Poor performance Orbx scenery on 3-Screen Eyefinity. How much RAM should I add?

[ThrottleUp]

Hey guys 

Please could you help me out with some advice. The specs of my system are in my sig below. Im on Eyefinity using 3 screens and FSX runs brilliant on them, however (understandably) when flying in Orbx scenery (PNW etc) FSX is turned into a slideshow.

However when I want to fly with Orbx enabled I use the ATI Catalyst profile manager and enable just one monitor. I miss the wide FOV of Eyefinity of course but at least Orbx scenery runs nice and smooth.

Obviously my system is struggling with the hi-res demands of the Orbx scenery. I only recently upgraded my GFX card to a overclocked 5850 so I cant get another one now. However I was wondering about my RAM. Will performance on Orbx across 3-screen improve a lot if I increase the RAM to 6GB - or even 12GB? I have Windows 7 64bit. Will all this extra RAM make a difference?

Thanks a lot I really wanna fix this cuz I love Orbx and moreover I wanna fly in it with 3 screens!!!!!

[TenBlade]

I think you should overclock your cpu first, and see what that does. You should be able to get it to about 3.5 I think, here´s a guide http://www.bit-tech.net/hardware/cpus/2008/11/06/overclocking-intel-core-i7-920/1 And make sure your cooler is up to it.

3 GB of ram is also on the low side, I´d say. Background ops are using some of that memory too. So, upping it to 6 gigz wouldn´t hurt. But your cpu has to get a tune up, otherwise your cpu will be your next bottle neck.

Bjorn

[ThrottleUp]

Thank you for that link Bjorn it is very interesting. Im reading it now. Unfortunately I have never overclocked a CPU in my life before and have zero knowledge of it

Also I only have the stock cooler. However I do realize that my CPU is capable of much more. So I guess I will have to read up on how to go about this before playing around. In the meantime do you think its save to OC it just a *little* with just the stock cooler. Its at 2.67Ghz now...maybe push it to 2.80 or somethin? Will that make a diff?

In the meantime I will add some more RAM upto 6GB. If I can find a good deal maybe I will take it to 12GB.

Thanks for the reply

[TenBlade]

Sure. Go ahead, now the stock cooler isn´t all bad. It´s just for the limits I´d encourage you to get a better one.

But you´re taking it the right way, juuust a little at a time to get comfortable with the whole deal. Next you download and install OCCT and run a standard one hour stress test to see if your oc is stable. In your bios make sure your cut-off temperature is set, what is it for a 920, 80 degr. or so. Probably 80 by default.

12 gigz of memory will not benefit FSX as such, but if you do photo and video editing it´ll come in handy.

I´ll be around if questions arise, and so will a lot of other people here

B

[ThrottleUp]

Great thanks for all the cool advice! Will take things slow and steady hee hee. I'll stick to getting 6GB RAM for now. Maybe that will also help me run Fallout 3 across 3 screens without stuttering hee hee.

Yea I guess the stock cooler will be able to handle a little overclocking. I have 8 fans in my case so hopefully that will help as well.

[Patrick Scharnowski]

A 3 screen solution is limited by the CPU and the GPU power. The former is a factor, because the wider field of view puts more things to render (mesh, autogen) into view and the GPU has to cope with the high resolution and a possible lack of video ram, especially when you use anti aliasing. Although more RAM can't really hurt I doubt that it will make any differene for your problem.

[ThrottleUp]

Thanks for the input Patrick, 6GB RAM is reasonably priced so I will go for that even if it wont help FSX much, might come in handy for my other newer games that designed to take advantage of more RAM.

Its the 3rd screen that makes all the diff. Surprisingly Orbx stuff runs fine across 2 screens with no problems so I guess thats the limit the gfx card can handle. The card itself has 1GB of onboard RAM.

3 X eyefinity res is 1050 X 5040 (I have 3 X 20" widescreen LCDs)

Thankfully default FSX scenery with Ground Environment etc runs perfectly across all 3.

[Maurice_King]

Turn your screen resolution down at least one step and I think you'll find your performance will go up, available memory has an effect but no where near what people think.

I run TH2GO with sliders maxed BUT at 2400X600 across 3 X 22" CRT's and it's sready at 30-40 FPS but more importantly smooth but if I run ate 3840 X  1024 like my desktop FORGET it. My system is base specs by many standards too remember.

Remember the "Eyefinity" does not see the monitors as one like the TH2GO does and this is why the stutter's etc

[ThrottleUp]

Thanks Maurice I will try that out. For now I just disable either one screen or two (depending on the level of stutter) and continue flying. I just "discovered" the Profiles Manager on Catalyst that makes this very easy. So Ive created 3 profiles:

1. Full 3-screen Eyefinity

2. 2-screen Eyefinity

3. Single screen (center display only)

[Ian Routley]

A $90 noctua (or similar) cooler and some basic overclocking videos are what you need.

The i7 is good, but underwhelming at stock speeds.

6Gb won't make an enormous difference (more like breathing room).  Overclocking your RAM will probably make some difference.

[Wolter van der Spoel]

also make sure your RAM speed setting is equal to your FrontSideBus speed ! check that in the BIOS or with the SIW tooly wich is available for free

[Maurice_King]

Question for you ?  When the PC shows the monitor or monitors  in the Display Screen Resolution window does it see 3 monitors or one 5040 X 1040, if it see's 3 separate monitors then this will be the primary reason for the performance drop I fell simply because the Graphics Card has to render 3 screens individually and not one large one.

be interested to know as I have a racer friend who has similar issues and his PC should run that simulation without issue at atll.