Overpowered hardware for P3D

[romangeber 23]

Hi

First and foremost, this is less of a question than it is a warning to P3D users who think about new hardware.

I've recently upgraded to a new rig. The old one was a decent performer yet had some issues with ground objects. After a while it became a bit boring flying over mostly empty surfaces. The new machine features a GTX1080 and a 7700k with some sane overclocking enabled.

The system runs both, P3D v3 and X-Plane 10.

Performance is stunning. P3D with GSX comes to life like never before while I still get plenty of fps. Same for X-Plane. A lot of ground activity makes the whole experience a lot more immersive. However, there's a serious problem regarding P3D. It is incredibly capable to render the most stunning eye candy at smooth fps. However it's mostly unable to utilize it's hardware thanks to it's single biggest flaw, the 32 bit address space.

So far I'm standing a less than 10% chance to finish any flight at all. Terrible odds. Of course it's all about the settings. Before switching computers P3D ran rock solid. What I'm trying now is to find a sweet spot at which at least some of the visual gains remain without blowing up the address space.

Came pretty close today yet 10 miles before touch down the much hated P3D insult about my insufficient RAM (just 32 GB btw) came up, YET AGAIN. Eventually I'll sort it out of course, as we always do.

However, is incredibly frustrating. The machine performs phenomenally yet is limited to so much less because most of the RAM in the box doesn't exist within the visible universe of P3D. As a result I have a hugely powerful Sim PC that can't unfold half it's potential.

It is very likely that P3D v4 will be a 64 bit simulator, fixing this age old issue once and for all. Until then, anyone thinking about ordering a new computer to increase the visual experience may think twice about the expense. The current high end provides more power than P3D can make use of.

cu
Roman

PS: I'm very aware of how every increase in quality has a VAS price to pay. I have stable profiles which don't look much better than the system I come from. And therein lays my source of frustration. Having hit that software wall where the awesome capability of the simulator engine on powerful processing hardware can't be used simply because the "bookshelf" is too small. The expense pays of for my XP10 setup yet the increase on the P3D side is mainly a jump from 30FPS to 60FPS without much in terms of visual improvement.

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

You are not alone, Welcome to the Club!

Many FSX and P3D users are running into the exact same OOM wall.

For me, it means staying at LOD=4.5 when 5.5 and 6.5 look much better..

Others make other trade-offs.

Lets see what P3DV4 offers up, and how much of a performance penalty there

is in going to 64 bit addressing..

[romangeber 23]

It took me about two weeks of tinkering and constant testing to find a sweet spot that does increase the overall experience compared to the previous rig. Still the system is bored by the tasks P3D throws at it. My general advice would be:

• 1K textures are it, no more
• No custom mesh (there seems to be a bug related to VAS when using FSGlobal)
• One can get away with scenery set to Very dense, but I leave Autogen and vegitation at Dense.
• Drzewiecki Design makes phenomenal city sceneries but they overpower the VAS for me. Result Black buildings. It's either FSDT KJFK or DD New York City X for example.
• LOD must never be touched. Leave it where it is.
• Set profiles and test them. If they blow, reduce some setting, try again. Eventually you'll find the sweetspot.
• Use the flyProject Pilot tools to measure VAS: http://pawkbun.co.uk/ - The Windows Task Manager and even the process explorer won't tell you the full truth
• Don't give up.

I really hope that this list will be completely unnecessary sooner rather than later due to v4 going 64 bit. Until then I hope you guys can take something away to make your P3D better :)

cu
Roman

[Dreamflight767 312]

Interesting points Roman.  Can you talk a little about FSGlobal VAS leak?  I am using FS Global Ultimate - Next Generation.

Thanks.

PS-I'm running 7700K w/ 1080Ti

[romangeber 23]

@Dreamflight767 This is where I found out about the leak:

After deactivating FSGlobal 2010 I had way less OOMs with v3.

Of course, now the whole topic is obsolete. Anyone running a higher end system will greatly benefit from the 64 bit address space. It's like day and night. V3 was very good but now P3D can really unleash it's potential. For me the upgrade was totally worth it.

cu
Roman

[MarkW 1,493]

Please tell me you have upgraded to P3D v4 and this is no longer an issue. 

[romangeber 23]

2 hours ago, MarkW said:

Please tell me you have upgraded to P3D v4 and this is no longer an issue. 

Oh I so did :D

v3 is history on my system. I just thought I'd "close" this topic with a clear recommentation to get v4.

cu
Roman

[Dreamflight767 312]

Thanks for letting me know.  Appreciate the help.