Disappointed with GPU update

Every sim I've had in the past forced a rig upgrade.... first the manufacturers raise the bar with CPU's GPU's MB's Ram and the likes which in turn allows the software houses to raise the bar which in turn forces the end user to to upgrade... I see no end to this ever! it's the way things work in the computer world... A software house has to wait for the hardware manufactures to take a leap before they can take a leap.... which all equates to the end user having to spend lots of money to keep up with the game, no pun intended.... when I'm long gone some of you on here will be using quantum computers, and no doubt over time it will progress into something even faster than that....... and since we use less the a third of our brain mass they will probably develop a way to upload the software directly into the brain... Edited July 2, 2021 by daspinall

One other thing to consider is the type and speed the PCIe slot on the motherboard the video card is in. Is it PCIE 2, PCIe3, is the speed x4, x8, x16? A modern card expecting a PCIe 3 or PCIe 4 slot with x16 data bus will run a lot slower if it's in an older, slower spec slot.

 

 

Sam

One other thing to consider is the type and speed the PCIe slot on the motherboard the video card is in. Is it PCIE 2, PCIe3, is the speed x4, x8, x16? A modern card expecting a PCIe 3 or PCIe 4 slot with x16 data bus will run a lot slower if it's in an older, slower spec slot.

 

 

Sam

 

Theoretically you are right, but I read some tests about the real diference between PCI 2, PCI 3 and PCI 4 and shows a very little diference in Video Cards real performance, not more than 4%.

Where the PCI 4 shines is when used with SSD NVMe disks.

I'm really astonished at some of the responses here. Telling someone without checking first to install DD4 RAM (that won't work on his PC and wouldn't make even a slight bit of difference even if it did) is not helpful. He's on a first gen i7 from ten years ago! That's not even close to meeting the minimum standards for MSFS:

Here are the Microsoft Flight Simulator 2020 System Requirements (Minimum)

CPU: Intel Core i5-4460 or AMD Ryzen 3 1200 or better.

 

He has an outstanding video card that has no ability whatsoever to be fully utilized because the the CPU and related hardware. It is hardly surprising that he saw no performance boost. Even a five year old used business HP or Dell will give him great results with that card, but his current PC absolutely should not be trying to run MSFS.

What this proves is that you can't 'willy-nilly' buy parts and slap them on an 'older' system. You have to go to a PC Shop, determine what CPU you want and go from there as to what PARTS (ie: specs) you NEED for it to be 'balanced' (ie: work properly) as a 'system'. Dual Channel ram for example. Not garage sale ram with every stick being different. They MUST be identical sticks ...or else! Clean uninstall of drivers is crucial. The latest drivers might not work. And if you let Win10 update your GPU driver you may get WORSE performance!! Do research as to what YEAR driver will work for your card and stick to that. Don't let Win10 ruin it for you. Might be 2017 drivers. You have to read up in order to prevail (ie: get CORRECT drivers to get good performance/FPS). So don't blame MSFS for your woes. It is not the 'problem'. Your (unbalanced) system specs are the 'problem'. Simple as that.

Chuck B

Napamule

I'm really astonished at some of the responses here. The i7-990X is not even close.

While I agree with most of your analysis, the fact is that his i7-990X does outperform the 15-4460 minimum standard.

 

https://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-X-990-vs-Intel-Core-i5-4460/m2590vs2310

 

 

They MUST be identical sticks ...or else!

Dual channel ram isn't that big of a deal. There's only about a 17% performance difference between single and dual channel ram.

 

https://beebom.com/single-channel-vs-dual-channel-memory/

(In our Euler 3D Benchmarking, the Dual Channel Memory configuration performed approximately 17% better than the Single Channel Memory configuration. The difference between the two puts the Dual Channel Memory ahead of its competitor.)

 

My old system, a 2600K processor running single channel ram (which was slower that the OP's rig) but with toned down settings, ran the sim just fine with a few stutters over certain locations.

As my CPU is the bottleneck and runs at its full capacity, and my new GPU at very low capacity, which is shown clearly at the Dev Mode window, what I did was raising Render Scale to its maximun 200, and now "limited by CPU" and "limited by GPU" are shown alternatively.- So now my 1080 display is working at a 3840 X 2160 equivalent resolution, which gives me a dramatic better crisper and great quality image at no cost in FPS, and more on, I could disable anisotropic filtering and super sampling gaining a few FPS more. Also turned up from high to ultra some settings as volumetric clouds, etc, again at no cost in FPS.-

So now at last could get some improvement from my new video card