FlyingNutcase Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) Hi fellas, I've been out of IL2 for a few years pretty much. The specs for my current rig are below. I currently get around 16-25 FPS on low settings with a single 22" 1920 x 1080 monitor with around 5 aircraft in a Quick Mission. Ouch. So just wondering: Where the biggest bottlenecks are with the current setup. if I could, for say $us500-800 bring the old gal up to speed and get say 40+ FPS on at least medium settings and how to do that (to see me through to a new rig when high resolution VR arrives; I'll possibly get the PiMax 8K June+ next year). Motherboard: P8P67 PROProcessor: Core i7 2600K @3.GHz Sandy Bridge (Socket 1155LGA)Memory 8GB DDR3 DRAM Freqency 668 MHzAMD Radeon HD6900 Cayman 2GB GDDR5 PSU: 650W Thanks for your input. :-) Edited September 24, 2017 by FlyingNutcase
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 The GPU is really, really outdated. I just had a system that is very much alike, 2400S (OC to 3 GHz) and also a 6000 series GPU. With that one, CPU-z gives me 288.8 single thread, 934.9 multithead. For a 7700K (4.6 GHz) I get 539.6 single and 2797.8 multithread (HT works on sythetic benchmarks...). So for BoX, theoretically, you have about half the power. With your screen resolution and given a GPU that doesn‘t limit you in DX11 (like your 6000 series card), you should expect about half the FPS of a modern rig. Say you can have BoX at 160 FPS in your screen resolution, you‘d be looking at maybe 60 to 80 fps that you could get best case. If a GPU upgrade is worth the while or not, will depend mostly on your PSU. If it is still ok and can deliver, then a 1060 NVidia might give your system a new life for casual use and supply what your screen can draw. I just refurbished that 7 year old i5 2400U. Together with old (first generation) Intel SSD (striped for a faster volume of „todays“ size), the user could not tell any difference in office work and web browsing when compared to a 7700K with an m.2 SSD... Those boards and CPUs are not waste. A clean install of the OS and just loading the programs you do use makes a lot of difference. Make sure, you perform a clean, new install. 1
FlyingNutcase Posted September 24, 2017 Author Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) Hey, really appreciated! So I'm getting that the GPU is the most limiting component and that an upgrade to a GTX1060 would be a big booster. With regard to the CPU, I understand that the i7-3770 and i5-3570 are the fastest of the LGA1155 socketed processors. I have the chance to get an i5-3570K for a reasonable price. Would that make much difference in addition to the upgraded GPU? From a test summary posted by chiliwilly69, the single-threaded scores for the CPUs are: i7-3770K: 2084 i5-3570K: 2029 <- I can get this 2nd hand i7 2600K: 1940 <- current Cheers. ~ I didn't think it would be relevant but I actually have a 1000W Antec PSU from my previous PC which should still work okay. :-) Edited September 24, 2017 by FlyingNutcase
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 My i7 4770K does 486.2 singelthread and 2452.6 in multithread CPU-z. On Cuban I get 90+ FPS (up tp 120) at 1440p with everything maxed out. (GF1080) I mean, with only a GF1060 to buy, it would be an affordable try.
Dutch2 Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) I would not exchange the i7-2600k by any 3750k or 3770k. Only if you do not want to overclock this option can be considderd. My old i5-2500k could handle Rof without any problems at stock speed. Never did fly Bos at stock clocks, but at 4,8Ghz, nothing was forced to the limit. So If this i7-2600k is being forced to the load limit, when running BoX, I would try to overclock it. With a good CPU cooler, the 4,8ghz must be within reach. Exchange the 6970, 6950 or wathever you have by an GTX1060, AMD 580 or higher, all depents on your budget. PSU seems to be OK when running new gen Vcards. 8gb RAM is ok, same amout as I use to have. I never did see any improvements when OC ram on the p67 mobo, so I geuss keep that at stock. Considder a only for BoX dual boot, by installing an extra SSD and try to keep that boot lean and avoid being polluted by internet crap and conflicting software. About 8k VR I can not help, more pixels I guess you need a more powerfull Vcard then an 1060/580 Edited September 24, 2017 by Dutch2 2
FlyingNutcase Posted September 24, 2017 Author Posted September 24, 2017 Replies appreciated! Dutch, what do you consider a good CPU cooler? And how does one go about safe overclocking of a CPU? I never had the balls to try it for fear of blowing it up.
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 Replies appreciated! Dutch, what do you consider a good CPU cooler? And how does one go about safe overclocking of a CPU? I never had the balls to try it for fear of blowing it up. My experience is the following: I would go first with what you have installed. Just put in the new GPU. Typically when you OC, there is a sort of a wall you hit at some point. Moving that wall will require significalntly better cooling, higher voltage and other things that are mainly headache for normal operation of a computer and you get maybe the last 10%. In other words, insignificant unless you start with liquid nitrogen, just don't do that with old parts. As you system is old, you can install a fresh "unpolluted" Win10 and crank it upclockwise until it fails on you. If you destroy it like that (unlikely), it doesn't matter since you made good use of the system already, so no loss. And you still can use the GPU. Once you are at the breaking point, take a step down and see if you manage to get that running stready. If it works well, but is too noisy, then you might consider changing the cooler. Else, why bother. You can check with CPU-z how much the performance scales (in theory) with your OC. It gives you an idea of what is worth the work and what isn't. 1
=362nd_FS=Hiromachi Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) So you have a P8P67 Pro, that should allow you to play with multiplier. Basically read Sandy Bridge overclocking tutorials and guides (plenty of them on webz, especially on overclock.net forums or even something like here http://www.overclockers.com/forums/showthread.php/675134-HOWTO-overclock-your-i7-2600k-on-a-P8P67-(w-pictures)), find a decent air cooler and get a better ram. DDR 3 should not be that expensive, but yours runs extremely low. I mean really extremely low. I have P8Z77-V with 2600k at 4.8 Ghz running 24/7 at 1.34 Vcore, with Ram at 1600 mhz CL 9. Temps at full load with benchmarks go slightly over 70 deg but in games at best I hit 64 and that only on two cores. 2600k is just fine if you dont want to blow the whole budget and change platform. But that GPU ... if that was at least 7970 (which is up to this date supported, kudos to AMD for that), I'd recommend you getting a new GPU first. Depending on your budget that could be RX 580, 1070 or Vega 56. I'm running my 2600k with 1080Ti and for the most part its still GPU that limits things. My recommendation is: - new GPU - 250 GB SSD - W10 - CPU cooler - 2 x 8 GB DDR 3 1600 Mhz Edit: I attach quick results from my rig, its not in a perfect condition but reflects more or less the state when I'm gaming so I assume it is good enough -> Edited September 24, 2017 by =LD=Hiromachi 2
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) If you upgrade RAM (although it is a sound advice), be carefull that you select the correrct voltage DIMMs. Find your motherboard I had many failed tries upgrading old rigs with new RAM that turned out to be incompatible. Juggling around old spares gave a lot of try and error, even tough specs were seemingly fitting. Edit: How I would do it is the following: 1) Make a fresh and clean Install of Win 10. 2) Crank up the frequency using the multiplier step by step. Crank it up, save BIOS, boot Windows. If you can boot Windows, that's a very good sign. If It boots all the way, restart and 3) Crank it up forther, step by step, until boot fails. Once it fails, revert to last multiplier setting. If you could reach anywhere near 3 GHz, you are ok and you rig is worth further bothering. Time to run CPU torture tests like Prime95. If it gets terribly noisy or get errors, try to go one down with the multiplier. If you are still at or near 3 GHz, you might want to look for a better cooler. Still, you don't need to buy this one, as you are per se fast enaough to keep your old rig and you will 4) buy a new GPU / RAM. (For such a rig, personally I wouldn't go past a 1060. It might still help you, but there's a limit of cash I'd throw after written off parts) 5) Fresh install of Win 10 with new drivers. 6) run BoX All well? If so, get a good CPU cooler. Install that one, see if you can crank the multiplier higher. 7) Run Prime95 at least overnight and see if your system can take that. If so: 8) Run BoX and have fun. Else, lower your multiplier one step and run Prime95 again. As soon as you can run that one overnight, you should be fine for a gaming rig. Edited September 24, 2017 by ZachariasX 1
=362nd_FS=Hiromachi Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) I presume he has default cooler which is crap. Intel unfortunately does not provide anything useful and I throw their stock coolers back to box. If he has stock cooler I'd not try any overclocking, no point in doing so. Once he gets a proper air cooler or AIO though he should have absolutely no issues hitting 4.5 Ghz with only slightly bumped up voltage, I'm not sure what you mean Zacharias by 3 Ghz. 2600k runs 3.4 stock at default settings. I have a chip that was purchased 2 months after release and was running for a few years stock, then I took it along with a decent mobo and went straight for 4.5 Ghz. Once stable I kept pushing it further and further, as you see even 4.8 Ghz is not a big trouble. Frankly, I could go to 5 - 5.2 Ghz but after 4.9 I need a lot more voltage which would degrade the chip faster than I wish to and my cooling would be insufficient. Custom liquid cooling would solve this though. Also, boot test is not enough. He should download Cinebench and Passmark, few runs with Cinebench R15 will suffice. If its stable under load in Cinebench, it should be stable in games as well. Plus, I'm not sure if Prime95 torturing is all that necessary, he wont get anywhere close to usage of his cpu on daily basis so more than an hour shouldnt be necessary. In regard to GPU, he will probably switch that cpu sooner or later so might as well buy something worthy. 1060 is a piece of crap. Edited September 24, 2017 by =LD=Hiromachi
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 I'm not sure what you mean Zacharias by 3 Ghz What I mean by that is even with stock cooler, that is a frequency a CPU worth bothering about should hit. If he can't reach that, throw away the rig. Else do as you suggested. Just a checkpoint wether to further invest on old stuff or not.
=362nd_FS=Hiromachi Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 I still dont understand. 2600k base frequency is 3.4 Ghz with 3.8 Ghz boost, thats what he is running right now and for all those years has been. Default multiplier is 34, so I dont see any reason to bring it down to 30.
ZachariasX Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 I still dont understand. 2600k base frequency is 3.4 Ghz with 3.8 Ghz boost, thats what he is running right now and for all those years has been. Default multiplier is 34, so I dont see any reason to bring it down to 30. My bad, thnx for pointing it out, I had it in mind around 2.6 GHz. So, all the better, start clocking it up
BeastyBaiter Posted September 24, 2017 Posted September 24, 2017 (edited) Buy a GTX 1060 6GB or RX 580 8 GB, whichever is cheaper (will almost certainly be GTX 1060 thanks to miners), replace RAM with a 16 GB kit and then see what happens. I think it will be fine for 1080p and 1440p once those two things are done. I don't think the CPU will be an issue even at stock clock speeds, but you can get a good air cooler for about $25 USD so it isn't exactly a massive expense. Edited September 24, 2017 by BeastyBaiter 1
Tone71 Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 If you have the funds get a GTX 1070 or better, shouldn't need to overclock your CPU and shouldn't need more memory. Seriously, with i5-2500K and GTX 1070 I'm running 3440x1440 @ 60+ fps. 1
FlyingNutcase Posted September 25, 2017 Author Posted September 25, 2017 Thanks all for your replies; really appreciated. I'll track my FPS changes, starting with a fresh Windows install. Should be an interesting experiment!
=362nd_FS=Hiromachi Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 If you have the funds get a GTX 1070 or better, shouldn't need to overclock your CPU and shouldn't need more memory. Seriously, with i5-2500K and GTX 1070 I'm running 3440x1440 @ 60+ fps. But where is the fun in that ? He has a mobo supporting overclocking, with good power phases and vrm cooling as well as unlocked cpu. I'm running my 2600k with cheap cooler (at least compared to Noctua) which is SilentiumPC Fortis 3 and see what can it do Overclocking this days is truly easy, getting most out of your chip is not much of a problem. Thanks all for your replies; really appreciated. I'll track my FPS changes, starting with a fresh Windows install. Should be an interesting experiment! Fresh system install should certainly make your system respond snappier, but its a world difference with SSD.
Tone71 Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 But where is the fun in that ? He has a mobo supporting overclocking, with good power phases and vrm cooling as well as unlocked cpu. Oh definitely, I'm not advising against it, the 2600K should overclock very well and easily too; just saying if FlyingNutcase was a bit unsure about overclocking, there's no need to. If it was me I'd go for it though!
ZachariasX Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 just saying if FlyingNutcase was a bit unsure about overclocking, there's no need to. If it was me I'd go for it though! It's old hardware. It is a good tool to get used what you can do with overclocking and what gives you headache. If the rig is for nothing but play, you might as well test what i really can do. You might learn things that make it easier for you do do it more seriously with more dedicated hardware.
FlyingNutcase Posted September 25, 2017 Author Posted September 25, 2017 Indeed guys. I'm getting a USB boot disk of Win 10 as we speak. I've actually got an SSD on the current rig. Here's the upgrade plan, with an FPS check at each step; Fresh install of Windows 10. Check out & test suggestions for IL2 settings optimisation for comparable rigs. Study overclocking, get a better CPU cooler, experiment with overclocking. Get a GTX1060 or maaaaybe 1070 or comparable other. Get 16GB of 1600MHz CL9 RAM. But the cost of all that is getting up (looking at you GTX1070), so I'll have to weigh it up given that the bigger picture revolves around a new rig for hi-definition VR in a year or so. I'll post about the FPS results. ~
ZachariasX Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 My advice is that you do not invest in anything before you had an idea about what you can do with overclocking, as you seem to be interested in pushing the rig a bit. In case you are toasting your rig with that (chances are very slim for terminal damage though) you saved yourself of time building the new rig (it comes down to a complete rebuild) plus saving you the money in case of meltdown. What I would do along the lines of your intentions just stated above: 1) Backup the data, so that the current rig becomes expendable in case of it staying dark 2) Enter BIOS. See what you can do with the multiplier. Up it one by one, always followed by booing your old OS. If it boots all the way through, then 3) Restart, up one more. 4) In case of boot failure, expect it your current frequency being what you get. 5) You might push it more with upping the voltage. The fan will be noisy, but as long as it can cool throgh booting, then a good cooler might do the trick for use of the rig. You now have a ballpark of what will be possible. 6) If one made it this far, I would consider blowing money after the old junk. Get the memory and GPU. 7) Rebuild the rig 8) Fresh install of Win10. You might want to clock down a fair bit towards "official" frequency for this to make sure things work ok. 9) After system and drivers are on, up the frequency again to your known limits. 10) Run Memtest86 at least overnight to see if all is ok with your system memory. No errors reportet are a good sign, but no guarantee that things are ok. Errors reported is very, very bad. 11) Install Prime95. Let it run (torture test) overnight as well. See if errors are reported. If you have errors, you need to tone down on your BIOS settings and run tests again. 12) Both CPU and memory ok, install BoS and see what you get. Load the Balapan track and post your findings here. Sometimes it is surprising what you get just like that by playing with the BIOS settings. It's free FPS.
FlyingNutcase Posted September 25, 2017 Author Posted September 25, 2017 Thanks for the detailed gameplan Zacharias. Is there's any advantage of Windows 10 Home 64 bit over Windows 10 Professional 64 bit. And thanks for mentioning the Balapan track. That was my other question. I guess it's the equivalent of the classic Black Death track. I'll most likely start the process this weekend.
ZachariasX Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 Thanks for the detailed gameplan Zacharias. Is there's any advantage of Windows 10 Home 64 bit over Windows 10 Professional 64 bit. And thanks for mentioning the Balapan track. That was my other question. I guess it's the equivalent of the classic Black Death track. I'll most likely start the process this weekend. If you use it as a simple gaming box, you‘re fine with the home edition. Anything beyond that, I‘d go with the Pro edition. Home edition is missing som basic administrative and networking functionality. 1
dburne Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 Thanks for the detailed gameplan Zacharias. Is there's any advantage of Windows 10 Home 64 bit over Windows 10 Professional 64 bit. And thanks for mentioning the Balapan track. That was my other question. I guess it's the equivalent of the classic Black Death track. I'll most likely start the process this weekend. Here is a comparison between the different editions. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-win_upgrade/whats-the-difference-between-windows-10-home-and/55338b22-d042-45cb-b9c9-a1be21b534e1?auth=1 I have been using Windows 10 Home 64 bit and find it has more than I need for what I do. 1
[DBS]El_Marta Posted September 25, 2017 Posted September 25, 2017 I 2500K overclocked to 4.2 GHz with 980 XT Ti here. Runs great. Get another GPU and a better cooler. 1
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