The funny thing is that these kinds of videos often make a point opposite to the one intended. This comparison clearly demonstrates that it makes mostly little to no sense to throw (hardware) money at MSFS, especially if you're satisfied with 1080p or 1440 p. Drop the ingame graphics settings to medium, and you're pretty much good to go with whatever crappy hardware you're playing the sim on. 

8 minutes ago, Evros said:

Well CPU is only part of equation.

Of course, I never suggested otherwise. Its a wide and varied topic, but CPU was the context within a CPU limited mainthread problem that many are experiencing in MSFS. Rarely in Computers is anything like this limited to one aspect of anything.

7 minutes ago, Ricardo41 said:

The funny thing is that these kinds of videos often make a point opposite to the one intended. This comparison clearly demonstrates that it makes mostly little to no sense to throw (hardware) money at MSFS, especially if you're satisfied with 1080p or 1440 p. Drop the ingame graphics settings to medium, and you're pretty much good to go with whatever crappy hardware you're playing the sim on. 

Just to be clear, The video had no intended point at all other than a comparison across 3 generations of cards that if it demonstrates anything, its that the limiting factor here is the CPU. If you are satisfied with lower resolutions at medium settings any interest in greater hardware is a moot point.

Jumping from 1080p to 4K worth it? Oh hell yes! Especially if you play on a big screen. I have a 55" 4K HDR TV and omg the sim looks incredible. It's very  immersive.

19 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Interesting.  I'm now curious in your thinking behind these particular trade-offs.  Compromising on terrain LOD is interesting because, well, this is a flight simulator where detail at a distance matters more than any other genre of game.  In fact, many people are frustrated with the LOD even at 200 and hacking the config file to increase it to 400 and beyond.  A low LOD causes more pop-in, especially with photogrammetry so this is an interesting choice to compromise on.

Render scaling beyond 100% at 4K seems unusual as well. I imagine the effect of that is an increase in sharpness but at a significant cost.

What is the end result visually and why do you like that better vs say more detail at a distance?

I am in an opposite camp about the terrain LOD.  The distance seems fine to me, not seeing pop in scenery and these particular settings leave the system gpu bound.  I also put a higher value on the object detail as a GA flyer.

Main thread limited seems to hobble the system, and certainly the frame rates.  Your mileage may vary!  
 

I think we will do a little more tweaking if Asobo delivers on some additional optimization as they stated, but then I’m turning off all of the monitoring of FPS.  

22 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

Render scaling beyond 100% at 4K seems unusual as well. I imagine the effect of that is an increase in sharpness but at a significant cost.

What is the end result visually and why do you like that better vs say more detail at a distance?

Here are some elements about this:

RTX 3070 Ultra Settings 200% Terrain LOD | Display 2560x1080 | Render 5120x2160 (200% TAA)

2070 Super 4K Settings 150% Terrain LOD | Display 3840x2160 | Render 2688x1512 (70% TAA)

 

RTX 3070 Ultra Settings 200% Terrain LOD | Display 2560x1080 | Render 5120x2160 (200% TAA)

2070 Super 4K Settings 150% Terrain LOD | Display 3840x2160 | Render 2688x1512 (70% TAA)

 

Sources:

Having fun with new RTX 3070 Ultra Setting maxed out!
My 2070 SUPER 4K settings and suggestions - episode 2

 

 

 

 

1 minute ago, RXP said:

Here are some elements about this:

RTX 3070 Ultra Settings 200% Terrain LOD | Display 2560x1080 | Render 5120x2160 (200% TAA)

 

2070 Super 4K Settings 150% Terrain LOD | Display 3840x2160 | Render 2688x1512 (70% TAA)

 

 

RTX 3070 Ultra Settings 200% Terrain LOD | Display 2560x1080 | Render 5120x2160 (200% TAA)

 

2070 Super 4K Settings 150% Terrain LOD | Display 3840x2160 | Render 2688x1512 (70% TAA)

 

 

Sources:

Having fun with new RTX 3070 Ultra Setting maxed out!
My 2070 SUPER 4K settings and suggestions - episode 2

 

 

 

 

What am I looking for?  What are the various trade-offs you're seeing?

@Virtual-Chris I'm not sure what to answer more?! I understood you were asking

1) I imagine the effect of that is an increase in sharpness but at a significant cost.

These screenshots I believe are showing an increase in sharpness and a significant cost indeed.

2) What is the end result visually

Well a picture is the answer to this question.

3) why do you like that better vs say more detail at a distance?

I didn't answer this, to each his own, but personally I find the 200% TAA not giving enough fps even on the hardware the screenshots where taken with.

I prefer the balanced settings of the 2070S 4K example which are giving ample fps with enough room on dense scenery, and higher fps on rural areas, even with clouds and traffic. Hopefully, with update #5, I can push Terrain LOD from 150% to 200% in most areas now without too much a loss of fps.

1 minute ago, RXP said:

@Virtual-Chris I'm not sure what to answer more?! I understood you were asking

1) I imagine the effect of that is an increase in sharpness but at a significant cost.

These screenshots I believe are showing an increase in sharpness and a significant cost indeed.

2) What is the end result visually

Well a picture is the answer to this question.

3) why do you like that better vs say more detail at a distance?

I didn't answer this, to each his own, but personally I find the 200% TAA not giving enough fps even on the hardware the screenshots where taken with.

I prefer the balanced settings of the 2070S 4K example which are giving ample fps with enough room on dense scenery, and higher fps on rural areas, even with clouds and traffic. Hopefully, with update #5, I can push Terrain LOD from 150% to 200% in most areas now without too much a loss of fps.

I see... there was a lot changing between those different images and looking at images posted here are never as good as seeing it in motion in front of your eyes.  

I tried different LOD settings when that was a big thing a few weeks ago, and didn't realize how bad it was until I tried hacking my config file and using a LOD of 400.  Only at that setting would photogrammetry skylines appear on the horizon. Otherwise a city skyline was popping in at about 5-10miles out which is jarring and not immersive at all... "Why did that city just pop-in there like that!".  Unfortunately, a higher LOD setting does dramatically impact performance, so it's a big trade-off.

This video provides a good overview on how settings affect visuals, although he doesn't test Terrain LOD on a photogrametry city.

What we need now is a video on which of these settings are actually causing CPU bottlenecks. 🙂

14 minutes ago, Virtual-Chris said:

What am I looking for?  What are the various trade-offs you're seeing?

The ships and far end of the bridge seem clear at 200 LOD and clearly teh 2070 is slower but other thna that it is not obvious to me either.

 

8 minutes ago, RXP said:

@Virtual-Chris I'm not sure what to answer more?! I understood you were asking

1) I imagine the effect of that is an increase in sharpness but at a significant cost.

These screenshots I believe are showing an increase in sharpness and a significant cost indeed.

2) What is the end result visually

Well a picture is the answer to this question.

3) why do you like that better vs say more detail at a distance?

I didn't answer this, to each his own, but personally I find the 200% TAA not giving enough fps even on the hardware the screenshots where taken with.

I prefer the balanced settings of the 2070S 4K example which are giving ample fps with enough room on dense scenery, and higher fps on rural areas, even with clouds and traffic. Hopefully, with update #5, I can push Terrain LOD from 150% to 200% in most areas now without too much a loss of fps.

At 200 LOD the ships and end of the bridge are definitely better.

@Glenn Fitzpatrick @Virtual-Chris

You're right and there is no question, at 200 LOD it will always look better than 150% no matter what. In addition the 200LOD screenshots are also using super sampling with 200% TAA and the sharpen post-processing effect embedded in FS2020 (via UserCfg.opt), whereas the 2070S screenshots are using 70% TAA and no sharpening.

However when everything is moving, like Chris is mentioning, the difference is much less visible because not only the eyes can't fix these small details moving from frame to frame over pixels, but depending on your monitor and its persistence, any such detail gets blended with the next pixels during the time the signal changes the pixel intensity/color (let alone the retina on top)

Here is what I'm referring too in practice:

 

Play the video, observe the round edges getting most likely dimmer and fuzzy, stop the video in the middle and compare.This fuzzy edge you might see (depending) is only because of your eyes and monitor. You can for example use your phone to film your screen then play frame by frame to compare what you see from what is really displaying.

 

@Virtual-Chris Thank you for the link to this video, it is very useful when you're looking for each setting visual difference in isolation.

What I've also found out is that FS2020 is sensible to balancing out the limited video card resources. The NVidia CPL is also important with FS2020. This is especially true when you're not running with the top of the line video card. You can read the My 2070 SUPER 4K settings and suggestions - episode 2 topic for more details about all of this.

Edited November 3, 20205 yr by RXP

Honey, our new 3090 card and power supply arrived!

29 minutes ago, Fielder said:

Honey, our new 3090 card and power supply arrived!

Ahhh but that’s an Amazon box. And we all know inside it’s something the size of a pea. 

20 hours ago, Carts85 said:

Like many of us am close to pulling the trigger on my next set up so appreciate the comparisons... I’m in the 1080p club currently but as I’ve never experienced this sim in 4K. The guys that do fly in 4k is it really that big of a leap? FPS aside purely from a display point of view is it worth it as I’m really banging my head over 4k vs 1440p.

the biggest leap is going from 16:9 to 21:9.
I started seeing 16:9 as I saw 4:3 back when 16:9 came out and couldn't stand it anymore.
Especially for flight simulators, the wider the better.
3440x1440 starts to be taxing on my brave 1070 though.

1080p outside of 5" screens is not even to be considered HD anymore IMO.

Thanks for a great video!

I bought an RTX 3090 as well, and the difference between my RTX 2080 Super is fairly large. 

I have nearly the same system as in the test video, R9 3900X, 64 GB RAM 3600 MHz, RTX 3090, seperate NVMe drives for sim and OS, and a 3440x1440 60Hz monitor. 

The biggest change I could make when switching from RTX 2080 Super to RTX 3090 was that I can run mostly everything on Ultra, except a few small variables that might not make a difference (light cone, shadows), then Terrain LOD at 200 and render scaling at 100 at 3440x1440.

With the RTX 2080 Super I would be 98% pegged at GPU at 3440x1440 meaning GPU limited. With the RTX 3090 I'm at about 68% on the GPU, so clearly CPU limited. 

The VRAM  usage at 3440x1440 is around 8 GB or so, even with all textures on ultra. I expected it to be more.