nVidia Titan

[chris k]

3770K is still quite fast enough. Moores law is slowly fading now in processor advancements. Haswell is only a 15-20% increase over what you have.... So we may be hitting a wall here.

Ben has recently mentioned speeding up the OBJ rendering code - which is the biggest CPU hit by far. Hopefully some coming optimization may be of benefit.

[Tom Knudsen]

You'll have the answer soon, just ordered Zotac GTX TITAN AMP! 6go " Boosted " version to run on a Rampage IV, 32GB DDRIII 2400 MHz and I7 3970X...

If I can't max X-Plane 10.22 64bits out with at least 50 FPS, then we can see this sim can't be maxed out nowadays with nice FPS ;-)

Why the hell you want to max out when it does not make your x-plane look it's best?

[Hueyman]

Why the hell you want to max out when it does not make your x-plane look it's best?

 

Look it's best ?

 

I have currently a 2009 Laptop, mid-low end machine, and run X-Plane 9 on medium settings around 20-25 FPS, and XP10 32 bit no more than 18-20 FPS with nothing displayed over the countryside ...

 

I see screenshots with all nearly maxed out, and I THINK it is looking really great, I want to achieve that and even more, also, doing Computer Assisted Music,3D modeling as well as flight simming on other platforms ( DCS... )

 

In the above case, the 3770 is the limiting component I think, and the motherboard maybe also.

 

I know it's frustrating, but a single component can't do the whole job on it's own... The power supply supplies current through all components, CPU computes, GPU draw, and motherboard permit all that flow of info to circulate at best speed. I 'm convinced if each components is the bests ones, you will achieve some impressive results.

 

The results I'll have with that will prove I'm right OR wrong, and in that case, we could really say XP10 is not optimized at all...

 

Impatient to see the results, been saving for 2+ years, and want to take revenge on all those times I struggled with every sim to get flyable FPS ...

[OlaHaldor]

I got the Titan for my Mac Pro (work related), but it turned out the power supply couldn't cope with it, even though it's a massive 980W... Not even with an external power supply to help out.. On the most intense CUDA tasks the Mac Pro just shut down for safety..

 

So I swapped the Titan over to the PC - which had a GTX 680 4GB installed. The Mac Pro runs great with it.

 

The PC and Titan, well.. Honestly.. I can't see any difference in terms of performance. So I'm thinking it's two things; 

1) CPU. I've got an i5 2500K

2) Resolution. I'm using 2560x1440

 

To gain FPS I gotta either

1) turn down a few settings

2) lower the resolution

 

 

I've been too busy working the past two weeks, and now it's too late to return the GPU to get my money back and order a GTX680 instead. I liked that one. It's been an expensive lesson.

 

 

 

 

The one place the Titan really shines is CUDA intensive tasks, such as fluid dynamics simulation. It's not like I do that all the time, but the few times I do work with such, it makes a whole lot of sense to go for the Titan over the GTX680.

Edited July 6, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[Hueyman]

And ... results in X-Plane ?

[OlaHaldor]

Barely any difference between GTX680 and Titan in my case.

[Hueyman]

Okay !

 

nVidia told the single Titan alone need around 300 Watts to work at it's best, so don't know the total wattage the whole config needs.

 

Time will tell

[OlaHaldor]

Don't get me wrong. A Titan is good in its place, but I don't think X-Plane is one of them. Money is better spent on a CPU than a state of the art (and overpriced) GPU.

[Hueyman]

So, correlated with the 3970X, it should do the job

[OlaHaldor]

I believe it would rock your world.

[Hueyman]

Yeah but I've heard X-Plane strangely can't currently use the CPU at full potential ... myth or reality ?

 

Anyway, I probably speak too much, only the results will be there to confirm or infirm that but if it doesn't work well, that is probably a lack of optimization and resources use from LR side, as, even if it can be incredibly beautiful in some situations ( sunset, 150% clouds, HDR and AA on, objects insane over a big city ... ) it's not the prettiest eye candy software either

[OlaHaldor]

One thing I can say, regarding other games though, is I get very good frame rates in GTA IV and Company of Heroes 2.    60 fps V-sync.

[Ntr09]

Very interesting stuff here guys.

 

After all I've read, I agree with Ola that a Titan is good for high end games, but money would be better spent on say, a GTX780 and an i7 4770k as far as X-Plane goes.

 

I'll probably upgrade my system to a 760 at some point.

 

-NR

[chris k]

> Yeah but I've heard X-Plane strangely can't currently use the CPU at full potential .

 

Au contraire.

 

X-Plane runs it's single threaded process flat-out at 100% CPU.

 

The fact there are multiple cores on your CPU these days, is not really relevant in most rendering engines. Almost every gaming 3D graphics engine out there runs single-threaded too; so X-Plane is not alone here.

 

You can check this in ActivityMonitor (OSX) or TaskManager (Win) or top (Linux). The X-Plane process wants as much of a CPU as it can get. Only if it is waiting for the GPU to do something will it fall below 100% - and with a moden video card thats very rare - as the GPUs these days are incredibly fast. almost all the time the GPU is waiting for the CPU.

 

- CK.

[OlaHaldor]

I'm not playing the latest high-end first person shooters, but I can tell you that Company of Heroes 2 and such really takes all the juice it can get from the CPU. All cores are running full speed. And it's lovely to see.

 

And the game isn't so bad either.  

Edited July 7, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[chris k]

Thats cool! They must be offloading much to other threads... Perhaps the AI, or they've cracked how to do multithreaded driver calls.

 

OpenGL/DirectX do indeed allow for multi-threaded calls - but it takes some programming prowess to get it right due to race conditions and deadlocking scenarios that can happen in any asynchronous/parallel processing scenario.

 

Good to know!

 

(nonetheless, X-Plane is still single thread for it's work, and the GL driver uses it's own Gfx thread, so max you'll ever see is 2 CPUs in use for now with X-plane)

 

- CL

[Jim Kallinen]

Have no idea how it will all work out when it gets here this week, But exited to say the least. Expensive YES.

 

1 x Case Erebus Full Tower Custom Liquid Cooling Gaming Case - Black 0 x Case Lighting None 1 x iBUYPOWER Labs - Internal Expansion [6-Port] NZXT Internal USB Expansion System 1 x Processor Intel® Core™ i7 3930K Processor (6x 3.20GHz/12MB L3 Cache) - Intel Core i7 3930K w/ Intel Performance Tuning Protection 1 x iBUYPOWER PowerDrive PowerDrive Level 2 - Up to 20% Overclocking 1 x Custom Liquid Cooling Custom Liquid Cooling w/ Quad + Dual Radiator 1 x Liquid Coolant High-Performance Coolant powered by Koolance - Colorless 1 x Tubing Wraps Tubing Wraps (Anti-Kink Coil) powered by Koolance - Black 1 x Memory 32 GB [4 GB X8] DDR3-1866 Memory Module - Corsair or Major Brand 1 x Video Card NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan - 6GB - Single Card 1 x Free Stuff [FREE In-Game Voucher] - $75 Value In-Game Currencies: Hawken, Planetside 2, and World of Tanks ($25 for each title) - Free with purchase of NVIDIA GeForce GTX650 or above 1 x Motherboard ASUS Sabertooth X79 -- 4x SATA 6GB/s, 4x USB 3.0 1 x Power Supply 1350 Watt - Thermaltake Toughpower-1350M - Free Upgrade to 1500 Watt Toughpower-1500M ($40 Savings) 1 x Primary Hard Drive 1 TB HARD DRIVE -- 32M Cache, 7200 RPM, 6.0Gb/s - Single Drive 0 x Data Hard Drive None 1 x Optical Drive 24x Dual Format/Double Layer DVD±R/±RW + CD-R/RW Drive - Black *Independence Day Sale* FREE Upgrade to BLU-RAY Reader Combo Drive for Primary Optical Drive 0 x 2nd Optical Drive None 1 x Flash Media Reader / Writer 12-In-1 External USB Flash Media Card Reader/Writer 1 x Meter Display NZXT Sentry LX Aluminum Fan Control, Clock, and Temperature Display 1 x Sound Card 3D Premium Surround Sound Onboard 1 x Network Card Onboard LAN Network (Gb or 10/100) 1 x Operating System Windows 8 + Office 2010 Trial [Free 60-Day !!!] - 64-bit 1 x Keyboard iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Keyboard - FREE Upgrade to A4Tech LED Backlit Gaming Keyboard ($19 value) 1 x Mouse iBUYPOWER Standard Gaming Mouse - Blood Red 0 x Monitor None 0 x 2nd Monitor None 0 x Speaker System None 0 x Video Camera None 1 x Advanced Build Options iBUYPOWER Specialized Advanced Packaging System - Protect your investment during transportation! 0 x Case Engraving Service None 1 x Warranty Erebus XL Warranty Service - Erebus XL 3-Year limited warranty + Lifetime Technical support (NOTE: This system is non-refundable. Please click '?' for additional limitations.) 1 x Rush Service Rush Service Fee (not shipping fee) - No Rush Service, Estimate Ship Out in 5~10 Business Days

 

[Hueyman]

You can also write the main parts instead of copy everything ;-)

[blacky75]

You'll have the answer soon, just ordered Zotac GTX TITAN AMP! 6go " Boosted " version to run on a Rampage IV, 32GB DDRIII 2400 MHz and I7 3970X...

 

If I can't max X-Plane 10.22 64bits out with at least 50 FPS, then we can see this sim can't be maxed out nowadays with nice FPS ;-)

 

so how is it going?

[Hueyman]

Was a bit disapointed at the beginning, as I thrown everything max... after savouring my defeat, I removed some AAA, turn Global Shadows to high only and got some great 60 FPS with high poly planes over country side, and high 30 over biggest citties/sceneries

 

But my I73970X used 35% max ( with 25 AI planes )

 

the GTX Titan seems to be maxed out ... X-Plane really need optimising, hope to see that for X-Plane 11,in a year or two

[Jim Kallinen]

So far mine has performed great over photoscenery level 18 and cities can drop it down to upper 20`s to lower 30`s. Otherwise its over 100 in mountains with trees and photo scenery.

Just wishing I had more time to play with it. Next month when the rest of guys come for annual gathering we get a chance to see what it can do. I am sure Tom Kyler and Cameron will

give it a workout.

[OlaHaldor]

Your response proves my point. It's a lot about the CPU. My i5 doesn't cope with everything you got going.

[OlaHaldor]

Your response proves my point. It's a lot about the CPU. My i5 doesn't cope with everything you got going.

[Hueyman]

About the GPU you meant ? Finally, does X-Plane worls best with single or dual GPU ? How it performs with the 690/7990 ?

 

I'll wait the next gen of fastest cards and will probably sell this one to take latest, but definitely think X-Plane is far from taking advantages of everything, when I see how it handles eye candyu games or DCS ...

[raven1982]

@ Hueyman

 

X-Plane still does not take advantage of everything, you are correct. I have tested it on some higher end pc's all the way down to my four year old Alienware laptop. The FPS issue will only get better over time and with better code/updates from Austin and others. This conversation reminds me of the evolution of V 9 from beginning to end, and how FPS improved.

 

A side note. My favorite thing to watch is the amount of memory being used by X-Plane 10. I have compared the 10 to 9 and the bandwidth being used. After testing one vs. the other, I can lower 10 to 1/4 (to X-Plane 9) and still not match the FPS of X-Plane 9 at the higher bandwidth.