Computer ideas for Assetto Corsa

[Kek700]

This is a difficult subject, it is about how much money you can spend, or have to waste.
Electronics are so expensive, I should know, I have been trying to buy bits and pieces over the last couple of months.
I usually get new stuff every three years, but this year the cost not only seems too high, I see no let-up in the future.
I just do sim racing, luckily i do not need to chase AAA games.
Thought it may be beneficial for all AC simracers to have a place to see what they can get, not only other peoples knowledge and PC spec's, but actually see in real-time what is achieved for different PC specifications.
Perhaps if we have ideas we can put into the pool of knowledge and combine them in helping our fellow AC racers; Often hearing whilst racing of stutter, dropouts and disconnects going on.
This is for all to hopefully, add bits of information.
If it dies a death, then so be it, at least I have put something that I promised into action.

Rasmus gave me a small CSP script that I use, to mainly help with FPS, which was a great success, also reduced stutter.
When my new PC is done, will post that info too, based on the below.

Windows 10 Pro
Rog Strix Z390 mini itx gaming
i5 9600K @ 5GHz clocked core voltage 1.252v
RTX 2080
3 x 1080p monitors Free sync NVidia compatible.
My internet ping is approximately 25
3600mhz 16Gb Ram

SPA race circuit, start position 21 out of 24, ran my car in Ai mode. CNTRL C

start
GPU temps 61 deg
GPU usage 65%
GPU frequency 1875
Memory usage 3500 @ 70000
CPU temps 45 deg
CPU usage 50%
CPU frequency 4995
FPS 87


20 min later
GPU temps 64 deg
GPU usage 70%
GPU frequency 1875
Memory usage 3500 @ 70000
CPU temps 50 deg
CPU usage 50%
CPU frequency 4995
FPS 125



DIP 5600
TRI 3500000
Bsize 700
Scene 2000000
PHY 19%
PHY late 0
Fmod 9%

 

[Billy Pilgrim]

Rasmus gave me a small CSP script

Thanks for sharing this info.

What’s this CSP script? I’m intrigued.

 

[Kek700]

You will need to ask Rasmus; I looked into using content manager for the better FPS it gives and the CSP for better graphics.
But I really don’t want most of content manager, and I do not want the frame hit that custom shader patches can give you. So I asked Rasmus to give me a patch that gave improved FPS from content manager and some of the CSP to give a slightly better image quality.
You really do need to chat to him, I am just parrot fashioning these statement, really do not know the mechanics of it all.

 

[Bob Gnarley]

I've been wanting to upgrade my gpu for a while but...obvious reasons. So i went the other way and "downgraded" my screens, going from triple 1080 to 1440 ultrawide.

6,484,320 pixels (6004x1080) down to 4,953,600 (3440x1440) and as i hoped it's given my Radeon RX5700xt a new lease of life. I thought i would miss the extra visual real estate but not at all. And as it's hdr 144hz etc it really feels like an upgrade over the cheap 75hz jobs it replaces.

Not only does the lighter workload mean that i can tweak settings up but the whole experience is smoother.

Just a little food for thought.

 

[RobertR1]

A few notes on AC for areas to focus on when trying to extract more performance:
- It doesn’t scale with cores so buying a cpu with more cores won’t help. If you have a modern 4core cpu, you’re fine
- Maxing out your clock speed, disabling hyper threading is ideal
- manually tuning you ram will help a lot. Faster ram lets the cpu do more work thus faster processing of data
- Post processing, reflections (no of faces per frame) and AA (anti aliasing) are your biggest gpu performance hogs. For reflections, static is cheapest while 2 faces per frame is a good balance esp if you use CSP
- If you’re going to run post processing off and also run sol, under ”weatherfx“ on the far right, you’ll see Scripts. In the drop down choose, “simple pp off”

 

[stigs2cousin]

Hy rasmus,

do you know the reward for helping a fellow out??
You´ll be pestered by other fellows to help them out too

So if you could be so kind :

I´m running tripple 1080p with aR5 3600XT and Rx5700xt oc on a prebuild I bought in June 20.
After learning a little about computers I changed the case fans and the CPU cooler which lead to much lower CPU and GPU temps which won´t go over 75° C nowadays. FPS are limited to 85, so i don´t have stutters.

What bugs me is the ( I presume) anti aliasing because fences and powerlines really look bad, especially at Kunos Nordschleife.

Is there a trick to get these looking better without sacrificing FPS?

AC with CM

MSAA 8x
FXAA on
Anisotropic filtering 16x

CSP 0.1.75

graphics adjustments active
AMD FXSR active
FXAA 3.11

I hope I´m just missing something here because higher resolution screens are not on the table right now, especially not together with a new PC.


MFG Carsten

 

[Kek700]

Rasmus script file did some of that for me too, I won’t do the thing of saying they are completely gone, too much of a realist for that sort comment, but they are only noticeable if you make a conscious effort to stare at them.
You really need to chat to @RasmusP to get a concise and clear picture, I would give you my Rasmus script folder, more than happy.
but I prefer to go via Rasmus first, I do not think it is some sort of magic secret ingredient. But I don’t want to tread on any toe’s.
The lad has helped me a lot over the past 4 years, he will probably be helping me over the next 4 years with any luck.

 

[RasmusP]

Luckily for you, I just set up my PC in the new apartment and I'm up and running again! Only the wheelstand is missing for now.

start
GPU temps 61 deg
GPU usage 65%
GPU frequency 1875
Memory usage 3500 @ 70000
CPU temps 45 deg
CPU usage 50%
CPU frequency 4995
FPS 87

Since your fps limit is higher than your fps, it's either CPU or GPU.
Since your GPU load is only at 65%, it's your 9600k that's limiting here.

20 min later
GPU temps 64 deg
GPU usage 70%
GPU frequency 1875
Memory usage 3500 @ 70000
CPU temps 50 deg
CPU usage 50%
CPU frequency 4995
FPS 125

Same here. Graphics card is fine at 70%.

Thanks for sharing this info.

What’s this CSP script? I’m intrigued.

No magic script. It's really only my FPS-Optimized CSP Preset.
But Ernie isn't using Content Manager so I packed him CSP bundle with my preset which he could simply drag&drop into his AC installation folder.
It's basically everything disabled apart from the optimizations and TAA.

Hy rasmus,

do you know the reward for helping a fellow out??
You´ll be pestered by other fellows to help them out too

Hehe happy to help!

Is there a trick to get these looking better without sacrificing FPS?

Yes. Put MSAA to only 2x to gain quite some FPS. Then enable TAA in CSP to lose the fps you just gained.
But TAA works on "transparent" objects too so cables, fences, reflections etc will become smooth too.
It's not really transparent, most fences in normal games are mostly the biggest issue since they are a "wall" that's transparent in certain parts of the "texture".
MSAA however doesn't work on these!

graphics adjustments active
AMD FXSR active
FXAA 3.11

Try this: (and put MSAA to 2x!)

 

[stigs2cousin]

Thanks Rasmus,

that took care of my fence problem and cured the "eye cancer" at least in near and medium distance.

Since I still have some FPS to spare ( all tracks I tried 120+ FPS in practice and 70+ with 24 AI. I guess that means that the
R5 3600x is the bottleneck?)

So is there a way to get rid of the rippling of armco barriers and gravel traps??

MFG Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

Since I still have some FPS to spare ( all tracks I tried 120+ FPS in practice and 70+ with 24 AI. I guess that means that the
R5 3600x is the bottleneck?)

Probably, but not necessarily.
More cars also put more stuff on the screen so the graphics card also has to work harder.
But probably not "50 fps less" harder.
Check your gpu load via Taskmanager Performance tab.
If it's not close to 100%, it's your 3600x.

So is there a way to get rid of the rippling of armco barriers and gravel traps??

Rippling?
Can you try to do a screenshot or if it isn't visible there, maybe a little video with your phone where you go really close?
For aliasing to be truly visible on record, you need the game to be actually displayed because of dpi of the monitor etc.
And it's often only visible while in motion, due to the pixel crawling.

 

[stigs2cousin]

You´re right, GPU is at 100%.

About the "rippling effect" it looks exactly like that:

It shows best at the armco and the grandstand roof on the right and it even shows the washed out colors

MFG Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

You´re right, GPU is at 100%

When having the 120 fps only or also when you're only having 70 fps?

About the "rippling effect" it looks exactly like that:

Yeah in ACC, the TAA can't counter it all. The finer the objects, the more it will "flicker".
It's when a line becomes smaller than the monitor pixels and then jumps from one pixel to the next.
You can also end up with lines not being drawn at all, when it would be "between" pixels.

Imo it's an lod problem. When objects become too small, they should simply be taken away or getting replaced by a bigger/rougher lod that won't cause that pixel crawling.

That's why old games look a lot cleaner. They simply didn't have the fine details.

In your case, only 1440p or 4k monitors would help, sadly.
Or super sampling. (super resolution)
Either would kill your graphics card

What are your amd fsr settings? Maybe that could be tweaked..

Otherwise you could try only 8x anisotropic filtering. Things will get a bit blurrier in the distance but maybe it'll help to hide the issue.
And in one of the csp sections, you can change lod distances. You could try to put them to 80%. It will force the rougher lod to kick in closer to you.


Overall, I'm totally with you. I'm really really annoyed by the trajectory games are taking. Fancier with each iteration but less calm image quality with lot of pixel crawling.

I don't care if that fence has 300 or 4 Mio polygons. Just don't make it flickering like crazy...

 

[Denis Betty]

What are your amd fsr settings? Maybe that could be tweaked..

Hi Rasmus.
I saw a vid in which it's claimed that FSR doesn't have any benefit at 1080p. Do you know if ths is correct and would it still apply with 1080 triples? Thanks.

 

[stigs2cousin]

Maybe I can answer that

If just done another round of testing and found that with:

Assetto Corsa
MSAA x4
AF x16
FXAA on

CSP extra FX
TAA on + extra sharpness

CSP graphical adjustments
AFSR ultra/very high
track LOD 75%
post-processing FXAA3.11/high

most of my problems are solved, especially the shimmering gravel traps ( Barcelona)
the grand stands roof does not dance any more, only the f.... armcos are still shimmering.

As these problems are probably the dreaded pixel crawl, I´m afraid Rasmus is right and to solve all I´d have to rob a bank and swap to triple 4k with a 3080ti and 1290k.
( guess what´s not happening any time soon )

Thanks Rasmus, I learned a lot on a field I have no real interest in.
I pretend to be the " second to last analog man", even choose my car for the least possible content of electronics.

Oh, and yeah, of course you were right:
when doing 120FPS single car the GPU is breaking a sweat at 95-100%, when doing 24 AI the CPU is between 35-40% and the GPU chills at 60-80%.
How good can I trust Rizenmaster for an AutoOverclock??

It feels like AFSR has very little impact when going solo where the GPU is the limit, with 24 AI it felt like a small increase in FPS ( less than 10) No idea if that stands up in court

MFG Carsten

 

[RasmusP]

Hi Rasmus.
I saw a vid in which it's claimed that FSR doesn't have any benefit at 1080p. Do you know if ths is correct and would it still apply with 1080 triples? Thanks.

For this, I need to explain how FSR works:
It's made for 4k displays, but it works at any resolution!
At 4k, it will take a lower resolution, depending on the quality FSR preset, and then scale it back up to 4k via a specific algorithm.
Nvidia DLSS uses the "AI cores" on the GPU for that, AMD simply does it on the GPU chip itself.

If you'd use 1920x1080 as the lower resolution to scale up to 4k, that would be 0.5 amount of pixels per dimension.
If you'd use the same quality preset for 1920x1080, that would only be 960x540 pixels.

At some point, there won't be enough pixels for the algorithm to understand what it is scaling up.

Imagine it like looking at a word and then taking out bits of the letters. You will be able to read the word and if needed, fill in the gaps in the letters with a pen.
But at some point, you won't be able to do that anymore.

So the lower the target resolution (your monitor), the harder the algorithm needs to work to scale it back up and at some point it won't give good results anymore.

But overall, you can definitely experiment with FSR at 1080p!
Especially when you're using triples, at least horizontally there will be plenty enough pixels!

most of my problems are solved, especially the shimmering gravel traps ( Barcelona)
the grand stands roof does not dance any more, only the f.... armcos are still shimmering.

Nice to hear! Armcos are hopeless, I know...

As these problems are probably the dreaded pixel crawl, I´m afraid Rasmus is right and to solve all I´d have to rob a bank and swap to triple 4k with a 3080ti and 1290k.
( guess what´s not happening any time soon )

Nah, triple 1440p, getting 10cm further away from the monitor and a 4060ti will be enough.
The CPU doesn't really care for the amount of pixels!

Thanks Rasmus, I learned a lot on a field I have no real interest in.
I pretend to be the " second to last analog man", even choose my car for the least possible content of electronics.

Hehe thanks for the feedback!
I'm probably the first "digital" generation at 30 years old and as long as it's not buggy, cheap stuff that's gonna fall apart after 5 years, I love all the electronics in cars.
My favourite part of my little Skoda Fabia (2018): The adaptive cruise control!
It's so relaxing to only having to watch the traffic and be ready to break if really needed but not needing to vary the throttle position all the time because the cars in front are unable to hold their speed

Oh, and yeah, of course you were right:
when doing 120FPS single car the GPU is breaking a sweat at 95-100%, when doing 24 AI the CPU is between 35-40% and the GPU chills at 60-80%.

That makes sense! So at 120 fps you're GPU limited, with 24 AI you become CPU limited.

How good can I trust Rizenmaster for an AutoOverclock??

Never used it... It will probably barely increase clockspeeds and pump a lot of voltage into your CPU...
The 3600x is already really well optimized out of the box. You will find lots of posts and videos about overclocking all cores to get higher Cinebench scores but it's mostly worse for single thread limited games like our simracing titles.

You could however enable PBO, precision boost overdrive and allow the CPU to boost a bit higher. Afaik you can set a negative voltage offset at the same time so your CPU will run lower voltage and higher boost clocks.
But I never did that and I sadly can't find a good guide showing exactly that right now...
@Case_ Might have some quick info about that?

It feels like AFSR has very little impact when going solo where the GPU is the limit, with 24 AI it felt like a small increase in FPS ( less than 10) No idea if that stands up in court

Mh... FSR should really ONLY show any impact when the graphics card is limiting. It doesn't do anything for the CPU afaik...

 

[stigs2cousin]

Hmm,

PBO shows an uptick to 4275MHZ (from 4100MHZ)

Lets see if I can spot improvements in gameplay.

My favourite part of my little Skoda Fabia (2018): The adaptive cruise control!
It's so relaxing to only having to watch the traffic and be ready to break if really needed but not needing to vary the throttle position all the time because the cars in front are unable to hold their speed

Personally I devide cars into two segments:

1. cars that my employer can lease for me, if it breaks its under warranty f... it.

2. cars I would buy with my own money. Which I do with my fun when driving it but also with the longterm durability and fixability in mind. My last car was a BMW 320d which crapped up at 18 years and 437tkm.
My today car ( the first I bought almost new) is now 8 years old and has 135tkm. I plan to challenge the longevity of the BMW by treating it well and do the most maintenance and repairs myself.
It only had one repair to date had to have the clutch replaced because the throw out bearing crapped out which can be also accredited to it being almost drowned in July.
The car has the absolute least possible amount of electronics available in 2013 because these things don´t age well and are hard to keep up with niche cars.
So I have to drive myself? No big deal, I´m better than all the chips out there .

BTT, I´ll give word when I had time to try PBO.

Thanks again Carsten

 

[Case_]

Never used it... It will probably barely increase clockspeeds and pump a lot of voltage into your CPU...
The 3600x is already really well optimized out of the box. You will find lots of posts and videos about overclocking all cores to get higher Cinebench scores but it's mostly worse for single thread limited games like our simracing titles.

You could however enable PBO, precision boost overdrive and allow the CPU to boost a bit higher. Afaik you can set a negative voltage offset at the same time so your CPU will run lower voltage and higher boost clocks.
But I never did that and I sadly can't find a good guide showing exactly that right now...
@Case_ Might have some quick info about that?

I wouldn't bother. I do run my 3600 using an all-core OC at 4275 MHz and a manual voltage, but only because it runs cooler like that. Performance-wise, it's pretty much pointless outside of synthetic benchmarks.
And I never could get that negative offset stuff working either.

RyzenMaster is fine if for some reason you don't want to do overclocking "as it should be done", in BIOS.