The Most Powerful Hardware, the Most Average of P3Dv4 Performance

[NeilG 0]

Hello all. Please help someone.  I am annoyed, defeated and somewhat dispirited and turn to the considerable bank of knowledge held by some of the people who use this forum. I have been simming since the turn of the millennium and Pentium processors. I bought FSX when it came out and along with everyone else saw the huge potential but tore my hair out at the strain it put on hardware. I've never stopped  reaching out for the ideal balance of performance and spectacle, and have tried to obtain the processor and eventually graphics card to do the job, as I know many of you will have done. Through FSXSE, P3Dv1.2.3 and 64bit 4, the increasing levels of complex models from the likes of PMDG and the great array of ORBX sceneries, and so on, I have tried to find the elusive 'sweet spot', whilst remembering that flight simulation is about flying, learning and having fun, not worrying about FPS  (it is easy to forget this when your fiddling with config files hoping to gain from the latest 'tweak'). Finally at the time of my retirement I thought to get as a present to myself, the computer that would, after all these years, give me what I looked for. Here are the specs:

·       Asus PRIME X299-A Motherboard

·       NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Graphics Card

·       32GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory (2 x 16GB Sticks)

·       Intel Core i9-7900X CPU, 10 Cores, 3.3 - 4.3GHz

·       Corsair Hydro H100x CPU Cooler

·       Windows 10 Home 64-bit

·       Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold 850W PSU

         Samsung 4K Monitor

OK, this will do it says I - no it bloody wont, says God. I have all principle ORBX's  installed, I open up in default F22 at Egin with sliders, admittedly, almost to the right (but not quite), and I get around 40FPS. What this means is that PMDG 747 at Gatwick is around 22 and will, of course, take off reasonably adequately but with a fair bit of stuttering as well. It is better than I have had before, true,  but not much, certainly not £2000 better. I look, not so much for high FPS, but for fluidity, but do not really obtain that at the slider levels I would like. So, is it just a matter of putting sliders back?

I, perhaps expect too much. Some of you may say so and if that is true then ok, Ill just get on with it and try and get  the best performance I can. But I would really like to know your opinions, any advice and anything you think I ought to be doing. Thanks guys.

Neil.

 

[Litmoose 90]

Are you running at 4k resolution? Also, if your CPU overclocked any?

 

4k res is heavy on even the best systems, especially with the sliders to the right. And I'm pretty sure that CPU can go to around 4.7ghz with a bit of tweaking which will help slightly.

[GSalden 4,655]

You cpu can do 4.5-4.6 Ghz on all cores , or better set core 0 to 4.8 , core 1 to 4.7 and the rest of the cores to 4.4. That is how I have my 7940x running.

That will give you about 10% more fps with good terrain loading.

Myself , I use Dynamic FFTF too to have max fps on the ground and more terrain loading , the more I climb.

[NeilG 0]

Thanks for the replies. I do use full 4K, but have reverted to 1920/1080 and it didn't make much of a difference at all. I am not overclocking at the mo and have thought that maybe I would try it. And also will try Dynamic FFTF.

Thanks again

Neil

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

2 hours ago, NeilG said:

 

·       32GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory (2 x 16GB Sticks)·    

 

2400MHZ? is that right?

[NeilG 0]

I think so, that's what it says.

[Nemo 1,305]

2 hours ago, NeilG said:

.... Here are the specs:

·       Asus PRIME X299-A Motherboard

·       NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB Graphics Card

·       32GB DDR4 2400MHz Memory (2 x 16GB Sticks)

·       Intel Core i9-7900X CPU, 10 Cores, 3.3 - 4.3GHz

·       Corsair Hydro H100x CPU Cooler

·       Windows 10 Home 64-bit

·       Corsair RM850x 80 PLUS Gold 850W PSU

         Samsung 4K Monitor

....

Neil.

 

You should better go for 4 RAM Sticks (4x8 with higher CLS) as the LGA2066 for CPUs from 7820 upwards are used with four channels.

[fghdgdfdfgfgf 111]

 

5 minutes ago, NeilG said:

I think so, that's what it says.

If not a typo, might explain -among other performance issues -why he's not seeing a difference going from 4K to 1080P.

[overspeed3 410]

Just my opinion, but Alienware and Aurora are overpriced and overkill PC's, esp. if you are going use them just for flight simming - there are at least 5 other pre-built PC's (by other companies) that will perform just as well for your purposes...   

[Cruachan 705]

Hi Neil,

Take a deep breath...and relax 😀

I think you are perfectly fine with your chosen hardware setup. Advice from other users can be helpful but, unless it is consistent and proven to be effective, can quickly lead to confusion and an unwelcome tweaking mentality which becomes very difficult to shake off.

I would begin by overclocking your CPU. You have an ASUS mainboard so this can be done automatically with the Asus AI Suite III utility assuming, that is, it will work with your board. You will need to confirm. It’s very easy to use and  achieves an optimum safe overclock quickly and without any hassle. Keep an eye on the temperatures although your CPU water cooling solution should keep you safely well within specs.

Secondly, the best advice I can give you is to familiarise yourself with the Display Profile section under Display Settings. The creation of suitable and appropriate Display Profiles for a variety of situations normally flown by you is the ‘secret’ to success and is rarely talked about because most folk are constantly struggling to achieve the impossible - a one-fit-all bunch of unrealistic settings. Ignore posts that proclaim everything’s maxed out with all sliders hard right. Such a configuration will only deliver acceptable performance in a very narrow range of situations. Customised Display Profiles is definitely the way to go.

Thirdly, try locking your frame rate at 30 or 31 without the use of VSync or Triple buffering and experiment with the Fibre Frame Time Fraction Dynamic utility as mentioned in a previous post. This does have proven benefits in helping to maintain performance in the more demanding situations.

Regards,

Mike

 

 

[Dexter1979 101]

Your system is OK... With an OC to at least 4.6GHz and maybe better memory (3200MHZ - 3600MHz) you should be fine... Other things that hurt P3D performance are apps running in the background... for example Aida64... if you have the OSD panel running you'll have some stuttering... Another example is if you have a RGB motherboard using Asus Aura it will also give you stuttering and long texture loading times (lightning service process in task manager)... If you are using Nvidia Inspector the only setting you need to modify is Frame Rate Limiter... select 30.5 and you are good to go...

[NeilG 0]

Thanks guys this is good stuff

[Guest]

don't worry about your memory frequency because out of the context of the latency the frequency doesn't mean that much on its own. For example if memory is 2400mhz at CL9 that pretty fast. Also only having two modules means less work for the memory controller and therefore more Overclock overhead.

The most important thing for Prepar3D is ghz on the main core. My i7 4770k runs at 4.8ghz. so my 5 year old system will run P3D faster than your recent  i9-7900X at 4.3ghz. However if you can get that main thread to 4.8ghz by overclocking it will run Prepar3D like my system at perhaps 5ghz.

In term of smooth stutter free performance, if you can set your display to 30hz in Nvidia Control Panel and with Vsync off and unlimited frames selected tune your Prepar3D display setting to give you about 35fps on final to a demanding Airport in a PMDG. Once you tune, turn on Vsync and you should get a smooth stable stutter free 30fps.

You can setup a number of saved 30fps setting profiles for varying degrees of performance demanding scenarios and then just choose the one most suited to your flying scenario.

That's the way I role anyway!😁

Bottom line: You don't need to throw anymore money at it! just unlock that CPU's full potential by getting the highest safe main core frequency out of it that you can. If you can get 4.8 or higher your golden!

Edited June 21, 2018 by Guest

[westman 257]

just put together my 7920X on a ASUS apex , cooling fractal 360 AIO in a Fractal R6 . GPU Galaxy 1080TI cooling NZXT X61 mounted on a NZXT G12

Have it Stable at 5.05ghz HT-off vcore1.235V mem 4x8gb 32gb 4050mhz C17

shall have it for P3D test pc and Main for the other sim therfore no SLI

think all 79XX do from 4.7-4.9 HT-off and memspeed up to 4000mhz, try ty pass 4.6ghz atleast

Edited June 21, 2018 by westman

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

If you are looking for a "conservative" set of settings in p3DV4 with good display quality.. try mine on for size..

Choose your own screen resolution!

Note: I am sure there are hundreds of opinions on this

SETTINGS
within P3Dv4

Display:
FXAA off   
AA:  4XSSAA
texture filtering: anisotropic  8X
texture resolution: high 2048x2048
Vsync  off
Target framerate: unlimited
Wideview aspect: off
mipmap VC panels off
Screen resolution:  1920X1080

World
LOD radius:  high
Tesselation factor: high
mesh resolution:  5m
texture resolution:  1m
high resolution terrain: on

Scenery complexity: extremely dense
autogen draw distance:  medium
autogen vegetation density: normal
autogen building density: dense
Dynamic vegetation: unticked

water detail:  medium
Reflections: user vehicle only
Special effects: medium/medium

Lighting
shadow quality:  high
draw distance: low
casting and receiving: Internal vehicle only

Dynamic lighting: off

HDR on:
Brightness 0.85
Bloom 0.05
Saturation 0.97

Dynamic reflections: off