Upgrade advice for Assetto Corsa/Custom Shaders patch setup

[nryoung1980]

Hi,

I've been playing Assetto Corsa pretty happily on my current hardware for a while. But I keep seeing youtube videos of LA Canyons and other tracks where the graphics look incredible, and it just doesn't look as good for me when I play. I'm considering my options for improving the quality, but I'm only prepared to spend so much. I have been monitoring my CPU and GPU load whilst playing and have found that well optimised tracks (such as LA Canyons and Kunos Nordschleife) only load my CPU up to 60% and the GPU runs pretty flat out, but is still very smooth and good FPS. Less well optimised tracks seem to run at a lower load for the GPU (80-90%) but the CPU hits 100% at times and generally runs in the 85-95% range, in these circumstances it starts dropping frames and this gets worse the more cars I have on track.

Firstly my hardware. I have a GTX 1050Ti card, which I'm considering upgrading to a 1660Ti as this seems to give a lot of bang for buck. I'm thinking that this will allow me to run more intensive graphics options but to be honest, I can't really see anything in Content manager or CSP that needs turning up. I'm only running a single display at 1920x1080.

My CPU is an AMD FX4300 3.8GHz. I have 8GB of RAM installed and I was thinking of upgrading to the 16GB that my board supports. I would consider a CPU upgrade, but am probably inclined to try more RAM first.

Everything is clocked normally and since I know nothing about overclocking I haven't seriously thought about overclocking anything.

I'm running version 0.1.46 of the CSP and I've played with some settings but regardless of what I do I'm not noticing any change in quality. I have noticed that there's moving water in some videos but for me the water is always static (does that point towards anything in particular?).

Thanks for reading all that, I'll be grateful to anyone who can point me towards some useful reading, or can offer any advice.

 

[Duarteral]

take a look a this video, hope it helps someting

 

[Please Stop This]

not only for vr: https://www.racedepartment.com/threads/ac-csp-sol-vr-settings-for-best-iq-performance.171725/

 

[RasmusP]

For simracing there are 2 cpu configs you can buy:

Z390 board + 9600k:
Pick any board you like, just decide what connectors you need. Gigabyte z390 gaming X for EU is the cheapest board with 8 USB ports. Also gigabyte has very good VRMs in the lower budget categories for z390.
The 9600k has the same IPC as its bigger brothers and the benchmark differences for games that aren't using more than 6 cores (all simracing games use only 2-4 cores) is due to lower clockspeeds at stock.
The main issue really is the lower clock speed, which is a thing of raising the multipliers in the bios though and then have a short look into hwmonitor to check if voltages are fine (they mostly are for 4.9 GHz, stepped down to 4.6 GHz the more cores are used).

Couldn't be easier really!

You'd need 16gb ddr4 though. I'd recommend 3200 CL16 for price/performance sweetspot currently. (you also need ddr4 for ryzen)

Second setup:
B450 mobo + ryzen 3600:

Not as high fps numbers for simracing as the single thread performance gets lower when you're using 3-4 cores due to the clock speeds going down. (like 1 core = 4400 mhz, 2 cores = 4250, 3 cores = 4100 etc. Not the correct speeds but you get the point)
It's still plenty enough and a massive upgrade for you!
For the mobo it's similar to the Intel. Just buy whatever connectors you need and you're fine. They have such a low power consumption.. It really doesn't matter.

The clue with ryzen 3xxx would be that you'll be able to put in the probably a lot better ryzen 4xxx CPUs at the end of this year or early next year.

With the b450/x470 boards you will have to wait longer though for the bios updates for ryzen 4xxx support and you'll need to update the bios in a more complicated way.

Another thing to consider though:
The B550 chipset will come out mid June and will have more USB ports, pci-e 4.0 and will also support ryzen 4xxx a lot earlier and without as much hassle with bios updates like with the b450 chipsets!


Gpu: yeah just get a 1660ti. Best bang for the buck

The new Nvidia cards will probably come out in August/September but who knows.. Maybe they won't...


About your performance balance: when you'd upgrade the cpu, you could lower some graphic settings and get awesome fps and then upgrade the gpu later.

If you get the 1660ti first, you'll be able to raise some settings but you'll always have stuttering problems due to your cpu.

Hope that helps

Btw I'm totally torn at the moment too.. Need a cpu upgrade:
10700k = too expensive and Powe hungry

10600k = barely gaming performance over 9600k and 150€ more. Nice video rendering performance though

9700k = similar performance to 10600k, a bit kite expensive though. A little bit higher gaming performance though and no potential issues with hyperthreading

9600k = really best bang for the buck but not the best rendering performance when I edit videos...

Ryzen = awesome mix but I'm planning to get VR and need the gaming performance of Intel or potential ryzen 4xxx

 

[RobertR1]

@RasmusP

Get a 10600k with bdie. You can get a 14/3200 bin which are pretty cheap. Then hand tune it all. You'll be set for a while. 10700k gets you more cores but not much more in sims. Having said that if you're playing non sims, next gen of games will likely want more cores as the baseline for consoles becomes 8/16.

 

[RasmusP]

@RasmusP

Get a 10600k with bdie. You can get a 14/3200 bin which are pretty cheap. Then hand tune it all. You'll be set for a while. 10700k gets you more cores but not much more in sims. Having said that if you're playing non sims, next gen of games will likely want more cores as the baseline for consoles becomes 8/16.

Thanks for that!
Gonna need to see how ram prices are for me at the moment and how hot such overclocking would get.
I probably won't be able to overclock the 10600k at all. Hot case, bad room. Don't want to spend anything on this though...

Do you know if I could only overclock the uncore and get a boost without too much heat?

I'm currently waiting for prices to settle. 10600k isn't out yet so prices won't adjust until 27th May.
Price for the relatively cheap but "okay" gigabyte gaming X went down from 209€ to 172€ within 4 days, which makes the 10th Gen a lot more attractive if this trend will continue for a the cpu price tag.

I'd get a 9600k but I'm editing about 2 videos per week. Nothing heavy, just putting a few clips together and then render for 30 minutes on my 2600k.
Hyperthreading on 6 cores would be too awesome to give it a miss for me.

 

[RobertR1]

Thanks for that!
Gonna need to see how ram prices are for me at the moment and how hot such overclocking would get.
I probably won't be able to overclock the 10600k at all. Hot case, bad room. Don't want to spend anything on this though...

Do you know if I could only overclock the uncore and get a boost without too much heat?

I'm currently waiting for prices to settle. 10600k isn't out yet so prices won't adjust until 27th May.
Price for the relatively cheap but "okay" gigabyte gaming X went down from 209€ to 172€ within 4 days, which makes the 10th Gen a lot more attractive if this trend will continue for a the cpu price tag.

I'd get a 9600k but I'm editing about 2 videos per week. Nothing heavy, just putting a few clips together and then render for 30 minutes on my 2600k.
Hyperthreading on 6 cores would be too awesome to give it a miss for me.

uncore is tied to vcore rail so at some point you n eed to add more vcore to get uncore up. At that point, you might as well bump up the core frequency to whatever is allowed. The new solder is good so thermally chips are good.

Team group dark pro C14-14-14-31/3200mhz is usually the best bang for the buck.

I would probably looking at asus and msi as mem oc'ing on a GB board is unpleasant. itx boards with 2 dimms do better on mem for the higher pcb layer count and shorter traces.

 

[RasmusP]

uncore is tied to vcore rail so at some point you n eed to add more vcore to get uncore up. At that point, you might as well bump up the core frequency to whatever is allowed. The new solder is good so thermally chips are good.

Team group dark pro C14-14-14-31/3200mhz is usually the best bang for the buck.

I would probably looking at asus and msi as mem oc'ing on a GB board is unpleasant. itx boards with 2 dimms do better on mem for the higher pcb layer count and shorter traces.

Thanks!

I'm a bit unsure about whether or not going down this route. The cheapest, for me suiting, msi board would be 30€ more than the gigabyte (+10 for the steam promo currently) and the team group ram, or in general cl14 memory would be another 80€ more. That's 120€ total difference, while the 10700k would be 140€ more expensive.

Do you think memory oc is better than 2 cores?

Quite a bit cheaper:
g-skill 3200 cl14 flare x:

16GB G.Skill Flare X für AMD schwarz DDR4-3200 DIMM CL14 Dual Kit - DDR4-3200 (PC4-25600U)

DDR4 Module von G.Skill | 16GB G.Skill Flare X für AMD schwarz DDR4-3200 DIMM CL14 Dual Kit :: Lagernd :: über 5.580 verkauft :: 24 Jahre Kompetenz | Hier bestellen

www.mindfactory.de

Do you know anything about these?

Would be 115€ instead of 64€ (cl16) for 16gb but maybe worth it?

 

[RobertR1]

Thanks!

I'm a bit unsure about whether or not going down this route. The cheapest, for me suiting, msi board would be 30€ more than the gigabyte (+10 for the steam promo currently) and the team group ram, or in general cl14 memory would be another 80€ more. That's 120€ total difference, while the 10700k would be 140€ more expensive.

Do you think memory oc is better than 2 cores?

Quite a bit cheaper:
g-skill 3200 cl14 flare x:

16GB G.Skill Flare X für AMD schwarz DDR4-3200 DIMM CL14 Dual Kit - DDR4-3200 (PC4-25600U)

DDR4 Module von G.Skill | 16GB G.Skill Flare X für AMD schwarz DDR4-3200 DIMM CL14 Dual Kit :: Lagernd :: über 5.580 verkauft :: 24 Jahre Kompetenz | Hier bestellen

www.mindfactory.de

Do you know anything about these?

Would be 115€ instead of 64€ (cl16) for 16gb but maybe worth it?

Yeah that ram kit is good. anything 14-14-14/3200 is fine. It's all Samsung B-Die which overclocks well.

The 8core will be faster at rendering naturally as rendering scales well. It's mem oc headroom should be similar as the 10c/8c/6c are all the same 10c dies. The 8c/6c are just failed chips with cores laser cut off.

Which boards were you looking at?

 

[RasmusP]

Yeah that ram kit is good. anything 14-14-14/3200 is fine. It's all Samsung B-Die which overclocks well.

The 8core will be faster at rendering naturally as rendering scales well. It's mem oc headroom should be similar as the 10c/8c/6c are all the same 10c dies. The 8c/6c are just failed chips with cores laser cut off.

Which boards were you looking at?

Gigabyte z490 gaming X and msi z490 tomahawk. Did a lot of calculations but more expensive ones just don't make sense for me.
Getting the i7 would need to be paired with cheap gb board and the cheap CL16 ram to make sense.
I could however get the i5 with CL14 ram and the msi tomahawk.

Just not sure which is better... I'd like to be a bit future proof. Mostly gaming, maybe going vr.

Maximum budget is 700€, located in Germany.
Everything that I can save would go into the gpu and vr budget for later this year so I'm really searching for a future proof bang for buck.

I guess best upgrade path would be B550 + 3600 and then throwing it out for a 4700x the moment it comes out.
Well, I'm torn and can't decide haha, sorry for the long post

Current builds on my sheet:
10700k, gaming x, 16gb cl16 ; 674€
10600k, gaming x, 16gb cl16 ; ~ 535€ (not really available yet)
9700k, z390 gaming x, 16gb cl16 ; 585€
9600k, z390 gaming x, 16gb cl16 ; 415€
3600, b550??, 16gb cl16 ; ~380€

cl16 = 64€ ; cl14 flare x = 115€

 

[RobertR1]

VR likes tuned ram as it lifts the low FPS and stops fps dips which Helps avoid reprojection.

amd also responds Really well to bdie so I’d keep that regardless of platform.

you can always wait a bit to see some Ryzen 4000 leaks and maybe better deals on comet lake. I would choose the tomahawk over the GB option.

 

[RasmusP]

VR likes tuned ram as it lifts the low FPS and stops fps dips which Helps avoid reprojection.

That makes sense, which is why I always looked at the low fps for the benchmarks that came out during the last 2 days.
The i7 seems to have quite a substantial advantage in lots of games. Not sure if memory and a better motherboard can equal that out (which is why the 9700k build is there).

Problem is I don't wanna wait. I'll be pretty busy from June until late Autumn and don't want to build a new system plus moving from win 7 to win 10 (lots of work programs...) during this time.
Also I'll have to do it twice, my mother will get my current cpu/mobo/ram.

However I'll do have enough time for 1-2 clubraces per week and gonna be working quite a lot at my pc.
So it's either now or when ryzen 4xxx is out.

Anyway, not your problem, you gave me a lot of good input now

 

[RobertR1]

That makes sense, which is why I always looked at the low fps for the benchmarks that came out during the last 2 days.
The i7 seems to have quite a substantial advantage in lots of games. Not sure if memory and a better motherboard can equal that out (which is why the 9700k build is there).

Problem is I don't wanna wait. I'll be pretty busy from June until late Autumn and don't want to build a new system plus moving from win 7 to win 10 (lots of work programs...) during this time.
Also I'll have to do it twice, my mother will get my current cpu/mobo/ram.

However I'll do have enough time for 1-2 clubraces per week and gonna be working quite a lot at my pc.
So it's either now or when ryzen 4xxx is out.

Anyway, not your problem, you gave me a lot of good input now

I'm helping a couple of other sim guys with the same thing. My recommendation to them:

- 10600k
- MSI z490 tomahawk
- Arctic Freezer II 280 or 360
- Dark pro's: 14-14-14-31/3200mhz bdie ram

Overclock it it to about 51x core 48 uncore. Tune ram to 16-16-16/4200 or above with secondaries. Pretty much best sim+vr setup you can ask for within a reasonable budget.

 

[RasmusP]

I'm helping a couple of other sim guys with the same thing. My recommendation to them:

- 10600k
- MSI z490 tomahawk
- Arctic Freezer II 280 or 360
- Dark pro's: 14-14-14-31/3200mhz bdie ram

Overclock it it to about 51x core 48 uncore. Tune ram to 16-16-16/4200 or above with secondaries. Pretty much best sim+vr setup you can ask for within a reasonable budget.

Thanks again!

My problem is heat, sadly and since it's also a silent system I'd like to stick to my current air cooling and modified case with nothing causing vibrations or making sounds.
(3x silent wing 120m and le grand macho RT)

Would you say a non-overclocked or maybe even undervolted and limited 10700k would be more heat to fps efficient compared to this overclocked+bdie 10600k?

There are no measurements I could find so it's more about experience and gut feeling... The 10th gen seems to shoot through the roof when you overclock it, which almost makes the way less power hungry 9600k at 5.1 GHz almost look better in the sheets I could find on various websites.

Sorry for the kinda weird question... But I'd like your opinion on this.

During simracing any OC would probably be fine as these CPUs would only reach 20-50% load. Maybe it would be okay to run them into temp. throttling for my 2 rendering per week?

 

[RobertR1]

10700k will run hotter and intel platforms are only worth it if you're going to OC. I have that AIO and it's pretty much silent unless I''m doing something like benchmarking for max scores. i never hear it during gaming esp over my GPU fan!

Since sims respond to since core performance (clockspeed + IPC), you're limited to per core performance not the number of cores thus an underclocked 10700k will perform worse than a 10600k. The 6 core and 8 core are just failed 10core chips, not new dies. So same IPC on all of them thus the differentiation is the clockspeed you can get out of them.

When looking at CPU usage, average load and peak load is also different. Drops when when you get spikes and create a stall so while you might be hovering around 20% most of the time, going into a LaSource with 10 cars bunched up is where you might run out of resources and peak at 100% and experience stuttering. You want to manage for the worst case scenario, not averages.

The 8core will absolutely be faster than the 6core in rending with apps like blender that scale in a linear fashion with core and thread count. No doubt about it. 10core even more so.

I'd say figure out where you want the performance first and build around that.

 

[RasmusP]

10700k will run hotter and intel platforms are only worth it if you're going to OC. I have that AIO and it's pretty much silent unless I''m doing something like benchmarking for max scores. i never hear it during gaming esp over my GPU fan!

Since sims respond to since core performance (clockspeed + IPC), you're limited to per core performance not the number of cores thus an underclocked 10700k will perform worse than a 10600k. The 6 core and 8 core are just failed 10core chips, not new dies. So same IPC on all of them thus the differentiation is the clockspeed you can get out of them.

When looking at CPU usage, average load and peak load is also different. Drops when when you get spikes and create a stall so while you might be hovering around 20% most of the time, going into a LaSource with 10 cars bunched up is where you might run out of resources and peak at 100% and experience stuttering. You want to manage for the worst case scenario, not averages.

The 8core will absolutely be faster than the 6core in rending with apps like blender that scale in a linear fashion with core and thread count. No doubt about it. 10core even more so.

I'd say figure out where you want the performance first and build around that.

Thanks for shaking my thoughts up a bit. Gonna get the 10600k with the flare x 3200 CL14 bdie and the tomahawk.
The money I save compared to the i7 will go into a new case towards this winter.

I definitely want gaming performance first, especially minimum fps for a future vr setup.
Which is why I thought about the 9700k and 10700k in the first place. Somehow the benchmarks show quite a gain in the low fps numbers compared to the i5's.

But I guess memory oc and future overclocking will be just as good, looking at the gamersnexus charts.

 

[RobertR1]

I'll throw another variable in there. The 8core will benefit from OC'ing in a similar fashion as the 6core

Just will produce more heat.

 

[RasmusP]

I'll throw another variable in there. The 8core will benefit from OC'ing in a similar fashion as the 6core

Just will produce more heat.

Aaaand back to where I was haha.

The point that would make me instantly decide would be a benchmark with all CPUs overclocked to the same power draw and then compared via 10% low fps. Not the 1% spikes that look a bit random sometimes, just what I would put my fps limiter on for smooth gaming.

From the benchmarks and power draw charts it looks for me like the 9700k and 10700k would have better low fps than the i5's with the same power draw but there are no really straight facts, just guessing and scaling in my head how the curves might look like.

And then ofc... Are 4 fps more worth 150€...
If you just hit the refresh rate of your vr headset: absolutely.. If I stay with my gsync monitor... No way.

Anyway, guess no one can help me apart from my gut feeling when both CPUs really hit the marked next week.