Is my monitor holding back performance?

[hebog5]

Hello, hope you can help.

My PC has specs as follows, - intel core i7- 9700kf

                                                      CPU 3.60hz,  ram 16 GB, 64 bit OS

                                                      NVIDA GeForce RTX 2070 Super.

I assume this is quite "powerful" but I  only seem to get high 50's or very low 60's fps in game. I will add that despite this everything looks ok though not everything is maxed.

Do you think my monitor is having some effect on performance? My current monitor is Asus VE 278 24". Refresh rate 60.

Is it worth getting a newer, more advanced one?

I ask here because I have already had excellent advice as I muse the possibilities of VR.

Thank you

 

[RedKestrel]

8 minutes ago, hebog5 said:

Hello, hope you can help.

My PC has specs as follows, - intel core i7- 9700kf

                                                      CPU 3.60hz,  ram 16 GB, 64 bit OS

                                                      NVIDA GeForce RTX 2070 Super.

I assume this is quite "powerful" but I  only seem to get high 50's or very low 60's fps in game. I will add that despite this everything looks ok though not everything is maxed.

Do you think my monitor is having some effect on performance? My current monitor is Asus VE 278 24". Refresh rate 60.

Is it worth getting a newer, more advanced one?

I ask here because I have already had excellent advice as I muse the possibilities of VR.

Thank you

 

You should post your graphics settings in game, and your settings for Nvidia Control Panel. Some settings are big performance hogs, especially some forms of AA or supersampling. Perhaps you have a setting that is eating up performance for little or no benefit.

 

Also, make sure your Power setting in the Control Panel is set to Prefer Maximum Performance or something similar, that way your computer will not throttle your GPU to save power. Same thing in your power settings for your PC, make sure it is not in 'power saver' mode in the power settings in Windows, that can throttle your processor sometimes to save power.

Your monitor generally speaking will not affect performance in terms of FPS. It's a one-way street, it is just receiving what the computer sends.

[hebog5]

Wow, that was quick. Thank you RedKestrel.

As I am sure you have guessed I am not good at these things at all.

I have never gone into Nvidia settings [ever!] in case I really mess things up.

I have my PC on prefer maximum power but that is all I have done.

I appreciate your answer very much and will go through my game settings and test various combinations. Should keep me busy for some time anyway!

[RedKestrel]

42 minutes ago, hebog5 said:

Wow, that was quick. Thank you RedKestrel.

As I am sure you have guessed I am not good at these things at all.

I have never gone into Nvidia settings [ever!] in case I really mess things up.

I have my PC on prefer maximum power but that is all I have done.

I appreciate your answer very much and will go through my game settings and test various combinations. Should keep me busy for some time anyway!

First step I think is to take a screenshot of what you have right now for in-game settings. 

 

For the Nvidia Control Panel, the only setting you should really have to change is the power setting preference. Everything else can be left pretty vanilla. There are some other tweaks that help performance, but start with the basics.

 

 

[hebog5]

Thank you again.

Trying with screen shot but apparently too big an image!

First time I have tried SO MAY BE A LONG TIME YET!!!!!!!!

[hebog5]

Hello again!

Had to convert  file to jpeg and managed at last!

As you can now see I have very little idea of what I am doing so, any help will be a great help.

Thank you.

[RedKestrel]

10 minutes ago, hebog5 said:

Hello again!

Had to convert  file to jpeg and managed at last!

As you can now see I have very little idea of what I am doing so, any help will be a great help.

Thank you.

OK, a couple things here:

You say your monitor has a 60 hz refresh rate, but you have a target FPS of 100. The monitor is only capable of showing 60 FPS if it is a 60hz monitor, so this is a waste and with Vsync on may be causing you to drop framerate. Change this to 60 FPS so it matches your monitor.

None of those other settings look too crazy for your card. In fact I would say some of them are a little light for a card like the 2070. For example, you should be able to go 4X antialiasing with FXAA, since FXAA is not very intense on the GPU. I would also think you might be able to get Ultra clouds, as I was able to run ultra clouds at 1080p on my GTX1660 and still hit 60FPS most of the time. 

 

Distant buildings is hard on your card because it is rendering buildings out very far and this may be a prime cause for frame rate drops. Try turning off 4k textures too, for some people this causes performance problems and at 1080p you are not getting the benefit of 4k textures anyway. Grass can also be a performance hog, so having it set to Distant might be chewing up system resources especially near the ground. Shadows are hard on performance, and at 1080p I never noticed much difference between medium and high, so you could turn those down if you want and you probably won't notice much. 

 

I would first make the change on the target FPS only and then see if that solves your problem. Then look at further tweaks.

 

 

[hebog5]

Thank you very much for this ResKestrel, it is a great help and much appreciated.

So many setting to confuse the rather casual IL2 player that I am.

[SJ_Butcher]

6 hours ago, RedKestrel said:

OK, a couple things here:

You say your monitor has a 60 hz refresh rate, but you have a target FPS of 100. The monitor is only capable of showing 60 FPS if it is a 60hz monitor, so this is a waste and with Vsync on may be causing you to drop framerate. Change this to 60 FPS so it matches your monitor.

None of those other settings look too crazy for your card. In fact I would say some of them are a little light for a card like the 2070. For example, you should be able to go 4X antialiasing with FXAA, since FXAA is not very intense on the GPU. I would also think you might be able to get Ultra clouds, as I was able to run ultra clouds at 1080p on my GTX1660 and still hit 60FPS most of the time. 

 

Distant buildings is hard on your card because it is rendering buildings out very far and this may be a prime cause for frame rate drops. Try turning off 4k textures too, for some people this causes performance problems and at 1080p you are not getting the benefit of 4k textures anyway. Grass can also be a performance hog, so having it set to Distant might be chewing up system resources especially near the ground. Shadows are hard on performance, and at 1080p I never noticed much difference between medium and high, so you could turn those down if you want and you probably won't notice much. 

 

I would first make the change on the target FPS only and then see if that solves your problem. Then look at further tweaks.

 

 

 

I don't use v-sync because it drops the framerate at half when the frames drop from 60, causing a really bad experience, I will disable v-sync unless I have a g-sync monitor

[Jaws2002]

That computer shouls run this game just fine at 2560x1440. Is your monitor able to run at that resolution? If yes, you should try it, if it can't then your monitor does limit your gaming experience. There's quite a big difference in image quality between 1080p and 1440p.

 

If you plan to change the monitor get one with higher resolution and higher refresh rate. 

Edited September 24, 2020 by Jaws2002

[hebog5]

Thank you both for the further help.

I have now tried changing resolution but can only find  1440 + 900.

It runs as well as before but it is difficult to compare  quality. Everything looks bigger though so presumably I have lost some field of view?

I can not see 2560 x 1440 in my game graphics settings. Is this because of the limitations of the monitor?

 

Edit. Thanks to all of you I am [I think!] learning quickly and have decided to look for a 2560 x1440 high refresh monitor.

If you have any suggestions they would be most helpful. There seems to be hundreds of them out there!

Edited September 24, 2020 by hebog5

[Jaws2002]

I got mine when it was released, back in 2010, so i don't know what is available now at 2560×1440. Mine has only 60Hz refresh rate and i overclocked it a bit. I may swap it for a 4k screen soon.

 If you get a 1440p screen get at least 27 inches. 27 to 35 inches is a good size for 1440p. 

You can also look at Ultra wide screens. 3440x1440. Quite a few Il-2 players swear by them. 

 You'll get a bit of performance hit compared to 1440p, but you get a lot of extra real estate. 

If uou get ultra wide, 34-36 inches is a good size for that resolution.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Jaws2002

[hebog5]

Thank you Jaws2002.

All this info is great.

I have been looking around and quite like the sound of this one.

LG 27GL 850-B . As far as I can make out it has most of what all of you have been suggesting I should have. I think?

Ignorance is a terrible thing!

[RedKestrel]

4 hours ago, hebog5 said:

Thank you both for the further help.

I have now tried changing resolution but can only find  1440 + 900.

It runs as well as before but it is difficult to compare  quality. Everything looks bigger though so presumably I have lost some field of view?

I can not see 2560 x 1440 in my game graphics settings. Is this because of the limitations of the monitor?

 

Edit. Thanks to all of you I am [I think!] learning quickly and have decided to look for a 2560 x1440 high refresh monitor.

If you have any suggestions they would be most helpful. There seems to be hundreds of them out there!

I bought mine just recently - Asus V277U (https://www.amazon.ca/Acer-V277U-FreeSync-Monitor-Speakers/dp/B07M9V8XNQ). It's 27 inch, 1440p, 75hz refresh rate, IPS screen panel (IPS usually have slower response times and framerates but better colours and contrast which is useful for spotting). It is a very good monitor for the price IMO, it is a good large size but not so big that the image looks pixelated, colours are very nice, good contrast, and it is FreeSync compatible. FreeSync is basically AMD's version of G-sync and more recent Nvidia drivers and cards can work with it. If you have G-sync/FreeSync on then it makes for less screen-tearing and jumpiness in your display. It works better than Vsync.

Also because of the size it is a good productivity monitor as well, lots of screen space for work-related stuff, you can easily have multiple windows open for a project and see it all clearly.

 

Only downside is it only goes up to 75 hz, so its not high framerate by most people's standards, only up to 75FPS. But for Il-2 I don't think you need a huge amount of FPS, I lock mine to 60 FPS and turn up the eye candy a bit. I can run Il-2 just fine in 1440p on a GTX1660 Super and your RTX2070 is a significantly better card, so you should be able to get pretty high settings along with the high resolution. Getting high framerate high resolution monitors can be costly but your card would likely be able to run it.
 

[hebog5]

Thank you again RedKestrel.

It was you who first hinted I should make more of my graphics card and that is why I was looking at the LG monitor.

There is also an Asus I liked - Asus Gaming VG 27AQ. So rather than go cross eyed reading more reviews I thought I might go for one of these two.

 

[DragonDaddy]

I recently went from a 27”, 1080p, 60 hz refresh rate to a 34”, 1440p, 144 hz refresh rate and the difference is amazing. My 2080 Super has no problem driving this at the highest settings.

[hebog5]

Thank you for that DragonDaddy. All very encouraging.

I will have to go for the 27" 1440. I don't think I would have the room for anything larger.

A big thank you to all for your advice and sharing of experiences.

[Dutch2]

8 minutes ago, hebog5 said:

Thank you for that DragonDaddy. All very encouraging.

I will have to go for the 27" 1440. I don't think I would have the room for anything larger.

A big thank you to all for your advice and sharing of experiences.

 

If reading this all I think your performance hit lays down in the Nvidia control panel as this setup must be flaming. 

Do a search here on this forum on how people are cope to the Nvidia game specific adjustments. 

 

Now for an monitor, do check all the neutral computer sites on which aspects are important for you, Freesync or Gsync are one of the main-keys that you will need and avoiding old technologies like the TN sreens. Keep in your mind most of that computersites are talking about the monitor used in shooting and other fast moving games. For flysims its more about an not fluctuating Frametime (ms), but thats all info that can be read. 

[hebog5]

Thank you Dutch2.

This is another lot of helpful information.

I was thinking of going for [having read what looked like independent reviewing?] a Asus Tuf Gaming VG27AQ 27" with  IPS and other things.

I wonder if you were thinking something along those lines?

[hebog5]

Just come back to thank you all for help and advice.

Ordered my new pc [ the Asus ] last night and got it this morning!]

Have tried a couple of quick missions and the difference is quite amazing.

So far have not tried to calibrate anything as I don't have much of an idea what some things actually do, certain sync things for instance.

The sound is not right in IL2, guns sound like hail on a tin roof and engines remind me of my own tinnitus !

I wonder how many others like me never got the best from their pc because the monitor is not up to it?

Anyway, once again a big thank you.

[Remontti]

3 hours ago, hebog5 said:

 

The sound is not right in IL2, guns sound like hail on a tin roof and engines remind me of my own tinnitus !

 

Maybe you are using monitor speakers? They are generally pretty lame. You can change it in Windows.

I need to check output device everytime I upgrade Nvidia drivers. Somehow upgrading always chooses my monitor as the main speaker. 

[hebog5]

Yes. you are right Remontti, I am. Unfortunately they are all I have and it seems there is no other option available to me.

But I will keep looking.

Thank you.