How powerful of a PC does one need to max out FSX?

[Derek Speare]

Ok,

So I have a good computer. It's an i7-3820 with a GTX780 and 64gb of ram. What's it take by way of PC power to run FSX with all the graphics maxed out? I'm getting 30-48 (68-75 with FI) with reasonably conservative settings. I'd surely like to have eye candy AND frame rates...I think all of us would.

Keep in mind that we are running three times the images due to the Oculus being used, so that will tax things. Will it take 2 GTX980TI's running in SLI on an i7-5960K to run the graphics up and still get 80+ FPS at all times? Are there addons to FSX that we can use to help make the graphics more efficient to improve frames on an existing system?

[Tony]

Hi Derek, I'm quite happy with 30 ish FPS as the eye cannot see more than that. My FSX is maxed out as per ORBX requirements and the rift, FlyInside and FSX run very fluid. I don't have cars, boats or traffic in the air as these are the biggest Frame rate killers in my opinion. Your rig is fine and the only thing I'd recommend is a GTX980. Recently got one and the increase from my HD7970 card was like chalk and cheese.

Tony

[Derek Speare]

I disagree that we can't see beyond 30fps. Don't believe that and our eyes are far, far more sensitive; c.f. 60hz screens with 144hz, run LFS with 300fps against that at 75fps. The science disagrees, too, but I don't want to debate things.

I'm curious as to what machine can run high frames. I suppose it may be necessary to build one and see On a side note, then, what are the frame rate killers? Dynamic scenery is one, apparently. And what can be done to increase the ground planes? I get none of them at all and have it turned up. (NB: I've learned over many years how to extract the best frame rates by making many adjustments and testing, testing, testing).

Also, another question: would installing FSX on a SSD help to improve load time of the scenery?

[Tony]

"Although the human eye and brain can interpret up to 1000 frames per second, someone sitting in a chair and actively guessing at how high a frame rate is, can on average, interpret up to about 150 frames per second." I sit corrected Sir Don't tell anybody I'm a Paramedic and should of known that. I was going on the assumption of trade off in FSX When you say ground planes are we talking about the traffic slider setting ?

As for SSD the read times are much faster and many peeps I know use SSD and swear by them. I would have one but cannot afford one yet. But prices are dropping.

If your pockets are deep the upgrades are endless and you could find the bottom very quickly lol

Derek have you tried the Infinity mask trick ?

Here is something I'd like to own = http://www.velocitymicro.com/wizard.php?iid=75

Tony

[Robert]

What it takes to max out FSX depends. If I'm using stock aircraft and scenery, I can crank the settings way up. I've had them maxed too but quickly started bogging it down with Orbx scenery and aftermarket aircraft. Now there is no way I can max things out though the new beta backer versions have really helped.

But as always, the answer has to be it depends. I'd say there is probably no hardware out there that can run FSX full house with complex scenery and aircraft.

And a big endorsement of SSDs. Big time savings on boots but also sim and scenery loading.

[Derek Speare]

"Although the human eye and brain can interpret up to 1000 frames per second, someone sitting in a chair and actively guessing at how high a frame rate is, can on average, interpret up to about 150 frames per second." I sit corrected Sir Don't tell anybody I'm a Paramedic and should of known that. I was going on the assumption of trade off in FSX When you say ground planes are we talking about the traffic slider setting ?

As for SSD the read times are much faster and many peeps I know use SSD and swear by them. I would have one but cannot afford one yet. But prices are dropping.

If your pockets are deep the upgrades are endless and you could find the bottom very quickly lol

Derek have you tried the Infinity mask trick ?

Here is something I'd like to own = http://www.velocitymicro.com/wizard.php?iid=75

Tony

I have an SSD on the machine I know the upgrades are endless...we have plans for a new DSD Test Machine soon, and it's going to have at least one 980 in it.

What is the infinity mask trick? Obviously, I've not heard of it

[picnic]

FSX is essentially reliant on CPU speed. Faster CPU equals more frames and it's about Ghz and not number of cores. I suspect rendering 2 images for VR means a GFX card will be made to work harder but the core frames are still be generated by the CPU.

P3D makes better use of the GFX card but I think is still ultimately constrained by CPU speed as well.

[Tony]

Here ya go Derek. I did get improvements with this mate = http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitym ... m=hardware

Got another one around here somewhere ? Ahhh here we go = http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

That one is worth a try, does help some.

Tony

[Derek Speare]

Here ya go Derek. I did get improvements with this mate = http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitym ... m=hardware

Got another one around here somewhere ? Ahhh here we go = http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

That one is worth a try, does help some.

Tony

@Robert - my "gaming" machine uses a SSD for the OS and it comes up in a flash, really spoiling me I've wondered if the scenery in FSX would load faster if FSX were on the SSD and if frame rates would improve as a result.

@Picnic - isn't this always the case??? more hardware...more software...more hardware...more software

@Techy - ok, so that program sets the CPU affinity. I didn't think to monitor the CPU usage and wasn't aware that CPU affinity could be modified. There's a utility called "runaff" for use with some old racing sim titles that does the same thing. Thank you for these links. (ETA: There's no fsx.cfg file in my Steam installation of FSX :/)

So the next DSD Official Test System is looking like it will need the following:

GTX980TI Video (maybe two, but SLI support is iffy with things)
i7-$$$$k CPU
500gb $$D
Ram - lots of it.

[picnic]

@Picnic - isn't this always the case??? more hardware...more software...more hardware...more software

Not always in FSX, no SLI support so 2nd 980 will have no effect. In fact FSX uses so little of the GFX card a 950 will probably give the same fps unless you're running insanely high resolutions. Best i7 may again not beat the best i5, many will tell you hyper-threading doesn't help with FSX. A 5Ghz i5 will give better fps than a 4.9Ghz i7 in FSX as there is still a single thread that throttles everything.

I've never seen anyone claim better frame rates with an SSD either, they do help with initial load times but if you have bags of RAM then subsequent loads all run out of cache and an SSD has no real effect. I see you're well equipped in that department