So here is the question....how important is G-Sync in practical terms? Sounds like it's not.

Just now, neil0311 said:

So here is the question....how important is G-Sync in practical terms? Sounds like it's not.

For sims? Not really at all.

I went through all this a while ago. In summary, at 16:9 aspect ratio with a 0.9m viewing distance:
22-24" is the sweet spot for 1080p
24-32" is the sweet spot for 1440p (I settled on 27")
32"+ is where you will really feel the benefit of 2160p/4k

There is a significant performance hit going to 4K, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I don't care how fast your system is, it has to generate 4 times the pixels using the inefficient ESP engine (8 megapixels vs 2 or 3 for lower resolutions), more detail at https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/545782-4k-on-a-budget/?tab=comments#comment-3931437 and https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/535210-1080p-to-1440p-on-p3dv4/?tab=comments#comment-3839895

I definitely understand the appeal of Ultrawide vs multimonitors as they are more immsersive, but some software does not play nicely with messing up GUIs and HUDs, so tread carefully.

 

Edited January 3, 20197 yr by ckyliu

32 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

I went through all this a while ago. In summary, at 16:9 aspect ratio with a 0.9m viewing distance:
22-24" is the sweet spot for 1080p
24-32" is the sweet spot for 1440p (I settled on 27")
32"+ is where you will really feel the benefit of 2160p/4k

There is a significant performance hit going to 4K, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I don't care how fast your system is, it has to generate 4 times the pixels using the inefficient ESP engine (8 megapixels vs 2 or 3 for lower resolutions), more detail at https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/545782-4k-on-a-budget/?tab=comments#comment-3931437 and https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/535210-1080p-to-1440p-on-p3dv4/?tab=comments#comment-3839895

I definitely understand the appeal of Ultrawide vs multimonitors as they are more immsersive, but some software does not play nicely with messing up GUIs and HUDs, so tread carefully.

 

So if I'm hearing you correctly, you are saying that you went with 1440p with a 16:9 monitor, and you are advising against 4K even with high end systems like the one I'll be using. Correct? 

How do you find 1440p on the 27"? 

41 minutes ago, ckyliu said:

There is a significant performance hit going to 4K, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I don't care how fast your system is, it has to generate 4 times the pixels using the inefficient ESP engine (8 megapixels vs 2 or 3 for lower resolutions)...

I’m running P3D in UHD and the performance is fine. GPU load is around 70% at 60Hz dropping to 30-40 at 30Hz. The 1080Ti is extremely powerful and the 2080Ti even more so.

Do you have a UHD monitor and if so can you provide evidence of a significant performance hit?

14 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m running P3D in UHD and the performance is fine. GPU load is around 70% at 60Hz dropping to 30-40 at 30Hz. The 1080Ti is extremely powerful and the 2080Ti even more so.

Ray, are you running AI aircraft and do you have the sliders maxed or close to max?  I would rather run most things maxed out at a lower res than run a bare bones sim at a higher res.  My sense is you're not talking about dumbing things down, but wanted to check.

11 minutes ago, neil0311 said:

Ray, are you running AI aircraft and do you have the sliders maxed or close to max?  I would rather run most things maxed out at a lower res than run a bare bones sim at a higher res.  My sense is you're not talking about dumbing things down, but wanted to check.

Yes, UT Live is Set to 80%. Sliders are not all maxed. Never felt the need to do so. Scenery Complexity is Very Dense which suits me.

I’d rather see a panel in UHD with reduced sliders than a lower res with maxed settings. For me having razor sharp panel instruments is far more important than more buildings.

Each of us has a personal choice. But I do stand by my comment that a 1080Ti or greater can run in UHD with sensible settings.

1 minute ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

But I do stand by my comment that a 1080Ti or greater can run in UHD with sensible settings.

Thanks Ray.  Appreciate your opinion and feedback.  

I'm leaning towards the 32" UHD monitor, even one without g sync, as I think that's the sweet spot. Only concern is don't want to get a new top end system and then have crappy performance based on biting off more video than I can chew, but sounds like you and others are having good luck with 4K, and I tend to run photo scenery which are more easy on fps, and I don't run complex aircraft landing at JFK or LHR (often), so my guess is I should be OK.

@neil0311, ah so you don't currently have a UHD display. I had similar misgivings but after reading reports here the fps hit from FullHD to UHD was around 20%. I reckoned an i7-8086K and a 1080Ti could handle that load and I wasn't proved wrong. My BenQ doesn't have GSync and it's not an issue. I had some flashing images initially but that was cured by VSync and T/B.

Photo scenery is more about memory than performance so with a 64-bit P3D that won't be an issue. You may need to lower your settings but in all honesty in 25 years of running flight sims I've never had all sliders to the right. What you don't see you don't miss. 👍

@Ray ProudfootIf you look at the posts and threads linked in my previous post you can see my settings and the performance impacts, I got a 20% hit going from 1080 to 1440 with sliders generally rightwards but no AI aircraft. You don't need a 4k monitor to test with, you can use DSR for an approximation buying anything. A 1080Ti may cope but you will still sacrifice FPS (you mentioned 20% FPS loss with an unmaxed GPU), there are no free lunches.

Edited January 3, 20197 yr by ckyliu

Chris, was that with an i5 and 980 GTX card? No wonder. The 1080Ti is much more powerful as is the i7-8086K.

I tested before buying by linking my PC to my OLED UHD TV. That was proof enough.

It would be helpful if you posted your system in your sig.

It's in my profile, didn't want to clutter my signature with all that text since its rarely relevant in discussions I participate in; I already got told off by someone for not having my name there despite it being present for years so I'm not keen on burying it further!

i5 Sandybridge [email protected] GHz, 16GB DDR3-1600, GTX980 4GB.

P3Dv44x64. FTX ORBX Global+Vector+OpenLC EU. FreeMeshX. REX4TD+SC. FSXWX. ORBX Sco. Horizon VFR X Photographic v2 Eng+Wal. UK2000 VFR Airfields v2. RXP GNS530V2.

MY P3D SETTINGS https://snag.gy/baZD49.jpg

But my point is not what card will cope or not. My point is whatever card you have, by moving to 4k you must lose significant FPS. It's just whether the drop is acceptable or not, a lot depends on your personal criteria and 1080p baseline. If you have something fast like a 1080Ti that isn't maxing out you have some headroom to play with, although you still get some drop and you could bottleneck elsewhere like the CPU. 

Edited January 3, 20197 yr by ckyliu

Chris,

You lose very little moving to UHD from lower resolutions with a 1080Ti and i7-8086K or better. That is proven by the GPU load which is nowhere near 100%. It's around 70% on mine.

With respect there's a big difference between our systems. Yours couldn't run higher than 1920*1080 without a hit. Incidentally, your AA setting of 4xSSAA is quite hard. Have you tried 4xMSAA? That resolution of 1680*1050 is strange. Is that a native res?

It was native resolution for the monitor I had at the time which wasn't 16:9. I tried lowering the anti aliasing but I wasn't satisfied with the visible reduction in image quality so had to turn it up again. One advantage of 4K is you can get away with much less anti aliasing.

@ckyliu, after your post yesterday I did some testing at Aerosoft Thessaloniki airport. I have VSync and triple buffering enabled because that stops the display flashing. That limits the fps to around the monitor refresh rate - 60 in my case.

With Vsync disabled the fps was only 113. You can see a UHD monitor does have an impact on performance. At 1920*1080 I should be able to get at least 150. The reason for the flashing was obvious. The card is sending far too much data for the monitor to handle.

All tongue-in-cheek of course but it does show the immense power of my CPU and GPU. Fans of UHD/4K need not worry providing you have similar hardware to me.