Anyone got a 1060 6GB?

[D.Va]

Hey, I have a 1060 3GB and was wondering if anyone’s got a 1060 6GB with an i5/i7 playing in 1080p/1200p, for comparison purposes? We could compare framerates flying over Vegas in the Warthog at the same options, or something.

 

My theory is that you only need 3GB VRAM and that 6GB VRAM is a marketing ruse to get you to pay another $100, just like Gaming motherboards over ordinary motherboards (+$100), i7’s over i5’s (+$100), water cooling over air cooling (+$100), 16GB RAM over 8GB RAM (+$100), Pro SSDs (+$100), over-sized HDDs (+$100), over-powered supply units (+$100), and really, is there any honesty in the computer industry? The answer is no. The only honest computer component is the case.

 

The thing with memory is that when a computer runs out of it, it usually makes do with what it already has and in theory, running out of it should probably only makes textures appear slower. I’ve never seen a benchmark demonstrate any significant (+5%) difference between cards with different amounts of VRAM, in 1080p anyway. May or may not wildly differ in 4K.

 

I’ve compared a few 1060 3GB & 1060 6GB benchmarks and the FPS difference was small.

[gabgio]

Here I am ;)

Problem is: how are we going to isolate the contribute of the 1060? Do you have a comparable system as mine (in signature)?

I'll be happy to run any track you generate and report results.

 

 

My theory is that you only need 3GB VRAM and that 6GB VRAM is a marketing ruse to get you to pay another $100, just like Gaming motherboards over ordinary motherboards (+$100), i7’s over i5’s (+$100), water cooling over air cooling (+$100), 16GB RAM over 8GB RAM (+$100), Pro SSDs (+$100), over-sized HDDs (+$100), over-powered supply units (+$100), and really, is there any honesty in the computer industry? The answer is no. The only honest computer component is the case.

 

 

As for this, I have to disagree mildly: it's not dishonesty, as nobody is forcing you to buy anything, you can stick with lesser specs (and possibly not much worse performance, true that).

Imo, it's all about marginal gains: once arrived to a certain level, every little step up takes an exponentially higher effort (read: price) to obtain a similar increment. This applies to both producer (more investments for marginal gains, sometimes) and buyers (is a 3000 k€ PC twice as fast as a 1500k€ one? Hello no!)

In the end, one must look at his budget, and maximize components keeping in mind the costs. Easier said than done, don't I know it!

Edited February 6, 2018 by gabgio

[D.Va]

Here I am ;)

Problem is: how are we going to isolate the contribute of the 1060? Do you have a comparable system as mine (in signature)?

I'll be happy to run any track you generate and report results.

Cheers,

G.

All specs, except CPU & GPU, are irrelevant to performance if they are above the minimum and with 20% CPU use and 100% GPU use on my machine, CPU is probably irrelevant, because the GPU is the bottleneck quite clearly.

Do you have MSI Afterburner? I get 30 minimum and 30-35 FPS when I fly straight down the street with all the special buildings (south-to-north) in Vegas at 300 ft AGL and about 40 FPS flying around the same area, with 38 FPS being the number that’s is there the most when I watch the FPS. I’m playing the built-in “Take-off” mission, but I’ve opened the mission in the editor and put myself to start 4 NMI south of “Paradise”, or “Spring Valley”, or whatever the centre of Vegas is called, at 100 ft flying north. We don’t have to do this super scientifically, just see if there’s a difference of more than 5% and I’m also using 9GB RAM and 3GB VRAM (which is all I have).

1920x1200 has 10% more pixels than 1920x1080 and the performance difference is 10% in my benchmarks. I get about 45 FPS flying north along the road just west of McCarran and 33 FPS minimum as I pass straight through the centre, with the pyramid and stuff on my sides and almost flying directly into the Tromb building. My DCS 2.5.0 options are as follows:

Textures HIGH

Terrain Textures HIGH

Civ. Traffic HIGH

Water HIGH

Visib. Range EXTREME

Heat Blur HIGH

Shadows HIGH

Resolution 1920x1200

Aspect Ratio 16:10

Monitors 1

Res. of Cockpit Displays 1024 EVERY FRAME

MSAA X8

Depth of Field OFF

Lens Effects DIRT+FLARE

HDR OFF

Deferred Shading ON

Clutter/Grass 1500

Trees Visibility 100%

Preload Radius 100

Chimney Smoke Density 0

Gamma 2

Anisotropic Filtering X16

Terrain Object Shadows FLAT

Global Cockpit Illumination ON

Disable Aero Interface OFF

Vsync OFF

Full Screen OFF

Scale GUI OFF

 

As for this, I have to disagree mildly: it's not dishonesty, as nobody is forcing you to buy anything, you can stick with lesser specs (and possibly not much worse performance, true that).

Imo, it's all about marginal gains: once arrived to a certain level, every little step up takes an exponentially higher effort (read: price) to obtain a similar increment. This applies to both producer (more investments for marginal gains, sometimes) and buyers (is a 3000 k€ PC twice as fast as a 1500k€ one? Hello no!)

In the end, one must look at his budget, and maximize components keeping in mind the costs. Easier said than done, don't I know it!

My point is this though: the $800 worth of upgrades I describe above add ~0% performance.

• Motherboards don't do anything.
  
• i7's are i5's with hyper-threading, which most games aren't designed for and the difference is generally +/-5%, except choice games
  
• Water cooling isn't more effective than air cooling, it's cosmetic
  
• A RAM overhead literally does nothing, just like with unused HDD/SSD space
  
• Samsung EVO SSDs are just as fast as Samsung PRO SSDs if you're copying files smaller than 3-12GB (120GB-1TB version). Either way, it doesn't affect framerates or gaming performance AFAIK
  
• A PSU overhead may make it operate quieter, but any proposed advantages in energy efficiency and such are frivolous claims
  

Spend the $800 on upgrading the graphics card from a 1060 to a 1070, or a 1070 to a 1080 instead and you'll get +20% performance, or a whopping 10 DCS modules!

 

[pilotfly]

 

And yes, there's also the element of cost-efficiency: each step in the 750, 760, 770, 780 ladder (from 2013) added like +20% performance, but the price doubled... currently, graphics card prices are all over the place due to cryptocurrency mining.

Edited February 6, 2018 by D.Va

[gabgio]

ops, I did not notice you wanted to try over Vegas: I do not yet possess that map.

Over Caucasus, I get a solid 60fps everywhere (VSync'ed), with an exception for a few isolated cases that I could not reproduce (disappeared upon restarting..).

Do you experience a difference between flying over Vegas vs any city in Caucasus?

[Demon_]

My theory is that you only need 3GB VRAM and that 6GB VRAM is a marketing ruse to get you to pay another $100

 

See at 6:13

 

As you see, you need more than 8GB of RAM and 4GB of VRAM. Sorry for bad news.

 

just like Gaming motherboards over ordinary motherboards (+$100)

Gaming motherboards have stronger DIGI/VRM to feed the CPU at higher frequency. And more options...

 

Pro SSDs (+$100)

 

Pro SSDs are more expensive because they are faster and last longer.

Edited February 7, 2018 by Demon_

[D.Va]

ops, I did not notice you wanted to try over Vegas: I do not yet possess that map.

Over Caucasus, I get a solid 60fps everywhere (VSync'ed), with an exception for a few isolated cases that I could not reproduce (disappeared upon restarting..).

Do you experience a difference between flying over Vegas vs any city in Caucasus?

Hm, okay! Start the mission editor, create a new Caucasus scenario, put an A-10 right over the cross airfield south of Kobuleti, set skill to Player and start the scenario. After a few seconds when the camera is done zooming out, what framerates do you get? I looked at the FPS for about 20 seconds flying straight forward on autopilot and got 45-48 FPS.

[gabgio]

Ok, I will try this evening.

[ebabil]

. My DCS 2.5.0 options are as follows:

Textures HIGH

Terrain Textures HIGH

Civ. Traffic HIGH

Water HIGH

Visib. Range EXTREME

Heat Blur HIGH

Shadows HIGH

Resolution 1920x1200

Aspect Ratio 16:10

Monitors 1

Res. of Cockpit Displays 1024 EVERY FRAME

MSAA X8

Depth of Field OFF

Lens Effects DIRT+FLARE

HDR OFF

Deferred Shading ON

Clutter/Grass 1500

Trees Visibility 100%

Preload Radius 100

Chimney Smoke Density 0

Gamma 2

Anisotropic Filtering X16

Terrain Object Shadows FLAT

Global Cockpit Illumination ON

Disable Aero Interface OFF

Vsync OFF

Full Screen OFF

Scale GUI OFF

 

 

 

i couldn't get these frames with my 1070 8gb and 16gb ram on dcs 2.2 vegas map.

i had to turn civil traffic off and aa to 2x, and many settings to mid

even in this scenario i got 40 ish fps over vegas without ant other units.

 

i hope it will improve the performance wit 2.5.

[D.Va]

See at 6:13

 

As you see, you need more than 8GB of RAM and 4GB of VRAM. Sorry for bad news.

 

 

Gaming motherboards have stronger DIGI/VRM to feed the CPU at higher frequency. And more options...

 

 

 

Pro SSDs are more expensive because they are faster and last longer.

I watched the videos. The first one didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and the second wasn't relevant at all, was it? What exactly am I supposed to see that means I need more than 4GB VRAM here?

 

I'm a researcher IRL and want empirical evidence:

• Show me any benchmark where any motherboard improves gaming performance significantly (5%+) in any game.
  
• Pro (MLC NAND) SSDs lasting longer is irrelevant, because even non-Pro SSDs (TLC NAND) last 100-400 years of ordinary use.
  

i couldn't get these frames with my 1070 8gb and 16gb ram on dcs 2.2 vegas map.

i had to turn civil traffic off and aa to 2x, and many settings to mid

even in this scenario i got 40 ish fps over vegas without ant other units.

 

i hope it will improve the performance wit 2.5.

Yes! Upgrade to 2.5 and you will get better performance. I have a 20% weaker graphics card than you, so if you're playing in 1920x1080 you should be able to max out all options in DCS 2.5 and still get minimum 40 FPS and average 50 FPS, unless you have an old CPU. 2.5 works great.

Edited February 7, 2018 by D.Va

[D.Va]

After benchmarking a lot with my 1060 3GB I've discovered:

• Yes! 3GB vs 6GB VRAM may affect your DCS performance.

• DCS on almost maximum options uses almost exactly 3GB VRAM in 1080/1200p, which means only a minor adjustment in settings can put you either above or below the limit of 3GB VRAM.

• Playing with almost maximum options and Terrain Textures MEDIUM puts me at 2.8GB VRAM and Terrain Textures HIGH puts me at 3GB VRAM (all of it) and the difference is 38 versus 32 FPS, a significant difference! I don’t know if the difference is absolute or relative and I’m going to experiment with options that put me just below the limit of 3GB VRAM. With a little luck, I may be able to improve performance 10%+ across the board for players with 3GB VRAM with only a few minor and probably invisible adjustment of the options.

• DCS uses a minimum of 1750MB VRAM on my machine in 1080p.

• DCS maxes at 4GB or around there VRAM, based on what I've witnessed in other benchmarks.

 

I’m now considering VRAM as an individual resource in my benchmarks and will benchmark how much VRAM important options eat.

Edited February 7, 2018 by D.Va

[gabgio]

Hm, okay! Start the mission editor, create a new Caucasus scenario, put an A-10 right over the cross airfield south of Kobuleti, set skill to Player and start the scenario. After a few seconds when the camera is done zooming out, what framerates do you get? I looked at the FPS for about 20 seconds flying straight forward on autopilot and got 45-48 FPS.

 

Done (see attachment to confirm that is what you asked. You can also find my settings in there). Solid 60 fps everywhere, flying high, low, fast, slow..

TryOut.miz

[gabgio]

I've repeated with your settings (attached), and I am getting 46-50 fps when looking down to the fields. Towards the sea, solid 60. Totally playable though, I don't have problems with that.

When flying low above the village I get 30 fps. GPU memory > 4.5 GB.

 

Try out my settings, you may be happy enough without cashing out for a new GPU (prices are stupid crazy now)

[D.Va]

I've made a lot of benchmarking with regards to VRAM and yeah, when it runs out my FPS dips from about 40 to 30 (15-25% difference), but WHEN it runs out is completely random. Simply restarting the game randomly changes the amount of VRAM DCS uses between 2.6-3GB. I'll need a lot more testing for this.

 

I've repeated with your settings (attached), and I am getting 46-50 fps when looking down to the fields. Towards the sea, solid 60. Totally playable though, I don't have problems with that.

When flying low above the village I get 30 fps. GPU memory > 4.5 GB.

 

Try out my settings, you may be happy enough without cashing out for a new GPU (prices are stupid crazy now)

It sounds like we have about the same performance. Just to clarify: what FPS did you have if you started the scenario as I asked and didn't touch anything, just hit auto-pilot and waited like 10 seconds. About 45-50 fps?

I also get dips down to about 30-35 when diving towards the vegetation north of Kobuleti airfield and stuff like that, so it's probably near-identical.

Edited February 7, 2018 by D.Va