AC Lotus 2-Eleven GT4 @ Paul Ricard - Wednesday 27th May 2020

[Kek700]

WE need @RasmusP to have go with this one, SOOO good at this sort of problem, to me the weak link looks like the RAM memory speed.
every thing else looks reasonable. could do with SD drive, not sure how that affect game FPS and Stability.

 

[Interslice]

I think the RAM is ok ernie as its reading at double 803. Hard disk will only really effect the load in time before a race. Hopefully rasmus can tell us we're not trying to problem solve the unsolvable here!

 

[RasmusP]

WE need @RasmusP to have go with this one, SOOO good at this sort of problem, to me the weak link looks like the RAM memory speed.
every thing else looks reasonable. could do with SD drive, not sure how that affect game FPS and Stability.

Hehe, hello there
RAM speed is normal. It's DDR3, double in the name so most hardware monitoring tools show half the frequency it's running it.

So 800 MHz = ddr3 1600 mhz ram.

Depending on resolution and graphics settings, I'd say the cpu is just too weak. Especially with mod tracks the geometric "tris" count (I never understood this completely but basically amount of polygons) can be a lot higher than compared to the well optimized Kunos tracks.

Tris or polygons or simply geometric stuff in general causes higher amounts of "draw calls", which directly influences cpu load.

The slider to compensate this is "world detail" in AC.

Other settings for cpu are:
- shadows
- reflections (especially update rate)
- mirrors
- APPS!!!! (they can singlehandedly tank a 9900k lol)
- custom shaders patch both positively and negatively.
- csp positively: the cpu optimizations. Custom font rendering, force low lod cockpits for opponents etc.

To be honest, since I know John for quite a while. Hopping on TeamSpeak and solve the problem right in the spot would be the most efficient way so I'll pm him

It's a combination of mod tracks, ac and csp settings. And of course the old amd cpu with pretty bad single thread performance compared to more modern CPUs.
I struggled constantly in AC with my 2600k from 2011 until I hit the sweetspot between good apps, csp optimizations and ac settings.

 

[Kek700]

Many thanks from all of us Rasmus.

 

[640er]

Ups just saw that I'm not already signed up. Let's fix that pls

 

[640er]

@Medilloni

Just did a quick check-up on your CPU and saw, that we both have an old one from 2012. Even though yours is a bit weaker according to CPU-Boss (link to comparison) I think it should be good enough. At the start of a qualy or race session I always have a high ping ~5000 which is, according to some threads, related to high CPU use. But after all cars etc. are loaded, my ping drops to normal and everything is working fine.

My guess would be, that there are some unnecessary tasks, apps, whatever running while playing. Don't know how much you are into PC's but nowadays a lot of programs are eager to be part of "autostart" in Windows. Always good to keep that clean. Have you any anti-virus running? Those programs are normaly the most unnecessary out there.. Other than that, tracking the load is always a good idea to start with. I am sure, your Nvidia software has some kind of metrics overlay which displays CPU, RAM etc usage while playing so no need to install any extra software.

 

[RasmusP]

@Medilloni

Just did a quick check-up on your CPU and saw, that we both have an old one from 2012. Even though yours is a bit weaker according to CPU-Boss (link to comparison) I think it should be good enough. At the start of a qualy or race session I always have a high ping ~5000 which is, according to some threads, related to high CPU use. But after all cars etc. are loaded, my ping drops to normal and everything is working fine.

My guess would be, that there are some unnecessary tasks, apps, whatever running while playing. Don't know how much you are into PC's but nowadays a lot of programs are eager to be part of "autostart" in Windows. Always good to keep that clean. Have you any anti-virus running? Those programs are normaly the most unnecessary out there.. Other than that, tracking the load is always a good idea to start with. I am sure, your Nvidia software has some kind of metrics overlay which displays CPU, RAM etc usage while playing so no need to install any extra software.

The problem is the single thread performance. Assetto Corsa (and almost every racing sim) only really uses 2 cores. Mainly it's even 1 core that hits the limit while the others could still do more work.
Sadly it seems simracing physics and rendering can't be split to more threads without a massive team, which most simracing studios don't have.
So what you're looking for in a current simracing-CPU is the maximum single thread performance, when 2-3 threads are fully used.

Which is why current Intel CPUs are still the best. A Ryzen 3600 for example will have a higher single thread performance when you use ONE thread. But as soon as you load 2 or 3 threads/cores, the clock boosts will go down and the performance will drop behind Intel quite clearly.

Bang for the buck:
Ryzen 3600 and 9600k

The 9600k will have quite a big advantage for simracing but the 3600 is cheaper and has about 50% more performance for stuff like video editing.

Here's a chart:

 

[Kek700]

As Rasmus says, I went for the 9600k, cost me £200, unfortunately you then have to spend on a Motherboard. It was not that much better in AC than the 6600k it replaced.

 

[Medilloni]

Ups just saw that I'm not already signed up. Let's fix that pls

You're in Andreas, welcome

 

[Medilloni]

To all of you wonderful people:

Thanks so much for your help and comments, I really appreciate it

 

[pattikins]

John, I notice that you have a micro-atx motherboard & I'm guessing the 1050ti is a low profile gpu, so do you have them inside a small form factor (SFF) case? In a lot SFF PC's, especially the office variety, they tend to be supplied with weak PSU's - 200-250W and over time, like all PSU's, they lose efficiency. The 1050ti uses low power consumption (75w), but the AMD CPU is power hungry. I'm wondering if this is the reason for your system crashes etc.,. Do you know the make & model of your PSU?

 

[Interslice]

OS Name Microsoft Windows 10 Pro
System Type x64-based PC
System SKU SKU
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7600K CPU @ 3.80GHz, 3792 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s) - Overclocked a touch
BaseBoard Product PRIME Z270-A
Installed Physical Memory (RAM) 16.0 GB DDR4 16GB 2x8GB CMK16GX4M2B3000C15
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 6GB (The 1080 has always been the future plan for it. Some day!)



27 inch (2560x1440) Dell monitor with freesync enabled

I get about 100 FPS in AC in a big grid with the quality at 9/10.
If I turn the graphics up to 10, as in sol and shaders the whole lot, in practice it's fine at 80 fps but, it gets down around the 70 fps in the big grid races with crew cheif and teamspeak on.
Feels a bit smoother in gameplay at 100fps and only the very occasional stutter back at 9/10 setting

I can run ACC at middle graphics setting and the big grid there with lowest setting pretty much.

Just thought I'd post that at a reference at it's right on the limit of running AC at full whack on a 27 inch monitor.

The standard game AC game without visual mods I could run at full whack no problem. The I-5 was great bang for your book in 2017 anyway. Alot better than the quad i7 for the same moneys. I think that's in laymans terms what @RasmusP is explaining The only time I've had the CPU waring was in full graphics setting on shutoku rvival full map, which if you've tried it you would understand why!

The fps dropped by about 30 to 40% when I went from a 21.5 ich 60hz 1080 monitor to the 144hz 2560x1440 27 inch.


Edited some of that to make sense! Sorry for rant, just thought it might be usefull to anyone building on a budget to play just AC. You can't exactly look up minimum requirements with all the mods and apps on the go!

 

[Raresch]

I would like to sign out from the race. paul ricard it's not my king of circuit.

 

[Medilloni]

John, I notice that you have a micro-atx motherboard & I'm guessing the 1050ti is a low profile gpu, so do you have them inside a small form factor (SFF) case? In a lot SFF PC's, especially the office variety, they tend to be supplied with weak PSU's - 200-250W and over time, like all PSU's, they lose efficiency. The 1050ti uses low power consumption (75w), but the AMD CPU is power hungry. I'm wondering if this is the reason for your system crashes etc.,. Do you know the make & model of your PSU?

Hiya Patrick, it's a 'mid' case, so no idea why it's got a micro board ...even then there's not much room though. The PSU is a Corsair vs550, I think it's about 6yrs old.

 

[RasmusP]

The fps dropped by about 30 to 40% when I went from a 21.5 ich 60hz 1080 monitor to the 144hz 2560x1440 27 inch.

Thanks for your post

This quote means that your graphics card is the limiting factor. The cpu doesn't really care for resolution but the gpu needs linearly more power with increasing amount of pixels.

To know what's limiting on your computer for a specific game you simply need to read out thr gpu load. When it's above 95%, it's the graphics cars. If not, it's your cpu.
Or a fps limiter or vsync ofc...

You can't simply read out the cpu limit though as there's the single core and the multicore limit and there's no tool to see it clearly, sadly.

When you know the cpu is the limit things become a bit complicated. Overclocking the cores, the cache, the ram, finding out which settings actually influence the cpu (like amount of signs in ac app. Leaderboard apps are intense!).

Hiya Patrick, it's a 'mid' case, so no idea why it's got a micro board ...even then there's not much room though. The PSU is a Corsair vs550, I think it's about 6yrs old.

Totally fine then. My PSU is... I forgot, be quiet 530w from 2011 I think.
Quality PSUs work until they fail and then they have failsafes. I'll replace mine in the next few years though to not risk it with 10+ years.

 

[Kek700]

This is a very difficult situation for John, with many pitfalls in trying to buy your way out of this situation.
It can and probably will lead to wasting money, not to mention still having problems.
The system is not ideal but it is very useable, my take would be to find simple solution that yields a more short term positive solution.
So when the future presents itself a more £ orientated approach can take place.
With the help of Rasmus hopefully suggesting an approach.
People run VR which to be honest gives a crap image quality, so could John take
the view of reducing the requirement of system, I have far less loss on my system with 30 online players than 15 AI.
Perhaps making sure that Nvidia control panel is giving the best performance gains, how V -sync is set, ensuring least amount of App’s are in use, how he is using the internet, power requirements of the accessories, no shaders or any of the AC effects, even with a decent system I have all the AC effects off.
I remember I had to do a similar thing a few years ago, was shocked how much I reduced the system load. If memory serves me correctly I managed to find an extra 40 Fps, with no real loss of viewing playability, admittedly some loss of eye candy.
just a thought.

 

[GeekyDeaks]

People run VR which to be honest gives a crap image quality, so could John take
the view of reducing the requirement of system

I turned everything off/minimum to get a decent fps. Jaggies were a bit off putting so I tried 2x AA and then could not really tell much difference to having all the shiny stuff on and the image looked sharper too. Only thing I miss are the brake lights.

Overall, I'm really pleased with the VR image quality, but to be fair my pervious reference point for sim racing is on the lines of this:

 

[Kek700]

The numbers look pretty low at the moment @Medilloni.
So I’ll make up the numbers, not a track I like but I’ll give it a go.

 

[Kek700]

Hope I did not upset any VR users, I think VR, I had the S, it is a game changer.
When you can plug it in and go, the image quality is the same as a 1440p monitor,
then I will revisit VR definitely.

 

[Medilloni]

The numbers look pretty low at the moment @Medilloni.
So I’ll make up the numbers, not a track I like but I’ll give it a go.

You're in Ernie, good to see you