TL;DR: I want to get an idea how much I’m potentially losing out on I suppose going Team Red vs Team Green. I appreciate any thoughts.
Working on a new build… hoping to pull the trigger before mid January or so. I got a new 4k TV. I hope to run at 1440p for the performance boost but will go 4k if it looks wonky.
Reading around here and elsewhere, it seems like DLSS still has problems with causing blurry digital instruments, which is a major no-go item for me. I use TAA happily enough.
I generally highly prefer realistic and crisp in-cockpit visuals compared to outdoor scenery as I’m normally conducting instrument flights anyway. The outdoor scenery is icing on the cake mostly as long as airports themselves are accurate.
Anyway… If I am looking at sticking with TAA, should I just go with like a 7900 XTX? I don’t think I care about ray tracing, I just don’t think the visual improvement is great enough to justify the performance hit or, as it would seem, the need to shell out extra for an nVidia GPU.
Posting with 2020 and 2024 tags alike as I’m currently a 2020 flyer but will install 2024 in a year or so when things are better.
I personally have no problem with blurry instruments, but I guess its subjective anyway. (4070 TI)
If you don’t care about DLSS AND you don’t care about VR (there are reports everywhere about AMD cards having subpar performance for VR vs Nvidia), then yes, now I would go for a 7900 XTX. I bought the 4070TI a couple of months ago and I regret it for the low VRAM it has (12 GB)
I appreciate the thoughts. I don’t particularly see myself using VR with my sim setup. I have various gadgets and instruments I want to interact with.
I just hate the state of the GPU market so much anymore, and I know it’s not going to get any better. I’m mostly hoping for a solid post-holiday open box or refurb deal from Micro Center. I can’t see getting less than a 7900 XTX or 4080S to make a decent attempt at 4k.
I have a 7900 XTX and am nearly always CPU-limited by my Ryzen 5800X3D at 4K Ultra settings, full resolution, TAA. Sometimes I bump TLOD up to 400 for funsies.
I tend to set ‘Dynamic Settings’ target up to 45 from 30 though as I like a little more fluidity than the default settings give in busy photogrammetry areas and large airports. Mostly GA planes, flying in Los Angeles, San Francisco, or Portland areas up and down the west coast.
(Note I consider only performance near the ground in busy areas as relevant, as performance at high altitudes or in the middle of nowhere is always good enough that I don’t care about the frame rate. I use a head tracker for view panning, which makes me a little more sensitive to frame rate than a still viewer might be.)
I just got a 4080S and for the first week or two only used TAA because of all the stuff I was hearing about digital instruments. Just two days ago I switched to DLSS quality and I literally cannot tell the difference. I use a G1000 exclusively and if the numbers are blurry they’re blurry at a level my eyes can’t distinguish. What I do notice is the additional frames, I now get 60+ everywhere (I am vsynced to 60 because of my monitor). Your mileage may vary but for me at least DLSS is now improved enough that it’s an amazing tool to have.
Re avionics – an additional data point is whether you tend to use the avionics through a zoomed instrument view or from the top-level. The text on electronic avionics is relatively small on most monitors because the FOV is wide enough to show most of entire instrument panel through it at once.
I use the initial cockpit or VFR/landing views most of the time, and at full resolution I appreciate the extra sharpness.
If you’re using the zoom views for most interaction with the G1000 or airliner avionics – you will not probably notice DLSS unless you’re sensitive to the temporal ghosting.
The temporal ghosting was the main turnoff for me in 2020 and why I went TAA. I really don’t like the “fade” between numbers like that and it’s distracting to the eye.
I use head tracking so I don’t use the instrument views per se, but I often go in as close as it’ll go to see the instruments up close. Would that be the same thing as using the instrument view or does it work differently?
I don’t never see ghosting, but it’s extremely rare (I think one time I saw it I was attempting a very ill advised dive and the numbers were going quite quickly), and if I see it I think to myself “this still passes for a plausible display IRL”.
If you have a second monitor, you might also consider Pop Out Panel Manager which will help you to pop out your instrument display, size and position them automatically so that they are easier to see.
I know what you mean. But there is some confusion about TAA and DLSS.
You mention “temporal ghosting” , TAA is called Temporal Anti Aliasing - it also causes ghosting and some blur, because of that temporal aspect (it uses a previous frame to blend with the current frame). So ironically, TAA causes blur, some flickering in small details and ghosting, but sadly we dont really have many other options regarding AA in this game. Its mostly for the same reasons you see ghosting in DLSS too as they also use previous frame information (some presets more than others). DLAA is perhaps the best AA in terms of image quality, but also that has some issues.
Anyway, I have a 4080S using a 120hz 4K TV and TAA - it works fine with vsync %33 = 40fps. Granted I had to put most of my settings on Medium/High, TLOD/OLOD 100.
I havent used the 7900XTX but from a pure rasterisation @ 4K point of view it should definitely do the trick, even slightly better than my 4080S OC.
Ray tracing shadows in cockpits add a lot of realism and beauty to the sim. In MSFS you had those flickering pixelated shadows that you could marginally improve by modifying the usercfg.opt file. Ray tracing rendering is the future anyway, look at the last Indiana Jones. I would not buy a GPU that has a weak point in RT in 2025.
Also, blurring is an issue when you apply DLSS to 1440p, not 4K.
A 4080 Super is a better choice than a 7900 XTX in my opinion. If you can wait 1-2 months there will be the 5000 series.
Agree with you regarding the RT, but ghosting/smearing is definitely a issue even at 4k, maybe not so much the blur - but definitely the ghosting/smearing.
imo you get a 7900XTX or even a 4080/4090 if you dont want to mess about with AI Voodoo and down-upscalers.
I appreciate the insight. I freely admit I don’t know much about the finer details of all the AA stuff these days. I just play with settings until it looks ok to me
I mostly just want to make as fully informed a decision here about future GPU purchase. I hate there’s no clear winner unless you’re dropping insane money on a 4090 (and probably 5090 soon).
Ray tracing being the future is a fair point. And I intend on using this build for many years to come. Last PC I built was pre-COVID, so… I definitely try to get mileage out of these things. I’m scared of the probable 5090 sticker price (let alone availability), but there’s a sense of wanting to just have the best of the best, biting the bullet, and doing it for maximum long term value.
I have a 4090 and run at 5120 x 2880 using the DSR Scaling factors in the NVC. I run with TAA and downscale in the sim to render at 2160 x 1440. There is some very slight blurriness by rendering lower but, for me, it is not really noticeable. Probably has more to do with my eyes than the sim
I was using DLSS but while it does give a slight performance boost, there is more noticeable fuzzies. If the 'situation; warrants it I do still fire it up from time to time.
There is not much change to be honest, at least from my perspective. I was mistaken about the scaling down factor in the sim. I bottom it out which is 30 (I assume %) and it equates to 3000 x 1000 something. Can’t recall the exact #.
You can increase it to 50 on the scaling which using DSR puts the rendering at 100% (5120 x 2880) This helps reduce the CPU limited issue in FS but to me introduces some micro stutters (I HATE SUTTERS). If you go over 50 (100% of output res) it crushes performance.
Again, my system and experiance. Other may/will vary.
