Flightgear and new hardware
Hi FGUK friends,
yesterday's flightnight made it quite clear that even the most sophisticated FGUKers may get into major problems when software developments don't work quite as they should. This was one of my take home messages last night. Another one was the collective sincerity to get to the grounds of the issue, hats off to you guys, I only had slight ideas what you were talking about. I am sure, you'll find the solution for the software issue, I reckon your hardware was working as it should.
Last night it was my personal experience with my old hardware, that with a not too complicated aircraft and a manageable scenery (island with lots of water around) my FG worked well with framerates around 15 fps (FG 2020.3.18). Having had some personally frustrating flightnights with unmanageable framerates in the last months, I have decided to change my 9 yr old pc to a new one.
Could you give me an idea what I should look for with regard to current and future FG? Which CPU/GPU combination works for you?
Thanks, Oswald
Comments
Hi Oswald,
I would definitely recommend an Nvidia graphics card.
I bought my PC from Mifcom. Super support, price-performance ratio very good and the shipping also worked very well. Just give them a call, say what you need (meaning what you want to play and work) and they'll help you out.
I'm very satisfied so far.
https://www.mifcom.de/
Nvidia graphics, the best you can afford. Plenty of RAM as FGFS is very hungry for it.
VooDoo
Are you using Linux? Then i have to cite Linus Thorwalds: "Fuck you NVidia".
It can be really different with a NVidia graphics card.
Linus Torvalds can say what he wants. It works for me over years I have no issues.
It runs great on a Steam Deck in desktop mode & there ain't no Nvidia in that, just sayin ;)
I have run FG on pretty all kinds of kit:
Mac with Nvidia
Linux with AMD, Nvidia & Intel at different times
Windows PC with Nvidia & Intel
Linux ARM on a RPI4 or Rockchip RK3399 (neither of these is quick btw)
Linux Nvidia drivers are randomly shit - that is to say they break stuff badly from time to time & cause crashes that are very hard to trace - Nvidia have been found to be doing things with their drivers that they aren't supposed to do (which is why Linus has that opinion of them btw).
Some may remember certain kernels not working with nvidia drivers in the past - well something along those lines is probably going to happen again soonish...
Linux open source AMD drivers are very good, as are Intels open source drivers. AMDs closed source so called professional Linux drivers are crap for gaming.
Windows drivers are different - Nvidia seems to be the best here - AMD & Intel are equally bad here for some reason
On Linux with open source drivers there are a couple of shaders (grass / overlay) that don't work due to the fact that they have been written for Nvidia - no idea how they work in Windows - I don't give a crap about wavy grass myself anyway
In terms of bang for the buck - it depends, at the moment I'm looking at getting an AMD RX7800XT when they are released as they are the mid range upgrade for what I have now - an RX6700XT, which works fine in for FG, X-Plane & DCS (all Linux btw)
So it is as it ever was with FGFS - depends on what OS you are running.
VooDoo
So Oswald, you can read now many opinions, what is shit or good. You can see what I use and it works perfectly on Kubuntu.
It's a kind of interesting to hear what the Nvidia should break if everything works fine on my system.
I look back 10 years ago when I had a GTX 360 with a default kernel for Kubuntu and with that stuff I could also play FG.
So I'll stick with it, call a PC dealer of your choice (example of a PC-dealer you can see above) and let them advise you. These are hardware and software experts who can tell you exactly which games an AMD or Nvidia graphics card is better for.
I'll second the call for an nVidia card - although I do have some problems with the drivers when I boot into Linux, I think that's my choice of Linux OS as opposed to anything else, a more mainstream one is less likely to have issues.
In Windows though I certainly find nVidia to be by far the best.
For my current PC build I've gone with an AMD chip for the first time in about 18 years and I have to say that the performance is exceptional. I wouldn't look to go back to Intel without a really good reason.
I'm currently running a AMD Ryzen 7 5800X CPU, a Gigabyte AORUS nVidia 3080TI GPU and then 64GB of good quality RAM.
FG is a funny thing as it's not incredibly well optimised to use hardware to it's full potential. None of my hardware will go above about 40% utilisation during a FlightNight flight, even with the most complex scenery and aircraft on the screen - yet it might end up with the FPS lower than I'd expect.
Which is why you might frequently hear me moaning, why it just can't use more of the resources and give me more fps is something I've not yet worked out - I can't find any hardware reasons for the throttling.
HOWEVER, my FG I think looks as good as FG can look and I'm very pleased with the smooth performance it gives. I set the max FPS to be 30FPS and at that I get great performance and lots of system overheads.
One thing I would say is it's certainly worth making sure FG is on a solid state drive. I do have a dedicated SSD just for FlightGear which I got cheap in a Black Friday sale and it makes all the difference to load times and the way it loads scenery as you fly along at high speeds.
LOL....I have to totally agree with Alex are we brothers or something...I'm getting scared.
I also have an SSD where FG is installed and the CPU is an AMD Ryzen9 3950X and also a good quality 32GB Ram with 3600 MT/s. However, I clocked it up to 3600 in the EFI BIOS. I believe the default is 3000.
Oswald, what OS are you going to be running?
VooDoo
Oh I should have mentioned the OS, sorry! It'll be Windows for me again, presumably Windows 11.
Thanks for all the ideas and support.
I understand that Nvidia is it for Windows PC.
In the FG main forum I read FG is still mainly running on a single core of the CPU, meaning that a fast CPU is more important than multiple cores. Has anybody more information on this?
I reckon below 32 GB RAM wouldn't make sense any more, world scenery 3 will probably need plenty of memory on RAM and disc.
SSD is an important hint for the program itself. Is durability of this storage medium still an issue? I.E. should the scenery folders with lots of download activity better be on a fast HDD?
I guess, these are the main issues.
Oswald
SSD's are the standard now. HDD is over, IMO.
VooDoo
Okay then, eventually I have aquired and tested a new system, thank you for all your advice!
Main points: Intel Core i7 12700KH 3.6 GHz, 32 GB RAM, GeForce RTX3070 8GB, SSD for all work and flying to be done, HDD for frequent backups.
FG is running very well on it, with and without multiplayer, scenery download, photoscenery. If I'd fucking up on saturday night flights, it would be due to my flying or errors, not system failure. Hopefully ...
Oswald