From the moment the new nVidia 3000 series video cards were released in September 2020 it was almost impossible to acquire one. Even now, half a year later, most (online) shops still can’t deliver them, or they have a few that they sell at more than double the original release price. This whole market went bezerk.

In my country, as of March 2021 several PC system builders had some video cards delivered to them. They were offered at reasonable prices, if a complete (custom built) PC was bought with them. I found a shop that had good reviews and they built a PC to my specifications and at a competitive price. Finally a 32GB, I7-10700KF, RTX3070 PC is standing besides my desk. I also pampered myself with an LG OLED CX48, which has G-SYNC and can do 120Hz. See this video on how to set that up.

Last weekend I installed Microsoft Flight Simulator. Luckily all went well. The sim is running smoothly on 4k. With all settings on high I get some 48 FPS, without the GPU and CPU running hot, both stay well under 70°C, with very low fan noise thanks to the careful selection of components.

Of course I read on this forum and on Reddit and on the MSFS forum how MSFS fared after release. The feeling I got is that one is lucky if there are no issues and it runs smoothly. Many seemed to have run into troubles and some still do, even after many updates so far.

I may just be lucky, but so far I have not encountered issues running MSFS (knock on wood). It’s very well possible that having had to wait for six months before I could dive in has kept me out of trouble. I bet MS / Asobo in the meantime weeded out most of the installation issues and also the sim behavior has undergone numerous improvements.

After having watched the ‘leaked videos’ (lol … remember the turmoil around those?) I was rather sceptical about the plane behaviour. It seemed to me that plane movement, seen from the drone or external cam, was very twitchy and jumpy, almost as if the planes had no mass. They looked more like RC planes to me. Luckily I can say that flying is a joy and plane movement looks and feels quite nice … probably also thanks to my super smooth DIY joystick (see here on how to build one) and reduced sensitivity curve settings in the sim.

All and all I feel like a happy camper, or rather ‘armchair pilot’, right now. I’m happily flying around, glancing at a 48 inch 4k screen that shows Planet Earth in wonderful OLED colors with smooth FPS.

Finally I can commence the video series on Flight Sim Navigation that I started in 2020 but that I put on halt when MSFS was released. The series aims to show basic things in easy steps, but I just could not add more videos made on an old PC that even stuttered running FSX. I plan to redo most of them now with MSFS, meanwhile also adding some MSFS 'how to' videos. A new video on Cockpit Camera Control has been posted there just now.

Rudy.

 

Edited April 29, 20215 yr by RudyB24

Do you not think a musical keyboard is a bit over the top, just so you can make "Bing Bong" announcements to your passengers?😉😊

1 hour ago, RudyB24 said:

I got is that one is lucky if there are no issues and it runs smoothly

Not really I think. Most people don't have issues. They are just considerably less likely to post that it's fine compared with those having issues.

 

Great rig by the way!

Edited April 29, 20215 yr by sanh

Nice. You have some skills, obviously, since you create your own controllers. I'm impressed.

I have had almost no problems with the new simulator. I agree with sanh. You don't post here talking about how well MFS2020 runs; you don't want to 'start' anything and it's not very productive.

In my case, most of my initial problems was a matter of me not being familiar with a new, complex piece of software. Also, I think there's a large amount of "I found something lacking and anything short of perfection isn't going to cut it" is still a prevalent mindset.

1 hour ago, 109Sqn said:

Do you not think a musical keyboard is a bit over the top, just so you can make "Bing Bong" announcements to your passengers?😉😊

I think that's the least of his problems and might be a comfort at some point; 

aircraft; "Don't Sink"

pilot; BING BONG - "I'm not"

aircraft; "TERRAIN TERRAIN"

pilot; BING BONG "Not it's cool"

aircraft; "PULL UP PULL UP"

pilot; BING BONG - "It's Okay, the Cows are getting bigger and bigger - Wow!"

aircraft;

Carrump

 

@109Sqn, @Will Fly For Cheese

Lol, yes, it's a bit overkill alright ... but it does give one hell of a Ding Dong sound! 🙂

@sanh

Yes, it's probably true we hear less of all those where everything went well, which makes the general feel on a forum often leans more to what did not go well.

I'm happy that so far everything seems to go well here with me. Let's hope nothing is broken after the next update ... I haven't had the experience of an update yet.

I do feel it's quite annoying it keeps checking for updates every time it's started. This high frequency feels unnecessary to me and it eats away time just at a moment you're anxious to get started. I haven't found an option yet to postpone updates for a couple of days, like Windows has, or to make it check only once a week, or a month.

@RichieFly

Yes, I do like to tinker with Arduino's and with software. This joystick and throttle was not a very complicated project, the software library already was available. I do have a Saitek X52, which obviously has much better looks, but it by far can't beat the smoothness of this wooden box stick.

To think.. This thread pretty much exists because this man managed to find something more valuable than water in a desert. A modern video card in 2021.. Have fun my friend and we all secretly hate you for paying retail for something that hoarding resellers are selling at 2x the price

@styckx

Yes, it's crazy when you come to think of it. The going price for a 3070 is around €1400 at the moment ... and that's with a web shop that usually is one of the cheapest in the Netherlands. I paid €749 for an MSI 3070 Gaming X Trio, also not cheap, but I couldn't find a better deal. OK, I had to buy a computer with it, but that was the plan anyhow.

PS: You're welcome to secretly hate me for that. 🙂

Edited April 29, 20215 yr by RudyB24

2 minutes ago, RudyB24 said:

@styckx

Yes, it's crazy when you come to think of it. The going price for a 3070 is around €1400 at the moment ... and that's with a web shop that usually is one of the cheapest in the Netherlands. I paid €749 for an MSI 3070 Gaming X Trio, also not cheap, but I couldn't find a better deal. OK, I had to buy a computer with it, but that was the plan anyhow. 🙂

 

Yep. I have. 2080Ti and it's ironic since it retailed as over priced in retrospect.

I have a GTX 1080 in my closet as my backup and to think I could probably come close to paying off my 2080Ti by reselling the 1080.

Supply and demand is a crazy thing

Part of it also is this whole bitcoin mining madness. If the whole idea is they need to be scarce and hard to get ... I'll gladly volunteer to hand them out personally ... slowly ... one by one ... against a reasonable fee. 🙂

3 minutes ago, styckx said:

Yep. I have. 2080Ti and it's ironic since it retailed as over priced in retrospect.

I cringed when I pulled the trigger on a 2080Ti at $1k back in March, 2019. In hindsight, it was a purchase made just in time. I'm sure the 30xxs are much better, but having never had a "high end" GPU prior to that I figured it was about time. I think the "best" one I had before that was a GTX1660 superclocked 6GB. For now, I'm happy.

Looks like a great setup, enjoy!  And yes there are some of us out there that enjoy flying the sim without (significant) issues, I dare say we are a silent majority.  

What is your monthly electricity bill? 😄