P3D v5 - how is VRAM handling now?

[TurboKen 221]

Ray since updating trueglass, I have not had a single crash. you should be fine going to V5.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,927]

@Afterburner, did you read Andrew’s post on that link I provided? He said they’re optimising PBR for v5 and given there is a good boost in performance over v4 it makes sense to go for v5. Had Andrew said both would be the same I would stay with v4.

It’s just a case of when to make the switch. There could be further point updates but those generally only affect the core product and are easy to implement. Everyone who has v5 says there are performance benefits and I could certainly do with that at complex airports.

[Noel 4,486]

3 hours ago, kevinfirth said:

Well, I don't fly into EGLL either, I prefer to avoid London, in the sim as in RL!  True, zero AA is a compromise, there's no avoiding it's less pretty, but mostly it's a compromise I'm mostly comfortable to make at the present while it gives me fluid 50.  If I'm not though it's easy to drop to 30 vsynced and ramp up AA.  With a more capable GPU I could have both, but....

I've come up with a new approach for myself that makes P3D v4.5 perform probably at the same level it can in v5.2 by some chicanery of sorts:  I only fly in the wee to nighttime hours now.   This stemmed from using MSFS which has spoiled me for immersive scenery and atmosphere, so I just use P3D now for where it excels, in cockpit management simulation.  This means I can disable Orbx regionals, reduce scenery sliders to mostly hard left except use 4xSSAA, but still fly in and out of busy areas w/ nice addon airports, and achieve ample performance, by my standards in which vsync to 30Hz is fine.  Dawn/dusk and nighttime at nice addon airports is visually nice.  I really don't appreciate any improvement even at vsync to 60Hz in the easy Majestic Q400.  When I change them back and forth I swear 30Hz is even better and it's counterintuitive I fully appreciate.

Could you maintain 30fps set to vsync to 30hz and fly the NGXu into Heathrow, in Orbx England, with sliders mostly to the right?  If so, that would be a significant improvement.  For $199, again, it would need to be really substantial.  Plus, I only have 8Gb of VRAM.

[kevinfirth 1,392]

52 minutes ago, Noel said:

Could you maintain 30fps set to vsync to 30hz and fly the NGXu into Heathrow, in Orbx England, with sliders mostly to the right?

I've honestly never tried, but perhaps I'll give it a go 😁

[IanHarrison 521]

5 hours ago, Noel said:

Could you maintain 30fps set to vsync to 30hz and fly the NGXu into Heathrow, in Orbx England, with sliders mostly to the right?  If so, that would be a significant improvement.  For $199, again, it would need to be really substantial.  Plus, I only have 8Gb of VRAM.

I do not need to fly at 30fps in 4.5. I have just completed a flight into EGLL landing at 6pm local, with Orbx TE,PMDG QOTS II, approach at around 20fps, landing at 12-18fps. Sliders slightly to the right of middle.

No, it does not seem like a slide show, reasonably fluid in fact.

If v5 can improve that, then maybe it is worth spending the $??? (mention not allowed).

[Noel 4,486]

Ian, that sounds just horrid to me.  I have absolutely liquid smooth everything in the NGXu and 777 anywhere I fly, but the cost is I have to downgrade all visuals except 3rd party airports, and fly only from dusk to dawn where scenery doesn't matter.  I really love perfect smoothness at 30fps and for me even the better scenery (TE excluded) just is such a fake world compared to what I've become used to in MSFS, it's just liberating to not have to try to make P3D compete visually,. because it can't, except at night, though some would argue that point.

If I could max out scenery and maintain solid, and I mean solid, 30FPS vsync'd everywhere, with nearly maximum scenery detail, I might consider v5, the cost and hassle to set it up.  Seems like it's not going to be quite there though, esp with my 8Gb GPU.  I'll relook at it if n when MSFS doesn't mature to accommodate PMDG, GSX & FSCaptain.

Edited February 26, 2021 by Noel

[Ray Proudfoot 8,927]

4 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

If v5 can improve that, then maybe it is worth spending the $??? (mention not allowed).

When you consider that buying a 3090 card for 1500GBP will double your frame rates spending around 50GBP to increase them by around 15-20% seems like an absolute bargain.

[IanHarrison 521]

13 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

When you consider that buying a 3090 card for 1500GBP will double your frame rates spending around 50GBP to increase them by around 15-20% seems like an absolute bargain.

That is the way I am tending to think. I am only worried about what "effort" will be needed to re-install Orbx,UK2000, and all the other airports I have bought over the past couple of years and I know that FSUIPC must be paid for again, so RC4 can run.

[IanHarrison 521]

3 hours ago, Noel said:

Ian, that sounds just horrid to me.  I have absolutely liquid smooth everything in the NGXu and 777 anywhere I fly, but the cost is I have to downgrade all visuals except 3rd party airports, and fly only from dusk to dawn where scenery doesn't matter.  I really love perfect smoothness at 30fps and for me even the better scenery (TE excluded) just is such a fake world compared to what I've become used to in MSFS, it's just liberating to not have to try to make P3D compete visually,. because it can't, except at night, though some would argue that point.

If I could max out scenery and maintain solid, and I mean solid, 30FPS vsync'd everywhere, with nearly maximum scenery detail, I might consider v5, the cost and hassle to set it up.  Seems like it's not going to be quite there though, esp with my 8Gb GPU.  I'll relook at it if n when MSFS doesn't mature to accommodate PMDG, GSX & FSCaptain.

Noel,

I have no wish to fly at night, night flying for me is for Inter-continental 12-15 hours flights while I am asleep in bed.😀. As I have not seen MSFS in real life, and probably never will, I like to look at the TE scenery, when possible through clouds. The visuals are everything (apart from the plane, obviously). Vsync does nothing on my system and 30fps everywhere is a pipe dream. If I can get 20fps landing at EGLL or EHAM and perhaps 25 at EGCC and similar, then I am more than happy. 

V5 is becoming more of a possible upgrade route as +-20% extra fps could be quite a bonus.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,927]

2 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

That is the way I am tending to think. I am only worried about what "effort" will be needed to re-install Orbx,UK2000, and all the other airports I have bought over the past couple of years and I know that FSUIPC must be paid for again, so RC4 can run.

Ian,

Even if you add the cost of FSUIPC7 that is the only software required for v5.1. I suspect L-M released a new version purely for DX12 as the more efficient graphics processing gives the sim a nice boost. v4 had 6 updates and has served us well. It was released in May 2017 with v5 arriving in April 2020 so that's a longer life cycle than Microsoft gave us with their versions.

And there are probably a few fixes for the long-standing bugs. My favourites were stars appearing with the sun still above the horizon and the Prime Meridian bug where taking off from Rwy 28 at EGLC would induce a major stutter for a couple of seconds as multiple BGLs were read as you crossed from the eastern hemisphere to the western.

[Noel 4,486]

6 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

Noel,

I have no wish to fly at night, night flying for me is for Inter-continental 12-15 hours flights while I am asleep in bed.😀. As I have not seen MSFS in real life, and probably never will, I like to look at the TE scenery, when possible through clouds. The visuals are everything (apart from the plane, obviously). Vsync does nothing on my system and 30fps everywhere is a pipe dream. If I can get 20fps landing at EGLL or EHAM and perhaps 25 at EGCC and similar, then I am more than happy. 

V5 is becoming more of a possible upgrade route as +-20% extra fps could be quite a bonus.

Well, it's not 12-15h flights it's 1-3h flights because I leave either pre-dusk or pre-dawn, but that's besides the point I wasn't bringing this perspective up to try to convince you to follow suit, I just am blown away anyone would put up with the type of frame right you're more than happy with, is considering $199 to bump that up by 20% if that, and yet plans to forego worldwide TE for $119 or less, w/ stellar performance to boot.   

[chapstick 2,757]

38 minutes ago, Noel said:

Well, it's not 12-15h flights it's 1-3h flights because I leave either pre-dusk or pre-dawn, but that's besides the point I wasn't bringing this perspective up to try to convince you to follow suit, I just am blown away anyone would put up with the type of frame right you're more than happy with, is considering $199 to bump that up by 20% if that, and yet plans to forego worldwide TE for $119 or less, w/ stellar performance to boot.   

...who pays $199 for P3D? lmao

[Ray Proudfoot 8,927]

33 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

...who pays $199 for P3D? lmao

We’re entering the forbidden zone with that question. 🤫

[IanHarrison 521]

2 hours ago, Noel said:

Well, it's not 12-15h flights it's 1-3h flights because I leave either pre-dusk or pre-dawn, but that's besides the point I wasn't bringing this perspective up to try to convince you to follow suit, I just am blown away anyone would put up with the type of frame right you're more than happy with, is considering $199 to bump that up by 20% if that, and yet plans to forego worldwide TE for $119 or less, w/ stellar performance to boot.   

It's not just that. It's about the continuous downloading of scenery needed and the bandwidth and the fact that there are no PMDG type planes yet. I deliberately did NOT mention price. See Ray's warning.

[RW1 615]

11 hours ago, IanHarrison said:

I am only worried about what "effort" will be needed to re-install Orbx,

If you have the hard drive space you do not need to re-install Orbx again for v5, Just create a new library in Orbx Central, Copy over all your v4 scenery into it then verify all the files.. Done.