1,746
edits
Hardware recommendations: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
Add not about turning DDS texture cache on. Elaborate a bit on performance bottlenecks based on settings etc
m (cleanup) |
(Add not about turning DDS texture cache on. Elaborate a bit on performance bottlenecks based on settings etc) |
||
| Line 3: | Line 3: | ||
The performance of FlightGear depends on three main components in your computer: the CPU (processor), which makes all the computations; the graphics card, which renders the visual aspect of FlightGear, and RAM (also known as memory) which generally allows FlightGear to have more information running (for the lack of a more technical phrase). | The performance of FlightGear depends on three main components in your computer: the CPU (processor), which makes all the computations; the graphics card, which renders the visual aspect of FlightGear, and RAM (also known as memory) which generally allows FlightGear to have more information running (for the lack of a more technical phrase). | ||
You may also want to check out the following article on building your own FlightGear box based on decommissioned and refurbished server at [[Howto: Build a cheap FlightGear box]], and also learn about how the FlightGear project handles old hardware support at [[FlightGear and old Hardware]]. | You may also want to check out the following article on building your own FlightGear box based on decommissioned and refurbished server at [[Howto: Build a cheap FlightGear box]], and also learn about how the FlightGear project handles old hardware support at [[FlightGear and old Hardware]] - see [[Minimal Startup Profile]]. | ||
Also see: [[FlightGear Benchmark]] | Also see: [[FlightGear Benchmark]] | ||
== Recommendations for FlightGear in 2021 (2020.3 LTS) == | == Recommendations for FlightGear in 2021 (2020.3 LTS) == | ||
{{Stub|section=yes}} | {{Stub|section=yes}} | ||
FlightGear can scale the quality to run on a huge range of hardware at different quality settings. | FlightGear can scale the quality to run on a huge range of hardware at different quality settings. | ||
Note for old hardware: Towards the less powerful end of the range, for FlightGear to run smoothly, it requires a video card with OpenGL drivers 2.0 or higher. You need to spend some time learning settings, and tweaking for bottlenecks, to run FlightGear on very old systems. See [[Minimal Startup Profile]] to start with a bare minimum and then turn settings up. | |||
Quick notes: | Quick notes: | ||
| Line 20: | Line 23: | ||
*# There is a 1st rollout of buildings, roads, and objects for the world based on OSM data. Please don't buy hardware based on this rollout. The performance in future rollouts will improve drastically as objects are changed to a newer format. See [[OSM2City 1st Worldbuild]] for details. | *# There is a 1st rollout of buildings, roads, and objects for the world based on OSM data. Please don't buy hardware based on this rollout. The performance in future rollouts will improve drastically as objects are changed to a newer format. See [[OSM2City 1st Worldbuild]] for details. | ||
* For current hardware requirements (with scenery layers containing the new OSM2City world-build disabled): FlightGear 2020.3 LTS is faster than the 2018.3 LTS. The 2018.3 LTS hardware profile below is valid - but only one profile and hardware build is available in the 2018.3 LTS section as of writing this. | * For current hardware requirements (with scenery layers containing the new OSM2City world-build disabled): FlightGear 2020.3 LTS is faster than the 2018.3 LTS. The 2018.3 LTS hardware profile below is valid - but only one profile and hardware build is available in the 2018.3 LTS section as of writing this. | ||
* The DDS texture cache should be turned on: <code>[[Qt-launcher|Qt Launcher]] > Settings tab > Rendering > Show more > enable Cache graphics for faster loading</code> or,<code>in-sim menu > View > Rendering > enable Use disk space for faster loading (DDS texture cache)</code>. This makes loading faster, and can make the sim feel smoother. This also helps older systems - as it reduces VRAM usage on the Graphics card (GPU), as well as reducing RAM usage. The DDS texture cache will grow in size mainly as you try new aircraft. It will grow in size a bit as you visit new locations, if you have scenery objects like landmarks enabled. | |||
* There is a new graphics profile system being developed for future FlightGear. This will at least have some named settings presets which can be associated with some hardware and performance categories. | * There is a new graphics profile system being developed for future FlightGear. This will at least have some named settings presets which can be associated with some hardware and performance categories. | ||
== Recommended hardware for FlightGear 2018.3 LTS == | == Recommended hardware for FlightGear 2018.3 LTS == | ||
Only one target performance and settings profile has been written below. Other settings profiles are to-do. FlightGear can scale the quality to run on a huge range of hardware at different quality settings. | Only one target performance and settings profile has been written below. Other settings profiles are to-do. FlightGear can scale the quality to run on a huge range of hardware at different quality settings. | ||
''Note for old hardware:'' Towards the less powerful end of the range, for FlightGear to run smoothly, it requires a video card with OpenGL drivers 2.0 or higher. You need to spend some time learning settings, and tweaking for bottlenecks, to run FlightGear on very old systems. See [[Minimal Startup Profile]] to start with a bare minimum and then turn settings up. | |||
Before selecting a GPU and CPU have a look at the benchmark lists in the [[Hardware recommendations#Mostly high and Max settings with 2015.2B mid range GPU|profile]] below for an approximate idea of performance. If you are choosing a laptop see the manufacturers website for that model to find out your GPU and CPU, and check the list. Remember the slowest component will be the limiting component. For example: if you want high graphics but your GPU is slow, having a very fast CPU will not help. Higher resolutions needs faster GPUs, you can't run FlightGear at 4k woith a laptop if your manufacturer has not included a fast 3d card even if they have included a fast GPU - you need to run FlightGear at lower resolution or find a laptop with faster GPU. If you run out of RAM then you cannot have really high visibility ranges or object densities even if your GPU and CPU is fast. The tips in the sections below about avoiding Intel integrated GPUs, mobile laptop GPUs, and low range NVIDIA GPUs (xx10, xx20, xx30, xx40) apply. | Before selecting a GPU and CPU have a look at the benchmark lists in the [[Hardware recommendations#Mostly high and Max settings with 2015.2B mid range GPU|profile]] below for an approximate idea of performance. If you are choosing a laptop see the manufacturers website for that model to find out your GPU and CPU, and check the list. Remember the slowest component will be the limiting component. For example: if you want high graphics but your GPU is slow, having a very fast CPU will not help. Higher resolutions needs faster GPUs, you can't run FlightGear at 4k woith a laptop if your manufacturer has not included a fast 3d card even if they have included a fast GPU - you need to run FlightGear at lower resolution or find a laptop with faster GPU. If you run out of RAM then you cannot have really high visibility ranges or object densities even if your GPU and CPU is fast. The tips in the sections below about avoiding Intel integrated GPUs, mobile laptop GPUs, and low range NVIDIA GPUs (xx10, xx20, xx30, xx40) apply. | ||
| Line 31: | Line 37: | ||
Requirements are only valid for a target FPS, monitor resolution, usage, and graphics / simulation quality settings. People have a huge range of hardware. | Requirements are only valid for a target FPS, monitor resolution, usage, and graphics / simulation quality settings. People have a huge range of hardware. | ||
For flight simulators the usage can vary depending on the craft used, how the craft is used, and over what scenery the craft is used. The visibility range can change with altitude, how fast the scenery is loaded can change with speeds. How complex the visuals are depends on how much vegetation or man-made buildings are in the visible scenery. The following all place different demands: slow and low with a balloon/[[pterosaur]]/glider/wingsuit/ground effect vehicle, slightly faster and higher in a single prop [[Cessna 172P|C172P]]/[[Cessna 182S|C182]]/[[Piper J3 Cub|Cub]]/[[Piper PA28 Warrior II|PA]], fast and low in a supersonic [[Saab 37 Viggen|Viggen]]/[[Grumman F-14 Tomcat|F-14]] jet, higher altitude but slower in a [[Airbus A320 Family|A320]] airliner, fast and high in a Concorde, extremely fast and high in suborbital craft like the [[X-15]] , or using a [[Space Shuttle|Shuttle]] or [[Vostok-1]] space craft that is fast enough to reach orbit. View distances can vary from [[:File:EC135 Heer.jpeg|individual grass blades]] in airport keep to seeing [[:Category:Screenshots of Earthview|entire continents]] from orbit using an orbital renderer. Flying over a dense forest can mean [[:File:Alouette-lll over the Carpathian Mountains in Romania in Autumn (Flightgear 2018.x).jpg|vast]] amounts of trees are in view, while flying over a barren desert or ocean can mean there are few objects. Different craft place different demands on CPU and GPU. Some craft have detailed electronic and mechanical systems which are demanding on the CPU to simulate, while a craft like a glider does not. Some craft have high fidelity graphics and complex electronic displays - these can be demanding on the CPU and loading times, not just the GPU!. Some craft have options to reduce graphics. | For flight simulators the usage can vary depending on the craft used, how the craft is used, and over what scenery the craft is used. The visibility range can change with altitude, how fast the scenery is loaded can change with speeds. How complex the visuals are depends on how much vegetation or man-made buildings are in the visible scenery. The following all place different demands: slow and low with a balloon/[[pterosaur]]/glider/wingsuit/ground effect vehicle, slightly faster and higher in a single prop [[Cessna 172P|C172P]]/[[Cessna 182S|C182]]/[[Piper J3 Cub|Cub]]/[[Piper PA28 Warrior II|PA]], fast and low in a supersonic [[Saab 37 Viggen|Viggen]]/[[Grumman F-14 Tomcat|F-14]] jet, higher altitude but slower in a [[Airbus A320 Family|A320]] airliner, fast and high in a Concorde, extremely fast and high in suborbital craft like the [[X-15]] , or using a [[Space Shuttle|Shuttle]] or [[Vostok-1]] space craft that is fast enough to reach orbit. View distances can vary from [[:File:EC135 Heer.jpeg|individual grass blades]] in airport keep to seeing [[:Category:Screenshots of Earthview|entire continents]] from orbit using an orbital renderer. Flying over a dense forest can mean [[:File:Alouette-lll over the Carpathian Mountains in Romania in Autumn (Flightgear 2018.x).jpg|vast]] amounts of trees are in view, while flying over a barren desert or ocean can mean there are few objects. You can always fly with a lower scenery loading distance and/or a lower visibility distance. A cloudless day can mean there are fewer clouds to draw and also may be lighter on CPU to simulate as Advanced Weather tracks lifecyles of individual clouds. On very old systems turning down cloud density and visibility range can help - as can turning off parts of the Advanced Weather simulation, or using basic weather. If you are flying at night using instruments for navigation, you can turn down graphics settings a lot :) . Different craft place different demands on CPU and GPU. Some craft have detailed electrical, electronic, and mechanical systems which are demanding on the CPU to simulate, while a craft like a glider does not. Some craft have high fidelity graphics and complex electronic displays - these can be demanding on the CPU and loading times, not just the GPU!. Some craft have options to reduce graphics. Some craft have options to reduce CPU usage by making parts of the simulation less responsive or less fine-grained - but these craft tend to be craft which are demanding on the CPU to start with. | ||
Tip: If you have a slow GPU or CPU, you may be able to find craft that are less demanding for your bottleneck. Different aspects of craft can be demanding on the GPU or CPU - systems & instruments, aircraft interior art, aircraft exterior art, or flight dynamics model (FDM). For example, some craft may have detailed systems and instruments but have simple interior art. | |||
Some research projects just produce a flight dynamics model with no art and simple systems. Don't worry about the CPU time taken by the flight dynamics model - it isn't really heavy on CPU to simulate - think of an offline flight dynamics engine like JSBSim as a photo viewer for digital fine-art - it may take hours, days or weeks to render a fine-art quality ray-traced [https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tpe10-bloom-f25-l7-1920.jpg digital image] but your web browser can display it very quickly - similarly JSBSim can take the results of computational fluid dynamics done on a supercomputing cluster, or taken from windtunnel data, and simulate quite quickly. Tip: You can use the filter in <code>[[FlightGear Qt launcher|FlightGear Qt Launcher]] > Air craft tab > Browse > Filter using ratings > click Adjust minimum ratings</code> to lower minimum ratings and look for craft which have e.g. good systems and flight dynamics model but simpler art - but this only gives a ''small'' clue - some craft like a glider may not have much systems to simulate or have a simple model so they are not demanding even when recreated in detail. | |||
Without target FPS, monitor resolution, usage, and settings, requirements are meaningless other than for maximum settings (i.e. meaningless for what hardware people actually have) - even maximum settings are hard to predict as they depend on what scenery a flight can take place. It's not trivial to find exact specifications, even for commercial applications with lots of test systems. Some commercial 3d applications do give out specifications for less than max settings but these mostly do not give target performance/quality/usage at all, and a lot of 3d applications like games have limited usage patterns making it easier to check - since commercial screenshot galleries tend to be on the most powerful systems at time of release without stating hardware, not giving detailed performance/quality/usage targets is also a way of making people forget quality may not look anything like advertised on their hardware. The topic of quality and performance is not as simple as commercial applications make it out to be in their advertising. People should consider that a bit of time spent tweaking settings for the performance bottlenecks in your hardware, for your typical usages, can make a huge difference to visuals and FPS. | Without target FPS, monitor resolution, usage, and settings, requirements are meaningless other than for maximum settings (i.e. meaningless for what hardware people actually have) - even maximum settings are hard to predict as they depend on what scenery a flight can take place. It's not trivial to find exact specifications, even for commercial applications with lots of test systems. Some commercial 3d applications do give out specifications for less than max settings but these mostly do not give target performance/quality/usage at all, and a lot of 3d applications like games have limited usage patterns making it easier to check - since commercial screenshot galleries tend to be on the most powerful systems at time of release without stating hardware, not giving detailed performance/quality/usage targets is also a way of making people forget quality may not look anything like advertised on their hardware. The topic of quality and performance is not as simple as commercial applications make it out to be in their advertising. People should consider that a bit of time spent tweaking settings for the performance bottlenecks in your hardware, for your typical usages, can make a huge difference to visuals and FPS. | ||
| Line 49: | Line 59: | ||
** Scenery layers: Vegetation density: Very High (if you run into RAM issues try turning this down). | ** Scenery layers: Vegetation density: Very High (if you run into RAM issues try turning this down). | ||
** Scenery layers: Vegetation shadows: on. | ** Scenery layers: Vegetation shadows: on. | ||
** Scenery layers: Buildings: Random buildings - or OSM2City with light scenery near small towns, but not OSM2City near areas dense with big buildings (heavier scenery needs a faster CPU). Tweaking random building density: Try setting<code>/sim/rendering/building-density</code> in the range of 1-10. | ** Scenery layers: Buildings: Random buildings - or OSM2City with light scenery near small towns, but not OSM2City near areas dense with big buildings (heavier scenery needs a faster CPU). Tweaking random building density: Try setting<code>/sim/rendering/building-density</code> in the range of 1-10. You can set this in the [[property browser]], or as a [[Command line options|command-line option]] set in various ways including the [[FlightGear Qt launcher|Qt launcher]], | ||
** Scenery layers: everything else on: Scenery objects (includes airport terminals), roads and railways, pylons, random scenery objects | ** Scenery layers: everything else on: Scenery objects (includes airport terminals), roads and railways, pylons, random scenery objects | ||
** Cloud density and visibility range sliders: max. | ** Cloud density and visibility range sliders: max. | ||
| Line 107: | Line 117: | ||
''April 2021 note:'' Check a GPU benchmark list like this for a '''rough''' idea of performance: [https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus Direct link] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20210412095421/https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus April 2021 archive]). If you are selecting a laptop find out what your GPU is - ask or check the manufacturers website page for the model of the laptop. Laptop GPUs: Laptops with NVIDIA 9xx and earlier series GPUs often have the mobile "M" variant. These are a lot slower than the normal version e.g. a GTX 960M is slower than a GTX 960. NVIDIA 10xx series and later use desktop equivalents in all laptops, or close to it. This is due to recent GPU technology using less power making it easier on laptop batteries. There are also Q-MAX variants that are only slightly slower than normal versions but use less battery - e.g. a GTX 1060 Q-MAX is only slightly slower than a GTX 1060 - see benchmarks. (April 2021) | ''April 2021 note:'' Check a GPU benchmark list like this for a '''rough''' idea of performance: [https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus Direct link] ([http://web.archive.org/web/20210412095421/https://benchmarks.ul.com/compare/best-gpus April 2021 archive]). If you are selecting a laptop find out what your GPU is - ask or check the manufacturers website page for the model of the laptop. Laptop GPUs: Laptops with NVIDIA 9xx and earlier series GPUs often have the mobile "M" variant. These are a lot slower than the normal version e.g. a GTX 960M is slower than a GTX 960. NVIDIA 10xx series and later use desktop equivalents in all laptops, or close to it. This is due to recent GPU technology using less power making it easier on laptop batteries. There are also Q-MAX variants that are only slightly slower than normal versions but use less battery - e.g. a GTX 1060 Q-MAX is only slightly slower than a GTX 1060 - see benchmarks. (April 2021) | ||
Stay away from nVidia GPUs with a low second digit (x20, x40). Higher 2nd digit means more CUDA cores. | Recent NVIDIA price/performance trends (March 2021): | ||
* Each GPU slot tends to get the performance of the GPU slot above it from the last generation. e.g. A GTX 1650 (xx50 slot) will get the a the performance of a GTX 1060 (xx60 slot). | |||
* The price and performance sweet spot are the midrange cards xx50, XX50 Ti and xx60. xx50 Ti might be around the best slot. | |||
* The fastest cards are released first each GPU generation (e.g. xx80 Ti or xx90), and are priced high to sell to enthusiasts - for GPU chips yields are also low to start so there's a limited number of hardware.GPUs are released in decreasing order of performance to tempt people to buy a performance range that they don't need. AMD follows the same pattern. | |||
* Hardware prices are expected to drop as the situation with the global pandemic eases. | |||
Stay away from nVidia GPUs with a low second digit (x20, xx20, x40, xx40). Higher 2nd digit means more CUDA cores. | |||
The number of CUDA cores matters much more than a few Mhz in frequency, since you can process more, in parallel. | The number of CUDA cores matters much more than a few Mhz in frequency, since you can process more, in parallel. | ||