Nvidia GTX980 vs. GTX980 Ti vs. GTX Titan

[sagrada737]

Just curious if anyone is using the GTX980 Ti, or the GTX Titan with either FSX or P3d.

Any performance comments?

Mike

[RayS]

I just installed a GTX980ti in my sim over the weekend. I'm using X-Plane but I can tell you that going from what I had before to what I have now, is a world of difference.

Before: GTX660ti 2Gb
After: GTX980ti 6Gb

My frame rates are locked at 30FPS, and ALL of my rendering sliders are set to 'Melt your GPU'.

So far, so good. Everything has performed flawlessly, there's been no hiccups, colors and details are amazingly sharp and vibrant.

The 660 only had 1 of every port, so feeding a 2-projector setup had some issues with color balance, contrast and brightness.

The 980ti clears all that up with multiple display ports, so each projector image is identical with regard to colors, etc... 

[sagrada737]

Thanks for the comments Ray.

I am currently using a EGVA Nvidia GTX980 SC graphics card.   Its speed and performance is fairly good, especially since I am using it to drive a three window 3-projector setup with the Optoma GT1080HD projectors.   As I mentioned, I am running FSX at a fixed frame rate of 30 fps.

Overall, I am very pleased with the performance of the GTX 980 SC (about $400).   However, I do see some of the photo scenery with  airports and buildings show kind of a graphics "flicker".   I am wondering if this is due to the capabilities of the GTX980, or just the limitations of FSX.   Any comments on this flicker effect?

Perhaps with the 15% to 20% increase in performance of the GTX980 Ti (about $700), and perhaps a 50% increase in performance with the GTX Titan (About $1,200) - maybe this problem would go away.  In any event, considering the cost difference of these cards, it is worth upgrading?

Mike

[quid246]

If you are using X-Plane the performance gains between most cards will be quite noticeable... but FSX/P3D is still very CPU bound. 

I'm running a GTX770 and I checked my GPU load out of KSFO with ORBX Northern California scenery and most of the P3D V3.1 settings at their max and it was still sitting around 50%, while the CPU (I7-3770K) was maxing out.

[Flying_Fox]

I bought  GTX 980TI Gaming 6G recently but did not install it yet.   

[Sam Llorca]

Hi Mike this may help...

http://youtu.be/WjfzDY0D4ck

Cheers!

[sagrada737]

Hi Sam,

Thanks for the video.   I decided to go for the EVGA GTX980 Ti Hybrid.   I'll let you know how it works out later in the week.

Mike

[XOrionFE]

TIs are always the best in my experience

[Bob Reed]

WellI for one do not want something so over clocked by the factory that it has to be liquid cooled! Over clocking = early death. I have been at computers for years and this is my observation.

[RayS]

I've never been a big fan of overclocking either. The few FPS one might get isn't worth the risk of smoking a graphics card or CPU. I don't like when magic smoke appears.

Besides, I'm perfectly happy with my 185 FPS on my GTX980Ti  & X-Plane! 

[Sam Llorca]

185 FPS!??

Ray can you send me some FPS? I upgraded the Scenery to the new ORBx Northern and Southern California terrain regions and my FPS went down the drain, from 42FPS it went down to 14-17FPS after the install, for some reason I think I wasted my money on that one!

Cheers!

[RayS]

For those kind of FPS, you'll probably need to convert to X-Plane. FSX/P3D is all CPU-bound while X-Plane is all about the GPU. 

[Live2Fly]

For those kind of FPS, you'll probably need to convert to X-Plane. FSX/P3D is all CPU-bound while X-Plane is all about the GPU. 

I thought in the updated version of P3Dv3, LM had moved some of the workload to the GPU.  I'll see if I can find where I read that.

[Sam Llorca]

If you keep the stock scenery is great,  fps stay above 42 fps all the time but as soon as you start adding scenery the fps drop is noticeable.

[Bob Reed]

For those kind of FPS, you'll probably need to convert to X-Plane. FSX/P3D is all CPU-bound while X-Plane is all about the GPU. 

I thought in the updated version of P3Dv3, LM had moved some of the workload to the GPU.  I'll see if I can find where I read that.

Let me re state, Microsoft is not giving anyone direct access to the core code of FSX. It's just not going to happen. I know I am using FSX Steam and my FPS is pretty good.

[RayS]

Let me re state, Microsoft is not giving anyone direct access to the core code of FSX. It's just not going to happen. I know I am using FSX Steam and my FPS is pretty good.

...everything is negotiable. ...everything. 

[xplanematt]

There is a point where mega FPS puts you in another level of realism. It's hard to explain...I first noticed it when watching one of those funky DirectX tests (back in my Windows days) after a pretty major hardware upgrade. The little spinning/moving box was spinning/moving so incredibly smoothly, it looked like I could just reach through the screen and grab it. I experienced this again after upgrading the computer in my living room that runs an RC flight simulator. I went to first-person/pilot view, and the high FPS provided such a convincing presentation that I almost got a little vertigo watching it.

What's funny is the commercial-level sims don't seem to perform this well. I was told by a senior sim tech that the 10-15 year old level-D sim we were looking at pushed precisely 25fps at all times. But of course, they have a lot of other stuff that puts the immersion level through the roof (wraparound displays, collimation, etc).

My experience with FS9 and FSX (have only briefly used Prepar3d) is that they are just not going to push these kinds of extreme frame rates, no matter what hardware you throw at it.  Ray is right, you're going to need X-Plane (or possibly FlightGear) to get that kind of performance. My assumption is that MSFS is not designed nearly as efficiently, and simply does not have the sophistication to take full advantage of modern hardware (X-Plane can now utilize any number of CPU cores, and actually puts real work on each one....yet X-Plane is just about the only sim or game I've ever used that has been known to LOWER its hardware requirements with new releases).

Oh, and to the video industry professionals who say the human brain can't detect refresh rates over 35fps or so, I say: go buy some glasses!

Matt

[quid246]

The last few commercial sims I have been in (A350 included)... not sure what FPS they were running at, but they were as smooth as silk.  According to the test engineer, the quality of the graphics "sucked" on the A350 (Honeywell) compared to the other options out there, but the airline went for the cheaper option.

It was for sure > 25 FPS, probably 60 is my opinion.

[Nat Crea]

It was for sure > 25 FPS, probably 60 is my opinion.

Pretty sure all Level-D Visuals are required to run at 60Hz.

Nat

[jml79]

GTX970 running triple 1080 displays and 30 fps locked under P3D v3 and 20-60 fps in X-plane. Usually around 45 fps. My computer is Cpu limited in complex scenery with XP. I'm only running an I5-750 @ 3.2 GHz.