P3D v1.4 vs. 2.5+ is there much advantage in the later?

[vgbaron]

John -

 

Don't worry about burning up your system - the CPU has thermal protection which will shut it down if the temps are high. A modest clock WITHOUT playing with the VCore voltage would be the way to go.

 

Then see how P3D runs for you.

 

There is NOT a system made today that will run P3D with ALL sliders maxed and with all the popular add-ons. You are correct - it is a trade-off but IMHO even straight out of the box P3D beats FSX hands down.

 

Even in a smooth system, there will always be micro stutters - too many variables to clean them all up but if it's smooth the majority of the time, you won't notice them.

 

My eyes are extremely sensitive to flicker, I get nauseous - not a good thing - and I do not have any at 20 - but that's because it is smooth. Above a certain point, flicker is the result of other things than FPS.

 

For instance, if you run unlimited and your sim gets going back and forth 100fps - 30fps - 98fps - 27fps. etc - you very probably will get apparent "flicker" mainly because the sim is stuttering.

 

Anyhow, you seem to be on the right track - I'd clock to 3.8 - watch temps and see how it goes with P3D. After a bit, if it's stable - kick it up to 4.0+ and see how it goes.

 

Above all - enjoy - P3D can be breathtaking.

 

Vic

[zippyslug]

b3burner,

 

I'm probably one of the few people still running P3D V1.4, and my PC specs are much like yours. It runs like a dream with very nice (read better than stock FSX) detail settings. I held off migrating to V2.x the last time I renewed my license, as at that time many add-on scenery's (etc.) hadn't been ported over to the new version yet - and all of my hundreds of FSX add-ons worked perfectly in V1.4. I'd suggest that there's still life in the old platform yet - and it's stable. Unlike 2.5, you won't have to reinstall updates every couple of months etc. After jumping over to P3D, you won't want to go back to FSX... and when your license is up for renewal after a year, you could then decide to go 2.5 (or whichever version it's up to then) or just stick with 1.4...

 

Just a suggestion.

 

Mark

[vgbaron]

Mark -

 

Other than the developer license which is a monthly ongoing fee - there is no yearly license renewal on P3D. You purchase the license and it's good, usually until the next MAJOR release - which will probably be 3.0.

 

Vic

[b3burner]

Okay, vgbaron (Vic) and others who may have been following my story and may be interested in seeing how things have progressed:

 

I bought P3D in late May, and have just been working my way around it learning its ways. I alluded to that in another post, no point in belaboring that here.

 

Rather, to return to a point I first broached here in this post, I increased my CPU clock back up from the default 3.1GHz to 3.8, just to see how it would fair. Tried running both P3D and FSX-Steam with it, and P3D might run a tad better-- hard to say. FSX now seems a tad buggier. A bit more flashing of white in the sky as the textures try to ready themselves, and a lot of 20's and 30's, where I was getting 40's and 50's as frame rates. Maybe I'm just imagining issues, because I'm disappointed the 0.7GHz climb didn't do more, but let me ask you this:

 

All I did was go into my BIOS, go to the performance tab, go to the AMD Pstate Configuration parameter, opened up the Custom P-States box and changed it from "disabled" to "enabled", and then adjusted the "Core FID" (what does FID stand for anyway?) and increased its value from

 

[x15.5 3100MHz] to [x19.0 3800MHz]. That's it!

 

My question is, was it safe for me to have only increased this parameter, or should I also be adjusting voltages and at least a half-a-dozen other parameters while I'm adjusting the clock?

 

My fear is that if I ask more from the clock, but don't give it anymore power in the form of voltage to work with, that it's going to suffer. Am I wrong in trying to do this? What about a climb from 3.8 back up to 4.3 where it was originally at? What might be the risk there?

What would be the outward signs that the CPU is struggling with a raised clock, w/o having also raised the voltage to go with it? And if I should also raise a voltage, which one? There are many listed in the BIOS menus and I have no idea where to start.

 

I know at this point that this is no longer just a P3D discussion. It could easily apply across the board to ANY platform. But since this discussion started here, I may as well keep it here as opposed to starting a new thread.

 

Thanks,

 

-- John

[vgbaron]

John - the cpu won't "struggle" with a bad clock - it will just crash. Either you get a stable clock or you don't.

In order to notice any decent improvement you really need to be at 4ghz or above.

 

Vic

[zswobbie1]

Another thing to remember is that V2.x has to have DX11 to work.

I have an older (3 year old) laptop, W7, 64bit, 4GB RAM that is DX11 compliant, BUT has only DX10 hardware, according to DxDiag, so I cannot use any of the V2.x stuff.

I'm running 2x versions of FS9 as well as P3Dv1.4 & am very happy with it's performance. Better, faster & smoother than my dumped FSX.

So, if you can rum V2.5, go for it.

Basically, (very), V1.4 is very similar to FSX & most, if not all addons work, whereas V2.5 is different, and should be regarded as a different sim, not an upgrade to V1.4!

There will be upgrades/patches within each version, but each new version should be regarded as a 'new' sim, with a new purchase price & existing addons may or may not work. (Just as we went from FS9 to FSX, & to FSX:SE with some compatibilty issues)

[b3burner]

John - the cpu won't "struggle" with a bad clock - it will just crash. Either you get a stable clock or you don't.

In order to notice any decent improvement you really need to be at 4ghz or above.

 

Vic

 

Okay, sorry for the late reply. So it's more "binary" like a light switch. It's either on or it's off; works or it doesn't. No in between. Okay... I got it. Thanks.

[vgbaron]

Okay, sorry for the late reply. So it's more "binary" like a light switch. It's either on or it's off; works or it doesn't. No in between. Okay... I got it. Thanks.

Welllllll----don't know if it's THAT cut and dried. There are times when you are right on the edge - system will run fine for a while and then - crash if it's stressed at all.

 

Generally the bottom line - if you can run something like OCCT for at least an hour without crashing - you have a good clock.

 

Remember tho that parts age and somewhere down the road that *stable* clock might deteriorate and start crashing.

 

Vic

[b3burner]

Ok, I understand. So maybe not like a light switch per say, but more like a light switch with a dimmer knob! LOL

 

Thanks, John

[vgbaron]

By George, he's got it!!

 

:)

 

Vic