How SS decreases your fps (testing results)

[EAF19_Swoop]

Firstly thank you to many of the posters in here, I've been a silent partner in you goals to eek out as much performance from your PC and enjoying VR at it's smoothest. My bank balance doesn't feel the same.

 

Firstly, one of you posted this link to this overclocking guide which I've followed and have my CPU running at 4.9 but with adaptive vcore and no AVX offset. http://edgeup.asus.com/2017/kaby-lake-overclocking-guide/

 

I've also increased my ram from 2666 to 3466, the max for my Mobo, increased the airflow in my case with Noctur fans and added another fan to make a push pull config on the AIO CPU. I also upgraded to a TI version of the 1080 and after OCing her in my quest to get smooth gameplay and I can now say I'm happy.

 

I initially followed the route of high SS and no AA in game, but just prefer the look of SS at 2.0 and 4 AA and sharpen on in game. This is at High settings. I can fly online in Finnish server for hours in the high frames with no noticeable slow down and no real lag in response from my joystick. Mirrors are bad for me and lots of cloud don't help. But I'm still tweaking.

 

Again thanks to all you for all the testing you've done.

Edited September 22, 2017 by EAF19_Swoop

[dburne]

Sounds like you have a great system for VR there, enjoy!!

[TG-55Panthercules]

That I am not sure, at least nothing has stuck out at me regarding that.  I myself have it displayed on my secondary monitor and can peek out at it easily enough.

 

Edit: It does have a hardware monitoring tab, I suspect that may do something similar to that, but I am not versed in it at all and looks a little foreign to me...

 

Yeah - I saw that.  It seems to track at least a few minutes worth, as I kept it running while doing the Passmark 3DMark tests.  The temps seemed to creep up into the mid 60s, so I went in and set a somewhat more aggressive fan profile to try to keep them down a bit.  Didn't see a way to retrieve a longer record of the temps, but there may be one lurking there somewhere.

[dburne]

Yeah - I saw that.  It seems to track at least a few minutes worth, as I kept it running while doing the Passmark 3DMark tests.  The temps seemed to creep up into the mid 60s, so I went in and set a somewhat more aggressive fan profile to try to keep them down a bit.  Didn't see a way to retrieve a longer record of the temps, but there may be one lurking there somewhere.

 

Mid 60's is still very well within a safe zone. 

[EAF19_Swoop]

I used Aid64's setup for a cpu stress test, but didn't run the test, instead flew the same qmb misssion I used for testing and a graph is drawn of the temps plus the max and average temps of the cpu cores. During gameplay it now and again went up to the high 70s but these seem to be sudden peaks and mainly stayed much lower. In the above OC guide they recommended staying below 80.

 

But as some have said, tests and their results are one thing but doing what you usually do flying wise can be quite different. I got some great results offline with Ultra and high SS, but stuttering badly online. I think changing my ram from 2666 to 3466 made more of a difference than going to a 1080ti from a 1080, it seemed smoother. (I blame dburne for the Ti upgrade )

 

Spotting wise I do see planes mainly as dark smudges in the distant but getting better at id'ing nearer in. Keeping VR smooth while swinging your ride about spiralling downwards chasing your target has been my main goal, making it prettier is my next.

Edited September 22, 2017 by EAF19_Swoop

[dburne]

 I think upping my ram made more a difference than going to a 1080ti from a 1080, it seemed smoother. (I blame dburne for the Ti upgrade )

 

I got a nice boost myself!

 

 

[chiliwili69]

 

 

I used Aid64's setup for a cpu stress test, but didn't run the test, instead flew the same qmb misssion I used for testing and a graph is drawn of the temps plus the max and average temps of the cpu cores

 

I think AIDA64 is a paid software (with trial period). There is any other software which trends in a graph the CPU temps?

 

 

I think changing my ram from 2666 to 3466 made more of a difference than going to a 1080ti from a 1080, it seemed smoother.

 

Congrats for your rig upgrade, you have top machine. Have you tried to run the VR benchmark? (https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/29322-measuring-rig-performance-common-baseline/)

 

It will be interesting to see how much a 3466 RAM memory helps over 2666.

 

Also note, that a 1080Ti will not give you direct extra fps (unless you use a high SS and shift the bottleneck to the GPU), but will allow you to go further in the SS.

[TG-55Panthercules]

It will be interesting to see how much a 3466 RAM memory helps over 2666.

 

 

I've been wondering that myself - my bios gives me several choices for RAM above the 3200 I'm running now, and I've been tempted to try bumping the RAM up a bit more to see what happens, but I wasn't sure if I'd get better FPS or just some smoke coming out of my PC.  How much good (or damage) is likely to result from trying to run RAM labeled/sold as 3200 at something like 3466 or 3600?

[chiliwili69]

How much good (or damage) is likely to result from trying to run RAM labeled/sold as 3200 at something like 3466 or 3600?

 

I don´t know if this can be done. When I had my old memory, it run at 1833 with XMP, but even if the MoBo was supporting until 3200, I couldn´t go beyond 1833 (I just tried in BIOS where I am, as usual, a bit lost. So perhaps it can be done). I have then no experience on that

Edited September 23, 2017 by chiliwili69

[dburne]

I think ideally you would want to run at the XMP profile for the ram modules you have, unless something has changed.

[EAF19_Swoop]

You can overclock your Ram but I went the easier XMP configured route as I've OC'ed the CPU and it would be another thing I'll have to worry about crashing the system. Usually its about changing timings and increasing the voltage and more testing. As you have 3200mhz I'd be tempted to leave it and maybe tweak the GPU with MSI afterburner if needed. I'm pushing another 50 on core and 300 on mem without adding any more volts (power 125%) and this is pretty conservative reading the forums.

[TG-55Panthercules]

Yeah - That's how I was leaning as well - was curious about possible RAM gains but basically don't think it would be worth messing with.  Since the SC2 model of 1080Ti is already factory-overclocked to some degree, I doubt if I'll mess with that either.  I think I'll just focus on trying to keep my temps and fan noise under control to let me keep running at around a CPU OC of 4.9 like I'm doing now.  Test results during QMB and PWCG missions at those settings are looking really good, even if the benchmark track results aren't quite as high as I'd like to see.

[dburne]

  Test results during QMB and PWCG missions at those settings are looking really good, even if the benchmark track results aren't quite as high as I'd like to see.

 

 

 

What really matters is the performance in the game itself. If I had of based mine off of the poor performance I got on the benchmark, I might already be doing a new build. If my performance was that bad in the game I likely would be.  But my performance in the game far exceeds what I saw in that benchmark. Also one thing that hurt my perf in the benchmark was my video card was actually downclocking to like 1500 MHz. In pretty much all the missions I have been flying it stays pegged at 2 GHz... even those with lots of action going on around me.

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

Panther,

 

The first thing to do to try and lock the CPU speed is to disable Intel SpeedStep in the bios. You have a very good motherboard, which should be similar to the bios mine runs. Do you know where to find that setting?

 

Try that first but there are also some power options you may need to change as setting your voltage to "adaptive" in the bios can cause the CPU to downclock as well during idle or periods of low use, although that's not really a bad thing.

 

As for your fan spikes, this is a little more difficult to discern. Do you know for sure WHICH fan(s) it is that are/is speeding up? Your CPU is watercooled but you didnt say which type. Also are you running fans with your waterblock radiator? Could the noise be coming from the GPU fans or the case fans? Are you running any monitoring utility to see what the RPM's and temp are on your CPU and GPU? How are you overclocking? Are you using a tool like MSI Afterburner or via bios or something like the Asus AI Suite? I think you mentioned setting fan curves before, what did you use to do that?

 

I used to get issues with my GPU fans doing the same thing, it turned out it was caused by running Gigabytes overclocking software that came with the card. Once I ditched it and settled on doing everything for my video card within MSI Afterburner, I was able to design a custom fan curve that doesn't spike and keeps my GPU nice and cool at all times. Since I play most games in VR now, I can be a bit more aggressive with my fan curve as I can't hear my PC with the headset on anyway. I think at idle temps (30C) I run at 40% of fan speed and it ramps up so that if my GPU his 60C or higher I am quickly in the 80-90's% of fan speed.

 

For my waterblock, i have it running the pump and fans at max speed at all times. The pump on the H115i is pretty quiet so the difference between max and quite mode was hard to really hear. I also use aftermarket Noctua fans which were designed for use with radiators and they also do a great job on keeping the noise (and temps) manageable. The rest of my case fans are lower rpm and low db types. My intake is at the front and bottom of the case with exhaust out the back and my radiator fans are in a push-pull configuration out the top.

 

Madmatt

You didn't mention AVX offset. I hate go break this to you, but I don't believe IL 2 was running at 4.9 on your system at any time yet. Otherwise you would have specifically mentioned your AVX offset modification as well.

On another note: Has anyone decapitated his i7 7700K ?

[SCG_Fenris_Wolf]

//have to add this here, as my previous post is uneditable (using mobile).

 

http://edgeup.asus.com/2017/kaby-lake-overclocking-guide/

 

As had been posted , this is a very good resource. Thanks for pointing this page out guys, it's great! I will try to get my sample to 2h stable on 4.8 or 4.9 heavy load as well. It was running at 5, but not for any decent amount of time.

Edited September 24, 2017 by 2./JG51_Fenris_Wolf

[TG-55Panthercules]

You didn't mention AVX offset. I hate go break this to you, but I don't believe IL 2 was running at 4.9 on your system at any time yet. Otherwise you would have specifically mentioned your AVX offset modification as well.

On another note: Has anyone decapitated his i7 7700K ?

 

As I think I said in one of the previous posts, I'm running with an AVX offset of 0 - I did not modify it, it was always set that way, as far as I recall.  As far as I've been able to tell from reading around, that means that the CPU is running AVX at the same clock as non-AVX, rather than reducing when AVX is called.  But I could be wrong I guess.  However, that would not seem to explain why the benchmark FPS results go up predictably when I increase the OC level - if BoS isn't running at 4.9, then why are the results higher when I set it to 4.9 than they are when set lower?

Edited September 26, 2017 by TG-55Panthercules

[EAF19_Swoop]

That's how I understood it going from the above guide. I have AVX at 0, so no offset. Following the guide I went with adaptive vcore as recommended. I have to test to see if this does drop down when not playing.

 

I've dropped down to 2.0 SS in steamVR (supersampling ticked) il2 -high, 4xaa, sharpen, 4x landscape, distant, normal grass, 1 gamma and now medium on shadows as I noticed as I going past the planes, geting a slight stutter on High shadow. I'm finding the controls very responsive and game smooth now. I did wonder if the skin of the f4 was a 4K one from one of my campaigns but I couldn't find it.

[Madmatt]

You didn't mention AVX offset. I hate go break this to you, but I don't believe IL 2 was running at 4.9 on your system at any time yet. Otherwise you would have specifically mentioned your AVX offset modification as well.

On another note: Has anyone decapitated his i7 7700K ?

 

As for my system, it was and is running at 4.9GHz. I mentioned the offset in the other Benchmarking thread but I didn't bring it up to Panthercules as he had already mentioned having it set as well to no offset. Also, the AVX offset will always downclock by the amount set in bios and the issue he was reporting seemed like the downclock was being more variable, which pointed to Intel SpeedStep being active, not an AVX offset.

 

Again, as for my system, I don't run with any AVX offset in bios currently so my 4.9GHz is true 4.9GHz. My CPU does not downclock at all, and it's been configured by me to work that way. Since the cooling in my system is more than sufficient I haven't had the need or desire to worry about downclocking when idle. In other gaming rig builds I have done for other people, that wasn't always the case.

 

One last point, I have MSI Afterburner setup up to show various info on the LCD panel of my Logitech G15 keyboard, so as I am playing I can see in real-time my current in-game framerate and speeds and temps of my CPU, GPU, various fans, VRAM and CPU waterblock simply by looking down at the keyboard. Even in VR, if I look down through the small gap by my nose I can still makeout the display, usually...

 

Madmatt

Edited September 26, 2017 by Madmatt

[=SqSq=switch201]

What do you guys think is the better option:

 

Balanced Graphics settings with 3.0 SS or High Graphics setting with 2.0 SS?

[dburne]

What do you guys think is the better option:

 

Balanced Graphics settings with 3.0 SS or High Graphics setting with 2.0 SS?

 

Whatever you are happiest with!

 

I myself have pretty much settled on 4x aa in game, High graphics preset,  and 1.3 SS set in Oculus Tray Tool for my Rift. Visuals look great and performance is fantastic.

Edited September 26, 2017 by dburne

[=SqSq=switch201]

I was messing with AA on/off but I decided to stick with it off for the reasons Fenris_Wolf described, but I might give it another try eventually. 

 

There are just so many different combinations for graphical settings it can be hard to figure out the best solution 

[dburne]

I was messing with AA on/off but I decided to stick with it off for the reasons Fenris_Wolf described, but I might give it another try eventually. 

 

There are just so many different combinations for graphical settings it can be hard to figure out the best solution 

 

Indeed there are - but at the end of the day what matters is how it looks to you and your experience along with the performance you get!

 

For me, I just do not like it with AA off - the difference in visuals is just too much, even with SS cranked up pretty high. So I elected to go with AA and lower my SS, actually I turned SS off for a few flights and still thought it looked pretty darn good and performance was excellent. Then I slowly started adding a little back in and have stopped at 1.3 on SS in  OTT. ( would be around 1.7 if using Steam VR SS).

 

Now I am just flying , mission after mission and loving it!

[chiliwili69]

 

 

Indeed there are - but at the end of the day what matters is how it looks to you and your experience along with the performance you get!

 

Yes, sooo many combinations. But as Don said, we have the freedom to set them to fit our personal preferences. Everybody has their own taste of the same wine. So, there is not an absolute "BEST". It depends on YOU, the SCENARIO and your RIG. Every plane and scenario has their performance, so it also counts.

 

The important thing is that we need to understand what they do and how impact the quality and the performance. So, depending on the rig everybody can set their own preferences.

 

Increasing detailed render bubble (LOW, BALANCED, HIGH, ULTRA) will load more your CPU.

Increasing SS will load more your GPU.

 

Quality vs. Performance will be an eternal trade-off with this game in VR.

 

Another important aspect when doing comparison is that you could try one setting (Balanced&SS_SteamVR=2.4) and one hour later (High&SS=1.7) and don´t know really what is best for you. This happened to me recently. I think that 1.7 is enough SS for my GPU, and Balanced is giving me more fps which are nice in more complex scenarios. Still tweaking and from time to time I also fly!

 

 

Now I am just flying , mission after mission and loving it!

 

You are a wise man. I hope will do the same when finishing the upgrading/testing/tweaking/analysing/upgrading/.... recurring cycle.