P3D v5 - how is VRAM handling now?

[SolRayz 392]

All my issues with v5 went away after I rebuilt my PC to modern specs, particularly adding a 3090. All vram ctd's I was having are now gone. Now if only LM would fix the precipitation issues with EA on, that would be great. 

[Ray Proudfoot 8,931]

11 minutes ago, SolRayz said:

All my issues with v5 went away after I rebuilt my PC to modern specs, particularly adding a 3090. All vram ctd's I was having are now gone. Now if only LM would fix the precipitation issues with EA on, that would be great. 

If adding a 24Gb graphics card didn’t solve all your problems then there would be something very wrong in v5.

Out of interest what’s the maximum VRAM usage you’ve seen?

[SolRayz 392]

Just now, Ray Proudfoot said:

If adding a 24Gb graphics card didn’t solve all your problems then there would be something very wrong in v5.

Out of interest what’s the maximum VRAM usage you’ve seen?

The heaviest situation I have tried so far is EA on, 4K textures at 4K resolution with a triple monitor setup with all sliders max, 100% AIG traffic with FlyTampa KLAS with Orbx usuals sitting in the NGX and then panning around at over 1000ft.  No more than 10.1GB roughly.

So yes, the 3090 is extreme overkill, however, the other GPU options available out there are cutting it too close imo, particularly considering the prices. I wish there was a 16GB Nvidia card, for example. But then again, in the real world, I don't run 4K textures and maxed out settings, because despite the 3090, fps is still adversely affected by those extreme settings. I'm one of the few, I think, that strives for 60fps, not 30. But at the end of the day, I was seeking stability first and foremost, and an end to VRAM crashes I was constantly getting with my 8GB 2080. 

I'm hoping the 3090 will really shine once MSFS go's full dx12. 

 

[IanHarrison 521]

" I was seeking stability first and foremost, and an end to VRAM crashes I was constantly getting with my 8GB 2080. "

Then I suppose it is no good expecting anything from V5 with a 1080 8Gb card? On my elderly system (quite good enough for 4.5.)

 

[G-RFRY 1,708]

I think Nvidia needs to do something about the pricing, with the AMD top end GPU half the price but matching the 3090 and 16GB RAM they could loose some simmers, I notice the prebuilt systems are now favouring AMD Gaming builds. 

[Bob Scott 7,716]

Right now, I think it's first and foremost all about whatever you can actually get your hands on.  I haven't seen any flight-sim suitable recent nVidia or AMD GPU in stock at my semi-local Microcenter for at least two months now.  It's not hard to imagine what that's doing to their sales of other systems components.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

1 hour ago, IanHarrison said:

Then I suppose it is no good expecting anything from V5 with a 1080 8Gb card? On my elderly system (quite good enough for 4.5.)

I fly V5.1 with a GTX 1070, having upgraded from V4.5, so I would expect you to be pleased.. 😉

[IanHarrison 521]

36 minutes ago, Bert Pieke said:

I fly V5.1 with a GTX 1070, having upgraded from V4.5, so I would expect you to be pleased.. 😉

Thanks Bert,

That's encouraging.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,931]

12 hours ago, SolRayz said:

No more than 10.1GB roughly.

So yes, the 3090 is extreme overkill, however, the other GPU options available out there are cutting it too close imo, particularly considering the prices. I wish there was a 16GB Nvidia card, for example.

Overkill indeed. I'm currently using no more than 5.2Gb on my 11Gb 1080Ti in v4.5. It's a crazy market with these 'miners' totally destroying the market for us simmers. A 16Gb would be ideal for us but what hope of getting any 20 or 30 card under the current circumstances. 😒

[Christopher Low 5,339]

Is the GPU market still being affected by that BitCoin BS?

[neilhewitt 493]

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

Is the GPU market still being affected by that BitCoin BS?

Yup. 100%. Nvidia in particular bulk-sold a huge % of the first production run of the 3000 series to miners (usually big Chinese groups bulk-buying cards on launch day). The rest are going to scalpers and system integrators. The small numbers getting into the retail channel are massively over-priced but still sell out in minutes when they arrive. This is not new for GPUs, but it's never been anywhere near this bad. They could have done a much better job rationing the supply which is definitely limited (the GPU chips can only be made in a handful of fabs by a handful of partners, all of whom are well behind on orders due to COVID and related supply issues), but instead they chose to take the easy money and screw over their gamer customers. AMD is no less guilty of this.

6 hours ago, G-RFRY said:

I think Nvidia needs to do something about the pricing, with the AMD top end GPU half the price but matching the 3090 and 16GB RAM they could loose some simmers, I notice the prebuilt systems are now favouring AMD Gaming builds. 

The AMD cards have weaknesses compared to Nvidia for many gamers. No DLSS, for example. The performance advantage of the 6800 evaporates at 4K. Critically, the 6900 and the 3090 are about the same price in the channel now but the 3090 has better specs so many people are waiting. 

I've absolutely considered going Radeon (specifically the 6800 XT) to replace a 1080Ti in one machine despite being an all-Nvidia household for the best part of 15 years;16GB VRAM would be great for P3D v5, and the AMD cards do occasionally show up for sale in my market (UK) whereas there have been no Nvidia cards for months (even the 3090 which was available sporadically has gone). I'm simply not willing to pay £1000 for a card that's supposed to retail at nearer £500, though. My concern is that even when stock comes into the channel in decent amounts (and this probably won't happen until late summer IMHO), this pricing will be the new normal. 

[G-YMML1 582]

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Overkill indeed. I'm currently using no more than 5.2Gb on my 11Gb 1080Ti in v4.5. It's a crazy market with these 'miners' totally destroying the market for us simmers. A 16Gb would be ideal for us but what hope of getting any 20 or 30 card under the current circumstances. 😒

That's because V4 is neither DX12 nor designed to use more VRAM in the manner V5 does.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,931]

31 minutes ago, G-YMML1 said:

That's because V4 is neither DX12 nor designed to use more VRAM in the manner V5 does.

I'm well aware of that but what are the major benefits of DX12? The lack of  it doesn't seem to have stopped people buying MSFS which is still DX11.

So other than eating more VRAM what makes DX12 so much better than DX11?

[Reader 2,009]

I don't think that it does use more VRAM, the problem seems to be that when it is all used up, the game crashes, whether it is P3D v5 or any other game that wants to use more VRAM than there is available. This topic seems to explain it well. It seems that the only way to avoid running out is to carefully manage the amount used, but that means reducing settings below those that can be successfully used in P3D v4.5.

Edited February 25, 2021 by Reader

[chapstick 2,757]

32 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I'm well aware of that but what are the major benefits of DX12? The lack of  it doesn't seem to have stopped people buying MSFS which is still DX11.

So other than eating more VRAM what makes DX12 so much better than DX11?

In P3D, the major benefit of DX12 is improved performance. LM basically brute forced their way to getting better FPS instead of doing what Asobo, which was rebuilding the rendering pipeline in DX11 to make it more efficient. That's why Asobo has been saying that DX12 won't increase perf much in MSFS, but it'll allow for future improvements like ray tracing. 

 

16 minutes ago, Reader said:

I don't think that it does use more VRAM, the problem seems to be that when it is all used up, the game crashes, whether it is P3D v5 or any other game that wants to use more VRAM than there is available. This topic seems to explain it well. It seems that the only way to avoid running out is to carefully manage the amount used, but that means reducing settings below those that can be successfully used in P3D v4.5.

This. V5 has options that'll use more VRAM, like enhanced atmo, but the crux of the issue is the sim completely collapses if you hit the limit. 

But folks with 11GB cards are fine. It's 8GB-and-less users that got screwed.