Sliders full right . . .

[Killbilly]

Okay, I have had it. I finally want to fly this simulator to its full potential. I mean, I want all sliders full right with the highest resolution, good quality payware aircraft, and lots of FTX detailed scenery. With all of that, and in weather, I never want to see my FPS drop below 35. My question for you tech gurus is this, will the following system specs get me there? If not, what do I need to add?

Bitfenix Ronin Case
Intel Quad Core i7-6700K 4.1 GHz OC
Nvidia GTX 980 TI
Asetek Premium 240mm Sealed-Loop Liquid Cooler
32 GB DDR4 Corsair Vengeance 2666 MHz RAM
2 TB ADATA SP510 SSD
Windows 10 Pro
Single monitor setup

[txnetcop]

One of the computers I built for a friend that came REAL CLOSE only required"
4.4 Ghz OC
Intel i7 4770k

Gigabyte GA-Z87X-UD3H ATX LGA1150 Motherboard (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz87xud3h)

Corsair Vengeance LP 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory (http://pcpartpicker.com/part/corsair-memory-cml16gx3m2a1600c9)

Gigabyte GTX 970 Gaming G1

Samsung 256GB SSD

Ted


I have not built one with the i7 6700K yet? Nor has anyone I built a unit for request GTX980 so MAYBE!


(http://pcpartpicker.com/part/gigabyte-motherboard-gaz87xud3h)

[lownslo]

...I want all sliders full right with the highest resolution, good quality payware aircraft, and lots of FTX detailed scenery. With all of that, and in weather, I never want to see my FPS drop below 35.

Get a Cray! :biggrin-new: Seriously, you'll have a hard time achieving what you want with any hardware available today, including the 6700K running at 4.8Ghz. My 4790K @ 4.8Ghz/GTX 970 combo still works plenty hard in the A2A GA aircraft (w/ the GTN 750) in FTX SoCal. I've had to dial back AutoGen to "Normal" (there's still a TON of AG in SoCal at that setting) and cut back on my air and ground traffic as well as eliminate some features in the scenery using FTX Central.

Even as our hardware improves the add-ons become better and more demanding. When it's all said and done we each must compromise and set-up the sim to work best for us.

HTH,

Greg

[henrystreet]

Okay, I have had it. I finally want to fly this simulator to its full potential. I mean, I want all sliders full right with the highest resolution, good quality payware aircraft, and lots of FTX detailed scenery. With all of that, and in weather, I never want to see my FPS drop below 35.

Your experience really depends on your individual sim preferences. If you want to fly PMDG into Orbx SoCal, you will not get 35 fps, period. I have an Intel 4.7Ghz OC with GTX970. In TimC's Embrarer, with Orbx SoCal on sparse autogen, I am getting 20FPS in San Diego, as an example.

[Jafo]

Built this time last year...at a cost of just over $7000 AUD....

Thermaltake Level 10 VL300A9N1N Titanium Limited Edition Case [No.221]
Corsair ASX 1200I Platinum Certified 1200w Modular PSU
ASUS X99 Deluxe LGA2011v3 MotherBoard
Intel i7 5960x 3.00Ghz @3.50Ghz LGA2011v3 CPU
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 LGA2011 CPU Cooler
32G Corsair Dominator Platinum [4x8G] 2666MHz DDR4 Ram
ASUS Strix GTX980 4GB GPU
512G Samsung XP941 M.2 PCIe x4 SSD
2 X 240G Corsair Neutron GTX SSD
1 X 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
2 X 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
Thermaltake eSports Level 10 M Hybrid Wireless/Wired Gaming Mouse
ASUS BC-12D2HTBlu-Ray/DVD-RW
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.


....doesn't do it....;)

[glh]

Built this time last year...at a cost of just over $7000 AUD....

Thermaltake Level 10 VL300A9N1N Titanium Limited Edition Case [No.221]
Corsair ASX 1200I Platinum Certified 1200w Modular PSU
ASUS X99 Deluxe LGA2011v3 MotherBoard
Intel i7 5960x 3.00Ghz @3.50Ghz LGA2011v3 CPU
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 LGA2011 CPU Cooler
32G Corsair Dominator Platinum [4x8G] 2666MHz DDR4 Ram
ASUS Strix GTX980 4GB GPU
512G Samsung XP941 M.2 PCIe x4 SSD
2 X 240G Corsair Neutron GTX SSD
1 X 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
2 X 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
Thermaltake eSports Level 10 M Hybrid Wireless/Wired Gaming Mouse
ASUS BC-12D2HTBlu-Ray/DVD-RW
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.


....doesn't do it....;)

You could probably find a nice, used Piper J-3 Cub for less than that and do the REAL thing !!! :redfire:

[AussieMan]

Could never fly with sliders set any further than 50% right in FSX but in P3D (all versions) sliders are full right all the time.

[bazzar]

Couple of options.

Switch to P3D
Switch to Steam

Don't forget when this sim engine was built. Think about that. Just because computers have advanced, the sim engine is still optimised for the previous generation of computer. If you run it in its raw, native state you will get what you want. Add in some of the third party add-ons and sceneries and you are asking it to do what it was never designed to do. Lockheed Martin and Dovetail have adjusted the levers so you can get better performance.

[falcon409]

Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium, 64bit
Processor_AMD (FX9tm)-4300 Quad-Core, 3800mhz, 2 cores(s), 4 logical processors
8 Gig Memory
2-1Tb-SATA Drives
1-570Gb SATA Drive
2-21" flat screen monitors
1-NVidia GeForce GTX 650 Ti -2GB

I run both FSX/Accel and P3D Ver.2.5.12946.0
Both Sims run with sliders full right and both sims are set to unlimited, so there is fluctuation in the FPS readout but minor.
I also run FTX Global Basic and FTX Vector Basic

In FSX, unless I'm over a heavily populated area, I get approx 30-35 fps
In P3D, unless I'm over a heavily populated area, I get approx 50+
In P3D, over populated areas it drops sometimes to 20 to 25

This computer cost me less than $1000.

[Double J]

Built this time last year...at a cost of just over $7000 AUD....

Thermaltake Level 10 VL300A9N1N Titanium Limited Edition Case [No.221]
Corsair ASX 1200I Platinum Certified 1200w Modular PSU
ASUS X99 Deluxe LGA2011v3 MotherBoard
Intel i7 5960x 3.00Ghz @3.50Ghz LGA2011v3 CPU
Noctua NH-D14 SE2011 LGA2011 CPU Cooler
32G Corsair Dominator Platinum [4x8G] 2666MHz DDR4 Ram
ASUS Strix GTX980 4GB GPU
512G Samsung XP941 M.2 PCIe x4 SSD
2 X 240G Corsair Neutron GTX SSD
1 X 3TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
2 X 2TB Western Digital Caviar Green Sata2 HD
Thermaltake eSports Level 10 M Hybrid Wireless/Wired Gaming Mouse
ASUS BC-12D2HTBlu-Ray/DVD-RW
Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.


....doesn't do it....;)


all that cash and only 3.5ghz? Crank that thing up to 4.8.

[fsxar177]

Keep in mind, there's no great benefit from sliders 'full right'..

Depends on the kind of flying you do. And at the end of the day, VAS is going to be a bigger issue than FPS. So, limit the AI and vehicle traffic. Watch your LOD setting. And watch out for poorly coded/material-ed aircraft developers. who's aircraft will eat up to half of your VAS as soon as you load them.

Good-luck. Your set-up looks better than mine, and I've been running 'full-right' for years. I just watch the above. I use HD REX Textures, ORBX scenery, ASN.. etc., etc.

- Joseph

[YoYo]

I never want to see my FPS drop below 35.

Only in real aviation :biggrin-new: .

[henrystreet]

It is not just scenery that can cause low FPS or OOM. The complexity of the aircraft you are flying can make a huge difference in performance of the sim. That is why I specified what aircraft I was using in Orbx SoCal. In terms of performance "hit" in every way, there is a huge difference between PMDG 777/VRS Superbug (with Tacpack) and the default Cessna, for example.

To repeat, your (relative) performance with a given piece of hardware is a complex expression of your sim preferences. No basis of hardware comparison is apples to apples without this additional information.

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

For FSX is there a real benefit to AMD CPUs and/or Graphics cards over intel/nvidia?

-Ed-

[txnetcop]

Hey All,

For FSX is there a real benefit to AMD CPUs and/or Graphics cards over intel/nvidia?

-Ed-

AMD FX and AMD 8 cores don't even come close to the speed of the new stock Intel Haswell CPUs i5 or i7...do a comparison at cpuboss.com. With that said I think AMD with AMD cards do a pretty fair job with FSX and X-Plane10.3

[mjrhealth]

As txnetcop said, none whatsoevver, taht why i enden up with Inte. AMD are no good on single thread performance which is why Intel shines as FSX is basically a single trhead APP. As for Video cards, not sure if it still teh case but AMD cards had issues with FSx clouds.

[Mach3DS]

Yup...spend $60 on P3Dv3.1 right now and see performance Improvements like none other. I have an AMD 8150 3.6ghz 8 core and an nvidia GTX 770 4gb card ...so fairly old....and have sliders near max and get about 56 fps in sparse areas and about 35 in heavy autogen. That and dynamix reflections enabled at ultra setting.

[txnetcop]

Bazz mentioned switching to FSX Steam and P3D. For now that is pretty sound advice as the compiler in both makes for better frame rates. But, the future of flightsimming (especially in external scenery and events) is going to go to real 64 bit processing. I don't know what Steam has up their sleeve to make FSX into a real 64bit sim but it doesn't look optimistic ( https://steamcommunity.com/app/314160/discussions/1/622954302088259509/ ) P3D is not heading that direction either ( http://www.avsim.com/topic/465561-no-64-bit-p3d-coming-according-to-orbxs-john-venema/ ) X-Plane 3.0 is a true 64 bit platform now. I am sure there will be other players in the field eventually but 64 bit is going to be wave of the future so I would plan on building for that eventually...ie 4GB VRAM AMD or Nvidia Video cards and Intel Haswell CPUs. Nick N (of FSX Bible http://www.simforums.com/forums/the-fsx-computer-system-the-bible-by-nickn_topic46211.html ) and I agree that Nvidia cards seem to work best with Intel.
Ted

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

Not sure I see a lot of optimism in Ted's last post.

Apparently for FSX single core speed is still everything. Then an adequate nvidia video card. Problem seems to be FSX uses an old rendering system for which new cpus and gpus? are not being specifically designed for. Thus it seems to me as new addons become ever increasingly complicated and require rendering single core speed becomes the bottleneck and eventually the stopping point. I assume it is unlikely that addon developers are ever going to program their addons with the efficiency that was required for man to go to the moon to extend the life of FSX. This makes me think that Microsoft FSX may not be long for this world and I guess nobody is creating an entirely new rendering system open source flight simulator program.

So the advice is start preparing for 64 bit and hope and pray single core speed increases? And it may or may not.

So what to do? I guess if you want multiple computers buy the pieces for the best FSX machine you can get today since things are likely going to go downhill for a variety of reasons and have another computer for other purposes - or - compromise and accept a submaximal level of FXS in consideration of your other needs in one computer.

I guess you can always go to Xplane as well.

Do I have this basically right?

-Ed-

[Mach3DS]

So...im not sure the reason to have ALL sliders to the right. For example...in reality you cant really see beyond 60 miles cloud coverage. ..so moving that one out to the limit might be unnecessary. Having every single vehicle active at an airport is also probably not necessary if youre not going to be out exploring the nooks and crannies of the airport environmemt. Really you should look at what could you upgrade today without having to do a complete rebuild.

P3Dv2/3 offers hardware tessellation which takes oodles of cpu cycles and transfers them to.the gpu of your vid card. So autogen is handled via gpu now. Also v3 has massive performance increases. If anything id switch to p3dv3 upgrade your video card...and lastly look to upgrade cpu. Unless youre in the market for a completely new system. P3dv3 has taken yhe steps to open the sim to new levels unseen previously. Im running a relatively old cpu but relatively new GPU and getting great results for low cost in comparison to buying a whole new computer.

[Killbilly]

Thanks for all the good info, gents. Maybe I'll just lower my expectations a bit. Sigh. The shift to P3D seems daunting, but maybe I'll have to give it a go.

[fsxar177]

Thanks for all the good info, gents. Maybe I'll just lower my expectations a bit. Sigh. The shift to P3D seems daunting, but maybe I'll have to give it a go.

That's exactly what you should do! Good call

[Obie311]

You could probably find a nice, used Piper J-3 Cub for less than that and do the REAL thing !!! :redfire:

Yes odd that you mentioned this.

Assuming you already had a pilot's license, I was speculating that by the time you bought an immensely capable FSX computer, added some realistic controls like the Cirrus (https://store.flypfc.com/?/products/consoles/cirrus-ii-flight-console/), added a HD monitor, bought a Herman Miller chair, got ASN, ORBX scenery, and a hangar of quality addons, you could probably buyin to a 1/3 partnership on a nice RW aircraft. Of course then you you would really have to know how to fly. But given the amount of time we spend tweaking FSX, you could do a lot of ground school.

Just a thought.

Obie

[Alan_A]

The way I've come to think about the sliders: it's a bit like a supermarket. You don't go into a supermarket to buy all the food and eat it. You buy the products you want, the person next to you at checkout buys completely different things, both of us walk away happy. Similarly here - there are sliders to max out for low-and-slow VFR, others for tubeliner flying, etc. Part of a series of choices you make - others include where and what to fly, what add-on scenery to use, what textures, add-on airports or default, and so on. A lot of us are guilty - I know I am - of thinking of the sliders as the full feature set, and wanting them all at the highest settings because if they're not, we're not being treated to all the features and we're not getting the most out of our sim. I'm not sure that was ever the intent. The sliders let you pick and choose, but that doesn't mean you can choose everything without bringing your system to a halt. So I give myself this reminder from time to time - decide what's important to you and max out that, but not the rest. My $.02.

[txnetcop]

Hey All,

Not sure I see a lot of optimism in Ted's last post.

Apparently for FSX single core speed is still everything. Then an adequate nvidia video card. Problem seems to be FSX uses an old rendering system for which new cpus and gpus? are not being specifically designed for. Thus it seems to me as new addons become ever increasingly complicated and require rendering single core speed becomes the bottleneck and eventually the stopping point. I assume it is unlikely that addon developers are ever going to program their addons with the efficiency that was required for man to go to the moon to extend the life of FSX. This makes me think that Microsoft FSX may not be long for this world and I guess nobody is creating an entirely new rendering system open source flight simulator program.

So the advice is start preparing for 64 bit and hope and pray single core speed increases? And it may or may not.

So what to do? I guess if you want multiple computers buy the pieces for the best FSX machine you can get today since things are likely going to go downhill for a variety of reasons and have another computer for other purposes - or - compromise and accept a submaximal level of FXS in consideration of your other needs in one computer.

I guess you can always go to Xplane as well.

Do I have this basically right?

-Ed-

Ed I am very optimistic about the future of flight-simming. Steam really breathed some life into FSX and it is becoming even more popular, especially when you consider the myriad of great developers still working with it. X-Plane, though I have grown to really like it, is not for everybody as a stand-alone, goto flightsim. There are issues still being addressed, but at least the X-Plane team and Austin are working diligently to keep it current. It is a great platform but I don't buy into the "it's more like real life flying" crap X-Plane spouts. I have flown real planes...what is missing, based on experience is the REAL touch and feel of the airplane across different airspace, wind currents, pressure, humidity, temps etc.. I think A2A, REALAIR and some X-Plane devs have done more to address that than anyone and I hope to see a resurgence of joysticks and yokes that you feel the plane. The problem for many though is that if it's too real it is just too much work for something they like to relax in and just fly. I can understand that. I prefer "as real as it gets" and even to the point of walk around and check everything. A habit I was trained to be in.

I think the general consensus now is working its way into right thinking. Having all sliders right may not be truly achievable for everyone ever, and I am not sure it will matter if you do. I like what many have said in here about changing the mindset. I still run FSX on an Q9650 as I stated earlier and with Steam I get great frame-rates and great looking sim...no blurries or stutters at 30+ to 50+ fps. I have MOST(not all) of my sliders full right and heck I'm happy with it. Next year I will build a MONSTER system and get ready for what's to come. I do believe that systems over 4GHz do a better job at handling FSX. I haven't taken the P3d route since early in its infancy, but I might.

OK off my soapbox...NEXT!
Ted

[EasyEd]

Hey All,

Good to hear Ted.

I assume that whoever is doing P3D actually has the source code and so has/is modifying that to take advantage of the more modern cpu/gpu systems? If so great - it makes sense - and it will become even better if P3D becomes legal for people to use recreationally. BTW is P3D a subscription - that is do you pay every year? Does Steam have the source code to do the same thing? If so FSX in whatever guise has a long future.

-Ed-