected with superbly detailed aircraft, I'm getting well over 25 fps.

 

I suspect the real problem lies in the nature of aging Microsoft ESP code. It's not optimised for today's hardware. But like you, I looked at my aging PC and wondered if upgrading the video card might help. I can tell you that it will, but don't expect a miracle. One test you can do is to set your resolution in p3d to the lowest possible setting, and then see if there is an improvement in frame-rates. Resolution is determined by the GPU, so if having your simulator set to the highest GPU setting causes a lowering of frame-rates, then a newer, faster GPU will help.

 

In my tests, with my resolution set to the lowest setting, I was getting 15fps, whereas in the same area with the highest resolution, I was getting 8 - 9 fps. Not a great difference but enough to make landing more than a slideshow.

 

However I'm not sure what card to get. I had a look at this chart and the ASUS nVidia GTX 970 seems to be reasonable card to go for in terms performance per buck. The aforementioned Radeon R9 fury X is just below and carries a much higher price tag. So I'm thinking of going for nVidia GTX 970.

 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

 

Hopes this helps.

 

/Jason

I have to say 30-40 fps would be heaven on earth.

 

I just worked through another thread discussing EVGA cards and the 980ti in particular and I guess I'm fairly educated now on GPUs. I read about the 980 ti hybrid which was suggested as the best to go for but on amazon someone complained about the noise level. Anyone know more about this? Also, would that one be a reference card as those seem to blow the hot air out the cage (I'm not really fond of upgrading the cooling system as well)?

This is just my opinion on the hybrid cards, not based on any personal, hands on experience.

 

Where would you mount the radiator and fan? Would have to go at the front of the enclosure seems to me. Thus, warm radiator air would be blown into the enclosure.

 

Doesn't seem ideal to me. Especially when you consider that the non reference designs have excellent cooling.

 

EVGA ACX 2.0 + for example. I do have personal experience of this cooler, on my GTX 770.

 

I'm building shortly, my card of choice will be the EVGA GTX 980Ti Kingpin.

 

Yes, ACX 2.0 does blow the air out of the back of the enclosure. Some warm air escapes from the side of the cooler but it's no big deal. Certainly not as significant as a radiator, cooling a GPU, mounted at the front of the enclosure, blowing all of the GPU's heat into the enclosure.

 

ACX 2.0 is so efficient that the fans don't even run until the card is under greater load.

 

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-5998-KR

 

I'm not saying it would be a huge issue, just that the notion doesn't sit right with me. No point, especially when the majority of the non reference cooling solutions, with bigger heat pipes and multiple larger fans, cool great and quieter.

Personally I would always go for a non reference design. Better in so many ways.

 

http://www.evga.com/articles/00872/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-970/#ACXCooling

 

Better cooling, better VRM's, better PCB, double and even triple bios etc.

Personally I would always go for a non reference design. Better in so many ways.

 

http://www.evga.com/articles/00872/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-970/#ACXCooling

 

Better cooling, better VRM's, better PCB, double and even triple bios etc.

 

What does "non-reference design" mean?

Personally I would always go for a non reference design. Better in so many ways.

 

http://www.evga.com/articles/00872/EVGA-GeForce-GTX-980-970/#ACXCooling

 

Better cooling, better VRM's, better PCB, double and even triple bios etc.

 

Just to check if I understood you right, the EVGA 980ti (not hybrid) is a non-reference design and should be my choice? I'm thinking about getting the EVGA GTX 980Ti FTW ACX 2.0+.

What does "non-reference design" mean?

 

Basically a Reference Board means the heat is blown outside your case,   A Non Reference board blows the heat inside your case,  Depending what you want both have there advantages and disadvantages.

 

I too went on the gtx 980 ti adventure and found my answer,  I ended up going for A Reference board as i much preferred the heat blowing outside my case.

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/473442-gtx-980-ti-which-one-though/

    I think that your first order of business should be overclocking the CPU. There is no guarantee that a 980 Ti will garner the performance boost that you seek. Pairing a 980Ti with an aging cpu only running at 3.4 Ghz, would only move the bottleneck from the gpu to the cpu. In the end you would probably wind up either overclocking your cpu, or buying a newer machine all together. Overclocking your cpu may mean having to upgrade your cooling. (possibly a new case/fans/radiator, etc.) A corsair "H" series cooler, coupled with overclocking, is a relatively cheap performance upgrade, compared to a 980Ti. There is no such thing as a free lunch. More performance equals more heat. It is worth a try, until you decide to upgrade your entire system.

 

 Just my .o2c

regards, Craig

Basically a Reference Board means the heat is blown outside your case,   A Non Reference board blows the heat inside your case,  Depending what you want both have there advantages and disadvantages.

 

I too went on the gtx 980 ti adventure and found my answer,  I ended up going for A Reference board as i much preferred the heat blowing outside my case.

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/473442-gtx-980-ti-which-one-though/

 

Thanks. I noticed now that many of the top-range cards are reference cards. That's good for your CPU, but they still suck in warm air from the case.

 

I've always invested in a top of the range CPU fan, and then added two fans to the case, one sucking from the front, and one at the back expelling air. It's always worked for me.

Poppet, on 02 Nov 2015 - 8:17 PM, said:

Basically a Reference Board means the heat is blown outside your case, A Non Reference board blows the heat inside your case, Depending what you want both have there advantages and disadvantages.

 

I too went on the gtx 980 ti adventure and found my answer, I ended up going for A Reference board as i much preferred the heat blowing outside my case.

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/473442-gtx-980-ti-which-one-though/

That's a bit simplistic to be honest. That's not the definition of a non-reference card.

 

Look at the ACX 2.0 cooler on the EVGA cards. There are vents at the rear, a percentage of the air is blown out of the enclosure. Some air creeps out from the sides also but I can assure you it doesn't make any difference in terms of CPU temp. If you have reasonable cooling in your case you're good to go. Any heat from your graphics card is quickly exhausted. The CPU cooler is primarily fed air from the front of the case and exhausted by an adjacent rear fan.

 

The definition of a non-reference card is a card that has had modifications from the original Nvidia design. That means upgraded components on the PCB, like VRM's for example, additional chips, duel or triple bios, and a better cooling solution.

 

A non reference design is better. The coolers are more efficient and the on-board components are upgraded.

 

Canuck, on 02 Nov 2015 - 5:19 PM, said:

Just to check if I understood you right, the EVGA 980ti (not hybrid) is a non-reference design and should be my choice? I'm thinking about getting the EVGA GTX 980Ti FTW ACX 2.0+.

Which is an excellent graphics card. The variant you choose is dependant on your budget and needs of course.

 

The link below details all of the advantages of the card, the non-reference components and features are detailed, plus a pretty good overview of the ACX cooler ...

 

http://www.evga.com/Products/Product.aspx?pn=06G-P4-4996-KR

 

 

Why would you opt for as reference design, when you can have a card that is non-reference and has superior components and cooling?

 

Quote

Thanks. I noticed now that many of the top-range cards are reference cards. That's good for your CPU, but they still suck in warm air from the case.

As I said, EVGA non-reference cards with the ACX 2.0 cooler exhausts a significant percentage of the heat OUT of your enclosure. If I stick my hand round the back of my PC when my GTX 770 with ACX 2.0 cooler is in action, the heat exhausted is considerable.

 

In terms of sucking in warm air from your enclosure it's not an issue at all and shouldn't be something that influences your decision making process. It's warmer inside your case yes, but not to a degree that will compromise the graphics card cooler at all. The ACX 2.0 for example cools 20-30% cooler than the reference design and is so efficient the fans don't even spin up at low load. That fact alone should make it clear to you that a graphics card ingesting air from inside your enclosure is not a big deal.

 

ACX 2.0... 26% cooler, 36% quieter, 250% lower fan power, 400% longer lifespan. And don't forget... graphics cards have an overall power celling. That means that 250% lower fan power requirement equates to more power for your card and thus better overclocking. Yet another advantage of a non-reference design.

 

Hope I don't sound like an EVGA fanatic, other manufactures employ decent cooling solutions too, like Asus for example.

    I think that your first order of business should be overclocking the CPU. There is no guarantee that a 980 Ti will garner the performance boost that you seek. Pairing a 980Ti with an aging cpu only running at 3.4 Ghz, would only move the bottleneck from the gpu to the cpu. In the end you would probably wind up either overclocking your cpu, or buying a newer machine all together. Overclocking your cpu may mean having to upgrade your cooling. (possibly a new case/fans/radiator, etc.) A corsair "H" series cooler, coupled with overclocking, is a relatively cheap performance upgrade, compared to a 980Ti. There is no such thing as a free lunch. More performance equals more heat. It is worth a try, until you decide to upgrade your entire system.

 

 Just my .o2c

regards, Craig

 

Thanks for your reply, but I don't see the point of overclocking my CPU to be honest. MSI Afterburner tells me the usage of my CPU is only 24% max when using several addons simultaneously while my GPU is close to blowing up. That said, the CPU can handle much more than it does at this moment so why would I overclock it or even go for a whole new system? Besides, my i7 2600 is a non-K version that from what I know cannot be overclocked.

 

 

Hope I don't sound like an EVGA fanatic, other manufactures employ decent cooling solutions too, like Asus for example.

 

Don't worry, you merely sound like someone who knows his stuff. Thanks a lot for your help. I'm going for the EVGA GTX 980Ti FTW ACX 2.0+.