So my current Specs are

Win 7

CPU: Core i5 4460 at 3.2

GPU: NVIDIA GTX 750 TI

Memory: 12GB DDR3 

Storage: 2 TB SSD

Surprisingly, I can run MSFS 2020 even though I get a warning when I start it, that says I don't meet the minimum requirements, but If I try to run another program like Plan G as a moving map on my second monitor that is usually where I run into issues. As you can see in the pic below, it looks like I'm mainly limited by the GPU and this got me curious if you think it would be worth it to upgrade the GPU and if that would have any effect on the performance. I'm fine with the current settings, but would mainly just like to be able to use Plan G as a moving map on my second monitor without too much trouble.

So do you think it would be worth it to upgrade just the GPU or should I not eve bother?

 

 

https://imgur.com/a/XQTxKkj

 

Thanks

A faster video card with more memory will help some - in the pic GPU mem is maxed. I will say, however that it won't take much of an upgrade in GPU to shift the bottleneck to CPU. A used 980 or 980ti, might be a good option. Looks like you can get a 980ti for around $100.00 or a 1070 for around $120.00. Either would probably be overkill paired with your CPU, but for 100 - 120 bucks who cares.

1 hour ago, somiller said:

A faster video card with more memory will help some - in the pic GPU mem is maxed. I will say, however that it won't take much of an upgrade in GPU to shift the bottleneck to CPU. A used 980 or 980ti, might be a good option. Looks like you can get a 980ti for around $100.00 or a 1070 for around $120.00. Either would probably be overkill paired with your CPU, but for 100 - 120 bucks who cares.

Thanks for the advice. Do you know in what ways upgrading the GPU will help? Also, I take it that it probably wouldn't help with being able to use Plan G as a moving map on my second monitor, as that would be more CPU or memory issue, correct?

 

Thanks

I really can't comment on resource use of Plan G as I don't have it and have never used it. If you have a 2nd computer, like a laptop, maybe you can run Plan G networked and ditch the 2nd monitor on your sim computer.

As far as what will improve with a stronger GPU: Anything that's primarily GPU/VRAM dependent will benefit - anti-aliasing, off screen pre-caching (will probably be able to set it to ultra), water waves, shadows, texture handling, bloom, volumetric lighting, reflections, windshield effects, etc. Things that WON'T benefit include terrain LOD, glass cockpit refresh rate, clouds probably not much if any help, terrain vector data.

On 11/23/2022 at 7:01 PM, somiller said:

I really can't comment on resource use of Plan G as I don't have it and have never used it. If you have a 2nd computer, like a laptop, maybe you can run Plan G networked and ditch the 2nd monitor on your sim computer.

As far as what will improve with a stronger GPU: Anything that's primarily GPU/VRAM dependent will benefit - anti-aliasing, off screen pre-caching (will probably be able to set it to ultra), water waves, shadows, texture handling, bloom, volumetric lighting, reflections, windshield effects, etc. Things that WON'T benefit include terrain LOD, glass cockpit refresh rate, clouds probably not much if any help, terrain vector data.

Thanks, unfortunately my laptop is a MAC so that probably wouldn't work, but I can look into it. As to the second [art that's great info, for now I mostly have things on low/ medium low and have been using a guide for what settings impact performance the most that way I know what I might be able to get away with turning up.