SkyTrak and The Golf Club (TGC) Simulation Software

[kevin1889]

Underdog,
For what it's worth, I've got the the same AMD FX 8350 processor but I am using a Radeon R9 280X graphics card. Here's how my graphics card compares to yours: http://gpuboss.com/gpus/Radeon-R9-28...Radeon-HD-6670 (I'm not technical enough to know how two cards would impact the performance)

You should have plenty of memory. I can run the TGC PC game on high detail and it works fine. I'm sure there will be some differences in the sim software vs. the PC game, but hopefully not significant. There's a lot of tech savvy folks on this forum, that should be able to provide more detail. My gut tells me you may need a higher powered card.

[Underdog6]

Thanks for the help! I do appreciate the feedback. If anyone else has any input please feel free to share.

[ProTee United]

More amazing designs each day. Happy golfing!

[wee988]

Honestly at this point seeing more fantastic pictures like this does little for me without releasing a release date and prices. I still have to build a computer and better hitting area for...less talented simulator players if I go TGC path. I can't build guessing at specs. Too expensive for that. Oh...and then figuring out if I want to take on the likely significant cost. I have no experience in this realm but find it hard to believe that anything released some time in october wouldn't have a little pricing information released by now. TGC/protee might want to do that quickly as it will be much easier for many of us to give up and go with the cheaper though not as nice WGT option for this year. There are many options for us to choose but it appears that the WGT people are the only ones giving out any information on release and pricing (though it was VERY recently). Please protee....tell us something very soon. WINTER IS COMING.

[ProTee United]

TGC Retail pricing is here: http://protee-united.com/golfsimulator/pricing . Its very unlikely that SkyTrak will sell TGC above retail, but again we (ProTee) have no control over that. Same for the release/launch. Its up to SkyTrak when to release it... thank you for your patients...!

[HarryG]

I purchased TGC for PC through Steam today and ran into a few issues which I'm concerned may be present in the SkyTrak version of the software. While I know the PC version is different from the SkyTrak version it's essentially the same software so with that in mind here's what I discovered;

The game continuously crashed on startup which is apparently a common issue which can be sorted by selecting to use the 32 bit version of the software if you are running a 64 bit operating system. Will TGC for SkyTrak have a 64 bit version and the 32 bit version?

The game was unplayable with frame rates dipping to 5 fps using two graphics cards and AMD crossfire enabled. When crossfire was disabled and I used just one graphics card the game became playable. Will TGC for SkyTrak allow multi GPU PCs to run with NVIDIA SLI & AMD crossfire? Have the developers created a crossfire profile for SkyTrak TGC?

Given the fact that TGC is extremely resource intensive and requires powerful systems to play at half decent frame rates will the SkyTrak version take full advantage of the benefits seen in Windows 10 with hardware that's compatible with Direct X12? Is the software currently running successfully on Windows 10? This is important as it may mean the difference between medium spec PC's being able to even run the software at playable frame rates. Will there be an ongoing effort to optimise TGC for ST to bring the frame rate up and allow people with anything other than high end machines run the software successfully.

Thanks in advance.

[ProTee United]

The game continuously crashed on startup which is apparently a common issue which can be sorted by selecting to use the 32 bit version of the software if you are running a 64 bit operating system. Will TGC for SkyTrak have a 64 bit version and the 32 bit version?

TGC for SkyTrak will not crash. Yes it is compatible with a 64 bit PC.

The game was unplayable with frame rates dipping to 5 fps using two graphics cards and AMD crossfire enabled. When crossfire was disabled and I used just one graphics card the game became playable. Will TGC for SkyTrak allow multi GPU PCs to run with NVIDIA SLI & AMD crossfire? Have the developers created a crossfire profile for SkyTrak TGC?

Check for crossfire compatibility on the HB forums. You can report a bug and/or feature request on there if you can not make it work with crossfire. If the Steam version does not work with crossfire then the SkyTrak version will also not support it.

Given the fact that TGC is extremely resource intensive and requires powerful systems to play at half decent frame rates will the SkyTrak version take full advantage of the benefits seen in Windows 10 with hardware that's compatible with Direct X12? Is the software currently running successfully on Windows 10? This is important as it may mean the difference between medium spec PC's being able to even run the software at playable frame rates. Will there be an ongoing effort to optimise TGC for ST to bring the frame rate up and allow people with anything other than high end machines run the software successfully.

TGC minimum requirement is DirectX 11. The Microsoft DirectX API is backwards compatible with previous versions, so TGC runs fine on Windows 10 with DirectX 12 installed. We have listed the minimum PC specs here: http://csc.protee-united.com/entries...Club-Simulator

[HarryG]

Good news on 64 bit compatibility and the announcement that TGC for SkyTrak will not crash.

I have checked on the HB forums as you suggested and discovered that an earlier build worked very well with crossfire enabled, however currently it is broken. The devs have is as a low priority fix and in my opinion are unlikely to ever get round to sorting it. So what that means for people, like myself, who have powerful PC's capable of maxing out the majority of games at very high frame rates, is that the current PC version of TGC will remain barely playable even with graphics settings set to low. So, for myself and other AMD crossfire owners out there, purchasing TGC for ST would be a gamble in the hope that it might support multiple cards.

Has anyone any experience of using multiple gpu's either Nvidia or AMD with the ST version of TGC?

Thanks for the info on DX12. I was aware of backward compatibility and was fishing for info on the fact that certain dx11 hardware manufactured by AMD can currently benefit from enormous performance gains using dx12 drivers in Windows 10. My current setup ticks that box but clearly I'm seeing no such thing in TGC PC. To put it in perspective, I can play BF4 with all graphics settings at maximum at 120 fps (using both cards), and with TGC PC settings all at low I'm getting 32 fps (using one card), and Battlefield 4 has a lot more going on in terms of graphics and physics.

Can I ask what spec machine you use for the very pretty screenshots, and would you be happy to list the in-game graphics settings?

EDIT: I really do like the feel of the game even using a mouse, so if you guys get this right it could be amazing!

[ProTee United]

HarryG we use all sort of PC's to for screenshots and testing. Today we tested an I7-4770 PC with an Radeon R9 270 - 2GB Video Card. The game resolution set at 1920x1080 with HIGH detail in full screen.

We played a couple of holes on various courses. Everything runs nice and smooth. Framerate is between 30 and 40 (according to FRAPS). Never drops below 30. This R9 270 card is less than what we recommend. See comparison: http://www.hwcompare.com/16571/gefor...radeon-r9-270/

The Game Display settings are: VSYNC - ON, DEPTH OF FIELD - ON, ANTI-ALIASING - OFF, OBJECT DETAIL - 1, HQ TREE COUNT - 300 and HQ TREE DISTANCE - 314

[HarryG]

Thanks for the useful info. Those settings and frame rates are way below what I would like to see on my display, so perhaps my expectations are too high given that the aim is to project onto an impact screen and not a PC monitor.

[ProTee United]

The Culloden Golf Estate. Straight hitters only!

[Joko]

Fingers crossed this happens in October. I'll be sad regardless if it's later then Oct. 12th or whenever the TGC Tour starts. But who knows at this point. Seems like more slowdowns.

[dt2511]

+1. A great deal of momentum has definitely been lost in the waiting here.

[HarryG]

Didn't someone say it was just around the corner? But that was a while ago.

[heisman32]

Posted this earlier in another thread but have not had any responses so thought I would try my luck here.

Okay, I apologize in advance for my ignorance as I am somewhat computer illiterate! I am anxiously awaiting the release of TGC to add simulator capability to my SkyTrak and I am trying to decide what type of computer I should buy to run the simulator. Cost is not an a big issue but of course do not want to spend any more than I need to. Here are a few of my questions and I appreciate any help you guys could provide.

1) My projector is only capable of 720p and I am not looking at upgrading anytime soon as 720p graphics have seemed good enough for me thus far. With that being said, since I will not need the maximal resolutions do I still need an upgraded graphics card and power supply? I am not terribly concerned about having high end graphics, however I do not want to make sure it does not effect gameplay (such as flickering during ball flight). Listed below are my current PC specs which is not a gaming computer:

Processor: Core i5 3.0GHZ
Graphics Card: Geforce GT 620
Memory: 8GB RAM
Hard Drive: 1TB
Power supply: 300W

2) If I do need an upgraded graphics card could I just swap out my current graphics card and if so what is the minimum power supply I would need?

3) If it would be best to build or buy a new system for the simulator can anyone recommend a good place to but a prebuilt or custom PC? I have tried building an AlienWare PC on Dell's website but can not find any specs regarding power supply.


Thanks in advance and I apologize again for my ignorance.

[Stiggity]

I upgraded my graphics card from a gt 620 to a Gtx 960 (returned the Gtx 950 I previously posted about. You would need a 500 watt power supply or higher for most cards depending if you go up in series (I.e. 960, 970, 980 etc.) since they require a higher wattage. I am far from a computer expert but I would recommend checking out the thread in the software or the golf club section for most people's specs.

[HarryG]

If you aren't that fussy about graphical 'eye candy' then 720p is fine. In actual fact you will see better performance compared with 1080p as, whichever graphics card you go for, it will have to do less work for the same results due to the significantly lower number of pixels on screen. As performance is important to you and money isn't a prohibiting factor, I would recommend a mid/high end graphics card. Something like the Nvidia GTX 970 at around £270 offers great price vs performance. As it happens, you would also be able to crank up the 'eye candy' as powerful graphics cards that provide a smooth gaming experience with decent frame rates are also able to make games look nicer. If you don't want trees and shadows suddenly appearing, I'd go this route. Your new graphics card will be longer than your current one so you'll need to be sure it can fit in your case. The GTX 970 is 10.5 inches long. Your GT 620 is only 5.7 inches long.

When it comes to purchasing the card you'll find there are numerous companies making them. ASUS, EVGA, MSI etc. It doesn't really matter which one you go for as long as it says GTX 970. Having said that I see that the EVGA model is the noisiest one.

I recommend the Super Flower Leadex Platinum 550W PSU as Nvidia say a 500W PSU is the minimum required for a system using the Nvidia GTX 970. The card itself draws 145W but when you add up everything else in your PC you go over 300W. This is a high end 550W PSU which is very well built and efficient and costs only £83. This power supply unit will have all the necessary cables and connection types for your graphics card as your current 300W supply may not.

Your CPU is good and 8GB RAM is good.

[heisman32]

Awesome, thanks for all the help.

[ProTee United]

Designed with the new Swiss Theme.

[HarryG]

What is the name of this course please, and can it be played on the PC version?

[Joko]

It's OCT 1st - now I know this doesn't apply directly to the SkyTrak SDK, but the pricing @ http://www.protee-united.com/golfsimulator/pricing states Oct 1st availability for purchase. What Up y0.

[Joko]

I'm not saying that it does, as mentioned previously the purchase for SkyTrak TGC would go through SkyGolf's website.

[ProTee United]

What are you trying to say? How is this related to TGC for SkyTrak?

[Joko]

Sorry for the confusion, previously posted in this thread was the pricing for TGC per the link I posted, it was merely a "oh hey look they are posting pricing and state its available oct 1st" with the hope that this indicated something for SkyTrak and their timeline, knowing that it doesn't have anything to do DIRECTLY with skytrak.

[ProTee United]

What is the name of this course please, and can it be played on the PC version?

Course name: Salps
Available on PC

[mhage]

Do all courses work on both PC and sim??? For $19, I'd buy the Steam version and start designing my home course if I knew it would eventually work with the sim.

[Sascha1818]

It has been answered a few times but yes, all PC courses can be played on sim. It was mentioned by quiet a few guys that there is some sim unfriendly courses out there but you can still play them.