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sebastorama

PMDG At or above 25fps machine requirements

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I have two pcs (and two licenses per EULA of Lockheed Martin), both have a GTX1080, but one is an i7 7700k running at stock speeds (the cooling is not so good, so I cannot count on turbo boost all the time), and the other is a Ryzen 7 1700+ OC @3.9Ghz (from the original 3.4Ghz). Comparing the two machines:

1 - i7 7700k have some edge on FPS, +10% give or take, +20% if the ryzen is kept at stock speeds
2 - Ryzen 7 have ZERO problem when it comes to loading the scenery, everything is very crisp, the intel machine have some trouble there occasionally
3 - Both systems have terrible performance at night (the know Dynamic Light resource hog), but in daytime, the GPU is chilling at 35~40%, not even doing any effort. It seems like that a 1070 or even 1060 with a heavily overclocked CPU will do the job better than my current setup...
4 - Both systems can keep 30FPS when in the air, at 8000ft AGL give or take
My issue is framerate on the ground, sometimes goes under 20fps on the ryzen machine, and the taxiway signs become difficult to read at low fps, my question for the folks that had understood that p3d is dependent on CPU/SingleThread performance is:

A 7700k or even a 8700k OC @4.8Ghz, maybe 5.0, will be enough to keep 25fps daytime everywhere? (The exception being maybe Heathrow :P) I need the multithread performance for other workloads that my Ryzen machine have to perform during the day, but I'm considering trading it for a 8700k+z370 and OC the hell out of it with my Noctua U14S :P Sounds like a good plan?

Also, the PMDG seems to be very heavy on FPS only in VC. The outside cameras don't struggle that much, other airliners (like FSLabs A320) are just as heavy? 

[Update] Forgot to say the resolution: 3440x1440 - UltraWide - 2.5K

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59 minutes ago, sebastorama said:

I have two pcs (and two licenses per EULA of Lockheed Martin), both have a GTX1080, but one is an i7 7700k running at stock speeds (the cooling is not so good, so I cannot count on turbo boost all the time), and the other is a Ryzen 7 1700+ OC @3.9Ghz (from the original 3.4Ghz). Comparing the two machines:

1 - i7 7700k have some edge on FPS, +10% give or take, +20% if the ryzen is kept at stock speeds
2 - Ryzen 7 have ZERO problem when it comes to loading the scenery, everything is very crisp, the intel machine have some trouble there occasionally
3 - Both systems have terrible performance at night (the know Dynamic Light resource hog), but in daytime, the GPU is chilling at 35~40%, not even doing any effort. It seems like that a 1070 or even 1060 with a heavily overclocked CPU will do the job better than my current setup...
4 - Both systems can keep 30FPS when in the air, at 8000ft AGL give or take
My issue is framerate on the ground, sometimes goes under 20fps on the ryzen machine, and the taxiway signs become difficult to read at low fps, my question for the folks that had understood that p3d is dependent on CPU/SingleThread performance is:

A 7700k or even a 8700k OC @4.8Ghz, maybe 5.0, will be enough to keep 25fps daytime everywhere? (The exception being maybe Heathrow :P) I need the multithread performance for other workloads that my Ryzen machine have to perform during the day, but I'm considering trading it for a 8700k+z370 and OC the hell out of it with my Noctua U14S :P Sounds like a good plan?

Also, the PMDG seems to be very heavy on FPS only in VC. The outside cameras don't struggle that much, other airliners (like FSLabs A320) are just as heavy? 

Have you considered slaving the 2 pcs so that one can render just the VC and  the other can do all of the external eye candy? I've noticed that there now is an option in the view selection menu to have only the VC rendered, and nothing on the outside resulting in all the Windows being black. I'm assuming that this is adding support for doing exactly this, for one pc to render the VC and the other to do the heavy lifting scenery wise. Those 2 machines, if paired together, should absolutely blow though your 25 fps requirement at all times. Just some food for thought.

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1 minute ago, Milton Waddams said:

Have you considered slaving the 2 pcs so that one can render just the VC and  the other can do all of the external eye candy? I've noticed that there now is an option in the view selection menu to have only the VC rendered, and nothing on the outside resulting in all the Windows being black. I'm assuming that this is adding support for doing exactly this, for one pc to render the VC and the other to do the heavy lifting scenery wise. Those 2 machines, if paired together, should absolutely blow though your 25 fps requirement at all times. Just some food for thought.

That's a great idea, I might consider building an Intel PC without a VGA for that matter? I cannot do this with those systems bcoz they're on different addresses, one is in my "Work Home" (e.g. a farm, where I live mostly on the rainy season), and the other is on my "Vacation Home". The WorkHorse is the Ryzen, the Intel on the "Vacation Home" is a gaming PC only, I do a lot of photogrammetry work, so those extra threads are somewhat needed (but, 8700K 6C/12Threads, less threads than ryzen but more clock, is roughly equivalent for my work purposes). 

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9 hours ago, sebastorama said:

That's a great idea, I might consider building an Intel PC without a VGA for that matter? I cannot do this with those systems bcoz they're on different addresses, one is in my "Work Home" (e.g. a farm, where I live mostly on the rainy season), and the other is on my "Vacation Home". The WorkHorse is the Ryzen, the Intel on the "Vacation Home" is a gaming PC only, I do a lot of photogrammetry work, so those extra threads are somewhat needed (but, 8700K 6C/12Threads, less threads than ryzen but more clock, is roughly equivalent for my work purposes). 

I'd still have a GPU given how much P3D relies on it but maybe only a 1070 or 1070 Ti.

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13 hours ago, sebastorama said:

A 7700k or even a 8700k OC @4.8Ghz, maybe 5.0, will be enough to keep 25fps daytime everywhere? (The exception being maybe Heathrow :P) I need the multithread performance for other workloads that my Ryzen machine have to perform during the day, but I'm considering trading it for a 8700k+z370 and OC the hell out of it with my Noctua U14S :P Sounds like a good plan?

Also, the PMDG seems to be very heavy on FPS only in VC. The outside cameras don't struggle that much, other airliners (like FSLabs A320) are just as heavy? 

[Update] Forgot to say the resolution: 3440x1440 - UltraWide - 2.5K

A 7700K at 4.8 GHz is plenty of processor to keep things going at 25+ fps...but you can't firewall all your sliders and expect that.  Before I upgraded my GPUs, I backed my normal 5GHz-no HT 7700K overclock down to 4.8 GHz with HT on (because of a problem with the FSL A320) and ran P3D4 with a pair of GTX980Ti GPUs in SLI, which performed at-par with a single 1080Ti.  I was easily able to hold 30 fps on a 3840 x 2160 4K TV (30Hz) in daytime--with 4xMSAA, DL off, shadows dialed back a good ways, 1m texture res, 512x512 bit cloud textures (ASCA) and LOD radius/autogen sliders a little right of center.  In fact, with the PMDG 737, I averaged Core 0 CPU utilization of ~80-85%, which is enough headroom to absorb most of the CPU spikes and really keep it smooth. 

So if daytime ops on a 21:9 monitor is your goal, yes a 7700K is enough CPU--provided you make reasonable choices on the sliders.

So far the FSL airbus gives me the heaviest performance hit of all my advanced add-ons, and the Majestic Dash-8 is the least, with the PMDG birds comfortably in the middle. 

Regards

 


Bob Scott | President and CEO, AVSIM Inc
ATP Gulfstream II-III-IV-V

System1 (P3Dv5/v4): i9-13900KS @ 6.0GHz, water 2x360mm, ASUS Z790 Hero, 32GB GSkill 7800MHz CAS36, ASUS RTX4090
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2 hours ago, w6kd said:

A 7700K at 4.8 GHz is plenty of processor to keep things going at 25+ fps...but you can't firewall all your sliders and expect that.  Before I upgraded my GPUs, I backed my normal 5GHz-no HT 7700K overclock down to 4.8 GHz with HT on (because of a problem with the FSL A320) and ran P3D4 with a pair of GTX980Ti GPUs in SLI, which performed at-par with a single 1080Ti.  I was easily able to hold 30 fps on a 3840 x 2160 4K TV (30Hz) in daytime--with 4xMSAA, DL off, shadows dialed back a good ways, 1m texture res, 512x512 bit cloud textures (ASCA) and LOD radius/autogen sliders a little right of center.  In fact, with the PMDG 737, I averaged Core 0 CPU utilization of ~80-85%, which is enough headroom to absorb most of the CPU spikes and really keep it smooth. 

So if daytime ops on a 21:9 monitor is your goal, yes a 7700K is enough CPU--provided you make reasonable choices on the sliders.

So far the FSL airbus gives me the heaviest performance hit of all my advanced add-ons, and the Majestic Dash-8 is the least, with the PMDG birds comfortably in the middle. 

Regards

 

I heard about the Texture size 1m vs 7cm have a huuge impact, will test it tonight, seems to have a big effect! I'll buy a Z270 MB for the 7700k and do some testing with OC when I get back to my other home, if I'm satisfied with the results, I think I'll exchange my Ryzen rig to an 8700k. Thanks for the answer! 

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How can you have a pc render just the VC and the other the outside world? I have two PCs and this has made me curious. 


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1 hour ago, warriorpilot said:

How can you have a pc render just the VC and the other the outside world? I have two PCs and this has made me curious. 

I'm actually curious about that option too :P Hoping for answers. If nothing comes out, I'll open another thread asking on the subject. 

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I just built rig using an Asus Crosshair Extreme VI and a 1700. The first board went up in smoke to be honest, Clicked on Return Item on Amazon and the had a replacement on a truck in two hours.

Installed the 1700, RX 480, and 16GB Gskill Flare X Memory. Got into and found the drop down menu for the ram and set it on 3200. It instantly read 3200 in the BIOS. Rebooted, DLoaded AMD Master, had CPU Z.  I the rebooted into BIOS. I found some presets for auto overclock, clicked on "Gaming" the CPU instantly went too 4.0 GHz. I was amazed! Rebooted and found the memory dropped to 28xx or something like that, rebooted, reset memory too 3200, rebooted and I was somewhat surprised to see it held that setting without further adjustment. I believe I hit the silicone lottery wit this CPU. So I'm running 4.0 at 3200. Just got home from the hospital a few hours ago, did load up FSX and found a BIG increase in frame rates. The BIOS has 5-6 Presets for overclock. The heat sink that comes with the CPU is amazingly quiet it hold the temp about 39c at idle. Thinking of water cooling it with a kit like EK Performants or something like it. With CPU-Z only one Intel chip beat it in single threaded apps. In multi threaded this setup DETROYS all the Intel CPU's. My old machine was an ASUS Sabertooth v1 and 8350, whole different world. In spite of the first boards failings I the this will be a engineering marvel of sorts, it's got more parts and tech on it than most will ever use, like a mini version of that Tread Ripper ASUS Zenith board. The BOIS is down right extensive!

I may be able to hit 4.1 GHz?

Best to all.

BaldyB

 

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10 hours ago, BaldyB said:

I believe I hit the silicone lottery wit this CPU.

Sorry, but this is a pet peeve of mine. It's the silicon lottery. Winning the silicone lottery is something else altogether..... but I'm not entirely sure what.

Go look up Silicon Valley and Silicone Valley. They're both in California, but the similarities end there.

Cheers!

Luke


Luke Kolin

I make simFDR, the most advanced flight data recorder for FSX, Prepar3D and X-Plane.

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One is a chemical element and one is a synthetic  substance, so true. But not sure why it's bothers you Luke. :biggrin:

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12 hours ago, BaldyB said:

Got into and found the drop down menu for the ram and set it on 3200. It instantly read 3200 in the BIOS. Rebooted, DLoaded AMD Master, had CPU Z.  I the rebooted into BIOS. I found some presets for auto overclock, clicked on "Gaming" the CPU instantly went too 4.0 GHz. I was amazed! Rebooted and found the memory dropped to 28xx or something like that, rebooted, reset memory too 3200, rebooted and I was somewhat surprised to see it held that setting without further adjustment. I believe I hit the silicone lottery wit this CPU. So I'm running 4.0 at 3200. Just got home from the hospital a few hours ago, did load up FSX and found a BIG increase in frame rates. The BIOS has 5-6 Presets for overclock. The heat sink that comes with the CPU is amazingly quiet it hold the temp about 39c at idle. Thinking of wat

I can run at 4.0ghz easily too, but ocasionally (after 20~30 minutes) I get an single core error running prime95 stress test (probably would be fine for p3dv4). 3.9Ghz can run for hours without any random errors (actually I never found an error during my tests, and I'm not patient enough to run it for 12hours :P), so I consider it to be stable enough (also, the temps max at 65C with 3.9Ghz, air cooled by Noctua NU14S). Everyone reports 3.9~4.1Ghz on the 1700x, so I wouldn't say you won the silicon lottery, unless it's a non X 1700, then I think you've saved a few bucks :P... But anyway, at 4.0, 3.9 etc... The 7700k beats the Ryzen hand's down on P3Dv4, not that Zen is a worse platform then Intel's, it's just that P3Dv4 is still ancient technology at it's core engine =/

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It is a non X 1700, surprised me too!  I picked it up knowing Ryzen 2 will be released in the spring next year. Just got out of the hospital a few days ago, not feeling well.

Best

BaldyB

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14 hours ago, BaldyB said:

It is a non X 1700, surprised me too!  I picked it up knowing Ryzen 2 will be released in the spring next year. Just got out of the hospital a few days ago, not feeling well.

Best

BaldyB

Hope you'll get better. Take care!

I'm 1 day away to be back at my home, my i7 7700k is there waiting with a new motherboard and cooler, I'll perform some tests and report back on the ryzen 1700x vs i7 7700k in a new topic if not able to found anything similar already posted. 

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I have 3 sytems up and runing all tested in P3D 

1. nowdays the main P3D PC I9 7920X 

2. 7700K at +5ghz  very good one for P3D

3. Ryzen 1600X on a crosshair MoBo , good for all kind of work but not P3D

  POOR overclocking had it run "wopping" 4.1ghz poor singletread performance 

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