New to gaming,and need advice on monitor

[cash77]

As a design engineer, I've been working with computers for over a dozen years, but the only flight Sim game I played was an early version of Microsoft's.  After watching  a few Youtube recordings of Il2 campaigns, I was impressed with the realistic flight dynamics of the game and decided to join in instead of just watching.  I think my current hardware  is adequate with the exception of my monitor:  my processor is an I7 5930X mildly overclocked to 4.4 Ghz with a Corsair H-100 cooler, the MB is an Asus X99E-WS with 32 Gb RAM, and the video card is an Nvidia 1080 TI ; sadly, the monitor is a 5 year old 24'' Acer with a 60 HZ max refresh rate.  The system is reliable and has worked fine for 2D design work, but after reading through posts on this forum, I have my doubts that it's suitable for gaming, so I have these questions:
Will the processor/MB and video card be adequate to play the current flight simulations like Il2  and Rise of Flight realistically, or do I need to look into upgrading them first?

Given what I have now, how should I go about selecting a comparable monitor?  My budget for this would be about $750.

Again, I am an absolute novice in gaming, but I'm serious about learning and joining the community.

[kissklas]

Welcome to the IL-2 community!

 

You can easily play the game on a 1080p 60hz 24" screen without bleeding from the eyes, but ideally I would upscale the size to at least 27", the resolution to at least 1440p and the refresh rate to around 144hz. Something you can look for in a monitor is the Gsync feature to go with your Nvidia card. This will synchronize the renders and the refresh of the monitor.

 

Before I switched to VR I used my 32" 60hz 1440p workstation monitor and though the refresh rate isn't great, the size increase and the resolution really, really helped. Especially when using a head tracker.

 

Have you considered VR? It's a trade-off, but when the trade-off is resolution for actually being inside the cockpit it was the way to go for me at least?

 

Anyways, I think Asus, Dell, Acer and AOC has some good 27" gsync monitors within that range. And if you want to go bigger, and drop the Gsync, there are 32" variants like the AOC CQ32G1, Samsung 32" JG50, LG 32GK650F.

 

Hope this was of any help! Happy hunting!

 

Edit: and yes, your hardware is just fine!

Edited March 11, 2019 by kissklas

[JonRedcorn]

Sounds like you have everything you need to jump in, wouldn't recommend getting over a 1080p monitor for il2. Unless you are a singleplayer guy.

[cash77]

thank you for the replies, guys.

Jon, why is a higher resolution more appropriate for single player mode?  I'd have thought that the highest resolution would benefit everyone about the same.  Does it have to do with detecting small movement instead of small objects?  I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to modern display technology-- all I ever worried about was having the right Quadro driver set up for Rhino!

Kissklas- I've thought about VR instead of the head tracking. Something like that, at least  from reading posts here, seems to be a requirement to do well in air combat simulations.  VR's looked comparatively expensive, but perhaps it has a wider application than gaming alone. Dom't know, but I'm retired Air Force, and do miss being in the cockpit too.  Has touch simulation- switches etc.- made it ti the cockpit simulation yet?

BTW. You Norwegians all have my admiration after the fight you put up in 1940.

[Thad]

Salutations,

 

I think you will discover that VR is not a requirement to do well in air combat. It is great for giving the impression of actually being in the cockpit. That's great in and of itself but it won't necessarily make you an ace pilot. If that were the case, many more would be rushing to go VR... regardless of the cost. ?

 

IL2 doesn't currently have touch simulation switches.

 

DCS does.

[JonRedcorn]

2 hours ago, cash77 said:

thank you for the replies, guys.

Jon, why is a higher resolution more appropriate for single player mode?  I'd have thought that the highest resolution would benefit everyone about the same.  Does it have to do with detecting small movement instead of small objects?  I'm pretty ignorant when it comes to modern display technology-- all I ever worried about was having the right Quadro driver set up for Rhino!

Kissklas- I've thought about VR instead of the head tracking. Something like that, at least  from reading posts here, seems to be a requirement to do well in air combat simulations.  VR's looked comparatively expensive, but perhaps it has a wider application than gaming alone. Dom't know, but I'm retired Air Force, and do miss being in the cockpit too.  Has touch simulation- switches etc.- made it ti the cockpit simulation yet?

BTW. You Norwegians all have my admiration after the fight you put up in 1940.

The higher resolutions make it harder to spot with the way planes render in this game, in singleplayer it won't matter since you can use icons.

[kissklas]

On 3/13/2019 at 12:40 AM, cash77 said:

Kissklas- I've thought about VR instead of the head tracking. Something like that, at least  from reading posts here, seems to be a requirement to do well in air combat simulations.  VR's looked comparatively expensive, but perhaps it has a wider application than gaming alone. Dom't know, but I'm retired Air Force, and do miss being in the cockpit too.  Has touch simulation- switches etc.- made it ti the cockpit simulation yet?

BTW. You Norwegians all have my admiration after the fight you put up in 1940.

 

For immersion, navigating and spotting a head tracker or VR is highly recommended. As far as the resolution vs spotting I'd say 1440p works just fine for spotting. And it looks a lot better? It's all a weigh off between competitive gaming eyecandy and immersion I guess.

 

Sadly VR mode doesn't have hand controllers. In VR i have everything mapped to throttle quadrants and stick so that I can reach everything blindfolded.

 

Rhino, the 3D program? Think I did a trial while in school way back... Ended up working with 3d for games in the end, so it was a good thing I did!

 

VR is becoming more and more used in 3d visualizations for clients and customers so there is one more usage. There are also sculpting suites like Oculus Medium which is fun. I tried modelling a body for work using it. It still lacks features and levels of detail like ZBrush or Mudbox, but I felt like a damn sculpter chiseling away, that's for sure.

 

Norway kept at it for quite some time during the invasion. Some came right from the winter war in Finland, through sweden and went straight back into battle at home. Following the front lines north. We inevitably lost in the end though. Many went to England and Canada for training, and some like my great grandfather started up resistance cells at home.