Good day

I am looking to purchase a new computer in which I plan to put Prepar3d V4 on.

Pardon my lack of hardware and programming knowledge (as illustrated by my questions).

Basically these are the basic specs

Intel i7 8700k

Nvidia GTX 1080

16 gb ram

and 512GB SSD + 2TB 7200RPM SATA 6Gb/s

Here then are my 2 questions

1. If you have a similar hard drive set up to that listed above, did you put Prepar3d v4 on the SSD (is there room in addition to the Windows 10 OS)?

2. If yes, how do you set the path for P3d add ons to be found on the non SSD drive?

Thank you

Robert Marton

 

You should be aware, that now with P3D being 64 bit, scenery developers produce more and more data. My last airport (AS PANC) was more than 4(!) GB. I have already filled my separate P3D 1TB SSD with nearly 600 GB.

Personally I'd buy a second smaller SSD for Windows, the use the 512 one for P3D and add-ons only. The regular HD is great for storing documents and files. You could use this for P3D, but loading times when you start up the sim will be a bit slower, and you will need to defrag the drive on a regular basis. SSD drives don't need defragging.

If the 512Gb SSD is going to be your system drive, I recommend you bump that up to 850Gb. I have an Intel 850Gb NVMe drive, and I put P3D on it to take advantage of its speed.  Each to their own system of organizing, but have a system.  I have a c:\P3D directory and under it I have had P3Dv3 and P3Dv4 subdirectories acting as P3D root. You might skip the subdirectory step, it doesn't matter.  The only scenery that installs to my c: drive are such as Orbx.  All others are on my d: drive, which is a 500 Gb SSD used for all addon scenery files and where I put flight sim related download files (instead of the default windows download, this saves about 180 Gb of space on c: for me).  I have a 3Tb WD Black HHD assigned to the e: slot but it is only used for archiving and backups.

If you can budget it into your plans, go with the 1080Ti.

The path for addons on the d: drive is easy to set up when the scenery is installed.  As a beginner I'd recommend Lorby Addon Organizer to create and manage the add-on.xml files for you.

As I said, there are as many ways to do this as there are to skin a cat.  It is good that you are thinking ahead of how you are going to implement. Bravo.

Thank you for your responses,

If I understand correctly,

1. go with 1080TI

2. Place P3D and Orbx on SSD, to speed load times

3. Good idea to acquire more hard drive (pref SSD) than I currently am considering

Note to Dan downs: Is the Lorby Add on organizer essential?

Thank you again

Robert

 

The 1080ti is overkill... and overpriced..

IMHO.

If you can spend more money,

1. keep your 500GB SSD drive and put the OS (Windows) on it and other softwares (MS Office, other games, and so on..),

2. buy a 1TB SSD for your sim only. The 2 TB HDD will be used for your data, photo, video, backups...

3. 1080 is a great card, but if you can, go with the 1080ti

 

If you can't spend more money, put OS on the 500 GB SSD and P3D and all other thing on your 2 TB HDD and perhaps some sceneries if you have much

 

Mike

7 hours ago, Bert Pieke said:

The 1080ti is overkill... and overpriced..

IMHO.

overpriced yes, overkill no (if you want to use Dynamic lighting and SSAA), imho.

I too vote for a second SSD for your flight sim drive.

You'll avoid cramped C: drive problems down the road. You might get by with a 256 Gb SSD for the C: drive. I think 500 Gb is the minimum for your flight sim drive, unless you don't have much in the way of Orbx and payware airports. 

I would also add a second SSD for P3D. Maybe a smaller one for the OS.

 

I personally have Windows on a 256 GB M.2 SSD and the other stuff on 3 other SATA SSDs.

The loading times between M.2 and SSD do not differ very much. But I wouldn't want to load P3D from a HDD...

No one has asked Robert a very important question. What resolution will he be running P3D v4.

If 4K then the extra power of the 1080Ti will be an advantage. But if he’s going to run at 1920*1080 then the 1080 should suffice.

I also agree that a small SSD for the OS and a much larger one for P3D is best. Perhaps 250Gb / 1Tb combo.

4 hours ago, Nemo said:

overpriced yes, overkill no (if you want to use Dynamic lighting and SSAA), imho.

Well said.  I bit the bullet and got a 1080ti strix in the Jan sales.  I love it.  Once I sorted my stutters (which was a dodgy XML entry and too high autogen settings) I can crank it up and not feel the pain.  I couldnt do that with my old 980ti and definitely not in 4k

 

 

46 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

No one has asked Robert a very important question. What resolution will he be running P3D v4.

If 4K then the extra power of the 1080Ti will be an advantage. But if he’s going to run at 1920*1080 then the 1080 should suffice.

I also agree that a small SSD for the OS and a much larger one for P3D is best. Perhaps 250Gb / 1Tb combo.

Ray is right about the 4k.

Also be aware the more stuff you install the more chances you can get of issues.  For example it took me 6 weeks to work out those above stutters and had I not seen a topic on here from 2 months ago from AnkH about fsdg scenery layers I'd still be fumbling around trying to fix the stutters.  It's little stuff like that which can be a real headache.  And it was pure fluke I found it.  Id tried everything from emailing Steve h about affinty and hyper threading. To raising tickets at envtxt, activesky, fsl, Blackmarble trying to work out the issue.  And it was bloody scenery xmls!! 

God Knows what the neighbours thought when they could hear me shouting at the PC.  I even started taking my relora tablets again. 

And finally be aware, v4 is brilliant as it's gets rid of the ooms, but it's not a magic bullet of any means 

For example If I turn on ut2 at either cyyz, EGLL, klax, ksfo the sim will turn to a stutter fest

It makes no odds what cpu or gfx card you have if you depart from any of the bad coded hot spots we all know CYYZ, EGLL, Klax etc etc with a ton my bad weather, cloud layers and AI traffic  the sim will struggle not matter how many hours you spend looking at AM and HT. 

  You have to remember all p3d v4 is, Is fsx on steroids and tweaked to 64 bit.  A lot of the old baddies from fsx are still there and be warying of scenery developers telling you their super duper scenery has been optimised for v4, Alot hasn't its just been thrown in a new installer

With i7-8700k, you can also use Intel Optane Memory, which would significantly boost speeds for your magnetic drive. In such way you can have smaller SSD disk for OS.

https://www.kitguru.net/components/hard-drives/simon-crisp/intel-optane-memory-32gb-review/

Hi Bob 

With all this Bitcoin mining high end graphics cards have gone through the roof and are as rare as hens teeth at the moment .. so beware!! It will settle down though I’m sure 

Don’t rule out the GTX 1070Ti either!!!

Paul