Questions about DCS on 1440x2560 displays

[SharpeXB]

I’m considering upgrading to a 1440x2560 monitor, questions I have are:

Graphics card. Is there a card or combination of them (SLI) that can run DCS at this resolution and full settings? I’m sure I’d need SLI, does DCS support this?

A solution for running a single card might be to just run the games at 1920x1080 and let the monitor upscale them. That might by itself look pretty good. Obviously native output 1440x2560 would be better, just it would be more demanding.

I suppose if you’re running high resolutions that anti-aliasing is no longer needed or very little.

The monitor I’m considering is the Asus PB278Q compared to Samsung and Dell it’s got the best price and a higher refresh rate.

 

These are my system specs:

850 Watt Corsair Power Supply – Nvidia SLI Certified

Asus P8Z77-V Intel Z77 based chipset, ATX Motherboard

Intel Core i7-3770K IvyBridge processor, quad 3.50GHz cores, Hyperclocked to 4.7GHz

Asetek Liquid Cooling System

8GB DDR3-1600MHz Quad Channel Memory

2048mb eVGA NVIDIA GTX670 GDDR5 video card

120gb Intel 520 Series MLC Solid State Drive

1TB 7200rpm SATA 300 w/NCQ

Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit w/ SP1

[cichlidfan]

That system should run that monitor just fine.

 

EDIT: The only reason you might have an issue is due to the VRAM being only 2GB but based on what I see with my machine I think you will be fine.

 

EDIT2: Of course, this does not include the FPS issues that currently exist with certain effects.

Edited April 27, 2013 by cichlidfan

[RepoMan]

You should be able to run it at that resolution. As far as sli for single monitors, no this sim does not support it. The biggest issue will be vram. Not trying to hi-jack, but does anyone know how much mem on average this game takes up? I noticed you have 8gigs.

[metalnwood]

That system should do it fine, thats around 3.6 megapixels, a lot of people are running over 6 megapixels with multiple monitors on a single card.

 

I am not sure how much ram is used by DCS but I remember going from a 5990 to a 6970 had a large difference, a lot of it was actually because of the extra ram.

 

Not sure that it would consume more than 2 gigs for a single screen, it should be OK.

[cichlidfan]

Not sure that it would consume more than 2 gigs for a single screen, it should be OK.

 

I haven't made any tests in quite some time, around when the P-51 was released, but my two screens (2560x1440 and 1920x1080 for helios) would go over 2GB from time to time but tended to hover at or just below 2GB for the most part. I never conducted any sort of controlled test though.

[Nopileus]

I have tried using my iMacs 27" screen (via external displayport input) for DCS before and didn't notice any performance difference to my usual 1680x1050.

This was with a 4ghz i5 2500k, 8gb RAM and a HD6950 1gb

 

In short, you shouldn't have any problems running DCS on it, other games might however need some lower settings.

[RepoMan]

Sorry, should have clarified. I was talking about system memory usage and not video vram usage. I did a search and I didn't really come across anything.

[metalnwood]

8 gigs system ram will run it fine as well.

[SharpeXB]

the system I have described above runs DCS very well on full maxed settings using a single 1920x1080 display

I figure if I want to keep the same settings but up the number of pixels by almost 2x then that's going to require 2x the video card (I really have no idea how these things work but that seems logical)

what about using the 4gb version of the GTX680 that evga makes?

 

I suppose this is easy enough to experiment with, just set the video output on Nvidia to 1440x2560 and see what happens. I tried that with Cliffs of Dover and it was a real framerate killer.

Edited April 28, 2013 by SharpeXB

[SharpeXB]

so I ran a test by setting the resolution in the Nvidia CP to 2560x1440

it actually seems to work ok, probably on the low end of acceptable with the lowest framerate at about 30 fps

but it's about a 20 fps hit so a graphics card update would be a necessity

Edited April 28, 2013 by SharpeXB

[Ratfink]

so I ran a test by setting the resolution in the Nvidia CP to 2560x1440

it actually seems to work ok, probably on the low end of acceptable with the lowest framerate at about 30 fps

but it's about a 20 fps hit so a graphics card update would be a necessity

 

How did this work out in the end for you? I'm considering a new monitor, at around 32" and unsure if I should stay 1080p and suffer lower quality, or go 1440p and suffer lower performance or settings. I too have 2GB GTX670 in my setup which I hope not to upgrade. I also fly Cliffs of Dover and Falcon BMS mostly.