New rig
 

Well after much dithering I ordered my parts last week. I opted for a single very big IPS monitor rather than struggle with a triple monitor setup as I would then have had to buy another Graphics card and fight with SLI etc.

New PC is up and running

Silverstone Fortress 2
GeForce GTX 580 3072MB GDDR5
Asrock Z68 Extreme4 Intel Z68 DDR3
OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz
Corsair Professional 1050W PSU
Kingston HyperX Genesis Grey 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 PC3-12800C9 1600MHz
Corsair Hydro H80 High Performance Liquid CPU Cooler

Hazro 27" Monitor 2560x1440 resolution

At the native resolution CLOD is smooth as glass with everything on highest settings and AAx2 but with Shadows off. The performance hit from shadows and their fugglyness isn't worth it. Clouds still drag down performance.

As my desk isn't built and my stick/peddles not installed yet I am just starting quick missions and putting the plane in autopilot to gauge performance. With these settings even the london mission is smooth.

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised....but somehow I am :-P

Nice rig you have there. I'll be installing a GTX 580 with 3GB Ram in my machine this week. I am somehow positive this will boost the min fps in flyable regions and keep the stuttering at bay :cool:

Nice system. How is that H80 working for you?

Friggin public masturbation. :evil:

Well, atleast my comp is better looking. :-D

Ooooooo - yummy! Nice purchases!! Let us know what the next patch does for your set up!

:cool:

Badger

Nice rig Emil, congrats!

If you have some time, please post how much VRAM your card is using when you fly over London or at the countryside...

Good to hear that smooth game is after all, possible at high resolutions :)

~S~

It's amazing especially considering I accidentally scraped some of the heat sink paste on to my carpet and as I don't have any more I smeared it to fill in the missing bits :p

Idling at 31 deg and under full load it hasn't got higher than 46 deg.

Flying the quick mission sight seeing over London max usage was 2,1 GB. texture original, all settings on highest, 2x AA, 16xAF, grass, roads, shadows on, clouds on, mirror off. 1920x1080 resolution.

Average fps ~30, not a single stutter using the GTX 580 with 3 GB Ram.

I turn off shadows as the fps tends to drop lower than I would like on the london map but then the res of that monitor is enormous

580 GTX 3 GB RAM...respect!!!

It was only borrowed. The performance difference between my GTX570 and this GTX580 doesn't warrant to spend ~270 EUR for an exchange.

If however someone builds a new computer or has a really old gpu to exchange, this card is the way to go for Cliffs of Dover, atm. But I would wait for the next patch, when the new graphics engine is in place.

Thank you for this information!

This provides useful information to the big question 1,5Gb vs 3Gb VRAM...

~S~

The OCZ Agility SSD needed an update to its firmware as it had some issues. After unplugging and reconnecting it, it appears to have died. I ordered a corsair instead but then realised that it uses the same sandforce controller so have ordered an Intel Elmcrest SSD to put the operating system on and will use the corsair as extra storage.

Over two grands worth of computer parts are sitting doing nothing and I'm going to have the joy of reinstalling everything again!!

I got a Vertex 3 here I can't even use, BSOD's and crashing Windows.
I went back to my old gen 2 intel until I received my new Crucial M4, I have zero problems with both.
I'm done with anything sandforce, never again.

This!!!

I use my rig for work and cannot accept wondering if the OS needs a reinstall every time I start the computer.

Due to the issue with hibernate killing the SSD and requiring a reinstall of windows I had already had to do two repairs which took the best part of the day until I finally figured out the problem.

Will install on an Intel Elmcrest tomorrow and see what happens

OK it's up and running again. The elmcrest isn't quite as fast as the OCZ but I've not had a single problem with it. This time I installed windows and then the wireless drivers first. Then downloaded all the latest stuff from the ASROCK website. Then I flashed the bios and used the latest version of Intel RST. Didn't update the firmware of the SSD.

Looking forward to the patch today or tomorrow :)

Emil, could you endulge me and dl 3DMark Vantage and run a performance benchmark and post your score?

Yes when I get the time i.e. tomorrow or the day after

3DMark Score
24235 3DMarks
Graphics Score
25254
CPU Score
21617
Jane Nash
75 FPS
New Calico
72 FPS
AI Test
2948 operations/s
Physics Test
29 operations/s

Hey emil I just got the msi lightning xtreme 3gb 580 and I was wondering what your performance is like post beta patch. I have everything maxed and i sit around 25 fps average over london. Anywhere else in the game its really smooth. However, I do get stutters now worse than my gtx 260 that i replaced but only when I am really low, like 200 feet. If I climb above 2 or 300 feet the stutters seem to stop. Are you having the same issues since the beta patch? If not what are your settings currently?

3DMark Score Win7 64
29958 3DMarks
Graphics Score Nvidia GTX 580 3GB
29563
CPU Score i7 2600K
31212
Jane Nash RAM 8GB 2000MHz
88 FPS
New Calico
84 FPS
AI Test
4378 operations/s
Physics Test
39 operations/s
stutters stutters stutters stutters stutters!!!!!!

Sounds about the same. Don't really get stutters except online but I am not using full settings. I have textures on high not original, SSAO off, Epi filter off, Everything else on high. But my resolution was 2560x1440 which may be higher than yours if you have a 1920x1080. If you want higher FPS you could turn off shadows as well. It is the clouds that probably give you the 25 fps over london though and there's no way to turn them down except I do suggest trying with light clouds....bet you get much higher fps!

Anyway due to the resolution and my difficulty of seeing dots I have changed to playing in 1920x1080 and now have everything on high with shadows but still SSAO off, epi off and textures on high rather than original. This is working great but still those deadly clouds and smoke are enough to drop fps to below 30.

I actually just found today that I can have everything maxed except for the buildings set to high and grass off and get 40 fps over london and around 60 everywhere else. As soon as I turn on the grass the stutters start but only when I am less than 400 feet or so. This seems ridiculous to me since the game shouldn't be rendering grass until the plane is less than a 100 feet at the maximum. I think this just goes to show that Oleg still has a lot of work to do before this engine is where it should be.