Minimum graphics card requirement for 4K single screen with TrackIR?

[R.Z.]

Been using 27" single screen on AMD RX580 with TrackIR for DCS for a few years. Although it's been OKish for 1080P (~60FPS in Caucuses), now really want to upgrade to a largish 43" 4K monitor and get more clarity when glancing at the instruments or squinting at other planes in distance.

My dilemma is to find a powerful enough 2-slot GPU that can fit in my tiny A4 sized sandwich ITX case driven by a 500~600W FlexATX power supply. Was originally hoping for RX6800 reference card which would be a perfect fit, but then the COVID happened and the availability has been exactly nil...

Now my next best choice seems to be either 3060Ti or 6700XT. Would they suffice for 4K single screen, for Caucuses and Mariana maps respectively (I mean, the two maps are basically different tiers of hardware requirement)? I probably wouldn't expect all max setting, but was hoping for high texture / draw distance / foliage, and wouldn't mind compromised or lower special effects / anti-alias and such.

Rest of my build is: Ryzen 3600 / 32G RAM / 1T M2 Gen3 SSD. Any first hand experience with 3060Ti / 6700XT for 4K or any advice would be much appreciated~

My Current build:

[Bossco82]

HI there,

I use a 4k single screen with Track IR. Three things to warn you about, before you go spending any money.

1st "IF" your going to use a 43" TV, be careful they use 8+2bit with FRC panels, these can cause, I think the term is dithering on transparent textures. In DCS its noticeable and shows as either a violet or lime green shadows around some objects. Its hard to describe, almost like an aura or halo. Its not in your face visible. However if you fly a lot and sit close you start to pick up on it. I had it using a Hisense 50" TV for a monitor after a while it did my head in. It was also worse on AMD cards but also present with Nvidia. I now have a AOC 32" 4k PC monitor. If your going to use a TV, make sure it has game mode and the latest HDMi interface on the inputs, 2.0 will be ok 2.1 would be better.

I will add if you play I-L2 or the Sniper Elite series this problem is even more noticeable and does spoil the gameplay.

2nd. The jump in graphics load going from 1080p or 1440p to 4k with DCS is a bigger leap than you might think. I run a MSI 6800xt Gaming X Trio, before that I had a Nvidia 2080ti and before that I had a Sapphire 5700xt Nitro and before that I had a 2060 super. The 6800xt will do it on high settings with 2x MSAA on most maps but not Syria. The 2080ti did it on high without 2x MSAA. The 5700xt and 2060 super just about coped with a mix of medium ish settings but no MSAA bells and whistles etc and down low was dodgy.

The final thing regarding Track IR, you want to maintain a solid 60fps to have smooth movement looking around without micro stutters. The best scenario would be that if Vsync was off you would get above 70ish fps to maintain a solid 60fps. DCS has random dips in fps mostly down low like when your at take off or landing. The 6800xt handles this no problem. The 2080ti would even fall down slightly on this one when flying low over Dubai or on the Super Carrier. On the 5700xt and 2060 super it was noticeable if I did not keep the view distance to medium.  

Something to have a think about. A 32" 1440p monitor will make DCS look good, very good. A 6700xt or a 3060Ti will drive that along nicely. Especially as your running an ITX setup, temps wont be such an issue. If you really want 4k, its 6800xt, 3080 or 2080ti minimum. From experience I look at my 6800xt and wish I had spent the extra on a 3080ti. I underestimated the jump to 4k in early 2020 and upgraded my system to eliminate annoying micro stutters, but, I really like the eye candy. These are my specs...

5600x @ 4.6Ghz 1.2v, X570, 32gb 3200Mhz C14 DDR4, 6800xt @ 2450Mhz 1050Mv, 1tb Nvme Gen4 SSD, I can run 2x MSAA on some maps but I tend to leave it off because its not completely needed using 4k on a 32" monitor. This is for a solid 60fps with Vsync.

[R.Z.]

Thanks for your response Bossco82 and helpful insight. I've tried hooking up my PC with 55" 4K living room TV thru HDMI for playing DCS a bit this past summer and I think I could relate to the color/shadow issue you described. But the visual improvement over 27" monitor is huge and the details in 4K is stunning (although in a pretty much static ~10fps screen with RX580) , which is what drives me for the display upgrade.

The specifc screen I'm after is Philips 436M6VBPAB, which is a 60hz "light" gaming and productivity PC monitor (not a TV), with FreeSync even and somewhat budget oriented. So I think the visual effect should be OK and normal as I'll be linking up with DP cable?

Your DCS graphics settings are pretty much what I'm set about to be after GPU upgrade, except for maybe I normally dial down anistrophic filtering a bit more at 4x. I suspect 3060Ti / 6700xt would be a stretch at 4K High, too. But 6800XT/3080 at the moment is too highly priced than what I'm willing to shell out for a GPU, not to mention I'll have to change to a larger PC case and PSU to accommodate, sigh...

Edited October 22, 2021 by R.Z.

[Bossco82]

Yeah this journey began for me last year through lockdown. I pretty much dived in and bought a 4k 50" TV with the attitude "it will probably be ok". It simply wasn't. The colour's were off using a TV for a monitor and the constant stutter from panning the Track IR around was giving me a headache. Luckily for me I bagged a 2080ti in September last year just when the prices completely dropped. Only then did I have a better 4k experience. I would say that to happily play DCS at 4k you need these GPU's in ascending order of how they will perform...

1080ti > 2080ti/3070ti > 6800xt > 3080 > 3080ti > 3090. I've not actually tested a 3090 though. 

A way around this I found for a friend. We fitted a 32" 1440p monitor to an Invision 12kg swing arm mount. This was so the screen could come closer when flying in DCS. This happily runs on an AMD 3600, X570, 5700x system with the above settings and 2x MSAA. Shadows might be flat only for him but you get the idea. Thats with a head tracker and its a good immersive experience vs PC performance considering the price of components at the moment. The difference between my 4k setup and his 1440p setup was not that much in detail and enjoyment. 

[Whistler_RIO]

I ran a 4k 42" monitor for DCS for the past two years.  on a 2070 graphics card, it held up alright.  i found myself downscaling to 1440 once i was doing big MP matches with lots of other aircraft, but in SP, it was pretty good.  

 

[Hiob]

I‘m running a 48“ oled in 4K with a 3080. Which is sufficient for well over 60 fps with high to highest settings in most cases.

I‘d like to point out two things though:

1. MSAA 2x is a very important setting, even in 4K. No anti aliasing is a huge hit to visual fidelity. I‘d rather reduce viewing distance.

2. Even if it is told over and over again and sounds reasonable - the trackir microstuttering is not linked to the fps in the first place. Once I got rid of it, I don‘t see it in sub 60 fps scenarios (marianas) either. Personally I think it has more to do with various v-sync and windows settings (gpu scheduling e.g.) That is a personal opinion of course and I don‘t want to start a discussion about it.

 

I (and others) have done some 4k-benchmarks where you can how much different gfx options impact performance - take a look. (just search for 4K Benchmark)

Edited April 22, 2022 by Hiob

[reece146]

3070, lots of high settings, but no antis turned on except anisotropic. 32" screen.

Works well enough for my purposes. I'd say ~65 fps +/- 10 or so depending. I can buzz Dover and the castle at low level without feeling any real fps pain. Might dip to high 40s occasionally over the town but it doesn't stay there.

Edited November 8, 2021 by reece146

[LegeinEi]

I would like to hook up on this thread but in view of looking for a 4K monitor. Everything else is either already there (AMD 3700X, 32 MB RAM, 3090 FE) or it is on it's way (WinWing setup plus Thrustmaster TRP) to complete my new Sim-DCS-rig.

But monitor is still a mystery to me and to be honest, I never got to deep into things like panel-types and so on.

To me scored nodes are:

1.) 4k
2.) 16:9 since view to the outside is as important as cockpit viev to me
3.) at least 32", but I tend to bigger (size DOES matter)
4.) g-sync or g-sync compability since I am using a NVidia-GPU

I am not sure about curved, monitor or (oled)-tv, 60 Hz or more...

The monitor will only be used für flight-sim like DCS and (occasionally) msfs2020.

Any suggestions?

[Hiob]

I'm very happy with my LG 48" OLED TV (HDMI 2.1 120Hz g-sync/freesycn, "HDR"). But it is a TV - not a monitor, which has some downsides (no auto sleep on shutdown e.g.).

I have no problems with burn in whatsoever, but it doesn't run all day and is used in a rather dark enviroment - so no need for full brightness. But it may concern some.

Given the cost of a high-end monitor and the visual fidelity of it, I call it a bargain, too.

Edited April 22, 2022 by Hiob

[Bossco82]

HI Hiob, any chance you could share the model number of that LG Oled with me? I use to use a Hisense TV for a monitor but I experienced colour dithering on semi transparent textures.

[LegeinEi]

Thanx for the first hints. To me it sounds as if an OLED TV could be an option. But is 40"-42" still a regular TV-size?

It used to be years ago when I bought my last TV but since then I only read about 55" or higher.

[Bossco82]

One thing to consider buying a TV for a monitor is pixel density, I think that's the term. Its the amount of pixels in each square inch on the actual screen. I think a 50" TV works out about the same as a 32" 1440p monitor.

[Hiob]

18 hours ago, Bossco82 said:

HI Hiob, any chance you could share the model number of that LG Oled with me? I use to use a Hisense TV for a monitor but I experienced colour dithering on semi transparent textures.

Sure it's a LG OLED48CX9LB. Bought it end of last year. I think by now there is a successor, but the only improvement as far as I know is that HDMI 2.1 works on all inputs - which is not relevant for me anyway.

18 hours ago, LegeinEi said:

Thanx for the first hints. To me it sounds as if an OLED TV could be an option. But is 40"-42" still a regular TV-size?

It used to be years ago when I bought my last TV but since then I only read about 55" or higher.

The smalles OLED option for the longest time was the LG 48" panel. May be, that by now there are smaller options - but not that I'm aware of.

[Bossco82]

Cheers mate,

By the way, I get your point about using x2MSAA and I totally agree with you that the shimmering at distance is really annoying. Its just not so noticeable on a 32" 4k monitor like mine so I leave it off. My 6800xt copes with this ok but its drops the fps to sub 50 when under say 5000ft. The AMD card does not like MSAA and DCS at this resolution. All other games are fine. If I was using a large TV, I would definitely need MSAA on though, the shimmering would be like you say, too obvious.

You mentioned how Track IR micro stutter is not linked to fps. I've noticed that too, my cpu or gpu are not at full load yet I experienced this stutter in the past. How did you eliminate the problem. I changed the Track IR's priority to high in task manager and tweaked a few curves in Natural Point. Much past that I was out of ideas

[Hiob]

Stay away from any kind of v-sync (nvcp and application; g-sync seems to be fine), make sure that hardware accelerated GPU scheduling in windows is turned off, game mode turned off, any scaling is done by the application and not by windows... reduce any background process, turn off any RGB-tools if you have any, same for logitech drivers, use the native input drivers of windows if possible. Turn off the hotplug function in DCS input settings.

Check the task manager (details) for any processes that uses cpu time.

Those are the things from the top of my head. It's been quite some time and I tinkered a lot with it. I can't pin down the exact solution. Sorry

Edit: If you don't have g-sync or freesync, it is hard (I couldn't) to stay away from v-sync. Try the different modes, that the nvidia control panel offers, as well as the application v-sync from dcs. I don't know for sure that v-sync is the reason for microstutter with trackir, I just had the feeling at some point. But it has no value for me over g-sync - therefore, I stayed with forcing it off.

Edited November 9, 2021 by Hiob

[Bossco82]

I have done most of what you suggest there and it does improve it a lot. My Windows install is mainly for gaming and I do check for background tasks, I have almost no 3rd party utilities running in the background. As for drivers its all the base Windows ones running. I'm not a PC gaming expert, just a long term user since the 90's. You always wonder if there is something you have not come across though. Thanks for sharing mate.

I know that Track IR runs in sync with 60fps. I do use V-sync through DCS. I'm wondering if the micro stutter could be caused by V-sync actually being 59.!!!!!!fps. I dont know. I tried running DCS without V-sync and using the auto.cfg trick to cap fps to 60. Then turn on my freesync (I'm on AMD Radeon) in Radeon and on my monitor. It didnt improve it for me. I also tried using Radeon chill to cap at 60fps. V-sync just seems to be smoother for me? I'm open to idea's on all that though. However my experience is very smooth.

Cheers Hiob.

[Hiob]

I wouldn't cap my fps at 60. If you can reach significant more at least in some sceneries - why waste it. There advantages to a higher framerate, even if you don't "suffer" when below 60.

The main benefit for me is the enhanced clarity when doing fast head movements. I'm not talking about stuttering here, but the "speedblurr" of the ground, if you know what I mean.

[reece146]

I've always been confused by the comments about TrackIR de-sync - never encountered it - I think?

I don't have vsync/g-sync/freesync enabled.

Monitor is a Benq PD3200U (4ms - if that even matters - not so sure).

When on TV (lately) I use an older LG UH6100 (43").

[Bossco82]

This has got me thinking and confused. I was always under the impression Track IR had to be synchronised to 60fps, you had to synchronise the game/monitor to be in time with Track IR's polling rate, (I think?). If I dont run 60fps, I cant run 120! I get a stutter when I am panning the Track IR around. If I dont use Track IR and just look straight ahead I can use freesync and let the framerate just run. 

This has got me thinking I don't have something set up right

[Hiob]

One thing that came to my mind again regarding the stuttering…

Around the time I fixed this issue for myself, I also had problems with random disconnects of input devices. Whilst I tried to solve this (ultimate solution was to disable the hotplug function for dcs, which by now is a setting), I tried different things with the usb-ports. Change to a different controller (use 2.0 instead of 3.0 e.g. or vice versa). Control the energy management settings/sleep modes for usb (device manager), change bios settings for usb (compatibility/legacy mode)…

Perhaps one of those things helped with the stuttering, too.

[shagrat]

vor 16 Stunden schrieb Hiob:

Edit: If you don't have g-sync or freesync, it is hard (I couldn't) to stay away from v-sync. Try the different modes, that the nvidia control panel offers, as well as the application v-sync from dcs. I don't know for sure that v-sync is the reason for microstutter with trackir, I just had the feeling at some point. But it has no value for me over g-sync - therefore, I stayed with forcing it off.

V-Sync is unnecessary and provides no benefit when G-Sync/FreeSync is active. All these Sync technologies (simplified explanation) synchronize the monitor refresh rate and the video card frame output, so the monitor refresh happens, when a complete rendered frame is ready to be sent to the monitor. V-Sync tries to do this by dividing the monitor refresh rate by 2 (so 60 fps, 30 fps, 15 fps) if the card can't provide the next higher frame rate, so if the card drops to 58 fps it enforces 30 fps.

G-Sync and FreeSync etc. can set the Monitor refresh rate to exact fps the video card can manage at the time so you always refresh a complete frame when it's ready. If it drops to 58 fps the monitor will refresh at 58 Hz. The effect is, that no tearing if the screen happens.

The subjective "effect" is, that the frame rate "looks" smooth and even fps down to less than 30 fps don't look that stuttering anymore, as there is always the complete frame refreshed.

One important thing you can try, is to press ALT+ENTER to force Windows to run DCS with full screen mode. It happens, especially with multi monitor setups. This has nothing to do with Sync modes or DCS.

[reece146]

14 hours ago, Hiob said:

One thing that came to my mind again regarding the stuttering…

Around the time I fixed this issue for myself, I also had problems with random disconnects of input devices. Whilst I tried to solve this (ultimate solution was to disable the hotplug function for dcs, which by now is a setting), I tried different things with the usb-ports. Change to a different controller (use 2.0 instead of 3.0 e.g. or vice versa). Control the energy management settings/sleep modes for usb (device manager), change bios settings for usb (compatibility/legacy mode)…

Perhaps one of those things helped with the stuttering, too.

Depending on what you have plugged into your machine you can flood the MB/s capabilities of the USB bus you are plugged into. Anything web cam I always try to stick on its own, dedicated USB port/hub. Maybe that is what people are butting up against... saturated USB bus/controller.

[Hiob]

That is very hard to tell, unless you do a full methodical approach and just change one variable at a time, carefully testing the effects. It‘s a lot of work though and at the time I just wanted the damn thing to stop disconnecting.

At a point, I had the USB hub as a suspect in mind, but atm my trackir is plugged to the same simple (unpowered) usb 2.0 hub as my keyboard and mouse. And it works flawless.

[Bossco82]

HI guys,

Thanks for the replies regarding Track IR and how you have them set up. Very interesting. I run with V-sync and I have made all the changes regarding usb connection and hot plug etc you have suggested. DCS and Track IR have been running without a problem and have done for a while. However, a while back earlier in the year I did have a problem when I was running my 2080ti. None of my hardware was maxed out to drive the fps at 60fps, but, I had this noticeable stutter when panning. I did everything you guys suggested all at once, but, never pinned down what the problem was or what correction actually solved it. So I was just curious, just in case it came back. 

In fact what reminded me was when I recently tried Windows 11, bang, proper panning stutter again. So I simply switched back to Windows 10. I didn't have the time to sit and problem solve it.

[Hiob]

I have the feeling, that the most likely reason for micro stuttering is to find in windows. Settings like game mode, hardware accelerated gpu scheduling, dpi scaling by application, task priority etc….

Somewhere along those lines would be my best guess.