How much would you compromise to fly your favourite acft?

[Ray Proudfoot]

I appear to be the only one who has posted who has to lower my screen resolution down to 1920*1080 to fly my favourite aircraft. That’s a real killer when you’re used to 4K. 😟

[Patco Lch]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I appear to be the only one who has posted who has to lower my screen resolution down to 1920*1080 to fly my favourite aircraft. That’s a real killer when you’re used to 4K. 😟

Well Ray, that's one advantage of not being so prosperous. I've known poor folks who were perfectly content until they found out what they didn't have. Never had a 4K monitor myself.😂

[Ray Proudfoot]

23 minutes ago, Patco Lch said:

Well Ray, that's one advantage of not being so prosperous. I've known poor folks who were perfectly content until they found out what they didn't have. Never had a 4K monitor myself.😂

The 1080Ti was the minimum spec card that could provide decent fps for 4K. I went from FullHD straight to 4K. The transformation was spectacular. It wasn’t a cheap monitor but it will last many more years.

And in a couple of weeks I have a cataract op on my left eye. Once the right is done in a few months things are going to look spectacular especially with the new 64-bit Concorde and all those analogue instruments. 😁

But you can enjoy 4K with reasonably priced TVs these days. It doesn’t have to be a monitor.

[Afterburner]

Ray, I am wondering what monitor refresh rate you use when you run P3Dv3 in full HD. I know that you use vsync to keep the fps in sync with the refresh rate. Is it 30 Hz?  If yes, I would aim for higher. Because you need to compromise on graphics to save on VAS, your computer has to do less work anyway, and this allows you to up the FPS to have a more fluid experience - your computer will probably have the resources for it. 30 Hz on a monitor as big as yours is just too low (movements look rather stroboscopic instead of fluid).

[Ray Proudfoot]

@Afterburner, I use 30Hz. I don’t think the sim could maintain 60fps at busier airports like Heathrow as I have an Ai package.

Unlike v5, v3 doesn’t utilise all the VPs so performance is not as good. v3 is in its last month or two now. I’ll stick with what I’m familiar with. I really don’t have a problem with 30. Panning could be more fluid but using ChasePlane it’s only for brief periods.

[Afterburner]

41 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Afterburner, I use 30Hz. I don’t think the sim could maintain 60fps at busier airports like Heathrow as I have an Ai package.

Unlike v5, v3 doesn’t utilise all the VPs so performance is not as good. v3 is in its last month or two now. I’ll stick with what I’m familiar with. I really don’t have a problem with 30. Panning could be more fluid but using ChasePlane it’s only for brief periods.

You don't need to settle for either 30 or 60 Hz; I would check if your monitor can handle refresh rates in-between - something like 39 Hz, for example. It is very easy to create custom refresh rates using the NVIDIA control panel. The jump from 30 to 39 Hz/fps represents a 30% increase, and you will see a significantly smoother mouse arrow movement, panning, road traffic and fluidity of instruments, while the load on your computer will not go overboard. I personally use 39 Hz in P3Dv5, and it feels much smoother than 30 Hz.

Give it a try (in v3 and v5), and I am confident you will like the results. Having a monitor that can handle different refresh rates, there is really no need to stick to 30.

[Luis Hernandez]

6 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I appear to be the only one who has posted who has to lower my screen resolution down to 1920*1080 to fly my favourite aircraft. That’s a real killer when you’re used to 4K. 😟

I don't know what's heavier, if sacrificing resolution to ¼ of what you have, or being forced to use a 2D panel because the VC was heavily done (me trying to fly the FSL A320 in anything as or bigger than KMIA). I guess you win 😉

38 minutes ago, Afterburner said:

You don't need to settle for either 30 or 60 Hz; I would check if your monitor can handle refresh rates in-between - something like 39 Hz, for example. It is very easy to create custom refresh rates using the NVIDIA control panel.

Somehow my screen was too laggy at 30 Hz, but not at 34-36 Hz. I had tried with these custom refresh rates, but I had a wrong AM (for SMT off when I had it on). I reset it to the correct values and I'll try again.

[CO2Neutral]

I'm not being apologetic to hurting MSFS users feelings ... they clearly have A LOT of feelings THEY need to deal with. 

I fly P3D because it's the simulator that supports the level of depth that I prefer with acceptable visuals and performance and my vision is not based on how much is "out of the box" or "free" but what it can actually challenge me with.  

As far as compromises, what I'm NOT willing to give up:

1.  Historical Weather

2.  Accurate Weather Radar

3.  AI that for the most part work well with a high density and don't "spin while on taxi".

4.  Flight dynamics more accurate to weather conditions

5.  Accurate fuel consumption matching weather/winds from departure to destination

6. INS support

7.  Undocked windows

8.  Fully functional EFB (used in combination with Foreflight)

9.  GSX full functionality fuel trucks that actually add fuel

10.  Hardware device support

11.  More accurate LoDRadius for buildings

12. Ability to manage core processing to best utilize my CPU (AffinityMask, P3DCoreAffinityMask, MainThreadScheduler, RenderThreadScheduler, FrameWorkerThreadScheduler)

 

[Christopher Low]

13 hours ago, Patco Lch said:

Well Ray, that's one advantage of not being so prosperous. I've known poor folks who were perfectly content until they found out what they didn't have. Never had a 4K monitor myself.😂

This is a very good point, and one reason why I have no intention of increasing monitor size or screen resolution even if I do manage to "appropriate/steal" a decent spec PC in the near future.

[Ray Proudfoot]

@Afterburner, I tried setting 40Hz and the monitor seemed to acceot it but the fps was all over the place and with lots of micro-stutters. Even with low scenery settings it looks like P3D v3 is not well optimised for handling this. I reverted to 30 and smoothness returned.

I'm waiting for FSL to release their new Concorde and then I'll be selling my computer and getting a new more powerful one. The monitor stays. There's no point trialling new things now on a sim that is in its dying days.

Appreciate the suggestion all the same.

[Ray Proudfoot]

11 hours ago, Luis Hernandez said:

I don't know what's heavier, if sacrificing resolution to ¼ of what you have, or being forced to use a 2D panel because the VC was heavily done (me trying to fly the FSL A320 in anything as or bigger than KMIA). I guess you win 😉

For quite a few years I couldn't like the VC preferring the 2D panels. But over time I began to accept it was a lot closer to what the crew saw. The critical point was when ChasePlane arrived and I could set custom views and switch to them with a keyboard command. Now the Captain's 2D viewpoint looks awful but it's useful for setting V speeds etc.

I still have to use 2D panels for the FE panel and the INSs. Not realistic but the only option when the VC FE panel is a bitmap.

Yesterday at our monthly flight sim meeting the owner of Fulcrum brought his 49" TV and a quality PC running X-Plane 12. We flew the Colimata Concorde from Manchester to Lisbon. I really struggled to warm to it despite it being 64-bit and all panels being VC. I suspect the many flight problems we had were due to XP12 in beta since the Colimata version has been well received in XP11.

But for me the FSL one is the only one that interests me.

As an aside Chris brought his prototype Fulcrum Throttle Quadrant. Even a plastic body but full metal lever construction it looks and feels superb. I've placed my virtual order!

[Afterburner]

16 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@Afterburner, I tried setting 40Hz and the monitor seemed to acceot it but the fps was all over the place and with lots of micro-stutters. Even with low scenery settings it looks like P3D v3 is not well optimised for handling this. I reverted to 30 and smoothness returned.

Can you try 40 Hz with P3Dv5?  There are differences in how different versions handle vsync, and from my experience, the latest one handles it best.

[Ray Proudfoot]

45 minutes ago, Afterburner said:

Can you try 40 Hz with P3Dv5?  There are differences in how different versions handle vsync, and from my experience, the latest one handles it best.

Why? I have a lot of AIG Ai and have to use FSUIPC to delete excess ones to keep fps usable at large airports. I simply don't have the horsepower to increase beyond 30Hz with this PC.

[Afterburner]

4 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Why? I have a lot of AIG Ai and have to use FSUIPC to delete excess ones to keep fps usable at large airports. I simply don't have the horsepower to increase beyond 30Hz with this PC.

You wrote that you experienced microstutters when you set 40 Hz in v3, so I was just wondering if you would see the same stutters in v5 (provided that your CPU/GPU load are <100%). I am not saying to make it the default refresh rate, just to test using reasonable settings. If you upgrade your computer soon, you could aim at >30 Hz in the future.

At buys airports you won't be able to maintain a constant high fps, but doing it airborne is easy. Some people insist on having a stable constant fps in all situations, while I don't mind have a higher fps up high and experience some stutters after landing (the stutters in P3D are not as noticeable as they were in FSX)

[Ray Proudfoot]

49 minutes ago, Afterburner said:

You wrote that you experienced microstutters when you set 40 Hz in v3, so I was just wondering if you would see the same stutters in v5 (provided that your CPU/GPU load are <100%).

I tried setting VSync off a few weeks ago at a quiet airport so Ai wasn’t a factor and fps in the 40s caused micro stutters. I didn’t bother checking if CPU / GPU was 100%. It’s doubtful GPU was given the quiet airport.

I’ve set my scenery settings low deliberately so more Ai can appear. It’s annoying when on finals to a large airport to see dozens of them deleted to maintain 30.

I’ve done all I can with this PC. I’m happy with 30 when airborne too.