GTX 680 (2 or 4MB VR) and X-Plane 10

[dpny]

The point that many people seem to forget is that Apple writes the OpenGL framework that sits between the app and the NVIDIA driver. On Windows, NVIDIA implements the entire OpenGL driver themselves. Perhaps some of these differences in performance are due to the different driver models between the two OSes?

Out of curiosity, what do the AMD results look like for Mac and Windows? Are you suggesting that AMD gets the same level of perf as NVIDIA's Windows driver in both cases?

I don't have an AMD card of equal power to the 670 to test, so I can only tell you what I've read from other people's experiences: In general, it seems that AMD performance is better than nVidia on OS X. For one, AMD cars can use instancing, so you get an automatic improvement there. Also, historically, OS X's ATi/AMD drivers have been better than OS X's nVidia drivers.

As much as I would like to test to 7970 versus the 670 on my machine, I don't have the extra $500 lying around to make it possible.

----------

@dpny
Will you please tell us, which Mac OS you used for this test?
And did you change anything in the rendering settings?
An what is the reason for testing it only with a simple plane?

1) 10.8.3
2 and 3) Rendering settings are set from inside the fps tests: they are steadily increased as the tests go from 1 to 5. Also, the fps tests use a simple plane because they are testing things the developers can control--object density, weather, view distance, etc.--and not things the developers can't control, like using third-party planes and scenery.

----------

The FPS test options are failing for me with this error:

[snip]

so I went and bought the MiG-29 model to see what's going on. With default options and just sitting on the runway, I'm seeing 10.9 FPS with all the rendering options cranked up while running at 1024x768 (to ensure that the test is limited by the CPU/driver). If I enable HW instancing, that nearly doubles to 19.9. Note that this is on a 2.66GHz MacPro4,1 so not the fastest CPU around, and assuming that I'm reading the FPS counter correctly.

The really strange thing is that Apple's OpenGL Profiler tool doesn't even show glDrawElementsInstanced being called. The vast majority of time in both cases is in glDrawElements, and that's only accounting for less than 20% of the total app time in both cases.

Unfortunately, you have reached the point where I don't have the knowledge to answer your questions any more. I can give you the results of my year of trying to squeeze performance out of X-Plane 10 and OS X, and I can give you results of the fps tests and the consensus of the X-Plane community, but I can't answer questions about driver threading. It's simply beyond my ken.

The short version is what I have already said: switching to Windows gives an immediate performance boost in X-Plane. In my experience the boost has been dramatic, making it possible for me to use some planes I couldn't use before. As you saw from my results, in some of the FPS tests switching to Windows gives a 30 fps improvement.

If you're really curious about the issue, I suggest you register at X-Plane.org and spend some time in the Tech Support and Hardware forums. You will find a lot of posts by me, and others, about this issue, and you will find answers to the questions you're asking about the drivers and OpenGL implementations.

----------

Blame the game community on OS X.

I don't blame anyone but Apple, and even then I don't blame them. The desktop market is very quickly shrinking to a niche market, and the obvious thing for Apple to do is to minimize their investment in it.

As someone else has said, OS X for life, Windows for games.

 

[maccompaq]

new Mac Pro

How does the new Mac Pro look when it comes to X Plane 10? I am on the fence about buying it or building another Core i7 with a GTX 780. Also wonder about that piece of crap Windows 8 for running X Plane 10. Any comments? Windows 7 is getting hard to find. I much prefer Windows XP. I also prefer Leopard & then Snow Leopard a little less. Not fond of Lion. Have not tried Mountain Lion.

 

[MacsRgr8]

How does the new Mac Pro look when it comes to X Plane 10? I am on the fence about buying it or building another Core i7 with a GTX 780. Also wonder about that piece of crap Windows 8 for running X Plane 10. Any comments? Windows 7 is getting hard to find. I much prefer Windows XP. I also prefer Leopard & then Snow Leopard a little less. Not fond of Lion. Have not tried Mountain Lion.

As long as we are not certain which BTO grfx cards are available, it's hard to judge the new Mac Pro regarding X-Plane 10.

As it was "shown" the new Mac Pro will probably boast at least one config housing two AMD FirePro GPU's.
Yes, these grfx cards will do pretty well in X-Plane 10, but you'll be paying a shed load of money for "workstation-class" GPU's which are not the best "gaming-grfx" hardware. IIRC these cards perform similar to a 7970 in gaming (again: not bad, but the price will be very high...)

If the new Mac Pro will deliver a top-notch gaming card, then that Mac will be a very, very good X-Plane machine.
If you want to use OS X for X-Plane, then the AMD cards perform better. In Windows the nVidia cards perform best.

The CPU, bus speed, RAM speed etc. will all be very good.

 

[Topper]

How does the new Mac Pro look when it comes to X Plane 10? I am on the fence about buying it or building another Core i7 with a GTX 780. Also wonder about that piece of crap Windows 8 for running X Plane 10. Any comments? Windows 7 is getting hard to find. I much prefer Windows XP. I also prefer Leopard & then Snow Leopard a little less. Not fond of Lion. Have not tried Mountain Lion.

The FirePro video cards won't be great for gaming. AMD cards have what is called GCN architecture which optimize their gaming performance. But Firepro video cards are workstation gpus and the GCN is locked. The Firepro cards will probably be okay for gaming but I wouldn't spend that kind of money on video cards that aren't optimized for gaming.
The big question is will Apple have consumer video cards as a BTO for the new Mac Pro.
The new Mac Pro has no value for me, so I am building a PC, a z87 PC.

Get yourself over to Windows 7 64-bit. It is much better for X-Plane than Windows XP.
I don't know much about Windows 8. But I'll bet X-Plane runs just fine with Windows 8. Some will say that it will run smoother.

 

[maccompaq]

[/QUOTE]Get yourself over to Windows 7 64-bit. It is much better for X-Plane than Windows XP.
I don't know much about Windows 8. But I'll bet X-Plane runs just fine with Windows 8. Some will say that it will run smoother.[/QUOTE]

I have Windows 7-64 bit on my Quad Core i7 and Snow Leopard. My video card only has 1 GB memory. My new build will have the latest hardware. Since I have used Windows 7 on the current computer, I probably cannot use it on the new build.

 

[Topper]

I have Windows 7-64 bit on my Quad Core i7 and Snow Leopard. My video card only has 1 GB memory. My new build will have the latest hardware. Since I have used Windows 7 on the current computer, I probably cannot use it on the new build.

I'm no expert on Windows. I've got Windows 7 (under Bootcamp) on a separate SSD in my Mac Pro.
My plan is to just transfer the SSD from my Mac Pro to my new PC.

 

[maccompaq]

I'm no expert on Windows. I've got Windows 7 (under Bootcamp) on a separate SSD in my Mac Pro.
My plan is to just transfer the SSD from my Mac Pro to my new PC.

Good idea. I have 4 hard drives in my Core i7. If I remove the one with Windows 7, that should work in the new build, right?

I have X Plane 10 on both Windows 7 and Snow Leopard on the same computer, and I do not see any difference in Frame Rates.

The new build will be for X Plane 10 only.

 

[Topper]

If I remove the one with Windows 7, that should work in the new build, right?

HaHaHa..... Let's hope.

 

[Erasmus]

It won't work. Windows 7 is locked to a whole lot of different bits in your computer. For example, you can't run it native and virtualised on the same computer with one serial number, as it will think you are changing the hardware (personal experience).

Even more ridiculous, it will un-register itself if you change your RAM and HDD at the same time.

You might be lucky, and you might be able to register it again (I think it gives you a few unofficial changes free) but if not, you may have to ring Microsoft helpline and claim you are just 'reinstalling Windows'. Or just buy Windows 8.

 

[GermanyChris]

It won't work. Windows 7 is locked to a whole lot of different bits in your computer. For example, you can't run it native and virtualised on the same computer with one serial number, as it will think you are changing the hardware (personal experience).

Even more ridiculous, it will un-register itself if you change your RAM and HDD at the same time.

You might be lucky, and you might be able to register it again (I think it gives you a few unofficial changes free) but if not, you may have to ring Microsoft helpline and claim you are just 'reinstalling Windows'. Or just buy Windows 8.

Last I know windows 7 used the MAC address of your motherboard.

 

[Topper]

It won't work. Windows 7 is locked to a whole lot of different bits in your computer. For example, you can't run it native and virtualised on the same computer with one serial number, as it will think you are changing the hardware (personal experience).

Even more ridiculous, it will un-register itself if you change your RAM and HDD at the same time.

You might be lucky, and you might be able to register it again (I think it gives you a few unofficial changes free) but if not, you may have to ring Microsoft helpline and claim you are just 'reinstalling Windows'. Or just buy Windows 8.

Okay, thank you. I will have Windows 8 on a new disc so I suppose I can transfer data to the new disc from the SSD. Then I've got to transfer everything back to the SSD. Such is life in the fast lane.

 

[maccompaq]

Thanks guys for the info.
If Windows 8 works well with X Plane 10, then it will be OK. Does anyone have that experience right now?
I also wonder if the 3 GB video RAM in the GTX780 will be enough for X Plane 10.

 

[Topper]

If Windows 8 works well with X Plane 10, then it will be OK. Does anyone have that experience right now?

I am going to ask that question on the X-Plane forum. I'll send you a pm.

I also wonder if the 3 GB video RAM in the GTX780 will be enough for X Plane 10.

That's the difficult question of the day. I don't know. That's the reason I went with the Titan.
There is some question of whether or not someone will bring out a 6GB 780.
Many think not because of the Titan.

 

[theSeb]

As long as we are not certain which BTO grfx cards are available, it's hard to judge the new Mac Pro regarding X-Plane 10.

As it was "shown" the new Mac Pro will probably boast at least one config housing two AMD FirePro GPU's.
Yes, these grfx cards will do pretty well in X-Plane 10, but you'll be paying a shed load of money for "workstation-class" GPU's which are not the best "gaming-grfx" hardware. IIRC these cards perform similar to a 7970 in gaming (again: not bad, but the price will be very high...)

If the new Mac Pro will deliver a top-notch gaming card, then that Mac will be a very, very good X-Plane machine.
If you want to use OS X for X-Plane, then the AMD cards perform better. In Windows the nVidia cards perform best.

The CPU, bus speed, RAM speed etc. will all be very good.

It states that dual GPUs are standard. They are configurable up to what was shown in the keynote.

 

[Topper]

If Windows 8 works well with X Plane 10, then it will be OK. Does anyone have that experience right now?

There are a number of threads on the X-Plane forum dealing with Windows 7 vs Windows 8.
The vast majority of the people said they have no problems running X-Plane under Windows 8.
Some say Windows 8 is faster than Windows 7.
Some say that Windows 7 is restricted to 16GB of memory.
There was one problem with Windows 8 that doesn't appear to have been solved: There are issues with joystick controllers under Win8 which causes joysticks/yokes/rudder petals to occasionally go unresponsive after 30 to 120 minutes of use. Some people have gone back to Win7 for that reason.
I just use my Wacom tablet to control X-Plane so I'll be using Win8.

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=62787

http://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?showtopic=65723

 

[maccompaq]

Topper, thanks for the info. Hopefully there are others who have experience with Win 8 and X Plane 10. Just wondering if video drivers are better on Win 8 or Win 7. My primary interest is GTX780.

Have you maxed out the 4GB on your GTX680 with X Plane 10?

 

[Topper]

Topper, thanks for the info. Hopefully there are others who have experience with Win 8 and X Plane 10. Just wondering if video drivers are better on Win 8 or Win 7. My primary interest is GTX780.

Have you maxed out the 4GB on your GTX680 with X Plane 10?

Sounds to me like the Win8 drivers are just fine.

Haven't maxed out the 4GB but I'm not getting the results I want because my 2008 Mac Pro processors are a bottleneck for my GTX 680. And I am only running with a PCIe 1.1 bus under Win7(Bootcamp).
It will be nice to see if PCIe 3.0 is any help.

 

[maccompaq]

Topper, are you building or buying the next computer to run X Plane 10?
When I built my Hack, I used the most powerful Quad Core i7 that was on the market. It was to be used for X Plane only.

Then I bought FSX, but I cannot really enjoy it. A large part of the reason is that I cannot get it programmed into my yoke. I want to like it, but never feel motivated to dig into it. Suggestions, anyone?

 

[dpny]

Have you maxed out the 4GB on your GTX680 with X Plane 10?

With the attached rendering settings my VRAM usage is usually around 2.3-2.5 GB. I've seen it go over 3 GB with the the right combination of scenery and planes.

 

[Topper]

Topper, are you building or buying the next computer to run X Plane 10?
When I built my Hack, I used the most powerful Quad Core i7 that was on the market. It was to be used for X Plane only.

Then I bought FSX, but I cannot really enjoy it. A large part of the reason is that I cannot get it programmed into my yoke. I want to like it, but never feel motivated to dig into it. Suggestions, anyone?

Buying. I get to specify the components:
Case: Cooler Master HAF-X Gaming Full Tower
CPU: Intel® Core™ i7-4770K 3.50 GHz 8MB Intel Smart Cache
GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX Titan 6GB 16X PCIe 3.0
Cooler: Asetek 570LX Liquid Cooling system
SSD: Samsung 240GB Pro
Memory: G. SKILL Ripjaws16GB (4GBx4) DDR3/1866MHz
Motherboard: ASUS Z87-Pro Intel Z87 Chipset DDR3
OS: Microsoft® Windows 8 (64-bit Edition)
Overclock: Extreme OC (Extreme Overclock 20% or more)
Power Supply: Corsair Professional Series CMPSU-AX850

If you are using a yoke, you may want to use Win7 instead of Win8. There may be an issue about using yokes and joysticks with Win8.

With the attached rendering settings my VRAM usage is usually around 2.3-2.5 GB. I've seen it go over 3 GB with the the right combination of scenery and planes.

I wanted to double check my VRAM usage because I am making my own scenery which should tap into my VRAM. But X-Plane has crashed on me.
Now I've got to go to my back-up and reinstall Win7.

 

[chris.k]

Any of the ISDG sceneries will easily put you over 2GB of VRAM usage on Extreme (aka native) texture resolution.

If you can get a card > 2GB then do it. Hires photo sceneries aren't getting any smaller.

 

[Topper]

Any of the ISDG sceneries will easily put you over 2GB of VRAM usage on Extreme (aka native) texture resolution.

If you can get a card > 2GB then do it. Hires photo sceneries aren't getting any smaller.

If anyone would know, you're the one.

 

[maccompaq]

With the attached rendering settings my VRAM usage is usually around 2.3-2.5 GB. I've seen it go over 3 GB with the the right combination of scenery and planes.

What size monitor are you using & what resolution?

 

[maccompaq]

Any of the ISDG sceneries will easily put you over 2GB of VRAM usage on Extreme (aka native) texture resolution.

If you can get a card > 2GB then do it. Hires photo sceneries aren't getting any smaller.

I recently read a post from a guy running GTX680. He said to get the 4GB version if the resolution is over 1920 x 1080, but get the 2GB version if 1920 x 1080 or less. Is that a valid conclusion?

 

[dpny]

What size monitor are you using & what resolution?

21 inch at 1920 x 1080. Remember that monitor size alone won't determine this. Field of view can affect it as well.