So, Nehalem is OK?

[JG27CaptStubing]

Originally Posted by SPUDLEY1977

In my feeble mind the missing link is the monitor. Consider that our current fastest LCD Monitors cannot "in effect" properly present much more than about 60 Hertz "refresh rates". To my thinking then any time FPS is above this number you will not see it because the LCD monitor cannot update the screen more than 60 or 75 times a second. In the remaining discussion I will refer to 60 Mhz as I cannot see the diff between 75 and 60 on my "2ms" Viewsonic which is highly rated by those that have the gear to rank responsiveness of LCD's. Note that as of yet even the best "2ms" LCDs are closer to 8 or 10 ms average since all colors are not are not as responsive as the fastest.

For those of you out there that have a "2ms" refresh rate monitor and are showing 60 FPS at high detail in your app/game just go disable VSYNC and see if your FPS are significantly higher.

When I do this my FPS jump from 60 to over 1xx in some of the more taxing games. Watch something like a plane or car move across the screen. When comparing 60 FPS vs 100 FPS
does the object look like a solid moving object or does it appear to ghost/flicker/not be a solid focused object that moves? My observations are that at 100 FPS the object does not appear any more solid/focused than at 60, the ojects/game is not any smoother. At these higher FPS you may see a byproduct of the fact that LCD cannot refresh fast enough (above 60 FPS) you may observe monitor artifacts like texture smearing/tearing. This is why games that with given hardware are often suggested that we switch VSYNC to on, note that when you do so your FPS drop to either 60 or 75.

In contrast for LCD's 30 vs 60 FPS is noticeably different since the LCD can effect double its screen writing/refreshing when going from 30 to 60 within its technological capacity.

Do the above with a good CRT monitor that truely refreshes at 60, 75, 80, above = you will see the differences as the CRT can truely process these higher FPS. Unfortunately the LCD of today's technology at "2 ms" cannot present your eyeballs the benefit of hardware that can process higher FPS...UNLESS YOUR LCD CAN SHOW IT!

I wont even start to address Input Lag.....this only adds to my observations and conclusion above.

You may wish to research:
Refresh Rate
VSYNC
Screen Tearing
CRT refresh rates
LCD's and how they are very different from CRTs
GTG : Grey to Grey
On Off On
Input Lag
Pixelanne ( I think is the name) - a great little program that is used to compare "refresh rates"/responsitivity of both CRT and LCD monitors. I cannot locate this as my spelling may be wrong. Please correct me if you know.

All these contribute to my thoughts of the "Missing Bottleneck" (limitations of current LCD technology)....my opinion posted as it might be of value to one or two of you who might prefer not to waste money on higher FPS that you never see/enjoy.

Well written but I think you're missing a very important point about any game when it comes to FPS.

What really matters in a game is the LOW number. At some point the difference between 60-85 matters all that much. It's when you see the game dip to 20 FPS that really notice.


The key to any good game is the low number.

[SPUDLEY1977]

CAPN STUBING:
True the lowest FPS during gameplay can easily be a deal breaker.


FLYBY:Hope my ramblings help....
"... Additional to GTG, isn't there a similar measurement for black to white? "
>> Been a while since I did my homework to learn bout all this, I suggest you search for the third party testers who actually have the fancy equipment, present the results of the various analysis/comparisons of monitors, as well as their informed explanation of the variables and terms. LCD's and CRT's pixles work totally different.
Current LCD technology cannot hold a candle to a decent CRT oy days gone by when it comes to gaming.

An example of what appears to be very good/informative type of metrics to consider:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/mon..._17.html#sect0

Kudos to XBITLABS as I have always found their shootouts/analysis of videocards and monitors the most objective and thorough - suppported by hi tech analysis!

I recall that Toms Hardware might also have some thorough technical analysis. Be advised that I purchased a Viewsonic VX922 (rated 2ms) but prob averages round 6 on avg ( I don't recall) and am happy with it but miss my CRT for gaming .


"I suppose anyone who can afford one might invest in a new lcd monitor capable of 120hz..."
>> From the initial snippets I read bout this monitor which is NOT available: I do NOT beieve it will be anywhere close to 120, I bet it will still be the 60 variety with some new gimmick/twist/alternating vertical interlacing/sumthin (sales puffing - misrepresentation). The same way these advertised 2ms LCD's don't present an average responsitivity any where near that. They never clearly define what the 2ms referrs to, it might be only one color gamut/hue/frequency/whatever of thousands which is the most responsive.

" I'll have to choose wisely...."
>>>Precisely, there is a lot of subjective "textual spewage " A.K.A. BS floating about, I prefer objective technical analysis, I try to select the best on paper, then compare them side by side and let my eyes decide.
YMMV

Be advised that a typically good LCD can appear shoddy due to a bad new cable, poor quality control, handling, some off the line are A++ some are not.

Hope to fly with you guys some time in UBI lobby, watch for me and give me a hollar!

[Flyby]

maybe this site can be of use when trying to find an adequate monitor: http://www.widescreengamingforum.com....php/Main_Page
Flyby out

[TheFamilyMan]

So, Nehalem is OK? (course correction back to the OP)

Buying a core 2 duo/quad system now locks you into tech that is at end of life. There won't be any significantly faster/better CPUs in this line, or socket, coming out in the months ahead. In this regard Nehalem is the way to go, but it's worth waiting a few months for one if you can.

As for dual/quad processing. Being a software developer whose been developing multi-threaded multi-processor, and multi-host applications for years now, I can't imagine Oleg's team developing a sim that does not fully take advantage of the potential computational environment that multi-core CPUS provide. In this I mean that the sim could be designed to scale across as many cores as are available. As an example, consider that each AI aircraft (or online for that matter) were a separately schedulable execution thread (that's the way I'd design it, and I've done this exact sort of thing with analytic sims professionally). With proper design, each of these threads would drift off to the least busy core to execute, and thus more cores give you that much more AI computational bandwidth.

And finally a word to those who think vsync is for sissy: you are deluding yourselves. Why? A computer creates animation in the exact same manner as a film movie, i.e. animation is a series of still pictures shown at a fixed rate which when viewed by the human eye appear to create an image that moves. That fixed rate for a computer is the maximum refresh rate of your monitor. When vsync is turned off, the computer is allowed to display one of the still pictures on the monitor while the computer is still filling in that same picture, thus creating one or more tear lines in the displayed image (the previous image is overwritten during the fill operation). And even if you are not seeing tearing, the max rate that the picture changes on your monitor is its max refresh rate: all those FPS that exceed your monitor's refresh rate are NEVER even displayed! What vsync does is lock the update of a picture such that it won't be displayed until the update is complete; but there is also more than one picture buffer, so one is being displayed while one or more are being updated. But hey, that warm fuzzy feeling of seeing that FRAPS display of 140 fps (and don't forget that hefty average) on your 75htz monitor can't be beat...right?

Edit: Potentially insulting slurs removed (see below)

[Flyby]

Originally Posted by TheFamilyMan

So, Nehalem is OK? (course correction back to the OP)

Buying a core 2 duo/quad system now locks you into tech that is at end of life. There won't be any significantly faster/better CPUs in this line coming out in the months ahead. In this regard Nehalem is the way to go, but it's worth waiting a few months for one if you can.

As for dual/quad processing. Being a software developer whose been developing multi-threaded multi-processor, and multi-host applications for years now, I can't imagine Oleg's team not developing a sim that does not fully take advantage of the potential computational environment that multi-core CPUS provide. In this I mean that the sim could be designed to scale across as many cores as are available. As an example, consider that each AI aircraft (or online for that matter) were a separately schedulable execution thread (that's the way I'd design it, and I've done this exact sort of thing with analytic sims professionally). With proper design, each of these threads would drift off to the least busy core to execute, and thus more cores give you that much more AI computational bandwidth.

And finally a word to those who think vsync is for sissy: you are deluding yourselves for a pretty silly reason. Why? A computer creates animation in the exact same manner at a film movie, i.e. animation is a series of still pictures shown at a fixed rate which when viewed by the human eye appear to create an image that moves. That fixed rate for a computer is the maximum refresh rate of your monitor. When vsync is turned off, the computer is allowed to display one of the still pictures on the monitor while the computer is still filling in that same picture, thus creating one or more tear lines in the displayed image (the previous image is overwritten during the fill operation). And even if you are not seeing tearing, the max rate that the picture changes on your monitor is its max refresh rate: all those FPS that exceed your monitor's refresh rate are NEVER even displayed! What vsync does is lock the update of a picture such that it won't be displayed until the update is complete; but also there is more than one picture buffer, so one is being displayed while one or more are being updated. But hey, that warm fuzzy feeling of seeing that FRAPS display of 140 fps (and don't forget that hefty average) on your 75htz monitor can't be beat...right? Get a life!

Whoa!! that's telling somebody off! Good tech stuff, but a 50% penalty in points for telling someone to get a life.

[gprr]

Hi all

Didn't see it here so this is very relevant :
http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_111a.html


Good news
Cheers
gprr

[Flyby]

hmmmm I posted that link to the DCS Black Shark forum. Don;t know how I forgot to post it here. Good looking out, gprr. I came away from the article with the impression that the i7 processors well, this is a quote from the article, and I share this viewpoint.: "Despite the platform costs of upgrading to Core i7, Intel has engineered a CPU design with such massive parallelism that the PC community could be waiting years before a game developer truly takes advantage of its potential. In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, “It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.” I interpret this as saying the i7 is not a best bang-for-buck system just yet, performance-wise. Check out this report from HardOCP: http://www.hardocp.com/article.html?...hlbnRodXNpYXN0
In some of the tested games (though not in all the tested ones) even the E8500 is competitive at the 1900x resolution. In Lost Planet the E8500 draws even with the fastest i7 processor at 2560x1600 resolution.
Of course my only concern is how well a processor performs in combat flight sims. IL2 seemed to do better with the i7-920 than the with the older qx9770 but the lower resolution, 1280x1040 seems like a crt monitor rather than even a 19 inch lcd monitor. I assume most fliers are using lcd monitors nowadays so SimHq's test is not so relevant in that manner, imho. I'd like to see a true combat flight sim test on the i7 at lcd resolutions, and using the i7-940 that more people can afford rather than the i7-965 at $1000.00 USD. The X58 motherboard prices will drop only when the manufacturers release mid-level boards. We'll see what happens. eh?
Flyby out

[IceFire]

The thing is that the IL-2 series and undoubtedly the Storm of War series will be heavily CPU reliant as well as memory and graphics. Most games are heavy on the graphics or graphics and memory but generally less so with the CPU. So it sounds like the i7's raw power, quad core, and high speed triple channel memory, seem like a good match. But only if Oleg can successfully build some parallelism into the Storm of War engine.

[SPUDLEY1977]

FLYBY,
Was reading some other analysis earlier, sorry don't recall the link. They took an i7 920 2.66 Ghzee ($300 US) and compared in effect single, dual, triple, quad core processors impact on FPS. They disabled enough cores with each benchmark run in order to be using four, three, two, one cores. Kinda simple and sweet analysis.

Seemingly across the board they saw significant gains from single to dual. From dual to triple, they observed insignificant gains. From three to four cores there was no incremental increase in output.

Interestingly you can purchase a E8200 for $150 US. I don't recall the diff in FSB or onboard cache betweeen the two chipsets. Let's assume that the E8200 is equilavent to running the i7 on two cores. Consider that the i7 costs 2x that of the E8200. Now add to this premium the fact that i7 compatible mobos will run approx $100 premium. Let's leave ram out of the picture for the moment.

So what do you get for that additional $250? Right now from the third party analysis I have read....no "significant " performance differences that you can touch/feel. You are on the next generation of chipset pin configuration which may or may not have any real value. You are buying the current cutting edge of CPU configuration which always costs a hefty premium for those who value the bragging rights. These rights are of value to some so this is not meant as a pejorative. Might this be why AMD came out with their triple cores instead of four?

The choice one might take would depend on the specs of current system: is it inadequate?, is it just time for something new?, do I need to burn some cash?, can I wait six months to see what my options are to upgrade?, if I choose to wait a bit will I be happy to buy the i7 920 (currently $300) or Q9400 (currently $290) for half it's current premium price - equivalent to what a E8200 costs now (currently $160)?

Consider waiting another few months, and whilst you wait read all the comparisons that more informed brains write up. And member to throw the costs into the mix as well as the other variables that you feel of value. The longer you wait the more you will save on the specific components and the more comfortable you will be with your decision. << Good sleep insurance<< Once you buy, do it, build it up, post up pics of the creation, and don't look at the prices till the next time the upgrade bug bites.

Oh but by all means give us an objective in-depth write up whatever choice you make.

PEACE

[Flyby]

Hi Spudley,
Good points you make. I'm actually going to wait another few months (since I've been waiting for quite some time for my $$ to get right anyway). I'm looking to finance a new build, not an upgrade, so waiting is in my interest. By the time I'm ready to spend I'm hopeful that prices will drop, Win7 will be out, and mainstream motherboards X58 mobos will be out, not to mention new GPUs like the RV870. So, I'm not looking to build a monster, but surely a capable system that might be closer to Oleg's dream system rather than further away from it.
Flyby out