My 3090 Success Finally

[skipph 82]

Hello All, I am posting this to maybe help some one who is struggling with their new 3090 and not achieving the results that they were anticipating with the new card  purchase that I thought was becoming a huge waste of money on my part. I had a 1080ti that ran the new sim fairly well and after getting on a contact list with EVGA, I was finally notified that they had a 3090 Ultra that I could purchase in a certain time frame that I jumped on right away. I had thought about the 3080 which is a lot less money, but I did not think that 10 gig of memory was enough. My 1080TI was 11 gig and I only wanted to up from that amount. I was not initially impressed with my new card and started to tweak and cut down settings to try to make this new card live up to the hype. But time and again I would achieve what I thought to be better results only to get disappointed over time and move on to the next strategy that I would find in another thread on another website.

   My latest foray into my new card was to finally try to overclock the gpu. I have built and overclocked cpus for years, I am no expert, but always had success in my builds and clocking. So a GPU overclock was new to me and it was pretty straight forward and I got a fairly good stable gpu overclock on the 3090 that I thought improved things greatly on my 3090 but still there were lags and I was still running with lower settings to keep the GPU load down. If I put the sim up to ultra preset, it would load the GPU to 99% and that would choke it.

  So today , I read a thread I had been following on the 3090 on this website and it was a post by Noel that triggered my thought process. He was using a 30 vsync and said that it cut his loading of the GPU by half. I had been down this path many times with varying results based on placebo effect sometimes but I had recently discovered that my monitor, which is a Samsung 4K desktop monitor had 3 outputs on the back. One was Display port, One was HDMI 60 and the other was HDMI 30. I had been using HDMI 60 and no vsync in the MSFS2020 game with settings reduced and plenty of lags and you name it based on where you were flying. I decided to move the input of the monitor to the 30 HDMI refresh port and then turned on vsync in the game and used 60 for the frame rate, I had tried 30 but that was a slide show, then moved the settings to Ultra and started flying like I have not seen in this sim ever. 

    The Ultra settings made everything come to life, and there are a few settings, because of 4K resolution that you do not even need in my opinion and setting the vsync to 60 in game, brings the 30 that the  monitor refresh needs on the monitor to a constant 30 that never fails Sure, there are times when the sim is in new territory and it needs to take a brief pause, no way around that, but all in all, it was a great experience. The load on the GPU was cut in half and I am not sure on the CPU loading, but by what I was observing on the screen, everything looked like  it was all good. So we all know your ymmv but If you have a monitor that has a 30 refresh rate setting I would give it a try. My 3090 is now doing what I hoped it would do when I made the purchase. Ultra settings,and I know we have all heard this many times, butter smooth performance, but now I have seen it myself.  I even took off the overclock on the 3090 so the card is running stock. Hope this can help someone else. Skip

PS. System is Asus Z390E board Intel 9900, EVGA 3090, 32GB @3700 Ram, SSD drives , 4.8 overclock-----

[Virtual-Chris 682]

I guess the question is, if the 3090 is not being fully utilized, why have it? Maybe a 3080 for about half the price is a better solution?

I had a 2080Ti that ran the sim on Ultra at 4K around 30-40FPS. So it would seem a 3090 is overkill if you’re looking for a solid 30FPS experience. There are rumours of a 3080 with 20GB arriving in Jan for a better price than the 3090 as well.

Personally, I’m on a quest for 60FPS on Ultra at 4K with my 3090 and it’s going to require a new Ryzen CPU to get there as my current CPU (9900K) is the key limiting factor holding me around 50FPS. Which is plenty good until Photogrametry kicks in and frame rates drop down to 30FPS (main thread limited). 

Bottom line is I think the 3090 only really makes sense where money is no object and you’re chasing the best FPS possible. 

Edited December 12, 2020 by Virtual-Chris

[skipph 82]

Hi Virtual-Chris, Thanks for the reply. With out getting too technical, because it is outside my wheel house, my experience with this card or any card, is if they are fully loaded, then they will all struggle. If the card has headroom, then they will operate  efficiently and will produce the results that are setup in the menu. This card as being used in this manner, ultra settings, and a predetermined  and comfortable frame rate, will do a much a better job more efficiently than a card just let to produce as many frames as it can generate. i have done it both ways and in a number of scenarios, and this is the best I have seen this card or probably any card that I have run. I do not no how to explain it  in any other terms. Running this card at 30 fps on the monitor and setting it to 60 fps in the sim is the best I have seen my sim run with the best possible graphics I have seen in 30 years of simming, bar none. 
Skip

Edited December 12, 2020 by skipph
spelling

[odourboy 1,287]

2 hours ago, skipph said:

So we all know your ymmv but If you have a monitor that has a 30 refresh rate setting I would give it a try. My 3090 is now doing what I hoped it would do when I made the purchase. Ultra settings,and I know we have all heard this many times, butter smooth performance, but now I have seen it myself.  I even took off the overclock on the 3090 so the card is running stock.

The question that comes to mind is, why didnt you do this with your 1080ti? Sounds like the upgrade should be considered a flop if you compared each card with similar settings.

[Nyxx 6,993]

Enjoy your 3090, happy for you.

[skipph 82]

 Yes. I did do A 1080TI with all the above settings and it did not give me the results that I am seeing now with the 3090. Why are so many skeptics coming out of the woodwork when someone is trying to give a positive spin to a new way of thinking?  The new card stands heads and shoulders over the 1080TI. I would not try to give anyone a false set of hope that my 1080TI could deliver the performance that I am experiencing with the 3090 at these settings. It is not even close to what I am seeing on my screen. Do you have a 3090? And if you do, I would like to hear your comments on your setup. Skip

[hanhamreds 592]

Oh man a RTX 3090 limited to 30fps - seems like a complete waste of money to me.

Have you tried running at 4k Ultra but turning down AA? 

[Slayer68 63]

30 FPS is ok unless you use a TrackIR or VR then it's nauseating. The 3090 is touted as being capable of 60 FPS in 4k. I would start at Ultra settings and tweak down from there. There are many FPS killers that yield very little if any noticeable improvement for the FPS hit. I would look to one of the many tweak guides out there and work back from there with a goal of 60 FPS.  To each their own I guess but I would never have a 30 FPS limit on that kind of hardware for that expense.

[Republic3D 1,229]

Glad you got it to work! I had a 3090 for two weeks (returned it because it was too expensive for me to keep), and I got around 85%++ GPU utilization with it, but that was on 3440x1440 resolution. 

 

Your 9900 should be really great for this sim, I would be interested to know what CPU and GPU utilization you're getting.

[michaelray 236]

Glad to hear you are now enjoying your 3090 skipping. 
 

I picked up one earlier this week after much deliberation. That is a hefty price tag to pay for a graphics card. I considered waiting for the 3080ti but in the end caved in and went with the 3090. I had a 1080ti for nearly 4 years and I hope the 3090 will future proof me as much as possible for VR etc. Also in the future I will move to a 38” ultra wide or 4K monitor so I think every bit of horsepower will help.

I also lock my monitor at 30hz (3440 x 1440) and performance is good in MSFS at ultra settings. Very smooth apart from the occasional pauses that still plague the sim. I feel these have gotten worse with recent updates. Flying in MSFS at night on ultra settings in dense city areas still pushes the card up to 75 - 80%. So I am not convinced the 3090 is an overkill.

On a side note in P3D at 4 x SSAA the card will still max out at some airports at night with dynamic lighting. Most I can get away with 4 x SSAA and some even 8 x SSAA. Having 8 x SSAA at night in the FSL Airbus is a very beautiful thing. To fly into most airports at night at min 4 x SSAA for me personally makes the 3090 worthwhile.

[Ianrivaldosmith 5,317]

For anyone with a 3090, 3080 etc.... you really need G-Sync. It’s often and overlooked factor I think, but, G-sync completely smooths it out. Especially 4K between 40-60fps. You don’t need the FPS counter on.  It just becomes irrelevant. 
People spend this money on GPU’s and CPU’s but often overlook the monitor specifications. It makes a massive difference. 

[Glenn Fitzpatrick 3,798]

2 hours ago, Slayer68 said:

30 FPS is ok unless you use a TrackIR or VR then it's nauseating. The 3090 is touted as being capable of 60 FPS in 4k. I would start at Ultra settings and tweak down from there. There are many FPS killers that yield very little if any noticeable improvement for the FPS hit. I would look to one of the many tweak guides out there and work back from there with a goal of 60 FPS.  To each their own I guess but I would never have a 30 FPS limit on that kind of hardware for that expense.

 

Been using trackir for 20 years and do not find it even slightly nauseating even at lower than 30 fps.  However I have friend that gets motion sick with trackIr regardless of the framerate. Though she also gets headaches watching 3D movies.

I think it depends on the individual, some people are more than happy with 30 FPS, some have genuine issues and cannot handle it at all  and then I suspect there are others who probably would not notice a huge difference but are being elitist.

The OP is simply saying he has found settings that make him happy and letting everyone know, it is up to the individual to try it and see if they like it.

[Ixoye 1,812]

Glad you got it to work! 30 fps is great when you comes to busy airports, then it is good to have some reserved power, that works best for me also.

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

1 hour ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

For anyone with a 3090, 3080 etc.... you really need G-Sync. It’s often and overlooked factor I think, but, G-sync completely smooths it out. Especially 4K between 40-60fps. You don’t need the FPS counter on.  It just becomes irrelevant.

This. There's a whole 30 FPS between 30 and 60 and many people ignore that. Going from 30 to 40 FPS is a 33% increase and it can make a world of difference in perceived smoothness when panning the camera around or when taking off and landing. I personally can't speak for use cases like aerobatics and TrackIR or VR though.

For reference, any monitor with the FreeSync branding will work on AMD GPUs and the majority of them on NVIDIA as well. Here is a list of those that have been tested and approved by NVIDIA (though others can work too) for anyone considering such a monitor: https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/geforce/products/g-sync-monitors/specs/

To the original poster, if you would like to give 60Hz a go, I would recommend playing around with the Terrain/Object Level of Detail settings which are the most CPU-intensive, and testing various resolution scale factors to ensure the GPU can keep up. Several people have reported that setting the resolution scale to 70-80 on a 4K monitor makes for a nearly imperceptible difference, and that was before the TAAU improvements in a more recent patch.

[michaelray 236]

2 hours ago, Ianrivaldosmith said:

For anyone with a 3090, 3080 etc.... you really need G-Sync. It’s often and overlooked factor I think, but, G-sync completely smooths it out. Especially 4K between 40-60fps. You don’t need the FPS counter on.  It just becomes irrelevant. 
People spend this money on GPU’s and CPU’s but often overlook the monitor specifications. It makes a massive difference. 

Excellent point Ian.

Have my eye on the new Dell Alienware 38’ curved. Hopefully this would play nicely in both MSFS and P3D. 
 

I see from previous posts you have a lot of knowledge on G-Sync. Should the sim fall in the 25 - 30 FPS area would I still expect smoothness?