BoS in 4K/UHD experiences

[Dakpilot]

Had a few days to play about with my new monitor and graphic card upgrade and have to say I have had some surprising results!

 

got a 49'' 3840 X 2160 4K tv and a GTX 970, I was not really expecting to get decent results from a 4GB 970 @ 4K resolutions which is mainly why I didn't bother with getting a GTX980 due to twice the price with a small performance increase with almost the same Vram, and would have been happy using 2560 X1440 and allowing the CPU in the tv to upscale to 4K

 

However after some tests even at 3840 X 2160 (native) and ultra settings with 4 X in game AA and high quality and 16 X anistropic in NCP it never uses more than 2,75 GB of VRam however at these high settings GPU load is often maxed out or in the high 90's in an 8 vs 8 qmb over Stalingrad cloudy 300m at these settings it remained very playable not dropping below 30fps but still remaining 'smooth' even on full zoom with a few low spikes in smoke at v low levels over the city in dogfights.

 

Obviously these high graphic settings are not really needed at these high resolutions so I dialled them back a bit with the intention of getting smooth play rather than chasing 'theoretical' FPS figures- with frame rate off I cannot tell if it dips to 45 from 60 when flying if it is all smooth with no stutters anyway. using balanced and 2  X AA Vram dropped to about 2.2-3GB and GPU load to high 60% with rare spikes to high 90% with FPS 60- 45 low spikes but smooth,

and to be honest from in cockpit it still looks perfect with no AA only outside view suffering a little from aliasing on antenna wire etc. with slight improvement on figures, dropping to low setting had poor picture quality so wont try that again and is unnecessary anyway due to acceptable fps at higher settings. Balanced still looks great at this res which also surprised me...still lots of fiddling to get a happy medium

 

Anyway was happily surprised by reasonable VRAM usage at 4k perhaps I should have sprung for the increased performance of GTX980 now knowing that 4GB Vram was not such a limitation....  regardless am seriously impressed by the performance of GTX 970 at these resolutions and the picture is a treat

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Mabroc]

I think, maybe Im wrong, that the game is not running on 64bits. It's only 32bits, so it cannot manage more than 4gb of memory in total, so between what it's using of RAM + VRAM it will never could take control of 4gb of VRAM

[Dakpilot]

Not sure that Vram is affected by the accessible 3.5GB Ram limit of 32bit windows perhaps a better expert can chime in

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[Urra]

Dak,

Turning off transparency and anisotropic aliasing has no negatives on my side, only less load on gpu.  Can't tell anything benefits from these.  Only the basic A A is really needed.

[VR-DriftaholiC]

The 3.5GB of VRAM doesn't become an issue until you SLI 970's. 32 va 64 bit won't matter for VRAM. Well it might become an issue for DX12 but not DX9

[SharpeXB]

I just got a UHD monitor and have been going through the setup.

First, there's the cables. Make sure whichever connection you choose supports 3840x2160/ 60hz and that your GPU has these outputs. You need either HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.2. My monitor will only handle the 60hz signal via the DP. Good thing this monitor came with the cables since DP is less common and it needs to be rated for that res.

 

4K is super nice to look at. Very sharp. It's tough though to run games like this or DCS at the highest settings in that res. Until I can get my hands on a Titan X this will mean running most games at 1440p and upscaling via the display which also looks quite incredible.

I did run into trouble in DCS with this and had some odd green blurring. I discovered setting Game Mode or changing the Response Time in the monitor settings fixed the problem. Rise of Flight shows some odd edge enhancement around the thin cables, also corrected in the same way. I find a little antialiasing is still necessary even at 4K. I was actually sorta disappointed with the performance till I discovered Game Mode.

 

The main trouble I'm having in BoS is that the Full Screen box must be checked otherwise the game appears 2x too large and overlaps the monitor. Somehow running native 3840x2160 cannot be handled by the game without forcing it to the screen. Nothing seems to fix this like overriding the setting with Nvidia. BoS tends to crash when running Full Screen. Rise of Flight has the same problem but I haven't had crash problems using Full Screen with it.

 

Very nice so far, it's like the best thing to happen to sims since monitors. The caveat I'd say is 4K is a new thing. Quite clearly all software and games are set up for 1080p. You need a serious GPU to attempt 4K and most games that look stellar with a decent graphics card will get brought to their knees by this resolution. To me, Ultra graphics in 1080p is worth more than Low settings at 4K. Like DCS which doesn't support SLI, to get it running on 4K means cutting down the eye candy till it looks like a very sharp 10 year old game. Not really worth it. Realize 4K is 4x the VRAM demand. A game that runs well with 3gb is going to need 12gb for the same settings. So upscaled 1440p is a good compromise for now. I think it will take the afore mentioned Titan X to really get 4K rolling.

Edited April 27, 2015 by SharpeXB

[jaydee]

Had a few days to play about with my new monitor and graphic card upgrade and have to say I have had some surprising results!

 

got a 49'' 3840 X 2160 4K tv and a GTX 970, I was not really expecting to get decent results from a 4GB 970 @ 4K resolutions which is mainly why I didn't bother with getting a GTX980 due to twice the price with a small performance increase with almost the same Vram, and would have been happy using 2560 X1440 and allowing the CPU in the tv to upscale to 4K

 

However after some tests even at 3840 X 2160 (native) and ultra settings with 4 X in game AA and high quality and 16 X anistropic in NCP it never uses more than 2,75 GB of VRam however at these high settings GPU load is often maxed out or in the high 90's in an 8 vs 8 qmb over Stalingrad cloudy 300m at these settings it remained very playable not dropping below 30fps but still remaining 'smooth' even on full zoom with a few low spikes in smoke at v low levels over the city in dogfights.

 

Obviously these high graphic settings are not really needed at these high resolutions so I dialled them back a bit with the intention of getting smooth play rather than chasing 'theoretical' FPS figures- with frame rate off I cannot tell if it dips to 45 from 60 when flying if it is all smooth with no stutters anyway. using balanced and 2  X AA Vram dropped to about 2.2-3GB and GPU load to high 60% with rare spikes to high 90% with FPS 60- 45 low spikes but smooth,

and to be honest from in cockpit it still looks perfect with no AA only outside view suffering a little from aliasing on antenna wire etc. with slight improvement on figures, dropping to low setting had poor picture quality so wont try that again and is unnecessary anyway due to acceptable fps at higher settings. Balanced still looks great at this res which also surprised me...still lots of fiddling to get a happy medium

edit : How is 4k now ? do you get screen tearing ? is it hard to read GUI's or in game messages ? Is the cockpit more detailed ? Is the overall image better ?

 

Anyway was happily surprised by reasonable VRAM usage at 4k perhaps I should have sprung for the increased performance of GTX980 now knowing that 4GB Vram was not such a limitation....  regardless am seriously impressed by the performance of GTX 970 at these resolutions and the picture is a treat

 

Cheers Dakpilot

Interesting post Dakpilot. Ive been thinkin of upgrading to higher Res for a while. I am really happy with my present rig for running BOS and the "Others" I fly. However, the biggest jump in visual performance(for me) was going to the 144 Hz monitor that I have now. The difference between a 75 Hz monitor is very noticeable . In all my sims, Head movement is more "Fluid" or Smoother .

But I am always "chasing" the best Eye Candy I can afford hence my reply.

My plan was when I go to 4k, to buy another 970 and go SLI to cope with the extra V-ram needed.(shared load I mean).

But now having read some posts here and elsewhere, I am not sure if the upgrade will bring any visual benefits ?...For BOS or Others !

Id like to hear some more opinions of "Flying in 4k". ~S~

Edited April 27, 2015 by jaydee

[SharpeXB]

Just to confirm. It was the Response Time setting on the Samsung monitor that caused the greenish ghosting when upscaling the signal from 1440 to 4K. I had it set to "fastest" turning it down to "fast" eliminates the trouble. This is good because for the near term I'll be upscaling for most games rather than running native 4K

Rise of Flight looks really awesome. It supports SLI and isn't as demanding so it can run at 4K. Looks amazing. The trouble is I can't post screenshots because I think they're too big.

[SharpeXB]

I ran two Quick Missions tests, 8 vs 8 over the City with Ultra setting and 2xAA at 3840x2160

 

Min 30 Max 78 Avg 51

and

Min 26 Max 73 Avg 45

 

so it runs pretty well on 2x GTX 980s I think the min fps is my CPU

looks extremely nice but the game crashes about every time it is run, that happens a lot with BoS so I don't know if it's the resolution or the fact that I have to use Full Screen set in order to use anything other than 1920x1080 even though my native res is 4K

Full Screen tends to cause crashes. Also this is using both 980s at nearly 100%!

 

Running at 1440x2560 upscaled to 4K Ultra 2x AA for the same mission is

Min 30 Max 88 Avg 56

Uses both GPUs around 50%

Edited April 28, 2015 by SharpeXB

[Dakpilot]

I seem to notice that the crashes I have got only occur when trying to run ultra at 4K it appears that I am not reaching VRam limit but my card is running at 100%.  When I drop down to balanced or high the crashes don't seem to happen.

 

It would appear that crashes happen when Card is driven 'past' 100% and cant manage, not happy to run my card at Max+ all the time, and realise I am expecting too much from it at 4k resolutions with all eye candy turned on

 

Still have to do more tests to see whether native 4K is best or 2650 x 1440 upscaled, both have advantages, at 4k much less shimmering of distant forests and town textures but have to run at lower settings.

 

The recent patch which effected aircraft contrast

 

5. Soviet and German skin tones were tweaked to look less washed out;

 

Seems to have had an effect on the general contrast of the ground textures giving less contrast and lack of detail, either that or I have messed with my monitor settings accidently AGAIN

 

overall I am getting very good results from GTX970 at reasonable settings at 4K res, will update with further testing and benchmarks

 

Cheers Dakpilot

 

[SharpeXB]

I am realizing that 4K isn't just the bleeding edge. It's jumping the gun on the bleeding edge. Like aparently it isn't even a supported resolution in the Nvidia drivers yet. That's why BoS won't run it without Full Screen set. Also the graphics demands are extreme. I tried Far Cry 4 on Ultra 1440p and it ate up 100% of my GPUs and froze. Looked freakin gorgeous though at a constant 60fps while it worked.

That being said I think if your situation is that you're comsidering a new monitor or especially an UHDTV to use as one its worth the go as long as upscaling is an option. I see UHD monitors priced nearly the same as WQHD so I figured why not.

There's other funny issues like many programs GUIs aren't set up for it like TrackIR so they appear with tiny micro text, which you can actually read in 4K! The BoS GUI scales nice to look exactly the same. RoFs appears 1/2 the size but still woks fine. The DCS GUI looks bonkers.

So now I've got a Titan X on order. Let's see how that handles it...

Edited April 28, 2015 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

My experience so far with gaming in UHD

 

The up side: UHD looks really amazing for flight sims, maybe the best thing since the TrackIR. The sharpness and detail really let the Mk-1 eyeball do it's job in a way that wasn't possible at 1080p. It's nice to look at the cockpit even at the wide zoom and be able to read all the small text on the instruments and controls. Spotting isn't necesarily easier since this resolution of course doesn't make anything larger, just more detailed. Identifying other aircraft is quite enhanced. However I think BoS did an incredible job with this aspect at 1080p as well.

 

The down side: This extra resolution is only unleashed at at extreme cost in graphics cards. To run BoS and most other games at UHD + Ultra graphic settings + a constant 60 FPS requires two GTX Titan X graphics cards in SLI. A single 12GB card doesn't allow a playable frame rate. Some games do run well on one. DCS does and X-Plane 10 amazingly only drops 5fps going from 1080p to UHD

 

And most games look stellar and run fantastic with a set of top tier GPUs no matter what the resolution. BoS was not awful in 1080p, it looks incredibly good. Plus the smooth frame rate is a must. So stepping up the demand on the GPUs means a trade off in graphic settings that's not perhaps worth it. Upscaling is an option and just running at 1440. I tried this but for a flight sim the resulting softness was bothersome. It's possible to have higher resolution without sharpness and vice versa. 1080p with good antialiasing results in a very nice sharp image that's better than the softer upscaling.

 

So my choice would be either return the UHD monitor and go to a 1440x2560 or throw one more Titan into the rig. I kept the monitor and went Titan SLI. The end result is quite spectacular. Far Cry 4 looks unspeakably awesome on Ultra 4K.

 

Conclusion: UHD is cool, just beware of the cost.

Edited May 13, 2015 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

Tip discovered.

For any games without a custom setting for Antialiasing in their presets. Go to Nvidia Control Panel and set it to zero or a very low level like 2x. AA is a performance killer for UHD and not needed. Makes things run much smoother.

[guidom]

I have been running in High settings, 1440 and a R9 290. 2xAA gives a noticable perfomance drop, but without AA i am getting around 50fps. agreed that it makes aircraft at distance much clearer to spot! unfortunately Freesync not working but i think this is a limitation of DX9. but overall a massive improvement in terms of visual quality!

[LLv44_Damixu]

I am curious what size of the UHD screen would be optimal viewed on arms length's distance? I'm planning to purchase UHD display in the future.

 

Now I have a 32" FullHD display and to me it seems a bit too small. Maybe approx. 40" could fill in entire field of view without being too large and therefore no need to scan with eyes every corner of the screen all the time.

 

What kind of experiences you guys have on optimal screen sizes?

Edited April 22, 2016 by LLv32_Damixu

[LLv34_Temuri]

At one point I had a 52" TV. It was otherwise quite OK, but placing the camera for headtracking was a bit tricky. I'm currently happy with my 32" one.

[Dakpilot]

I used a high quality 40" screen @1080P for a long time, after upgrading to 50'' 4k this feels much better size at arms length 

 

okay it's actually 49" but it is the next size up, and really does seem to make a noticeable difference, however you really need a 980ti to get the best experience, my 970 struggles on and mostly give satisfactory result at 4K

 

but it is on the ragged edge, however the visual results are very pleasing and can still give 60+ fps  the majority of time, I think most of my FPS drops are CPU related but would still recommend GTX 980ti minimum for 4K to get the best out of it

 

Cheers Dakpilot

[GrendelsDad]

Running at 6240x2160 With a 40inch center monitor 3840x2160 and 2 23inch wings in portrait mode at 1200x2160 (custom res.)

I run 50-60s most of the time in multiplayer. I think 40 to 48 would be a nice sweet spot for how close you are sitting.

 

And I second 980ti is min for 4k.

Edited April 23, 2016 by 6./ZG1_GrendelsDad

[SharpeXB]

The best GPU advice now for UHD is hold out for the Pascal cards.

[71st_AH_Mastiff]

yep new cards due out end of may start shipping May 27th. some companies..

[imaca]

Hi, very interested to read everyones experience, hopefully someone gets a GTX1080 soon after release and reports back:),

I have a mini itx system with only single slot so I have hopes pinned on single GTX1080 being enough for good 4k experience.

From benchmarks leaked so for looks like good  advantage over 980ti for single display (25-60% depending on overclock speed) , much higher gain for VR

[joji]

Guys some time have passed. Anyone has experience with GPU capable of running this game on high/ultra settings in 4K resolution ? Thanks

[IckyATLAS]

I use a stock Asus GTX 1080 Ti that handles beautifully IL2 Box in 4K and all settings to the max - ultra etc, with maximum draw distance. I get around 100-120 for lightly loaded scenes, 80-100 FPS for medium loaded scenes and 60-80 for more heavily loaded scenes. The CPU has to be good enough mainly if the number of planes is high but in terms of FPS at 4K the GPU becomes paramount.

 

I am going to test a dream setup with an overclocked Asus RTX 2080 Ti combined with an  i9 9900K running at 5Hz, in the coming weeks, and will be able to compare. I will post the results.

 

In my opinion to play at 4K makes sense for large monitors over 32". I would say it is not worth investing in top GPU hardware to play on a 24" or 27" monitor in 4K. For those sizes HD or 2K is  enough. I use a 43" monitor in 4K.  After some practice the ideal size would have been 40".

 

 

[SharpeXB]

3 hours ago, joji said:

Guys some time have passed. Anyone has experience with GPU capable of running this game on high/ultra settings in 4K resolution ? Thanks

Yes, a GTX 1080 Ti will run this game nicely in 2160p on max/ ultra settings getting 60 FPS. 

2 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

 

In my opinion to play at 4K makes sense for large monitors over 32". I would say it is not worth investing in top GPU hardware to play on a 24" or 27" monitor in 4K. For those sizes HD or 2K is  enough. I use a 43" monitor in 4K.  After some practice the ideal size would have been 40".

Actually I had a 28” UHD monitor and the improvement over 1080p was very noticeable. This game looks gorgeous in 4K

it depends on your viewing distance but at a normal desktop range a 28” screen is enough. 

[joji]

So I guess I have to wait for Navi then. 

[SharpeXB]

Another thing 4K gets you these days besides higher resolution is HDR. Although IL-2 doesn’t support it, other games that do look really fantastic. And a monitor or TV capable of HDR will give a really good SDR image. 

[Scott_Steiner]

Not running 4K but an ultrawide with a resolution of 3840x1600, so probably the next thing closest to 4k. I picked up a second R9 Fury (Bought my original one 3 and a half years ago I think) off of ebay for $110 and now run them in crossfire. Max settings at that resolution usually yields somewhere around 90-100 fps.. So IL-2 is handling the crossfire setup really well.. I would guess a similar nvidia based SLI setup would work really well too and may be a way to get the performance you want at a cheap cost.

 

Do I recommend dual gpu solutions? No not really.. a lot of games do not run properly with 2 cards, they have a large power draw, require a good PSU and can be VERY finicky.. But if you already have one card that is somewhat adequate, adding the same card from the used market a few years later might be a cheap and very cost effective solution instead of spending $800 on a new card.

[JonRedcorn]

That thing must be able to heat the entire house in winter. Dual Fury X is a bad arse setup.

[Norz]

On 3/4/2019 at 1:10 AM, Scott_Steiner said:

Not running 4K but an ultrawide with a resolution of 3840x1600, so probably the next thing closest to 4k. I picked up a second R9 Fury (Bought my original one 3 and a half years ago I think) off of ebay for $110 and now run them in crossfire. Max settings at that resolution usually yields somewhere around 90-100 fps.. So IL-2 is handling the crossfire setup really well.. I would guess a similar nvidia based SLI setup would work really well too and may be a way to get the performance you want at a cheap cost.

 

 

Can you confirm that the crossfire configuration works at all?

 

Please check it with only one card, check the performance (Il2 replay will be great) and check it once more with 2 cards. 

[Scott_Steiner]

On 4/26/2019 at 4:39 AM, Norz said:

 

Can you confirm that the crossfire configuration works at all?

 

Please check it with only one card, check the performance (Il2 replay will be great) and check it once more with 2 cards. 

Hi Norz,

 

I will be the first to admit that I have made an error..

 

While I can get Crossfire running, it has a tendency of showing weird graphic anomalies and is not always smooth. I do not know if there has been an update in drivers or software that is the reason for this change, or if I indeed missed something previously.. but after testing it recently, I can no longer recommend using crossfire with IL-2, it currently is not a worthwhile experience.  

[Norz]

2 hours ago, Scott_Steiner said:

Hi Norz,

 

I will be the first to admit that I have made an error..

 

While I can get Crossfire running, it has a tendency of showing weird graphic anomalies and is not always smooth. I do not know if there has been an update in drivers or software that is the reason for this change, or if I indeed missed something previously.. but after testing it recently, I can no longer recommend using crossfire with IL-2, it currently is not a worthwhile experience.  

 

 

TY for the answer. 

[SharpeXB]

When I first got a UHD monitor, dual GPUs were a necessity. Now the best choice for would be a single 1080Ti. That can easily handle just about any game in 4K including this one. 

[Scott_Steiner]

On 5/3/2019 at 2:25 PM, SharpeXB said:

When I first got a UHD monitor, dual GPUs were a necessity. Now the best choice for would be a single 1080Ti. That can easily handle just about any game in 4K including this one. 

What I like to do, is buy the 2nd card a couple years later when they are really cheap, for a low cost boost in performance.. It essentially makes it $400 cheaper to have the same performance as a new single card (if the games you play actually support it).. but yes, I would never buy two new cards at once, there isn't a cost benefit ratio with that.

[joji]

I ended up buying GTX 1080. It can run BOS in 4k in single player. But multi player is stuttering. Allegedly a problem with the servers. Or perhaps net code. You guys have similar experience?