Guys,
In mid-March, I will be upgrading my 5600X/RTX-3070 system to a 5800X3D/RX-7800XT. I’ve never owned an AMD GPU in my life before, so I’m looking for some basic guidance on how to set up FS2020 in the game-specific settings section in the AMD Adrenaline app. My current system is running with 32GB of Trident Z Neo 3600 DDR4, and that will not be changing.
Thanks in advance!
With my 6800XT I run graphics at high/ultra at 3440x1440p and am still usually main thread limited with a 13600K overclocked, TLOD ~250.
So, just crank it up!
I’m admittedly not an owner of an AMD card but a good friend of mine is, he leaves the actual GPU totally standard from the box and alters the MSFS settings to suit, he’s on a 1440 monitor and averages 60-70fps quite comfortably at the ultra preset. I hope this is of some use to you and best of luck with your upgrade. From my standpoint as a 4080 owner on an Intel based platform, I do the same in the sense of leaving everything factory standard and just moving MSFS settings around, for me this leaves a small margin for hardware error.
There’s nothing you absolutely need to do unless you plan to overclock or undervolt. When you install Adrenalin, you’ll have options for driver only, minimal, or full version. Drivers only is just that with no configurable options. Minimal gives you some options, but I can’t remember off hand if it allows tuning. I run the full version so I have access to Adrenalin’s built in screen recorder. It’s largely user preference, but I’ve seen some people say the driver only version is the most stable and many problems are related to Adrenalin features. I have a 6600XT, and the only problems I’ve seen are when I push my overclock too much. Lol.
For overclocking and undervolting, Adrenalin has a couple of automatic options for this, but it’s pretty conservative. In my case, I can do either one or the other, but this may be card specific. If I try to undervolt plus overclock, it will override the undervolt setting and run at stock voltage anyway. Even with a very mild OC.
If you do overclock, I would suggest looking up tutorials on how to do it with your specific card. It seems not all AMD cards respond to MSI Afterburner, ironically including my MSI 6600xt. Lol. The most common method is to OC the memory first until that is fully stable, then work on the core speed. In Adrenaline you’ll see a minimum and maximum core speed. You’ll set your OC based on the max core speed, with the minimum set to 100 MHz lower. This only happens when the card is loaded in gaming or benchmark loads, so don’t worry about it running full tilt at all times.
If it’s not responding to Afterburner but you prefer to use it, then tune your OC with Adrenalin first. With a benchmark or game running to get the card loaded, go into Afterburner and save a new profile. That will capture the current settings in the GPU, and then you can load it later if needed. This would also mean you can uninstall Adrenalin to drivers only if you want, but you’ll have to re-install it if you need to tweak again.
Again, this is all general advise that may not apply to your card since they occasionally change things around. Verify this for your card if you plan to tune it manually so you get optimal settings. Also mind your temps! An OC means nothing if the card is thermally throttling lower. In some cases you may get better performance with undervolting due to the reduced heat load.
And I almost forgot, you’ll want to turn on Smart Access Memory now that you’ll be on AMD for both CPU and GPU, which improves memory performance. If that option is greyed out in Adrenalin, you’ll need to go into the motherboard BIOS and turn on Resizable Bar.
What screen resolution and refresh rate will you be running with your new gpu?
I’m not planning to overclock, as I’m going with the Sapphire Nitro+ 7800XT (factory overclocked). I’ve got a lot to learn in the next few weeks, so I’m going to keep reading & watching YT videos as needed.
WingWarper1 - My monitor is a 27" IPS Asus model at 1440p @ 144Hz.
I’ve heard a lot of good things about the Nitro+ line, but it’s a bit hard to justify the price premium relative to other options in a given card class for my pocketbook. They do have a monster heatsink, so that combined with an undervolt should make for a quiet system if you choose to try it.
But like I said, there really isn’t much to worry about aside from enabling Rebar and SAM. The other intricacies only really come into play if you plan to custom tune it.
Excellent - I was hoping you were going to be running your new gpu at more than 1080p at 60Hz. 1440p at 144Hz should work great with the 7800XT on the sim. Make sure you try experimenting with FSR2 and AFMF. You should be able to run the sim at ultra settings except for maybe Tlod, Olod & clouds.
May I humbly suggest that running everything on Ultra (ignoring the LOD twins and clouds for a moment) is counterproductive, regardless of hardware.
This video really opened my eyes to the very small visual fidelity gains at the expense of performance for some of the sim’s graphics options. (For others, Ultra is clearly the best option.)
Yes, it’s done on a 1080p system, and yes, I’d like to see a similar video done for 2K and 4K. But I believe the overall results would be similar, with 2K and 4K probably losing a bit less performance for the same increase in visual fidelity.
Point being, there’s no good reason to run everything on Ultra.
I’ve seen a few videos similar to this and I’ve turned my settings down from Ultra (almost all on High now) …. 1080 display, getting nothing extra from the Ultra settings.
I do leave clouds on Ultra though, there is an impact there, or so I found.
I imagine the size of your monitor is significant as well, maybe change one at a time and observe the results.
I also have Clouds set to Ultra. I followed many of the settings in that video, and I’m fine with the results on my 4K monitor. The LOD twins can be set much lower than what I thought without negatively affecting anything - except at higher altitudes where the horizon is much farther away, and draw distance becomes very noticable.
Hopefully FS2024 will include a dynamic LOD feature, where the twins are adjusted in the background based on altitude - and ideally, performance metrics monitored within the sim itself. It makes no sense to start TLOD at 100 on the ground in order to reduce CPU load (and stutters) and then have to exit/resume a flight to adjust it to 300 at altitude (where it has a far smaller hit on performance, and a significant improvement in fidelity.)
Monitor size doesn’t make a difference, only the resolution.