Will FS2 Vulkan leave behind slightly older computers?

  • As Windows and Intel do not seem to support Vulkan for CPUs earlier than Skylake does this suggest that older computers would be better with a motherboard and memory change as well as any planned CPU upgrade?

    Could be but I wonder who uses the GPU built into a CPU with a flight sim...? I think most flight simmers have a dedicated GPU...? I could be wrong though. Anyway, it's not a problem since we get the option to choose.

  • I obviously know very little about this, I had thought that part of the wiki article was about the Vulkan's CPU multi core and threading implications and so supposed that this absent support item was related to the CPU usage. I admit that I don't know enough to make full sense of the article.

    I hadn't at all thought of the CPU integrated graphics! Why I wonder, would Vulkan even be available for the most recent CPU integrated graphics, surely they are aimed at slow stuff like office work and web pages?

    Would the minimum spec' two core, 3 GHz hardware requirement computer be likely to benefit from or be affected by this?

  • Why I wonder, would Vulkan even be available for the most recent CPU integrated graphics, surely they are aimed at slow stuff like office work and web pages?

    No, you can play many 3D games without problems with current integrated graphics processors (IGPs), if the games are not too demanding. This is especially true for somewhat older games and if you don't max out the graphics settings.

    Obviously, since Vulkan generally lessens the work load for GPUs/IGPs as it's more efficient, this pushes the limit up a little what kind of games you can play (and at which settings) with a given GPU/IGP. Given the same graphics settings, a given game X supporting Vulkan will run smoother with Vulkan than with OpenGL. Or, given the same level of "smoothness", you can increase the graphics settings. Your choice.

    Of course, a good dedicated GPU will always be better than an IGP.

  • As a rough estimate expect a performance increase somewhere between 5 to 15% depending on graphic settings and where you fly.

    Ah, ok... Well, still interesting, specially in the future when more options will be added. ;)

  • We will not leave behind any computer we supported previously. Also Vulkan won't give that many benefits compared to how we previously used OpenGL. As a rough estimate expect a performance increase somewhere between 5 to 15% depending on graphic settings and where you fly.

    So Vulkan is not the key part of the performance increase?

  • So Vulkan is not the key part of the performance increase?

    Apparently not. From the topic about Orbx scenery:

    "a few things had to happen internally for performance issues to be resolved with Netherlands TE as well as our Florida Keys DLC, these 'things' are resolved with our upcoming update that changes the graphics rendering and improves performance to allow for even more cultivation models to be used.

    I can tell you that there is so much cultivation in our Florida Keys scenery that prior to this change the scenery had performance issues but now, even with OpenGL, due to the major graphics engine changes it runs butter smooth, and I'm seeing no more flickering within the cultivation itself."

    So Vulkan isn't the key part: OpenGL performance has been improved and Vulkan will take that improvement even a step further.

    • Official Post

    So Vulkan is not the key part of the performance increase?

    Two things happened: A complete overhaul of the core graphics engine took place, this improved the OpenGL rendering in general, then the second thing, we introduced a completely new 'beta' vulkan rendering engine which when tested increased performance even further than the OpenGL renderer. You will have two options, 1) use the default OpenGL renderer or 2) use the new beta vulkan renderer. Depending on which GPU you are using the results may differ so you have the option to make your own determination based on your own personal result. Since the vulkan renderer is a bare metal GPU code there are a lot of variables to consider; what driver version you are using, what graphics settings you have set, what model of GPU you own, etc.

    I can tell you this; I performed testing on a 980m GPU laptop and I seen pretty decent results using the vulkan renderer vs. the OpenGL renderer but in the last build some graphics anomalies has to be fixed and the result changed the testing results just a bit. We will continue to 'tweak' things under the hood to get everything right for a public update release soon.

    This is the best I can do to explain this for now, you can make your own determination soon. But also please understand that the vulkan renderer option is in beta so it will be improved on as we move forward and learn of the system better.

    So, whether vulkan is everything you expected or not I can confirm that the core OpenGL renderer is much better than it was and a performance improvement is clearly seen. We think that you will like the result.

    IPACS Development Team Member

    I'm just a cook, I don't own the restaurant.
    On behalf of Torsten, Marc, and the rest of the IPACS team, we would all like to thank you for your continued support.

    Regards,

    Jeff

  • So Vulkan isn't the key part: OpenGL performance has been improved and Vulkan will take that improvement even a step further.

    From my understanding, it's the usual first step to restructure existing OpenGL code in a way that is following the general principles of Vulkan, thus making it easier to port it over to Vulkan later on. As a side effect, this restructuring alone improves the performance of the OpenGL code as it will be more in tune with how the GPU works on a hardware level.

    For more technical details, see e. g. here:

    https://developer.nvidia.com/opengl-vulkan

    Edited 2 times, last by RiseT (June 27, 2018 at 10:21 PM).

  • I assume the Vulkan option also provides a future path to Mac support as OpenGL support was deprecated by Apple and a standalone Metal version would be unfeasible. :/

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf

    • Official Post

    One of the reasons we will move to Vulkan is indeed the deprecation of OpenGL on the Apple Mac OS and iOS devices.

    On most computer systems, the CPU is not the bottleneck. Aerofly FS is mostly GPU bound and the CPU is just waiting idle. However Vulkan allows us to implement some things differently compared to OpenGL and this is why we get a small improvement of 5 to 15% in rendering speed.


  • ...

    On most computer systems, the CPU is not the bottleneck. Aerofly FS is mostly GPU bound and the CPU is just waiting idle. However Vulkan allows us to implement some things differently compared to OpenGL and this is why we get a small improvement of 5 to 15% in rendering speed.

    On my laptop (probably on most gaming laptops) the problem is that the CPU and GPU shares the same cooler. Once the CPU load starts to peak on the core running the main thread, turbo frequency will kick in and rev up the GPU load as well. After a couple of seconds I'll hit the TDP limit, where the CPU is clocked down, the GPU load will also fall, fps falling with it. With Vulkan, the CPU load is lower (also multi-threaded?) thus even if the GPU at peak load would steal the Watt budget from the CPU, the lower clocked CPU will still be able to dispatch the same amount of frames, especially on multiple cores.

    I'm playing on vsync since going over the display refresh rate is just excessive heat for me, so for even that 5-15% is a difference between a sustainable 60'ish fps or some terrible thermal throttilng with 25-30 fps drops.

    Best Regards

    Balazs

    Ryzen 2700X, HyperX 32GB, 2060 Super 8GB, win10/ubuntu19

    Saitek X52 HOTAS, Logitech G920 pedals

    freetrack/opentrack
    X-Plane 11, DCS modules: A-10C, Ka-50, FC3, Mirage 2000C, F/A-18C, Persian Gulf