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Hardware recommendations: Difference between revisions
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(Add not about turning DDS texture cache on. Elaborate a bit on performance bottlenecks based on settings etc) |
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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. | 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. | 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. | ||
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. | ||