Which settings in P3Dv3.3 are CPU vs GPU intensive?

[joepoway 241]

To all seasoned Flight Simmers  -  before I start I know all systems behave differently and a lot depends on your system make-up, add-ons, where you fly etc.

 

I recently upgraded my GPU to an OC'd GTX-1070 G1 (previously a GTX-670) and want to more fully understand which settings in P3Dv3.3 are more CPU intensive vs. GPU intensive as a rule of thumb.  

 

Is there a good guideline for each of the settings that is easy to read and understand?

 

 

My system specs are Win 10 Pro, I5-2500K running at 4.5Ghz (liqiud cooled w/ Corsair H80i), Nvidia 368.81 Drivers, GTX-1070 G1 w/ 8Gb running at 2025Mhz, Corsair Vegeneance Pro 8Gb (2x4Gb) 2133Mhz ram, SSD's, Samsung T260 monitor 1920x1200 res,  running P3Dv3.3.5 with A2A aircraft, GTN 750, Orbx regions and airports, Spad.next for x52 Pro stick, peddles and panels. 

 

I used Nvidia Inpector to set Preferred Max Performance and 4xSGSSA along with the 4xMSAA in P3D to eliminate my shimmering since I don't run a 4K monitor. Nvidia drivers 368.81

 

My only P3D config file mods are I added FFTF=0.10 and set UseGlobalTerrainView=True

 

I also use SimStarter NG to launch programs like Track IR, VoiceAttack, Spad.next, and Gigabyte Fan controls, and set up all these add-ons to not run on the first core by setting the affinity assignments to the last 3 cores to free up the 1st core for P3D. I also setup my GTN 750 to run on the 2nd core in it's settings menu.

 

 

Current settings look as follows:

 

FXAA - Off

MSAA - 4 Samples

Texture Filtering - Anisotropic 16x

Texture Resolution - 4096x4096

VSync - Off

Triple Buffering - Off

Targeted Frame Rate - Unlimited

Tessellation Enabled - On

Wide View - On

Mipmap VC Panels - On

2-D panel transparency - 0%

 

Level of Detail Radius - Max

Tessellation Factor - Ultra

Mesh Res - 5m

Texture Res - 7cm

Land detail textures - On

Water Detail - High

Bathymetry - Off

Reflections - User Vehicle

 

Scenery Complexity - Extremely Dense

Autogen Veg density - Very Dense

Autogen Bldg denisty - Very Dense

Special Effects detail - High

Special Effects distance - High

 

HDR Lighting - On

Brightness - 0.75

Bloom - 0.40

Saturation - 1.15

Dynamic Reflections - Low

Landing Lights Ground - On

Lens Flare - Off

 

Shadow Quality - Medium

Terrain Receives Shadows - On

Terrain shadow cast distance - 0m

Cloud shadow cast distance - 10,000m

Object shadow cast distance - 3,00m

Internal vehicle - Cast On and Receive On

External vehicle - Cast On and Receive On

Sim Objects - Cast On and Receive On

Veg / Blgs - Off

 

Cloud draw distance - 60 mi

Cloud cover density - Low

Volumetric Fog - On

Detailed Clouds - On

Thermal Visualtion - None

Turbulence / Thermal Effects - On

Rate at weather changes - No Change

 

Airline traffic density - 15%

GA traffic density - 10%

Airport Vehicle Density - Low

Show vehicle labels - Off

 

Road Vehicles - 0%

Ships and Ferries - 5%

Leisure Boats 10%

 

Also most all of the fancy special effects configure settings in Orbx regions are turned off 

 

 

All and all my system runs very well, the resolution is great and the sim runs smooth Avg FPS ~40 with my new 1070 GPU running between 35 - 80% depending on where I fly.

 

I know I should just be happy and fly, which I do, but I still want to better understand the latest balances of CPU and GPU that Lockheed Martin has built into P3D v3.3

 

Any help or settings suggestions would be greatly appreciated!   :smile:

 

Joe 

[stripealipe 87]

I would love some straight up answers on this too so that i know what to crank up on my 980 ti and what to crank down on my ageing 3930k...

[gboz 157]

 

 

I recently upgraded my GPU to an OC'd GTX-1070 G1 (previously a GTX-670) and want to more fully understand which settings in P3Dv3.3 are more CPU intensive vs. GPU intensive as a rule of thumb.

 

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=119517

Beau Hollis quote:
"There have been a number of in-depth posts on this topic so you might try searching through old posts. Anything that shows up on screen uses some GPU and CPU cycles. Being CPU or GPU bound can depend a lot on hardware and usage, but here are some features that tend to use more of one than the other.

Some GPU heavy features:
- Shadows (especially terrain casting, and cloud casting at certain times of day)
- Dynamic Reflection
- Ultra Water Setting (3D wave simulation)
- Volumetric Fog
- HDR
- MSAA
- Increasing the resolution of a 3D view
- Particle Simulation and Rendering (especially if particles are near camera and take up a lot of screen space)
- Cloud rendering (if clouds are close to camera and filling the screen)
- Terrain rendering when tessellation is enabled

CPU feature:
- Gauge and panel rendering and GPS maps.
- Air and Ground Traffic
- Opening up multiple 3D views
- Terrain rendering when tessellation is disabled."

 

 

and set UseGlobalTerrainView=True

 

This setting will only be of an advantage if you are using multiple camera views.

 

gb.