Looking for some advice on upgrading my system

[fsaviator]

At the risk of sending this thread off on various tangents, I am soliciting advice on some hardware choices I want to make.

As my build is now reaching full flyable status, I am now looking at getting rid of some of the stutters I still have after tweaking the settings.  I am looking at the following:

Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I73770K

ASRock Z77 Extreme6 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard

CORSAIR Hydro Series H100 (CWCH100) Extreme Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-1866C9Q-32GXM


I plan on keeping my current Thermaltake Toughpower W0132RU 1000W ATX12V / EPS12V SLI Power Supply, Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case, my current SSDs, and ONE of my two MSI 8800GTX PCI-E cards (the SLI really didn't do anything)


So, bottom line...  can I maintain a minimum of 30 FPS with maxed out sliders in FSX and P3D, while running in 3072x768 through TH2Go and using Aerosoft and FlyTampa enhanced airports, REX-E, and Activeweather and at least 75% AI.... all while flying online?

This system runs nothing but FSX, my external views, Prosim Server, my CPFlight MCP and EFIS', my controls, and SIOC for my TQ.  I can envision either moving on to P3D or as hardware support gets easier, to XPlane

Thanks for your input!

[Maurice]

So, bottom line...  can I maintain a minimum of 30 FPS with maxed out sliders in FSX and P3D, while running in 3072x768 through TH2Go and using Aerosoft and FlyTampa enhanced airports, REX-E, and Activeweather and at least 75% AI.... all while flying online?

Sorry to tell you this Warren but maintaining 30 fps with 3 separate views will happen in your dreams only no matter what current hardware you use unless you are talking of these frame rates after takeoff and not while still at the airport. If anybody can, I would love to hear your secrets since I have never ever come close to getting more than ~24fps with only 20% traffic and most of the time no more than 22 fps. And I still get occasional stutters as well.

But since you are talking about flying online, I think you can do better since you normally would not have any AI besides the online traffic which is probably very minimal. John would know better about that.

Maurice

[fsaviator]

Thanks Mau...  this is exactly the input I am looking for...  especially knowing what you have for a system.

I get tired of reading all these posts all over the internet where everyone is saying they have maxed out sliders and are running every add-on known to man while getting 80+ FPS in downtown Megascenery Manhatten with full AI out of both JFK and LaGuardia.

I've implemented every NickN and Bojote Tweak possible and for the most part I am fairly happy with my framerates once airborne.  The problem is that I like add-on airports and AI and that is crippling my FPS while on the ground.

I don't mind putting out the money for the i7-3770k if I can get rid of most of the stutters though.  I know it is FSX's inability to make use of my GPUs thats the problem...  maybe I need to follow in Scotts steps and junk FSX for XP10 (I would if it wasn't for all the various hardware connected to my systems, and I'm not as brave as he is).

[Maurice]

Don't even think about XP unless you are prepared to buy 2 more high end PCs since XP does not support multiple views. So you would need 3 high end PCs for the 3 views. But I'm sure Scott will chime in and explain things better than me

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hi Warren,

Maurice is right about frame rates; however, since he is using AI, that is the number one killer of FPS. Flying online, you're not using AI in the traditional sense, so little to no frame loss. I am sure you've noticed that with VatSim or IVAO the planes seem to jump around, that is all do to internet speed or the other pilots connections. Both the uploads and downloads speeds need to be high in order for postioning to be reported faster. Some people with fast up and down will not see jumpiness at all.

As for your setup, if I understand you right, you have all those other items on the FSX computer? If so, I'd suggest you offload some off them to other computers. Every program on the FSX will use ram and CPU cycles, and it is those two items that need to be allowed to just do FSX. In regards to ram, you need to get the best in latency speed, so look for those indicators when selecting the ram.

Next, your video is still very important in FSX, even though it does not take advantage of it like other rendering engines, the better the card is, the better it will do with other programs. I've used a GTX 295 and moved up too a GTX 560 and I did see improvements. You can overclock the card, as well as overclock your CPU, I suggest you at least do the CPU.

Finally, I too have seen the videos claming high frame rates and settings at max, with insane in the brain add-ons. However, after a while you notice that these FSX machines are only using a single LCD screen and no TH2GO. Plus, you might even see where guys make the video by speeding up the replay mode to 2x or 4x, and then they edit it at a slower normal video playback speed (30fps NTSC video). Thus, FSX looks nice and smooth. So, try to avoid watching the videos because they tend to get your hopes up.

Oh, as for scenery add-ons, those can be FPS killers in themselves. I know they are normally, but some add-ons have optimization settings for FPS, where some don't. Take Blue Print for example, their programs are hogs in regards to FPS in FSX...

Best Regards,

John

[Maurice]

Oh, as for scenery add-ons, those can be FPS killers in themselves. I know they are normally, but some add-ons have optimization settings for FPS, where some don't. Take Blue Print for example, their programs are hogs in regards to FPS in FSX...

Best Regards,

John

Slightly off topic here but just for the heck of it, I tried their upgrade  for CYYZ and the frame rates are now as good as my other CYYZ scenery. So I think Blue Print simulations may have got their act together now.

Maurice

[blueskydriver]

Hey Maurice,

I didn't know they updated it, but I am curious, did you update before your CYYZ AI issues started or were issues going on before the update? If it's the latter, I bet your schedules (airport placements are messed up from the update).

Since this is Warren's post let me tie his with yours. You could both edit your airport schedule/AI by the type of aircraft the airport handles at the gates and ramps. For example, you could change the settings too have a lear jet go to a certain type(s) of gates. So, instead of having a lot heavy metal at certain airports, you could have more regionals. The smaller airplanes actually use less graphics rendering, also there is another factor to this that most people don't know about regarding AI.

If you do not have an AI add-on, FSX will be using the same default aircraft you can select to fly. Therefore, those planes are heavy in the polygons of 3D imaging, so FSX has to render them just as if you were flying it, and thereby, that sucks the FPS. As you guessed it, that is why you cannot have a huge amount of AI % on the slider settings.

Now, you might think an AI add-on would take care of that right? Well, some AI add-ons might remove the defaults or it might ask you if want to remove them during the installation, but others don't and you must do it yourself. Advance users especially need too do this when it comes to homecockpits.

So, my points are this, you can remove default aircraft being used as AI, you can edit the airports to change what type of aircraft that do come there, and in my opinion, the only places where you see a lot of big airplanes is major cities, where most other times it's a lot of regional stuff. So, you should edit to reflect this reality. In the past, you could edit your airports to follow the real world schedules and types really easy with AFCAD and TTOOLS.exe, but now, it's a lot different...I need to look into again.

John

[fsaviator]

Thanks guys.  Good info.

I hear you on the AI...  I've been playing with AFCADs and scheduling AI for years.  Have to admit I kind of like seeing the right planes in the right places.  Don't get the full effect online, but I split ,my flying 50/50 online/offline.

Not sure how much more I can pull off the main system...  other than FSX, the only things running on it is Prosim Server and MCP for the CPFlight gear, and SIOC for the TQ.  I have everything else spread over two other systems and a fourth system is just being used as my Instructor Station.

[blueskydriver]

I think ProSim Server can run on other systems as well as your MCP unit. ProSim suggests it be on the FSX box, but they do say it can be done the other way. As for your Active Weather or REX-E, you could go with those off the FSX box as well as, but I am not sure on how they work.

I use AS2012 for the active with REX preloaded. REX is on the FSX box, but it only runs when I make any changes to the effects of it. AS2012 is interjecting from a another machine via SimConnect, that way it does not interfere with flying online so much, and more so because I am using two seperate internet connections (or should I say Karen's is the second I use when she is not on it at night).

Best Regards,

John

[Maurice]

John,
I updated the CYYZ airport just to see if it would fix the problem I have with that airport so that wasn't the cause. Traffix360 does a great job in several other airports I visited so I don't want to mess with any of the schedules or gate assignments. If it ain't broke, don't try to fix it

I can live with CYYZ not showing any planes at the gates when I start since I seldom take off from there anyway so don't break your head looking for a solution. I will try your suggestions later anyway when I get to fly again.

Thanks,
Maurice

[HarryZ]

Maurice,

I have a TH2G with 3 projectors and can get close to my max setting of 30 FPS, using UT2 with 50% traffic in Blueprint's CYYZ.  I have a 570 GTX card with a Core i7...both the CPU and GPU are overclocked.

Most of my sliders are to the right.  But if AS2012 is showing a lot of cloud cover, then I will drop down to 10-15 FPS.  I have spent a lot of time tweaking my cfg file and playing around with Nvidia Inspector. And updating my Nvidia GPU drivers will sometimes screw things up for me. I wish I could leave things as they are but there is always that irresistible "maybe I can get just a slightly better performance" by tweaking some more!

I'm shortly going to purchase a Nvidia 660 O/C video card and hopefully get rid of the TH2G since that card is capable of displaying surround view without the TH2G.   The 660 card, according to two friends of mine who are using it, is quite a bit superior to the 570 unit.

I'll let you know how things pan out when I get the new set-up done.

BTW, will be driving close to Gravenhurst tomorrow on my way up to Haliburton for a couple of days.  If I see any low flying sims, I know it will be you 

Harry

[fsaviator]

Harry, please keep us posted on how the 660 works out for you.

John, I'll look into running the MCP on another system, and maybe Prosim too.

Is anyone out there running Prosim server on another system?

[Joe Lavery]

Warren, I've recently bought an AMD 7970 which I use in Eyefinity mode, so no TH2G needed. The advantage for me, because I'm using three monitors for the external view, is the facility to map out the monitor bezels. So you don't get the familiar sawtooth effect when you're banking.
I agree with the others though, I don't have anything other than FSX on my main PC. I spoke to Mathijs Kok (the owner of Aerosoft) recently and he sent me a pdf of his suggested settings for FSX, it's quite revealing and will improve your frame rates. But in the end it's all a compromise. 

I'll send it over if you want.

Incidentally I'm running an i7 with 16 gig of RAM with the 7970, and I'm never seeing less than 20 fsp even in the most complex airports. In normal flight I get over 100. However I don't run any AI software, so my airports are not as populated as yours must be. As I said all a matter of compromise. 

Cheers
Joe

[fsaviator]

Thanks Joe,
I'd appreciate the pdf.

I really am wondering if it's better to go without the TH2GO.  I've got two 8800's in SLI now, maybe I should just run the cables direct to the video cards without worrying about the TH2Go.  In theory that would spread the workload of the three outside views and my lower EICAS across two solid GPU's each with 768MB of RAM.  Anyone tried this?

[blueskydriver]

Hey Joe,

Could you send me the pdf as well?

John

[Maurice]

Maurice,

BTW, will be driving close to Gravenhurst tomorrow on my way up to Haliburton for a couple of days.  If I see any low flying sims, I know it will be you 

Harry

If you have time to stop in on your way back, give me a call (phone number in a  PM to you). I'm not sure what our plans are for next week but chances are I'll be here.

Cheers,
Maurice

[Joe Lavery]

No Problem John,

Send me your email...

Joe

[Kennair]

Hi Warren, I've recently upgraded to an i7-3770K and have overclocked to 4.5Ghz, 16G RAM and all software running on an SSD.  I'm running both Prepar3D and XP10 using an nVidia GTX680 onto 3 x 42" HD TV's.  Still tweaking but I too struggle to get high frame rates in P3D and certainly can't max out sliders.  I've found stuttering can be managed by reducing Autogen and Scenery Complexity until you find that sweet spot.  We all see posts of users maxing out sliders and getting 100's of FPS however as stated earlier these are usually pushing pixels on one screen and possibly not high definition.  I'm trying to push 5760 x 1080 pixels and when you combine that with 3 undocked views you'll start to grind down those frames.  XP10 does a better job I must say particularly 64bit however you're restricted to one stretched view unless you triple your PC outlay.  I would definitely replace your aging 8800 cards however, if you're pushing 3 views you'll really want 2Gig of video RAM and a faster GPU.

One gripe with my GTX680 was that I just couldn't get Surround to work with my TV's at all so had to revert back to the TH2GO.  I don't think there is any difference in performance however.

Good luck,

Ken.

[fsaviator]

Thanks for the insight Ken.  Can't say I'm happy to hear that the 3770 running on SSDs still doesn't cut the mustard.  I guess I'll work other avenues for the time being.

What I really need to do is reinstall everything and clean it up a bit.

Thanks again,

[Maurice]

I'm running both Prepar3D and XP10 using an nVidia GTX680 onto 3 x 42" HD TV's.  Still tweaking but I too struggle to get high frame rates in P3D and certainly can't max out sliders. 

Hi Ken,

I see you are sticking with P3D for the moment. Have you given up altogether on FSX and if you have, was there any reason to do so or did you just want to work with something that is still under development?

Thanks,
Maurice

[Kennair]

Hi Maurice, with the new build I thought I would make the switch and base it on the latest P3D given more and more developers are making their addons compatible and the fact that it is supported and likely to have more development from the old FSX code.  Having said that, I feel the difference in performance from FSX is very slight but none the less an improvement.  Water rendering is certainly improved.  If you are asking whether it would be worth moving over a current FSX platform to P3D such as yours, probably not, given the work involved and I couldn't guarantee noticeable improvement, but for a new installation I would definitely recommend moving to it permanently.  There is certainly no downside to it.  As I stated earlier however we still have the same battle-of-the-tweaks going on in order to eek out extra FPS!  I look forward to the day we can say, "yes this platform can be maxed out on current hardware and runs smooth as silk", but thats pie in the sky still.  Of course XP10 is still a very interesting option except for the 3xPC requirement, and yes that's a big show stopper as you know.

Ken.

[Maurice]

That's interesting Ken. I will very soon re-build my FSX PC as I am getting some strange errors in Windows 7 plus I have added all kinds of crap over the last 2 years and it would be good to go back to basics with a clean system again. It will be a real pain and a lot of work, so I may take the plunge and try P3D with the faint hope they will keep on improving it.

I too would love to try XP but if I ever do, it will be with just one front view and no side views since I have no intentions on spending any more big dolllars on this sim. Enough is enough for me 

Thanks,
Maurice

[Kennair]

Ok then I would recommend going with P3D, there's only minor differences with loading up some addons and it is slightly improved from FSX in my opinion.  The Academic version is fine with only a very small watermark in the top right corner.

Definitely get yourself a copy of XP10 however.  Load it up and do some night flying, its amazing even running a single stretched view.  You'll see police and ambulance flashing down the highway plus loads of very realistic cars.  Also watch a sunset or sunrise over the water   You may just end up shelling out for 2 more PC's    Yeah I know, it never bloody stops!!!!

Oh, and sorry for hijacking your thread Warren.

Ken.

[Maurice]

Also watch a sunset or sunrise over the water   You may just end up shelling out for 2 more PC's    Yeah I know, it never bloody stops!!!!


Ken.

Bite your tongue Ken. This is never going to happen and I mean never without a divorce 

Maurice

[fsaviator]

OK, so I'm pretty set on throwing some money at the FPS and stutter problem.  As has been pointed out, I need to upgrade video cards anyway and my CPU just isn't cutting it.  I was originally looking at upgrading my current system but for the cost of what I've found, I may just buy a whole new one and make the current one #2.  With these specs I may even be able to drop one whole system out of the mix.

Any ideas on the following system.  I am particularly looking for recommendations on the motherboard and the graphics card.

-Intel Core i7-3770K Ivy Bridge 3.5GHz (3.9GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Quad-Core Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000
-CORSAIR Hydro Series H60 (CWCH60) High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler
-G.SKILL Trident X Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 2400 (PC3 19200) Desktop Memory
-NZXT M59 - 001BK Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
-PC Power and Cooling Silencer Mk II 950W High Performance 80PLUS Silver SLI CrossFire ready Power Supply
-AeroCool Touch 2000 Controller, Panel

for graphics either:
-Galaxy 67NQH6DN6KXZ GeForce GTX 670 GC 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card
or
-GIGABYTE GV-N680OC-4GD GeForce GTX 680 4GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support Video Card

for Mainboard:
-MSI Z77A-G45 LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS
or
-ASUS P8Z77-V LK LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard with UEFI BIOS

Thanks!