4070 Ti my first impressions with a Oculus Rift S

[Dok]

Last Saturday I bought a 4070 Ti.  I got the 'Gigabyte Geforce RTX 4070 Ti Eagle OC 12g' for $AU1599. 

Graphics cards prices are crazy expensive in Australia.  4080's are around $AU2300 some at $AU2900 . 4090's $AU3200+. The 4070 Ti, is replacing my RTX 2070 which I bought in January 2019 for $AU789.   So double the price, in AUD.   NVidia has at least fixed so can buy the new generation in Australia by charging so much. There is plenty of stock of all the new 4000 series in Australia. No longer the issue of the new generation being all sold out on release.

For comparison the new 7900XT is $AU1600+ 

For me the best option was the 4070Ti. I upgrade at least two generations are apart.  So did not really want to get a 3000 series, even though they are now cheaper. And the memory amount in a 3070 at 8 GB is the same as amount as my 2070. And a 3080 at 10GB is not really enough and only slightly cheaper than the new 4070 Ti in Aus.

After watching reviews. I decided to go with the 4070 Ti. As was the best option in my case.  As I have a 1440p screen. And for VR I am still using my Rift S. And from reviews the 4070 Ti is around the same performance as a 3090 Ti.  At 4K it is less but I am not driving it a 4K.  I play other games so its Raytracing performance was of also interest to me also.

I upgraded my CPU from a 3700X to a 5800X3D during the Black Friday sales.  This fixed some cases but the 2070 was the limiting factor in DCS for VR. I have always played with ASW enabled with the Rift S. And was getting 40fps in DCS.  Which was fine in some planes/maps. However, there were some planes I did not play in VR. For example, in the P-47. Because if I moved my head left/right so sideways to the cockpit.  The view would slide across and then pause and then move again.  I think the ASW as renderers a wider view was running out of view to move. So would pause when run out.  Then when the next frame was rendered would slide the view until it run out again. Which was not really useable.  I also never really flew in Syria in VR, I think the 8GB memory on the RTX 2070 was the issue here. Same with the new Marianas.  I actually have not played DCS much lately as been playing games on Microsoft Games Pass, which I got first of all for MFS2020.  So had not done to much testing with the new 5800X3D with DCS. And had been playing the other WW2 plane game as worked well in VR for me, especially with the upgrade to the 5800X3D as no longer big slow downs when lots of ground targets.  Though DCS does look a lot better.

Having said that I have had lots of fun in VR with the 2070 when I had the 3700X. I flew the whole 'The Museum Relic Campaign' in the F-86 in VR which was lots of fun. With slow down over the busy ground combat bits. But was always looking forwards at these time so less of an issue. And have done lots of flying in the F-18 in VR even over the Super Carrier.  Once you fly in VR it has hard to go back to 2D.

 

The 4070 Ti has been a huge improvement for me. In a lot of cases I am now locked to the Rift S's 80 FPS.  Which means when flying I no longer get that doubling up of objects when looking left/right outside the cockpit at objects that I am flying over. And fixes the same issue with other aircraft when passing them at speed.

After first just enjoying the upgrade. Last night I decided to test some different flights and see what FPS I now get.

 

Benchmarking/Testing

My testing is with my 5800X3D with 32 GB of RAM with my new 4070 Ti.  I am still on DCS 2.7.18.30765. As read there are some VR performance regressions with 2.8.  These benchmarks are for others and also for myself. So when go to a newer version of DCS I have a record for myself where I used to be able to get a locked 80fps.  I have not enabled Rebar in my BIOS yet, as my 2070 did not support that.  I will do that later and see if that makes a difference.

These are my current DCS settings:

I have Pixel Density set to 1.3 in the VR tab.

The above settings are all the same as I ran my RTX 2070 with except I have pushed Forest Visibility up. I It was either at 50 or 60%. I have also enabled 'Cockpit Global Illumination' which I did not have on before.

The tests below are with ASW off. So can get the resulting FPS in-between values.  Using the DCS fps counter. I normally fly with ASW enabled.

They were all done in the one session of DCS, lifting up the VR head set to jot down quick notes.  These are all instant missions, except for the SuperCarrier Launch. When it dips into the 50-70fps range in some tests it is quickly moving between the different numbers.  

 

F-18

Caucasus

Ready on the Ramp - 80 fps. When looking at the other planes as taxi past FPS fluctuates quickly between 50- 70 fps.  As I take-off on the runway it goes back to locked 80fps when the other F-18's on the ramp go out of view. Locked 80fps in the air.

Mission - Super Carrier Launch - 80 fps when sitting on the carrier.  Looking around at people around me stays at 80fps. 40 fps flying slow over the carrier so see all the other aircraft on the deck.

Syria

Free Flight - Locked to 80 fps

Cold & Dark - 80 fps

Ground Attack - 80 fps

The 4070 Ti has made a huge difference in Syria. I think the 8GB video ram was a limiting factor before.

Nevada

Ready on the Ramp - 80 fps looking forwards on the ramp. Dropped to 40fps on the runway.  Staying locked 80 fps flying through the city.  Really felt like I was flying fast down the strip. With the buildings flying down the side of my view.

 

P-47

Caucasus

Take-Off - 50 - 80 fps on the runway at start-up. Can move my head side to side and looks smooth now.  This was one of my first tests when fired up DCS with my new GPU.  I am now wondering if I let the aircraft in front fly over me. If would go to 80 fps.  One I took off locked to 80fps as I fly around.

Normandy

Free Flight 1944 - 80fps while flying low over the boats.  Dips to 50-70fps when the spitfires flew over me. They were only dots in the clounds above but effected the fps. Turned around flew up and caught up to the spitfires.  Stayed mostly at 80 fps with slight dips into the 70's when got close to a Spitfire.

 

Spitfire

Normandy

Free Flight - 80fps the whole time. Flew down to above the trees. Great feeling of flying fast over the trees. Flew for about 5 minutes low over the ground. Always 80 fps. View out the sides no longer has any doubling up due to AWS.

 

Harrier

Caucasus

Free Flight - Locked to 80fps

 

F-16

(I only bough this recently during the new years sales)

Caucasus

Take Off - 50 -60fps. Drops to 40. Halfway down the runway goes to 80 fps.  Stayed locked to 80 fps in the air.

Syria

Cold & Dark - I read this one was bad so thought I should test it.  50 - 60fps. Goes down to 40 fps when the other F-16's move.  Was really less than 40 as when I moved my head from side to side.  Got the stuttering as the view panned like I used to get in the P-47.  This was the only test where I got this on with my new 4070 Ti. So this one is still a fail.

 

Huey

Persian Gulf

City Tour - 80 fps the whole time. Last flight for the night. Take off was not the prettiest. Have not flown the Huey for a long while and forgot where I am meant to hold the joystick and rudder when taking off. Think I had the joystick reversed in the left/right. Flew around the buildings and then down to the building with the helipad. First attempt to land was not looking like it was going to be good. Had come in with the landing pad on my left.  Flew up and away and turned around so helipad was on my right so could see better. And landed it. Was proud has have not flown the Huey in a while.

 

I did fly Marianas a couple of days ago both the in the F-16 and then in the F-18 in the instant action where you start on the Stennis carrier. Both times was 40fps but I had AWS on then so not sure what the actual FPS was.  But felt fine.  Need to come back and test these.

 

 

I left HWMonitor running in the background.  Before I shutdown DCS. I checked out Max values for the GPU:

It looks like the GPU was not being pushed that hard even when FPS dropped as the GPU can use 285W which I have seen in other games.  Also the max temperatures are low compared to when playing other games.

I have been playing Middle-earth Shadow of War lately from Game Pass a 2017 game. I started it up and ran its benchmark twice.  HWMonitor:  

While playing this game it is normally 285W, the max the GPU can use.  Its benchmark used up to 272W.

The fact that that DCS only used max 230W shows the my CPU is now the limiting factor. Even with a 5800X3D paired with a 4070 Ti.

The other interesting thing I noticed is it is when there are other aircraft around that you get the drop in frame rates. Flying around low over Normandy, Syria and I was always locked to 80fps.  Vechiles on the ground were also fine, as one of the missions I tested was a F-18 ground attack instant action, and that was locked to 80fps.

This might be related to a missing LODs for some to the aircraft that I saw in another thread. Making some aircraft extra expensive to render even when they are small.

Bring on the DCS multi-threading updates.

I hope this helps anybody else thinking about a 4070 Ti.

 

 

Edited January 13, 2023 by Dok

[jurinko]

Put the ground shadows to default. You will get better visuals for less penalty than with flat (this is the 2.8.1 situation now).

[Steel Jaw]

All cryoto miners should be beaton.

[jnr4817]

@Dok what is your update after MT release?

Edited April 11, 2023 by jnr4817

[VWJ]

Hey @Dok, I'm currently running 3700X and RTX2070 and I'm frustrated with the CPU bound message. So I'm potentially looking at upgrade path similar, if not the same, as you did. I'd like to ask, how smooth were the frames after you upgraded just the CPU? Even when limited to 40, I'm definitely fine with it, as long as it doesn't get choppy. Which is my current main issue.