I am weak, bought a cheap GPU

[AstroGimp01]

So the slideshow framerates finally got to me yesterday and after my knee rehab appointment I tripped and fell into Fry's Electronics where I accidentally picked up a 4GB GTX 1050Ti.

Now some interesting observations care of MSI Afterburner.

I have seen my GPU usage go from essentially constant 100% with the 2GB R7 360 (even with a mild OC) to more 30% with GTX 1050Ti, occasionally 50% but it is not working very hard. GPU Mem usage averages 3.5-3.7 GB so I believe that a lot of my spikes/freezes were GPU Mem related.

I now hit 15+ FPS in the PU at 1080 and High/Very High (does not seem to be a big difference there or down to Medium), and am now down to what I believe are either pagefile access issues (an SSD will fix that), and network performance. This is about 5-7 FPS better than the R7 360.

Since I put the extra 4GB RAM I had lying around in, the RAM Mem load is better but Afterburner shows a total Mem usage averaging 15GB with SC and basic Windows, etc. When I only had 16GB this too was contributing to spikes and freezes.

Now, out and about in the PTU, even if FPS indicates 15 or less, the actual display is substantially smoother and has been a completely different playing experience.

Thanks to the Cryptocurrency miners GPU prices have gone up along with memory costs, and I figured less than $170 was OK since more than that would be a substantial fraction of a new gaming rig which I plan to put off until much later in '18/possibly '19 even.

I will still put a 250GB SSD in soon and see if that also helps but I have already enjoyed a substantial improvement in stable FPS and as a result in playability - I suspect I'll see much better FPS in a less-busy server as well.

I also learned a very important lesson - I was moving cables around and unplugged the USB cables for my joysticks with the game active - big mistake, I had to rebind everything since when I put them back in I reversed them by accident and after putting them in SC will only see them as reversed. If you need to hotswap cables be sure the game is not active.

'Gimp

 

[Toihva]

My honest 2 cents - 1050 Ti will be fine for the alpha/beta, but when release comes (which I personally think is 1.5-2yrs) to upgrade to a higher end graphics card. Does that mean something like the a GTX x80 Ti, no. But something like a GTX x70 would be great.

RAM prices are minimally impacted by miners, the real reason is the Smartphones. The RAM for the Crypto is just to run the OS, the actual GPU does the mining.

 

[marcsand2]

I also learned a very important lesson - I was moving cables around and unplugged the USB cables for my joysticks with the game active - big mistake, I had to rebind everything since when I put them back in I reversed them by accident and after putting them in SC will only see them as reversed. If you need to hotswap cables be sure the game is not active.

Even worse. If you unplug while the PC is on and plug them back in, they get mixed up. Windows gives each controller an ID, depending on USB port, controller type and god know what more. SC doesn't look at controller name, it looks at controller ID. There are some programs to change controller ID, but they also don't work 100%.

The only solution I found is:
- never unplug any controller while PC is on
- never plug in a controller when PC is on
- always plug in a controller at the same USB port or USB hub
[EDIT]
- never ever unplug any controller

The fun part comes when you have more then 4 controllers. I have 2 flightsticks, 1 throttle, 1 rudderpedal, 1 G13 which also counts as a virtual controller and 2 MFDs which also count as 2 controllers.
The flightsticks, rudder pedal and throttle must be the first 4 controllers, otherwise you will get problems in SC, throttle which can't be set to 0 anymore, bindings which don't work anymore when using another controller.
I had to disable the G13 virtual controller and try every USB port combination to get my MFDs behind every other controller.

After regreasing the flightsticks I had to hardware-calibrate them. Guess what: unplug both flightsticks, start calibration program, plug in flightstick, calibrate, unplug flight stick, repeat same procedure for the 2nd flight stick. That was a lot of fun!!!!
To unplug and plug in a flightstick I must crawl between the side consoles, underneath the keyboard slider and over the rudder pedals, because the USB hub is behind my pit.

 

[Printimus]

not a bad little upgrade

 

[Cool-Hand-Luke]

So the slideshow framerates finally got to me yesterday and after my knee rehab appointment I tripped and fell into Fry's Electronics where I accidentally picked up a 4GB GTX 1050Ti.

Now some interesting observations care of MSI Afterburner.

I have seen my GPU usage go from essentially constant 100% with the 2GB R7 360 (even with a mild OC) to more 30% with GTX 1050Ti, occasionally 50% but it is not working very hard. GPU Mem usage averages 3.5-3.7 GB so I believe that a lot of my spikes/freezes were GPU Mem related.

I now hit 15+ FPS in the PU at 1080 and High/Very High (does not seem to be a big difference there or down to Medium), and am now down to what I believe are either pagefile access issues (an SSD will fix that), and network performance. This is about 5-7 FPS better than the R7 360.

Since I put the extra 4GB RAM I had lying around in, the RAM Mem load is better but Afterburner shows a total Mem usage averaging 15GB with SC and basic Windows, etc. When I only had 16GB this too was contributing to spikes and freezes.

Now, out and about in the PTU, even if FPS indicates 15 or less, the actual display is substantially smoother and has been a completely different playing experience.

Thanks to the Cryptocurrency miners GPU prices have gone up along with memory costs, and I figured less than $170 was OK since more than that would be a substantial fraction of a new gaming rig which I plan to put off until much later in '18/possibly '19 even.

I will still put a 250GB SSD in soon and see if that also helps but I have already enjoyed a substantial improvement in stable FPS and as a result in playability - I suspect I'll see much better FPS in a less-busy server as well.

I also learned a very important lesson - I was moving cables around and unplugged the USB cables for my joysticks with the game active - big mistake, I had to rebind everything since when I put them back in I reversed them by accident and after putting them in SC will only see them as reversed. If you need to hotswap cables be sure the game is not active.

'Gimp

+1 on the SSD
You will notice an all around system performance improvement...

 

[maynard]

I am learning so much good stuff about what I need to include in my build for Star Citizen

thanks, TESTes!

 

[AstroGimp01]

So found a lightly loaded server and was solid 30 FPS for over an hour, it was so beautful, even at Levski I was averaging 20 which let me explore the whole facility, my God the details - so F'ing cool. Only issue is no trading console would recognize my Penguin as available, it showed up along with my Connie's but I could not select it to buy to - bummer, but I explored instead and had mucho fun.

SSD is next to improve even MOAR!!

'Gimp

 

[Sraika]

The minimum vram for SC is actually 4gb, according to their minimum specs. Of course, even with that, my fps still sucks.

 

[AstroGimp01]

Just spent a couple hours shuttling goods around the Stanton System in my Connie, much bigger pucker factor than the Penguin, last run netted over 150K aUEC, not bad for a medium weight freighter that does double duty as a gunship, and that wasn't even full but I hit my pain threshold for bank balance.

First time I have had the Connie out in a LONG time and soloing her is fun but sure could have used a security detail - not sure if the absence of a 'lock doors' command means they lock except for pilot or that they can't be locked, but it did show an 'Unlock Doors' command.

Was on a loaded server, showing 35 of 50 when I joined, couple times coming out of QD into the crowded space around Port O I was at sphincter-level diamond, especially the last run with 300K aUEC worth of cargo on board, literally little HUD target circles all over the place, looked like a swarm of bees.

On this server I was averaging around 15 FPS compared to the 30 I was getting earlier - 1920x1080 - High, GPU Mem averaged 3.6GB, RAM Mem usage averaged 15 GB including OS and limited background tasks (Discord mostly) - All 6 cores are averaging 50-70% with occasional spikes to high 80's/low 90's but only on 2 at a time (FX6300 'turbo's' 4 of the six so that makes sense).

Took some great screenshots (I think) will pull them off gaming rig a little later.

I am liking this release and now can't wait for my Carrack! My best guess says this time next year for Carrack unless they surprise us (not likely).

'Gimp

 

[AstroGimp01]

Shots from today's fun:

I seriously dig the blue low lights in the Connie, fantastic effect

A ship FULL of cargo, making that pyramid Mummy monies

A boy and his Connie

Inbound

Felt like Han Fucking Solo running around in the Connie today, glorious fun, next time I need to invite friends along.

Oh yeah, how sexy is Connie with the turrets retracted - ooh la la.

'Gimp

 

[CosmicTrader]

Very nice.
Congrats on your new GPU.

 

[Takeiteasy]

I just hope my build holds up as I spent a fortune on an entire new PC almost exclusively because of SC.

I got a i7 6800k OCd to 4.2 (could go higher)
16GB RAM (could go higher)
M.2 256GB SSD (fast enough)
Nvidia GTX 1080 (Fast enough I hope)

Hope this holds up as I don't want to go spending more on it.

 

[marcsand2]

I just hope my build holds up as I spent a fortune on an entire new PC almost exclusively because of SC.

I got a i7 6800k OCd to 4.2 (could go higher)
16GB RAM (could go higher)
M.2 256GB SSD (fast enough)
Nvidia GTX 1080 (Fast enough I hope)

Hope this holds up as I don't want to go spending more on it.

Looking good, as long as you use pagefile, the 16GB RAM is sufficient. I have 32GB and switched off pagefile. Maybe I will try to switch between no pagefile / yes pagefile to see if there is a lot difference, if I can get stable values.

 

[maynard]

Looking good, as long as you use pagefile, the 16GB RAM is sufficient. I have 32GB and switched off pagefile. Maybe I will try to switch between no pagefile / yes pagefile to see if there is a lot difference, if I can get stable values.

if you have plenty of ram try making a ramdisk and put the pagefile on it

 

[BUTUZ]

Strong people buy graphics cards! You are stroooong!!!!

 

[marcsand2]

if you have plenty of ram try making a ramdisk and put the pagefile on it

That is a good one. I read somewhere that some games rely on pagefile. RAM is the fastest pagefile :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

 

[hardroc77]

Shots from today's fun:

I seriously dig the blue low lights in the Connie, fantastic effect
View attachment 8692

A ship FULL of cargo, making that pyramid Mummy monies
View attachment 8693

A boy and his Connie
View attachment 8694

Inbound
View attachment 8695

View attachment 8696

View attachment 8697

Felt like Han Fucking Solo running around in the Connie today, glorious fun, next time I need to invite friends along.

Oh yeah, how sexy is Connie with the turrets retracted - ooh la la.

'Gimp

Those are some great shots. Good job on the GPU. I wish SLi worked better for SC

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I have been looking at the 4gb 1050ti for a while. Good to see it can bring such a drastic improvement, if it wern't for those stinkin' Crypto miners i might even have got one by now.

 

[AstroGimp01]

So probably 4 sessions today, never hit the glory of yesterday with the 30 FPS, but even at 12-18 it is much smoother than before and is playable, combat at 15 FPS is my minimum since I can still land shots. I suspect I was seeing maybe 2/3 of the indicated FPS I had before because there is a noticeable difference even at only 15-18 FPS.

Interesting still is the CPU shows an average 50-70% load across all six cores, and the GPU is less than 50%, typically 30's - so the GPU is not the bottleneck IMO. Running 1920x1080 @ Very High. My monitor is 4K but a slower refresh rate than current displays (it is either 30 or 60 Hz I think), so I don't need anything faster than 30 FPS.

I tried a mild OC on the FX6300 today, so all six cores are running 4 GHz, no noticeable difference, I also tried a huge pagefile (30GB since back in the day they recommended 1.5 times RAM size but that is probably overkill, I am going to go back to 4GB tomorrow). In hindsight, this might have actually slowed things down, but no way to know for sure.

On the hardware side I suspect my remaining limitations are the RAM itself, I have 20GB but it is DDR3 which is not particularly fast, and the other is lack of speed on the HDD, so I will be grabbing a Samsung 250 GB SSD tomorrow after my knee appointment (Fry's has 'em at about $100 after rebate). That will help my FSX gaming too.

I still see pretty substantial FPS swings based on which server location I set, BEST still gives me the best luck-of-the-draw, I have tried EU and AUS to take advantage of timezone differences to get a less crowded server but since I am not the only one trying it that does not seem to help as much - but in general I see anywhere from 10-15 when I spawn in all the way to high 20's. That is server-side, not client-side, so that is on CIG to fix.

Still happy with the upgrade, just wish I could routinely/reliably get those buttery smooth 20+ FPS - the eye can't really perceive faster than about 24 FPS anyway so when I average 20 or better I am happy.

'Gimp

 

[Michael]

Bought a 240 GB SSD for SC (already have one 120GB for OS and Software) Lets see how it turns out