GPU vor VR

[UrosM]

I plan to upgrade my GPU, from GTX 950 2 GB. I'd like to be VR ready (though not buying VR set just right now), mostly for Condor and DCS. Finances are limited, so I reduced the choices to this models:

- used GTX 980 Ti 6GB
- used GTX 1070 8GB
In used range 980 Ti looks better to me.

- new GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB
- or maybe, just maybe, if I could stretch, RTX 2060 8GB.

Need some first hand experiences and advice, if somebody use any of those cards. Don't need more reviews, I already watched them.

Thanks for help.

[EDB]

DCS specs...

https://www.digitalcombatsimulator.com/ ... ld/stable/

[janjansen]

For DCS, none of these cards will really cut it in VR I fear. My 1070 is okayish in 1080p at medium settings, but Im quite certain it wouldnt be enough to get 90FPS with VR, unless maybe if I turned almost everything down to low. It should do fine for condor in VR though.

Disregarding DCS in VR, from what you listed, I would chose between a used 980 Ti and a 1070; they should be close performance wise, but the 1070 will be cooler and more silent. It might be more expensive, Im not sure what prices are on used 980 Ti's. Do keep power and cooling requirements in mind, make sure your PSU and case can handle a 980 Ti (>250W !).

A 1660 will be slower and more expensive, and a 2060 costs even more, and at least in condor, will not be any faster than a 980Ti or 1070 (all have about the same fill rate ) and neither will do DCS in VR. Even with the price cuts its hard to recommend either, especially if you are okay buying a second hand. However, if you can find a used 1080 for a reasonable price, that is something I would consider, it should be a beast in condor and might be able to cope with DCS in VR.

Lastly, for condor I believe the last chart (texel fill rate) on this page is what matters most:
https://www.anandtech.com/show/13762/nv ... -review/13

Based on that, a vega might also be something to consider, although the vega56 still falls short of DCS specs, and the Vega64 is still quite pricey. AMD Navi is about to be released; might be worth waiting to see how that pans out, and how it impacts prices of current cards?

[UrosM]

Thanks for all info.

VR will be (if) mainly for Condor. X-Plane I fly mostly IFR, so no VR is needed, and in DCS I fly only helicopters (could be nice to have VR).

Vega doesn't come into consideration as it gets bad performance in X-Plane (looks like all Radeons does), so that's why I'm searching in green land.

Was looking on used 1080 too, but price wise it comes nearly identical with RTX 2060. And specs are nearly identical (as some tests and reviews shows), so I decided to include RTX 2060. It's a new card and newest technology. But I'm not a HW expert so I could be very wrong, also.

In 1070 range also 1070Ti could came into play. Butt here we come close to RTX, also.

P.S.
In Condor2 my GTX 950 runs with no problems (120-130 fps if I disable vSync) on all highest settings. But VR probably won't work.

[k6chris]

Read the VR threads for Condor. A 1060 will give 90 FPS FOR condor, the 1070 will eat it alive. Even the 1050ti was getting 80+ FPS.

[janjansen]

I Was looking on used 1080 too, but price wise it comes nearly identical with RTX 2060. And specs are nearly identical (as some tests and reviews shows),

A 2060 may be competitive when games rely a lot on shaders. Many FPS games do, but I doubt DCS does that (besides things like the optional and frame killing heatblur). I suspect that much like condor, it mostly requires texel throughput to render terrain and clouds, and so I would be very surprised if a 2060 was as fast as a 1080 in DCS. Its "new tech", but neither condor nor DCS will use that new tech, well, probably ever (raytracing, AI and that blurry MSAA altnerative). A 1660Ti which is just as new, but leaves out the raytracing stuff, will probably be just as fast as a 2060, if or when it comes out. I wouldnt pay extra for the RTX features.

Anyway, reading on the DCS forums, it seems that even a 2080 Ti struggles with DCS in VR. So I would forget about that for now. Hopefully software updates will make it more accessible, DCS graphics engine really doesnt seem very optimized as is, and in VR its apparently rather dramatic.

Anyway, any of the cards listed so far will handle condor in vr, and DCS on a flat screen to varying degrees. Keep in mind DCS is quite CPU hungry, loves both core count and clock speed, so if you have an older CPU you might not want to overspend on the GPU.

Have any links for vega performance on xplane? I would expect xplane to be much like condor and dcs in the sense that its more about texels than shaders, so Im surprised it would do so poorly.

[janjansen]

Read the VR threads for Condor. A 1060 will give 90 FPS FOR condor, the 1070 will eat it alive. Even the 1050ti was getting 80+ FPS.

Unfortunately, it all depends. I have a 1070 and even at 1080p non VR resolution in the wrong place at the wrong time, my FPS will dip well below 60. Even if I get 300+ FPS elsewhere.

[UrosM]

It's something about OpenGL and AMD drivers, as I remember. I ran on this info on some tests on YT when researching Radeon 590 card. Sorry, have no links.

[Al_B]

I have a 1060 and it is GREAT in Condor VR. DCS VR get good FPS with settings adjusted down.
ASUS GTX 1060 Dual OC 06GB

[sisu1a]

If buying new, an RTX 2060 is hands down the best value mid range card... you get 1070ti performance for $350...

[janjansen]

If buying new, an RTX 2060 is hands down the best value mid range card... you get 1070ti performance for $350...

You may get 1070 Ti performance in shader heavy games like Battle field. But the 2060 is no where near a 1070 Ti in either texel or pixel fill rate, which is what matters most for condor, and probably DCS.

2060:
Pixel Rate 80.64 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 201.6 GTexel/s

1070 Ti:
Pixel Rate 107.7 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 255.8 GTexel/s

Even a 2070 falls behind:
Pixel Rate 103.7 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 233.3 GTexel/s

As for prices, in europe, ~400 EUR seems to be a normal price for the 2060 (VAT incl).
A used 1070 Ti can be had for ~270. Thats about twice the fill rate performance per euro.
Or 2070 level performance at 1660 prices.

And to be complete, a good old 980 Ti, which can be found for ~200 euro.:
Pixel Rate 103.3 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 189.4 GTexel/s

And if you can find it, the 1080 Ti:
Pixel Rate 139.2 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 354.4 GTexel/s

And on the red side:
Vega56:
Pixel Rate 94.34 GPixel/s
Texture Rate 330.2 GTexel/s

Which is why I think it could be a great card for condor (well, overkill really) and possibly DCS. All numbers from https://www.techpowerup.com/gpu-specs/

[k6chris]

Read the VR threads for Condor. A 1060 will give 90 FPS FOR condor, the 1070 will eat it alive. Even the 1050ti was getting 80+ FPS.

Unfortunately, it all depends. I have a 1070 and even at 1080p non VR resolution in the wrong place at the wrong time, my FPS will dip well below 60. Even if I get 300+ FPS elsewhere.

What CPU do you have??

[janjansen]

What CPU do you have??

Ryzen 5, 4.2 GHz 6C/12T . Thats not it. This pretty much only occurs flying online on busy servers and in certain areas. Its not just my PC, on teamspeak everyone will suffer in those places.

Some causes have been identified, like an abusive number of high poly trees in the scenery. If you want to try, load the attached flight plan (requires france sud 2) and rotate the camera to have the forest in view like this.



Offline, Im still getting 75 FPS there, now try that in multiplayer with 50 players, and if you can get >60FPS there with a 1060, Ill buy you a beer.

Other known triggers are when there are thick clouds nearby, but this is hard to reproduce and also seems to require many gliders connected to trigger the issue.

[janjansen]

Here is an even more fun one. I saved it as replay this time. Same scenery and airport, but tweaked weather. Now I dip below 60 FPS in normal mode (offline, alone, single monitor), and to really drive down the point that "it depends", I enabled thermal helpers, then it goes down to 37 FPS.
Sure, few will care about performance with thermal helpers turned on, but it still serves as a reproducible offline stress test.

oops, just played the replay. I guess because condor doesnt need to do any weather calculations I do get significantly better framerates compared to playing it. Without thermal helpers I only get down to ~70 FPS on the replay and with thermal helpers its down to ~45. Still good enough to prove the point.

[k6chris]

Thanks, I will look at this later. I believe that Condor is a single threaded program (?) in which case there is a good old fashioned bottleneck being created somewhere (probably the single core of CPU which is being used) and no amount of GPU will help resolve this. That would make sense for the multiplayer or if (for some reason) some of the processing for the high polygon trees, was taking place in CPU rather than GPU? If any of that is close to making sense (??) then the easy solution lies in the landscape / trees and not the code

I could of course be talking nonsense...it happens frequently