Lowering screen resolution does not have impact on performance?

[flyingcarpet89 36]

Hello every one!

 

I am running Prepar3d v3.1 on pretty much every thing maxed out expect AI traffic. On a typical session I use a number of addons like airport scenery ( I fly to flytampa dubai a lot), REX 4 + soft clouds, Active Sky Next, Ezdok, Trackir, PMDG 777, GSX Ground services. I thought I could run this with reasonable frame rates because I think I have decent computer. 

 

Specs.

 

i7 6700k Overclocked to 4.4ghz
16gb ddr4 2666mhz Ram
ROG Maximus viii hero Motherboard. 
250gb SSD + 1tb HDD
Two GTX 980 Ti running in SLI config.

 

Now, I also have a 4k monitor so therefore I have been running all this in 4k resolution so far. On a fully loaded airport with mostly every thing maxed I get between 20 to 30 fps with few drops to about 15 fps. I do love the eye candy but it does start to stutter at times which makes me want to switch to lower resolution. And here lies my question. I get absolutely zero difference in performance when switching to a lower resolution. Frame rates stay exactly the same. 

 

I haven't done any tweaks with the cfg file. When I lower the resolution to 1440p in games like GTA V and BF4, my frame rates increase by 20 to 30 fps. But why not in P3D?

 

PS, These are the screen shots I took in game with frame rates. They were VERY unstable.

 

Here is another one just a few miles down. Notice the frame rate drop

 

 

On this particular approach the frame rates ranged from 20 to 60+.

[AnkH 2,233]

Answer here is easy as hell: as soon as you do not see an increase in FPS by lowering the resolution, your software is running in a CPU limit situation. Obviously the case here, as with 2x980Ti you have a huge overhead regarding GPU power. Even if Prepar3d shifted some of the load from the CPU to the GPU, it is basically still the old, CPU bound engine from FSX. So yes, with 2x980Ti it is easily possible that the limiting factor is the i7 running at 4.4GHz here.

 

Besides that, why do you think that most guides recommend limiting the FPS? Exactly to avoid those huge FPS fluctuations you see and as well to take at least some load off the CPU. So, I suggest that you limit your FPS to 30 for once and see if this does not help you to have your FPS more constant. And don't be surprised that your FPS drop when you fly into REX4 clouds, they always need a lot of performance. What cloud texture resolution did you select?

[swiesma 625]

I think @AnkH is absolutely right.

 

I also use a i7 6700k @4,4 GHz and I am running pretty much the same scenario, also in 4K with PMDG 777, FlyTampa OMDB, GSX, MyTraffic, REX Softclouds, REX Essentials HD and so on.

And I get around the same FPS with my slightly overclocked GeForce 970 GTX.

 

The massive amount of GPU power does not help you here :-(

 

You can send me one of your cards if you don't need it...... ;-)

 

Off Topic question: What games (or other scenarios) do you use a 980ti SLI for??? I mean even the high end games currently available do not need so much power? I am just curious :-)

2 980 ti's are around 1600€ in Germany... I got my whole machine for that.

[AnkH 2,233]

A SLI combination of 980Ti's can be useful for a 4K setup. I run my single 980Ti along with a FullHD monitor to have constant 60FPS in as many games as possible even with the highest settings (not P3D of course, there I have my FPS limited to 30 as most of us...). Running a 4K monitor along with the wish for 60FPS would basically be the reason to run SLI 980Ti's, there are many games where you are down to below 30FPS in 4K using the highest settings. Sure you can argue about the need for highest settings, but well, if you do not care about the pricetag.

[swiesma 625]

I thought a 980ti should be enough to run e.g. BF4 or Fallout 4 on highest settings in 4k. "Again what learned" (as our best german-english speaker would say - Lothar Matthäus).

[AnkH 2,233]

"enough to run" is still a personal opinion. You can run BF4 in 4K easily with a single 980Ti, you simply have to reduce details. Otherwise, if you still want "ultra" settings, you have to live with 30FPS... While this might be perfectly fine for Fallout, I would never play a shooter game like BF4 with FPS below 40-50FPS.

[brucewtb 247]

I get similar fps in FSX (boxed) to the OP with a 770 4gb gpu and 4K - just goes to show how cpu bound fsx etc is! However I do run with unlimited fps which has always given a 10 - 20% boost on my 4770 @ 4.5 ghz system.

 

Bruceb