Taking the PC plunge soon

Morning all,

Just looking to garner a wee bit of advice, and perspective here.

I’ve had a Series X and been using the sim since launch. I have observed that over time it has gotten progressively worse. I am not a casual simmer and I do want a degree of realism from the sim, and with all the current Xbox issues (Black avionics, random CTD’S, no WASM support, no .exe support) I’m getting tired of feeling short changed and inferior here.

I have set myself a deadline of SU10 to see tangible improvement on all fronts, otherwise I’m walking away.

Anyway, to my reason for posting. I’m not a PC noob but I’m not an expert either, so what I was thinking was running the sim with mostly high/ultra settings, probably in 1440p but 4K would be nice, decent LOD, and I was thinking that an i5/i7 with 32GB DDR4, and an RTX 3060 or 3070 would do the job to a reasonable standard of FPS (say 30-40). Would I be right in assuming that?

Any advice/input would be appreciated, cheers.

3 Likes

Xbox is a closed system, so simply not everything is possible. If you want to have all freedom, indeed buy a PC. It has nothing to do with being seen as inferior or something like that.

For 1440 that’s Fine. For 4k you do want a 3080 is you want anything around 40fps. Keep in mind that 4k is more than twice the pixel count than 1440p.

2 Likes

I made the XBox X → PC transition last year and haven’t looked back, there is just so much available on PC side that isn’t on XBox, plus stability / performance also sell it for me. To match 4K (albeit upscaled on the X) you do need a good PC though. I’m displaying on my 4K UHD TV via a HDMI cable.

The main point of note on PC is that everyone no matter of spec (unless you have a low end GPU) are running into CPU mainthread limited situations becuase of the way some FS code is legacy from FSX and creates single thread limitation situations. So best to go for best CPU you can afford.

The next thing that PC gives you is graphical options to tweak to optimal settings -
CPU load: TLOD, OLOD, traffic, clouds
GPU load: output res, render scale, other graphical detail sliders

So any PC can be tweaked to be optimised, and it’s nice to have that ability, but you have to understand what tweaks what, and ensure you are NOT CPU limited (stutters). Often espeically with 30XX GPU’s, if not balanced/loaded enough can lead to CPU main thread limted situations, so the trick with them is to load them enough according to loading rules above so as not to leave CPU mainthread limited.
Some PC systems may be fine out of the box, but often people find issues with mismatching CPU/GPU loads.

Another thing to keep in mind is FPS chasing is well overrated unless you have specific needs like head tracking (allegedly which needs more FPS), I have my system locked at 30FPS/60Hz (much like it was on my XBox X) and it’s very smooth while keeping the GPU & CPU less taxed.

Re: SU10, fingers crossed with WASM on xbox and DLSS/FSR but maybe it will be less than optimal eg liek DX12 is. It will be interesting to see where it ends up. If they beta test maybe we will know sometime in next few weeks.

5 Likes

Congratulations on a good choice. Be prepared however to spend a lot of money on hardware and software. Even if you don’t plan on spending too much most of us wander down the rabbit hole of new equipment etc. I spent about 1500$ on hardware only (not including the PC and screen).

The setup you have in mind looks good. In my opinion it’s not worth it to go 4K unless you have a really big screen.

3 Likes

Not too bothered about 4K versus 1440p, to be honest I can’t overly tell the difference unless I’m looking really hard for it.

And yes, the Xbox is of course a closed system, but it feels like it’s always going to be heavily watered down to me. And that it’s (unconsciously perhaps) going to be treated as a casual simming platform.

3 Likes

It’s a year in now for XBox what you see is likely what you get and only more resource issues becoming apparent esp. with add ons. It could definitely do with 32GB RAM and a copy of windows installed instead. :wink:

1 Like

Two comments from me
1 do not be blinded by 4K it is not much different
2 do not be obsessed with FPS, 30 IS GOOD

11 Likes

I agree, I’m not bothered about either, in truth. And 30FPS is more than good enough.

1 Like

You should be happy then. Take the plunge.

1 Like

re 4K, it probably depends on what someone is going to be viewing it on. On a monitor and close in FS probably looks great at 1440p, but on a large screen UHD TV (I have 48" but some people go as high as 55"->77" or more) it would make a huge difference. There is a 2.5X difference increase in pixel count to process.
Also worth noting - I’ve seen refs to others on here saying that 1440p isn’t great for widescreen monitor so probably worthwhile reviewing up front what you are going to be viewing it on before making PC/GPU choice. For a std format monitor close in 1440p difference to 4K will be negigable though, but hardware required to run it significantly less.

1 Like

I think I’d like the option of 4K, so looking at the price difference between a 3070 and a 3080 enabled setup, it’s not massive, so I’ll probably go for the 3080. The 3090 seems like overkill, to me. That’ll obviously impact on the PSU especially with an i7 (I think that’d be better than an i5) I’ll probably need at least a 750W PSU there. Regarding CPU’s, the price difference is pretty negligible so yes it certainly makes sense to go for a higher spec one.

Don’t underestimate the power supply- I’d say 900-1000W for 3080/3090.
By the time you add in the other components and their peak power draw.

2 Likes

Cheers. It’s a minefield of options, the PC. I’m reasonably well versed in PC’s but even I find it occasionally a bit bewildering.

1 Like

There are also great mods to be had on the PC side also, As well as VR if you ever decide to have that :slight_smile:

1 Like

Do it, I went from Series S to Series X to PC in VR, loving it.

2 Likes

…or simply a route, for far more people to take up simming and to progress to the more detailed experience offered by the PC platform?

That’s why I ended up with a prebuild with 3 yr warranty. No issues since new (Jan). If you have an old pc you may be able to get FS to run at a low render scale / resolution / lod etc on it. I had a slow gpu laptop which runs FS fine but at 900x720 render scale (75% ). Apart from anything else it allows you to explore PC graphics settings and optimisations ahead of time. FS still looks fine on a laptop screen at 900x720 but my gpu fans were running at 100%.
Which brings me to another factor to contemplate if not one of the most important factors - cooling. The series X is an uber quiet unit. PCs can be noisey with so many fans going. Try to choose an airy enough case design with good cooling and you will have a much quieter time. I do miss the silence of the series X!

2 Likes

Yes, the move to PC is definitely worth it on everything which called itself to be a simulation. One could call it PC master race but you have an unlimited amount of freedom when it comes to settings, components and add-ons.

Also proper CPUs allow more specific operations and registers from which a proper simulation benefits, CPUs on consoles usually focus on more basic operations per second - for this reason complex mathematic calculations will take longer which has a negative impact on performance in general.

That’s fine for shooters and races or arcade flying like Ace Combat but not on an actual flightsim with in depth systems and a proper CFD simulation imho :slight_smile:

I’m on the same system I build back in 2019 (i9900k, RTX 2080ti, 64GB RAM DDR4 4000) and still get 30 to 40fps on 4k with most settings on ultra and even above but grass (high) to keep landings more FPS friendly :slight_smile:

2 Likes

If you don’t mind me asking, what are your specs?

I’m using a 27” 4K Samsung screen running at 4k with 100% scaling

LOD is set at 400 and 200 respectively

I get 30-40 fps in most scenarios (I’m not bothered about fps as long as its “smooth”.

The PC is an off the shelf HP Omen, with i7 11000 series and 32GB Ram (I upgraded it from 16GB - but I don’t see a significant difference.)

It came with a 3070ti and seems to work without issues.

I already had the monitor, and I bought the PC in January 22. I think the specs have probably improved slightly since then. I could have built my own (have done for many years) but the last two I’ve bought off the shelf because its convenient and the warranty’s were pretty good.
I think the Dell XPS I had was more solidly built than the HP Omen I bought in January, but at the time, the HP spec was better.

1 Like