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Hardware recommendations: Difference between revisions
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→Recommendations for FlightGear in 2021 (2020.3 LTS): cleanup
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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. | ''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: | ||
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* The LTS you should be running is the current 2020.3.8+ LTS. (March 2020). | * The LTS you should be running is the current 2020.3.8+ LTS. (March 2020). | ||
* People buying new hardware with FlightGear in mind are encouraged to wait until LTS '' | * People buying new hardware with FlightGear in mind are encouraged to wait until LTS ''after'' the current 2020.3 LTS, ''if possible'' - that is, if they imagine they will be using the hardware for a long while so it makes a difference. | ||
*# Future performance requirements will not be known until the LTS after the current LTS. Some of the big projects underway on the FlightGear next branch need to be finished before requirements can be determined. These projects include moving to: the new [[Compositor]] rendering framework, the [[World Scenery 3.0 roadmap|next generation scenery]] rendering and data format, a higher version of OpenGL, in-sim UI replacement, and so on. | *# Future performance requirements will not be known until the LTS after the current LTS. Some of the big projects underway on the FlightGear next branch need to be finished before requirements can be determined. These projects include moving to: the new [[Compositor]] rendering framework, the [[World Scenery 3.0 roadmap|next generation scenery]] rendering and data format, a higher version of OpenGL, in-sim UI replacement, and so on. | ||
*# Hardware prices will be expected to drop once the situation with the pandemic eases. Hardware is getting steadily faster. Hardware with the same performance is getting cheaper. You should never buy hardware for a ''future'' version of FlightGear or any other program. It's always better to wait until the application releases (and until the hardware purchase is justifiable as you have time to start using it properly). | *# Hardware prices will be expected to drop once the situation with the pandemic eases. Hardware is getting steadily faster. Hardware with the same performance is getting cheaper. You should never buy hardware for a ''future'' version of FlightGear or any other program. It's always better to wait until the application releases (and until the hardware purchase is justifiable as you have time to start using it properly). | ||
*# 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>. | * 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>. | |||
:The DDS texture cache makes loading faster, and can make the sim feel smoother. it 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. | ||