This is mainly for those who thought that their investments in expensive hardware components were made unnecessary by the recent sim updates. Admitted, this was one of my first thoughts too.

There have also been some comments in the forums that MS/AS have capped VRAM and RAM usage for better performance. As most of you know, this was not true, neither for SU 5 nor with the later upcoming hotfixes. I can get my hardware (RTX 3090 and an o/c CPU) close to the limits. But most importantly, the performance it is still rock solid, no stutters, 30 fps and only very short pop-ins which are acceptable for me.

Wanna try? First, install 15m-Mesh add-ons for British Columbia and Vancouver Island (both for free at fsim.to). I have also some other add-ons in Vancouver area active, but the main VRAM/RAM eater is the much better mesh in this area. Flying with the TBM 930 from CYPK Pitt Meadows dir Vancouver City with Render Scaling at 120-130 and LODs at 5.0, my VRAM goes up to 15-16 GB and VRAM reaches more than 20 GB. With higher LODs it is still within my hardware limits but I get some stutters here and then.

What I like most is the following: Vancouver City Photogrammetry looks pretty ugly with default LODs (bad shaped buildings etc.), but with higher LODs the Vancouver Skyline looks perfect, even from some distance. I have seen this positive effect of increased LOD for PG at other places too.

Edited August 7, 20214 yr by Nemo

20 minutes ago, Nemo said:

This is mainly for those who thought that their investments in expensive hardware components were made unnecessary by the recent sim updates. Admitted, this was one of my first thoughts too.

There have also been some comments in the forums that MS/AS have capped VRAM and RAM usage for better performance. As most of you know, this was not true, neither for SU 5 nor with the later upcoming hotfixes. I can get my hardware (RTX 3090 and an o/c CPU) close to the limits.....

To be accurate, the impression was (and is) that graphics settings have been downgraded, and buffering limited, so that the default scenery will not exceed some thresholds. Some naughty kids suspect, quite maliciously, that it has something to do with the limits of the XBox, but of course we cannot say it, because we would be called enemy agents and all that, so I won't venture there.

The main problem is that when quality is reduced, you can overload your memory and burn your GPU and CPU, but the observed result will still be suboptimal.

On the bright side, the second hotfix gave us back some quality so we are going in the right direction (I trust fellow simmers here, I am reinstalling the whole thing in the background). Still waiting for the announced sliders to get to a higher-than-SU4 quality level; hopefully we will get there soon.

A.

"I feel it in my fingers, I feel it in my toes" to quote that song "love is all around". I feel it in my room temperatures and I hear it in my CPU/GPU fans. I had to upgrade my power supply after SU 5 + hotfix, otherwise pc would hard crash, black screen at takeoff in YSSY, not even time to CTD. Isn't this wonderful? didn't we always demand better hardware utilisation? you want it, you got it.

Software sales drives hardware sales, as Abe Lincoln used to say.

There are times even now that my 3080 is pushed hard, and we haven’t gotten to the real demanding PMDG planes yet. Extra headroom is good imo. 

3 hours ago, RobJC said:

now that my 3080 is pushed hard

don't worry, Nvidia & Co. want to sell you a new gpu also next year and the years after that. RTX 4000 series will solve all your PMDG GPU problems, until Nvidia launches .RTX 5000.

7 hours ago, Nemo said:

Vancouver City Photogrammetry looks pretty ugly

Suggest getting the Vancouver City scenery from the .to site.. It is much better.