Hi all..

 

My specs are in signature below.

 

I have afterburner installed, monitored GPU usage in FSX and noticed its hitting 99% most of the time. I am struggling to get 20 fps.

 

Should I

A. Upgrade GPU ?

B. Any tweaks that will hdlpmrelieve the GPU bottleneck ?

C. Upgrade to a new CPU/mono/gpu etc. Hoping to zvoid this at least till next year.

 

Thanks

Ozflyer, I have a very similar setup to yours (i7-920 o'clocked to 4Ghz) and recently upgraded to a GTX 970. Whilst it let me use a higher resolution monitor and better anti-aliasing settings (more exotic things like sparse grid supersampling), it didn't make a significant difference to FPS. The 920 processor and it's relative old chipset are the limiting factors, particularly with more demanding aircraft and complex airports. I have my frame rate locked at 30 and it stays around there much of the time but with some aircraft/scenery combinations it can drop occasionally to 20 (or even slightly less) with the CPU hitting 90-100%. Although you say that your GPU is hitting 99% most of the time, I would guess that you CPU is not far off that either. Remember, though, that smooth graphics are more important than raw FPS.

 

The only real solution is a modern processor with a modern chipset where data can be processed much more efficiently - my plan in the summer is to go for an i7-6700k and DDR4 RAM.

Ozflyer, I have a very similar setup to yours (i7-920 o'clocked to 4Ghz) and recently upgraded to a GTX 970. Whilst it let me use a higher resolution monitor and better anti-aliasing settings (more exotic things like sparse grid supersampling), it didn't make a significant difference to FPS. The 920 processor and it's relative old chipset are the limiting factors, particularly with more demanding aircraft and complex airports. I have my frame rate locked at 30 and it stays around there much of the time but with some aircraft/scenery combinations it can drop occasionally to 20 (or even slightly less) with the CPU hitting 90-100%. Although you say that your GPU is hitting 99% most of the time, I would guess that you CPU is not far off that either. Remember, though, that smooth graphics are more important than raw FPS.

The only real solution is a modern processor with a modern chipset where data can be processed much more efficiently - my plan in the summer is to go for an i7-6700k and DDR4 RAM.

Thanks vortex681

vortex681 is right, there's no real benefit to a faster GPU in FSX since it can't take advantage of it.

 

If you upgrade to P3D some time in the future, it would benefit from a faster GPU. However it would also need a faster CPU in order to take advantage of it.

 

So the first thing you should do is upgrade the mobo+CPU+RAM. The best choice would be the i5 6600K or i7 6700K depending on your budget.

vortex681 is right, there's no real benefit to a faster GPU in FSX since it can't take advantage of it.

 

If you upgrade to P3D some time in the future, it would benefit from a faster GPU. However it would also need a faster CPU in order to take advantage of it.

 

So the first thing you should do is upgrade the mobo+CPU+RAM. The best choice would be the i5 6600K or i7 6700K depending on your budget.

Thanks JimmiG

 

I think I will go for an upgrade to 6700k over Christmas... that's our summer in Australia :-)