Upgraded my graphics card on my 4790K (4,4ghz) and 1440p monitor system, and wanted to share my quick thoughts on the experience so far.

 

Quality and performance in XP10 has gone up significantly. Most important is the ability to have 4x to 8x AA, which makes the graphics looks way better. Good AA is very important to me! In addition I can fly in heavy clouds with much less performance impact.

 

What was a bit dissapointing though is performance in P3D in cloudy conditions. In clear weather I can do 4x sparse grid super sampling, and the graphics looks so much better. But in heavy clouds, performance suffers significantly. XP10 performs much better under this scenario, and seems to take better advantage of the graphics power.

 

I am sensing less stutters, and hope its not a "placebo" effect

 

Set me back 650 USD (Norway), and I think it has been worth the investment

Thank you for this input. I have an identical CPU/GPU combo and have considered upgrading to the 1070. 

 

Upgraded my graphics card on my 4790K (4,4ghz) and 1440p monitor system, and wanted to share my quick thoughts on the experience so far.

 

Quality and performance in XP10 has gone up significantly. Most important is the ability to have 4x to 8x AA, which makes the graphics looks way better. Good AA is very important to me! In addition I can fly in heavy clouds with much less performance impact.

 

What was a bit dissapointing though is performance in P3D in cloudy conditions. In clear weather I can do 4x sparse grid super sampling, and the graphics looks so much better. But in heavy clouds, performance suffers significantly. XP10 performs much better under this scenario, and seems to take better advantage of the graphics power.

 

I am sensing less stutters, and hope its not a "placebo" effect

 

Set me back 650 USD (Norway), and I think it has been worth the investment

 

Trust me,...it was as good investment.  I went from an EVGA GTX680---------->EVGA 1070 FTW...and it was one of the best-in-ten-years purchases I made.  I just upgraded my 8 year old monitor to an Ultra Wide, and along with the GTX1070 a month or so ago...was the one-two punch I needed to get myself, another 5 years or so.  I don't see much really happening in the CPU GHz world any longer.  Moore's Law, as far as I can see died three years ago...and all they do now are shuffle around cores...so...the money was spent in the graphic department,  new card+new monitor.   BTW, the higher the resolution x by x, on your monitor you run...the less dependant you are upon pre-AA'ing.

 

I have just gone from 1920x1200 native,  to 3440x1440 native,...and in the AA department,  I only need 2x within XP11 and all the others, to look simply fabulous.   Before, at 1920x1200, I was in the 4x and 8x like everybody else at that screen resolution.  Your next move might want to be in an Ultra Wide.  If you buy a 4K though...just remember, that no matter what you need...your card now has to sweat out, 4 times the resolution in pixel count and resulting VRAM, that was seen in HD, and that sucks up a lot of graphics processing power from your card.   I did a lot of due diligence in researching this out...read a lot of reviews, lurked on quite a few forums...and Ultra Wide format, and its screen resolution, is truly the 'sweet spot' for today's graphic cards, (Pascal etc...) and can handle high FPS's like a yawn....while giving you great visual aclarity.  Just something to think about as you hopefully do your own lurking about...before you upgrade beyond 1920x1040 or 1200 native screen resolution.

 

P.S.  I noted that you stated you have a 1440p montor, but thought to widen for any viewer, that I went from a HD to Ultra, and what my experience was in doing that.  Could give insight to others that are presently running my original resolution scale, or near-about.

 

Cheers!

I think it is well known that FSX/P3D has problem with AA on clouds.

 

So SGSSAA works well in clear days, but once in cloudy/foggy days those clouds will murder your fps. Sad to know even 1070 is not powerful enough to deal with this SGSSAA problem. 

I think it is well known that FSX/P3D has problem with AA on clouds.

 

So SGSSAA works well in clear days, but once in cloudy/foggy days those clouds will murder your fps. Sad to know even 1070 is not powerful enough to deal with this SGSSAA problem. 

Who stated that?  I have no problems....

Well the OP is having a big hit with SGSSAA enabled in cloudy days. That's my experiences too. I remember this has been discussed in the forum and someone pointed out this is the due to how FSX/P3D is programmed very inefficiently when dealing with anti-aliasing clouds etc.

Well the OP is having a big hit with SGSSAA enabled in cloudy days. That's my experiences too. I remember this has been discussed in the forum and someone pointed out this is the due to how FSX/P3D is programmed very inefficiently when dealing with anti-aliasing clouds etc.

Noted, but as far as a GTX1070...my GTX680 had issues, but I have found the GTX1070 (perhaps we need to factor in, exactly WHAT version of the Pascal 1070 card is being stated upon) to be a powerhouse. I have never had one issue for rendering, since having installed it.  I can run 8x, if need's be, but for my particular system as is, no longer need to even go beyond 2x to get beautiful output.  I guess, a person's entire system, must be kept in mind, when we talk only about what G-card is installed, and how the user views his/her output (from his/her's monitor) as acceptable, or not.

 

My take, anyways....

 

I'm no expert on AA, but I remember there are two kinds of AA that a video card has to process. One is on object edges and for that you can set 2x, 4x, 8x in FSX/P3D settings directly.

 

Another is transparency AA which I believe FSX/P3D menu settings have no effect on. Transparency AA has to be set specifically in video card driver (there is an option there when you look for it) and in FSX/P3D clouds and airport runway edges etc need to be processed by transparency AA. 

 

SGSSAA is in the transparency AA option and once you enable it the heavy clouds etc will tax the system really hard. But SGSSAA quality is super.

 

An alternative is to use DSR (Dynamic Super Resolution) which gives nearly as good quality as SGSSAA but won't be affected by clouds etcc. I'm now only using 4xDSR on 1080 display. 

I moved to 4k and don't need to set any SGSSAA,I set everything in sim.  I don't even use NVI. Before I got my new card I used the DSR function in Nvidia control panel to 4x with similar results but with the new card I get better performance and dense clouds have very little impact.

I tried 4x DSR and it did give me better visuals, all though not as good as 4xSGSS. Thanks for the tip FLyice!

However I think it has introduced some stutters. Others experienced this?

 

This is just one of the things I hate with P3D. While I get XP10 to fly super smooth and nearly stutter free at very complex settings, this is far from the case with P3D. 

Bummer about your P3D experience...

 

I also made that same gcard upgrade with a 2560x1440 monitor, though I run only FSX (and a bunch of CFSs).  With FSX, my evga gtx 1070 sc laughs at rendering dense, multiple layer cloud cover, using 4x GSSSAA with rex soft clouds at 512 res and AS2016.  No stutters, no anything that distracts the experience.  In FSX I've yet to see that gcard peg 100% (except when using 32 bit rex water animation...that is a KILLER with 4x GSSSAA).  Using the DX10 Fixer, 4770k at 4.5/4.3 cache.