I fly VR mode always
Current hardware I have …
CPU: i5 9400F
GPU: RTX 3060
Ram: 2x 8 16GB Corsair Vengance DDR4 3200MHz
How much of a VR performance increase would I get if I upgraded the CPU to i7 9700F
and added another 16GB of memory filling all 4 slots on my motherboard ???
P.S. Apologies if I posted this in the wrong spot …
Awesome community and very happy I joined all you fine folk …!!!
Greetings -
I would recommend at first to get the fastest 8-cores CPU (i.e. with the highest clock frequency) your motherboard can work with
A 8-cores i7 9700K with base clock of 3.6 Ghz and turbo mode of 4.9 Ghz will be a good choice
You can at a second time add the additional 16GB of memory
Hope this helps
And as far as your ram goes, ensure all 4 are the same size and type.
And make sure you enable XMP in your motherboard BIOS.
I’m not sure how important ram is for VR but for 2D 16:9 usually 16GB is OK if it’s fast enough (depending very much on your addons and addon apps).
I just installed another 16GB of ram so now I have 4 x 8gb all 4 slots all the same exact brand …
So am I to understand that 8 core processors are key to performance?
My current i5 9400f only has 6 cores … I just checked that.
Not sure what the “f” or “k” at the end of the processor means yet …
My motherboard supports all 8 & 9th gen processors according to the manual …
I’m stumped on what i7 9th gen 8 core processor I should go for with what I have.
All your opinions matter to me as I’m new to flight simulation and would like to get
the most enjoyment out of it as possible with the best hardware I can get …
I’m hooked … lol
Not if you have hyperthreading enabled it shouldnt be but of course that also depends what else is running alongside. Don’t quote me but with a barebones MSFS on Windows11 I reckon your 6 cores could even run fine with HT disabled. Default Windows10 has more processes running so that I wouldn’t advise.
I did a bit of research for you, the best (fastest) 9th gen CPU for MSFS appears to be this one:
Intel Core i9-9900K 9th Generation 3.6 GHz Turbo boost 5.0 GHz LGA 1151 Socket 8 Cores 16 Threads
I think with 8 cores there should be no need to turn hyperthread on (i.e. using 16 threads, 2 per each core)
I’m not sure my PSU can handle the extra power needed for i9 … ?
FYI … I have an Asrock b360m ib-1r mb … just went into bios to try to find the XMP setting with no luck
There can be issues running XMP across 4 memory slots.
Given VR is usually GPU bound, as it is for me and many others I have helped set up MSFS VR with, most likely not much at all. To check yourself, set up a usual flight you do, turn on Dev Mode and FPS view and see what it is telling you is limiting performance. If GPU frame times are much greater than main thread frame time, then a CPU upgrade isn’t going to do anything for you.
Eg:
I’ve heard that as well, especially with B-die RAM.
But I have 4 x 16GB DDR4-3600/ CAS14 RAM (HP V10 B-die that supports XMP2, and I have no issues.
RAM speed and latency (as reported by GPU-Z) are identical to when I had 2 x 16GB modules.
I can confirm having four sticks of b’s. Although I can use and even OC beyond XMP profiles I have to admit the results are disappointing when compared to using two sticks. PC-3200, with four I can’t get stable beyond 3333MHz yet with two I was stable at 4000 and could boot and even run for a while at 4400, I reckon a small cooling fan would have been enough to stop any BSODS.
My frame rates in vr according to the openxr tool kit overlay are in the high 40s … never knew about checking thread timing …
Anyways I got an i7 9700F coming soon to install already pushed the trigger b4 I read this … I got an ok deal on the i7 … trying everything I can to eliminate shutter lag in vr … the memory increase seemed to make a big difference … but I still get the stutter but not as often
Your main thread and radar thread times are slightly lower than your GPU and it does say you are GPU limited, so you’ll likely not see much of an improvement with a CPU upgrade. Since you have your new CPU coming anyway, it will interesting to see what you experience in the same scenario. Let us know.
But surely he can bump his graphics quality to compensate? Tbh his timings look pretty good and might not be the cause of his ‘shutter lag’. His whole set up is not the fastest afterall and IMO ram speed is critical for MSFS.
Not really because MSFS is already GPU limited and increasing graphics quality will further increase the work load on the GPU, increasing GPU frame time and thus lower overall performance. The extra cores of the 9700 may help with stutters but will likely do nothing to increase FPS with the current settings.
That screenshot saying limited by gpu kept flashing but I wasn’t able to capture it when it read opposite if that makes a difference … hard to see dev mode while in vr without removing headset. This whole journey has been awesome and the community support here is fantastic … Thank u all for ur input … U all are great people …!!!
the 9700 may help with stutters but will likely do nothing to increase FPS
I will be sure to post my results anfter CPU upgrade , As far as streaming or recording , do you think its possible with this rig?
