4K over 1920*1080 - what is the penalty

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

1 hour ago, ppo said:

Ray,

4k is a different ball game. It is not like you're looking for more FPS as in fs9 and/or fsx. What you are looking for here is Smoothness, fluidity. That can not be expressed in numbers yet (although there are means of testing for dropped frames which might influence smoothness but I won't go into that here).

Again, in as far as 4k is concerned, the recipe is quite simple: a 30hz monitor and the most powerful video card available are the main ingredients.

Cheers,

Pierre, yes, I appreciate that. I've had FS for 25 years so know smoothness is paramount.  I wouldn't want fps to drop below 15 in the worst scenarios.

It sounds like 4K is going to need a 1080i or even the next generation beyond that. For now, I think I'll keep things at 1920*1080. Being able to increase complexity without worrying about VAS will be a benefit but also reduces performance. It's all about getting that balance right.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

1 hour ago, gboz said:

Ray you can run a test yourself. Just setup x4 DSR (4x1080 = 4K) in NCP and select the virtual 4K in the sim. That's pretty much how your system will handle real 4K. Play with AA settings and see their effect.

gb.

I'll need to get P3D v4 first. Does that version provide a performance boost over v3.4 for the same situation?

[odourboy 1,286]

1 hour ago, gboz said:

Ray you can run a test yourself. Just setup x4 DSR (4x1080 = 4K) in NCP and select the virtual 4K in the sim. That's pretty much how your system will handle real 4K. Play with AA settings and see their effect.

gb.

This is a very good piece of advice.

I have a 1080ti card now, but with more modest settings, ran P3D v3.4 and 4 very comfortably at 4K with a GTX 980 (factory OC, but not a ti) for a year. Thd other big consumer of GPU cycles is frame related. If you're content with 30hz and keeping AA settings reasonable, 4K is easy.

[Bobsk8 12,489]

1920 to 4K, your PC has to process 4 times the data... 

[Ted Striker 338]

Ray, I'm running a 4k monitor on P3dv3.4 with a 780 GTX. I can only run medium high settings but it still looks great.

The biggest penalty is going to be with your beloved Concorde, which, as I understand it CTDs at 4k resolution........or do you now something about a new P3Dv4 version that hasn't been shared with the rest of us!   I can't imagine you would be thinking of getting a 4k monitor and P3Dv4 if you didn't know FSLabs was going to upgrade the Concorde for P3Dv4!

I have not had the time to install a new SSD and P3Dv4 yet. In a couple weeks I'll be able to tell you how P3dV4 runs on 4k with a 780gtx and if I can get the concorde to work in P3dv3 in 4k . As others have stated I don't expect to be able to even think about using dynamic anything in P3dv4 with my 780gtx. One other thing I've read is that the some of the same settings in P3dv3 are not the same as P3dv4. In other words a medium setting in P3dv3 may not be the same as a medium setting in P3dv4.

Ted

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

3 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

1920 to 4K, your PC has to process 4 times the data... 

Well yes, I had worked that out. What I was wondering is whether a 1080 had sufficient capacity to keep the frame rates reasonable. It would seem only with low-moderate settings.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

3 minutes ago, Ted Striker said:

Ray, I'm running a 4k monitor on P3dv3.4 with a 780 GTX. I can only run medium high settings but it still looks great.

The biggest penalty is going to be with your beloved Concorde, which, as I understand it CTDs at 4k resolution........or do you now something about a new P3Dv4 version that hasn't been shared with the rest of us!   I can't imagine you would be thinking of getting a 4k monitor and P3Dv4 if you didn't know FSLabs was going to upgrade the Concorde for P3Dv4!

I have not had the time to install a new SSD and P3Dv4 yet. In a couple weeks I'll be able to tell you how P3dV4 runs on 4k with a 780gtx and if I can get the concorde to work in P3dv3 in 4k . As others have stated I don't expect to be able to even think about using dynamic anything in P3dv4 with my 780gtx. One other thing I've read is that the some of the same settings in P3dv3 are not the same as P3dv4. In other words a medium setting in P3dv3 may not be the same as a medium setting in P3dv4.

Ted

Ted, I have no idea what FSL have planned for Concorde. But given I can watch HD TV on my 55" OLED 4K TV I was thinking I could fly other less demanding aircraft at 4K but then set 1920*1080 for Concorde. The TV (not my OLED) should be able to downscale the image reasonably well.

I think you'll run out of VAS if you increase resolution much beyond 1920*1080. But can intermediate settings be used? Like 2560*1600. Just a thought.

On settings between the two sims that's an interesting point. P3D with the same settings as FSX showed far more objects but the performance was better. Maybe 64-bit will be better than any 32-bit sim. I'm amazed no-one has posted a video on YT showing all this stuff!

[Ted Striker 338]

2 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I have no idea what FSL have planned for Concorde

You got my hope up Ray! I was hoping you had some inside information.

I haven't tried my 55" sony 4k at 1920 x 1080. No desire to, but when I get the Concorde installed it may force my hand.

Going from a 1280 x 1024 monitor to a 4k screen my FPS dropped 15% at the same settings. My GPU usage doubled at the same settings.

Ted

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

Ted,

You could just watch a FullHD YT video. That will tell you how good your Sony is. Pretty good I would have thought.

At least FSL haven't announced there won't be a v4 Concorde so I remain hopeful. Clearly they want to do it otherwise they wouldn't have asked those interested to write in.

That drop in fps doesn't sound too bad considering the increase in pixels.

 

[gboz 157]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I'll need to get P3D v4 first. Does that version provide a performance boost over v3.4 for the same situation?

Hmmm.... maybe a bit. Problem with V4 is you really get used to to extra eye-candy so you do not want to go back to V3 levels.

gb.

[slait 169]

I've recently converted to a 43" 4k TV as my monitor using a 1070 and so far the only setting I've changed was the anti aliasing. I dropped clear down to 2xmsaa and still have better clarity than 4xssga with my 1080p monitor. Still early, but so far my 1070 is doing just fine. Same framerates as I had before.

[sultanofswing 57]

AA settings and what a person can tolerate are relative to the person looking at the sim, I run a 6850k and a GTX 1070 on a 43" 4k TV.  I get excellent performance, but I still run 4x msaa as anything lower still has too many jaggies and scenery shimmer.  What you have to keep in mind is the monitor/TV size will have a great impact on how Aliased the graphics are, an example would be a 28" 4k monitor vs a 40" 4k monitor. If you ran the same AA setting on both monitors the 40" monitor would be more aliased as the screen is larger and pixel density is not as tight as it would be on a smaller monitor.  
Even with me running 4x MSAA the sim is smooth and I have no issues locking FPS to 30 even with the FSLabs A320 at somewhere like Heathrow or Amsterdam.

[swiesma 625]

13 hours ago, ppo said:

What is the penalty? Like you wouldn't believe. 4 times more pixels to move around the screen. 4K needs a 1080ti no less. I have gone from a 1080 to a ti and it makes a lot of difference.

I have a BenQ 32in at 30hz with a 1080ti.

Cheers,

Same here. I switched to 4K and had a 1080. It was not enough so I switched to the 1080ti. 95% of my games run very good now.

 

The overall penalty from FHD to UHD was (in my case) between 20% and 50% in P3D, depending on the scenario (weather!!!).

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

7 hours ago, sultanofswing said:

AA settings and what a person can tolerate are relative to the person looking at the sim, I run a 6850k and a GTX 1070 on a 43" 4k TV.  I get excellent performance, but I still run 4x msaa as anything lower still has too many jaggies and scenery shimmer.  What you have to keep in mind is the monitor/TV size will have a great impact on how Aliased the graphics are, an example would be a 28" 4k monitor vs a 40" 4k monitor. If you ran the same AA setting on both monitors the 40" monitor would be more aliased as the screen is larger and pixel density is not as tight as it would be on a smaller monitor.  
Even with me running 4x MSAA the sim is smooth and I have no issues locking FPS to 30 even with the FSLabs A320 at somewhere like Heathrow or Amsterdam.

But my primary interest is in fps, not how AA looks. 90% of my flying time is spent inside a cockpit and I'm sure the extra clarity of 4K would outweigh any shimmering or jaggies. That's quite subjective too whereas fps before and after is objective and that was the purpose of my question.

Things are a bit confusing because @slait reports virtually no impact on fps whereas @swiesma says his 1080 couldn't give him satisfactory performance.

@swiesma, that's a big % difference. Was 20% in clear skies and 50% in cloudy ones? That would make sense since multiple cloud layers does make the biggest impact on mine.

The simple answer appears to be a 1080 will be fine in southern California but for Europe and the UK in particular only a 1080i will do.

[mikealpha 266]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The simple answer appears to be a 1080 will be fine in southern California but for Europe and the UK in particular only a 1080i will do

If that is not in the KLAX area, that's where every GTX struggles :)

I think to get really comparable results, we should define exact settings and maybe a saved flight everyone can use.

Anyway, you mentioned Dynamic Lighting in your initial post. I think, for that and running at 4K, a GTX 1080Ti is a must !

As an example, with I7-8700K@4.7Ghz and GTX 1080Ti at 4k, 4x MSAA, I get 40 fps with almost all sliders maxed in P3D, the FSLabs A320 at Aerosoft Frankfurt (EDDF Professional). With FTX Global, FTX Germany South, Active Sky, UTLive at 50%.

Now with DL activated and set in the EDDF configurator for all areas, it costs 20 fps. That actually doubles the fps difference between 4k and HD.

At Aerosoft Heathrow with DL active even an 8700/GTX1080Ti combo can not handle it, but that's the only airport so far where that is the case.

So to keep the 30fps minimum, I turn DL off when flying the A320 into big airport hubs like KLAX, EGLL or LFPG. 

There is still some work to do for LM regarding dynamic lighting.

Mike