My system is as follows:

AMD Phenom ii 1090T  3.2ghz

16GB ram

Nvidia 460GTX 1GB

 

I get some pretty scary slow FPS if I load up orbx regions.  Under 10fps low to the ground.  If only running orbx global they stay acceptable at 20-30.  

 

My question is as follows:

Would upgrading my GPU, for now, help with FPS?  My cpu and ram monitor shows those as never really being over 40% but I don't have a GPU monitor. I'd love to build a new rig but I don't think it's in the cards just yet (unless tax returns are monstrous which I don't anticipate).  If a current graphics card would help me out I might be able to swing that until I could build a new rig.  

 

What do you think??  Will a new GPU get me by??

 

Thanks everyone!!

 

 

You do not need a GPU monitor to test if you are running in a GPU limit. Simply compare FPS using low resolution (e.g. 800x600) and high resolution (e.g. FullHD 1920x1080). If reducing the resolution offers you more FPS, a new GPU will help. If not, your CPU is the limiting factor, no matter what your CPU monitor says. Be aware that thanks to the thread shuffling capacities of todays operating systems, 40% load over all six cores of your Phenom does not necessarily mean that your CPU has 60% free capacities. Example: your core 0 runs 100%, all other five cores run at 0%, the overall CPU load will then be only about 20% yet the software running on core 0 can not profit from the free cores.

 

What you can also do is play around with some Affinity Mask settings, but do not ask me what would be best for your CPU. As a matter of fact, AMD processors have a limited single-core-performance, something still really important for P3D, even if LM shifted a lot of things to the GPU now. And of course, 3.2GHz is not that much, my Intel processor runs at 4.5GHz and I am still running into CPU limited scenarios from time to time in P3D.

Good advice there.  I'm going to try that.  I can just load up orbx regions again and drop my resolution and see what happens.  

 

Any other great advise??

Prepar3D uses every kind of shader DirectX 11 supports. So I'd recommend upgrading your GPU.

$150 seems like it'd get me twice the video card these days. Seem like an ok budget for an upgrade?

I would save my money and save for the new system...

 

Target:  4790K+GTX970 or better.

If i hit this powerball this week, imma do that!

Good plan!

 

Remember to buy a ticket..

Just picked up a couple tickets last night.  If I hit it I'll be more concerned about which plane to buy than which video card though, lol.   With the jackpot over 1B, I would think a TBM would be in my future.......