recomendations new pc build for vr

[Dougle]

Hi, I'm coming back to Il2 after about an 18 yr gap, although I have attained my ppl in the meantime and practised some aeros :-)...

Im building a Pc for games primarily flying sims using vr. im starting from scratch although i have ordered the cpu, mb, case and ram already but have a 14 day window when they arrive if want to change. Budget not including headset is around 1300euros. What kind of result (fps and quality) should i expect from the following and do you recomend any changes.

 

b450 Tomahawk

Ryzen 3600 (aparently most overclock to 3600x speed)

16GB 3200 cl14-14-14 (was fastest ram on qualified vendor list for motherboard)

5700xt or 2070 super

Rift S or Index

flight controllers, any recommendations? ill want pedals, stick and throttle controls but not sure which ones...

is there a way to get hand tracking so one can manipulate the switches and dials that way?

 

would a 2070 super offer an improvement over the 5700xt?

would the Index offer a better experience vs the Rift S given the specs of the rest of the system?

 

Many thanks for any insight you can provide,

Douglas

[Alonzo]

I still think the Intel chips clock higher and have better IPC than Ryzen, so I would default to a recommendation of an Intel 9700K with a good motherboard and 240, 280 or 360mm AIO cooling for good overclocking. That should get you to 5.0ghz easily and is very good for IL2 in VR. But, it may be that your Ryzen chip is not far behind. Just know that IL2 likes single threaded speed the most, especially for VR.

 

I'm not sure about 2070 Super vs 5700xt. I do know that I have a 2080 (non-super) and the 2070 Super is pretty close to it. I drive a Rift S very well with the 2080.

 

For Index vs Rift S, you are talking a $400 headset vs a $1000 kit. The Index is the better headset, for sure, but it may not be that much better that you want to pay the extra for it. Either headset I think you would be happy with. The advantages for the Index are you can run it at 80hz for IL2 but at faster rates for simpler VR experiences, it has a higher vertical FOV so you can see the instruments more easily, and the audio is much better. But you can plug headphones into the Rift S to fix the audio, and $1000 is a lot of money.

[Voyager]

For flight controllers, the Thrustmaster T1600M FCS Flight Pack is considered a good base pack.

 

For top of the line, there is the Thrustmaster Warthog HOTAS, though the throttle is more suited to modern aircraft than to WWII era planes. The stick itself, I've found is very good for any combat aircraft, especially with the number of buttons and commands in use in Il-2. And as defacto/generic as it has become, the F-16 stick layout is extremely hard to beat.

 

I'm actually using the Thrustmaster Warthog stick, on a centermount base (made from PVC piping) with extension, and CH Products Throttle Quadrant USB for the engine controls. So, given all of that, you might be best off starting off with the T1600M FCS Fligth pack, and grabbing a Logitech Pro Flight Throttle Quadrant to give you more of the levers you'll need if you want to use complex engine management.

 

On headsets, it might be worth looking at the Reverb. It is not as versatile as either the Rift or the Index are, but I'm given to understand it has visual quality every bit as good as the Index, and is about $650, and does not require base stations. I'm looking into replacing my Rift CV1 with one in the near future, though I don't have personal experience with it yet.

[chiliwili69]

The CPU and RAM is really quite right! but remember to include a good CPU cooler to try to OC the 3600 as much as possible.

I am still not sure that the current intel  9600K/9700K/9900K offers a better performance than the Ryzens 3600/3700/3900. You will tell us.

 

The 2070 super is a good compromise for now. You can upgrade to a higher card later if you are not satisfied with the Supersampling you will apply.

 

If I was you I will not buy VR now. I will first mount everything and play initially on monitor (just for 2-3 weeks) to get use to it, to learn the graphics settings,  to squeeze your CPU/GPU as much as possible, to map all keys to your HOTAS, and then go for VR.

Also, another element which is very important for VR is a fixed seat. It is very immersive to have seat, throttle, pedals and stick in the same position than the plane:

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/30722-ergonomic-details-to-increase-immersion-in-vr/

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/8441-show-us-your-cockpit/?do=findComment&comment=800898

 

Regarding VR headset, you need to ask yourself if you are going to use VR only for seated experiences (Flight sims, space sims, race sims) or you also want to play other full scale room VR games. For seated games you will not need VR controllers, so the price of the Index is reduced considerably and you will only need one basestation.

If you want full scale room VR games too, then the Reverb or the Rfit-S could be then a worth choice.

 

I made some reviews of Index and REverb (and Pimax5K+) in this VR section.

 

6 hours ago, Alonzo said:

have better IPC than Ryzen

 

I think is the other way around.

Intel line (9600K-9700K-8086K-9900K) has less IPC than current AMD line (3600-3700-3800-3900).

That´s why a Ryzen at 4.4GHz has the same single-thread performance than an Intel at 5.1GHz:

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/54715-is-still-intel-better-than-amd-for-single-thread/

 

Edited October 23, 2019 by chiliwili69

[dburne]

2 hours ago, chiliwili69 said:

The CPU and RAM is really quite right! but remember to include a good CPU cooler to try to OC the 3600 as much as possible.

I am still not sure that the current intel  9600K/9700K/9900K offers a better performance than the Ryzens 3600/3700/3900. You will tell us.

 

The 2070 super is a good compromise for now. You can upgrade to a higher card later if you are not satisfied with the Supersampling you will apply.

 

If I was you I will not buy VR now. I will first mount everything and play initially on monitor (just for 2-3 weeks) to get use to it, to learn the graphics settings,  to squeeze your CPU/GPU as much as possible, to map all keys to your HOTAS, and then go for VR.

Also, another element which is very important for VR is a fixed seat. It is very immersive to have seat, throttle, pedals and stick in the same position than the plane:

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/30722-ergonomic-details-to-increase-immersion-in-vr/

https://forum.il2sturmovik.com/topic/8441-show-us-your-cockpit/?do=findComment&comment=800898

 

Regarding VR headset, you need to ask yourself if you are going to use VR only for seated experiences (Flight sims, space sims, race sims) or you also want to play other full scale room VR games. For seated games you will not need VR controllers, so the price of the Index is reduced considerably and you will only need one basestation.

If you want full scale room VR games too, then the Reverb or the Rfit-S could be then a worth choice.

 

 

 

Actually there are plenty of seated VR games that require controllers, and are quite a blast to play.

IMHO for this there are really only a couple of good choices, being Index or Rift S. These two have excellent controllers.

But yes, if one will only do flight sims or race sims then can easily do without controllers. In this case the Reverb is probably the best overall with it's excellent image clarity.  Or one could end up like I did, thinking they would only be using their VR headset for flight sims and then after getting VR discover other games that are quite fun to play in VR.

 

I can't really comment on Ryzen as I have been away from AMD for quite a long time. I will say though the Intel 9x series is very good.

VR is quite demanding and whichever way you go the best cCPU and GPU you can swing.

 

 

[Dougle]

Wow! thanks for the quick and detailed responses.

CPU:- ref single thread performance: -- thanks chiliwili69 for the link. Indeed Ryzen does appear to be better than intel now on this metric https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html. Given this one would expect to see as good results or better from Ryzen though probably there will be other factors. Plus I do intend to use the system for other new games such as flight simulator 2020 (should alpha test later this year) which will most likely support multi-core something amd apparently has an advantage with.

 

GPU:-will look for a deal on a 2070 super

 

Headset:- Will probably end up wanting the controllers at some point. Tricky to know if worth the extra without trying them... have to look into that ?

 

Controllers: -Thanks for the suggestions ok will see if can get a used Thrustmaster or manybe the set

 

Chair:- Good point. have to see as not got much space to store it... could build a base for my car seat ? that takes a about 60 seconds to remove...

 

Thanks again!

 

[HogMenTheHog107]

4 hours ago, Dougle said:

Wow! thanks for the quick and detailed responses.

CPU:- ref single thread performance: -- thanks chiliwili69 for the link. Indeed Ryzen does appear to be better than intel now on this metric https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html. Given this one would expect to see as good results or better from Ryzen though probably there will be other factors. Plus I do intend to use the system for other new games such as flight simulator 2020 (should alpha test later this year) which will most likely support multi-core something amd apparently has an advantage with.

 

GPU:-will look for a deal on a 2070 super

 

Headset:- Will probably end up wanting the controllers at some point. Tricky to know if worth the extra without trying them... have to look into that ?

 

Controllers: -Thanks for the suggestions ok will see if can get a used Thrustmaster or manybe the set

 

Chair:- Good point. have to see as not got much space to store it... could build a base for my car seat ? that takes a about 60 seconds to remove...

 

Thanks again!

 

 

Just a word about those benchmarks.  The intel 9900ks were running at their crappy default stock speed of 3.6 ghz.  I'm not sure anyone actualy does that.  Mine easily hit 5 ghz.

 

 

[Voyager]

1 minute ago, HogMenTheHog107 said:

 

Just a word about those benchmarks.  The intel 9900ks were running at their crappy default stock speed of 3.6 ghz.  I'm not sure anyone actualy does that.  Mine easily hit 5 ghz.

 

 

 

So that was something I'd misunderstood as well. The benchmark lists them as I-9900K@3.6 but that's just the identifier. In Chiliwili69's thread he shows the breakdown by clock speed, and it shows that an I9 at 5.1ghz is about the same as a Zen 2 at 4.4Ghz. 

[HogMenTheHog107]

52 minutes ago, Voyager said:

 

So that was something I'd misunderstood as well. The benchmark lists them as I-9900K@3.6 but that's just the identifier. In Chiliwili69's thread he shows the breakdown by clock speed, and it shows that an I9 at 5.1ghz is about the same as a Zen 2 at 4.4Ghz. 

 

oh, interesting.  They really should label that better.  Good to see AMD doing so well : )

 

[chiliwili69]

5 hours ago, Dougle said:

Indeed Ryzen does appear to be better than intel now on this metric https://www.cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html. 

 

Well, that public webpage from Passmark is a bit misleading. I have been exchanging recently mails with the authors of the passmark and they clarify:

 

CHILI:  I am not sure if you exclude the OverClocked baselines, understanding OC as frequencies beyond the Turbo frequency

ANSWER: Overclocked results are excluded from the averages displayed in the baseline charts online, they are generally not excluded from the histogram displayed in PerformanceTest though (only the very bottom and very top outliers are excluded to prevent having a very condensed chart displayed due to those outliers).

 

CHILI:  So, please,  could you report also the STMark in the baselines data?

ANSWER: We'll keep this in mind but the baseline management display is already pretty crowded, and if we add just the single thread mark then someone no doubt someone else will then ask why isn't "X" score included too so it would add up to a lot more information being pulled from the database and displayed each query.

 

So, you need to know that all test of the 9900K at 5.1 and higher are not taking part of the averaged value shown in the webpage.

 

I asked them also to include the Single-Threaded-Mark (STMark) in the test baselines, so I could see what it is important for IL-2 and at what frequency.

[HogMenTheHog107]

Sooo were back to the Intel i9900K overclocked to 5+ ghz probably being the best single threaded performance.  Too bad, Intel needs a kick in the pants in order to innovate.

 

 

[blitze]

4 hours ago, HogMenTheHog107 said:

Sooo were back to the Intel i9900K overclocked to 5+ ghz probably being the best single threaded performance.  Too bad, Intel needs a kick in the pants in order to innovate.

 

Stick with Ryzen.?

[Dakpilot]

If the new Ryzen beat the 9 series intel @5.0ghz+  in single thread at 4.4 ghz this news would have  been all over the Internet and a really (unfeasible) giant leap of IPC in one  generation refresh.. Wishful thinking 

 

Cheers, Dakpilot 

[dburne]

I have been very pleased with my i9 9900k running at 5.1 GHz on all 8 cores.

[Dougle]

9900k is double the price of the 3600 plus another 100 for a suitable mb. if i changed it would be to the 9600k and overclock it but with ram optimization and a bit of overclocking of the cpu I hoping to get pretty simar results with the 3600. unfortunatly the benchmarks show either the cpu overclock or the ram opimisation but not both together and always with a 2080ti and a monitor, so how it would work out on my set up in VR is not entirely clear to me. I do confess that with the exception of a few games the 9600k overclocked does look like it might have been the safer choice purely for gaming with current games though new games hopefully will start to utilize the multi-core/-thread advantage that the ryzen has (purhaps wishful thinking)...

 

the t16000m arrived today. Ive not tried a joystick in years but the detent (I think it is called) seems very strong and more like a jcb controller than a flight stick to me. I stuck a broom handle on it to see how it would be with greater leverage and whilst the spring rate felt way better the bump through the middle is kind of off putting. Is there anyway to remove it and/or are there sticks that dont have this detent?