FSX : 2D panels on second monitor and framerates

[janar737 0]

Hallo all,Bought FSX a few days ago and installed it on my notebook and activated it without any problem.Main notebook specs : Acer Aspire 9500 with Intel Pentium M 760, 1 GB RAM and Ati Mobilty Radeon X700 PCIe with 256 MB VRAMI have connected to this notebook a second monitor (15", 1024x768) using an USB2VGA convertor (Sitecom CN-105).I have set the display/scenery sliders such that if I start FSX with the Cessna 172 in 2D and full screen on the primary monitor without undocking any panel, that I reach most of the time the set upperlimt of 20 fps. So far, so good. BUT, if I undock the 2D main instrument panel and move it to my second monitor, the framerate drops to 2-3 fps.I did the same test with the B737-800 with the same result. It does not make any difference wich 2d panel I undock and move to the second monitor and the framerate drop looks like directly related to the part of the second monitor screen that is occupiedAs I have also FS9 installed on this notebook I could do the same test with the previous version.In that case, only using the primary monitor I get the set upperlimit of 40 fps AND it keeps at 40 if I undock and move 2d panel(s) to the second monitor.!!!Can anybody tell if the above result with FSX means that you need also high-end 3d videocards for undocked 2d panels on a second monitor or did I miss to adapt a certain setting. If you indeed need a high-end videocard for 2d panels, please give a short explanation.Thanks in advance for any reply.See you, Jan Arkesteijn

[boris4356 4]

I notice the same thing, and I have 2 video cards. When I fly in the VC, and undock the GPS to the second monitor, I loose 2-4 FPS on the main monitor. Don't know why this happens. You would think that with a fairly powerful secondary card like the X800XL, it should be able to run a 2d panel without effecting the FPS on the main monitor.In FS9, I also notice no frame rate loss when I undock a 2d panel. Strange!Bill

[irocx 292]

I also noticed FR hits in the demo - I have not decided yet whether to get the final version at this time, but was thinking it might be a function of the drivers and need to be addressed in future revisions. I was hoping for more multi-monitor features/support in FSX, it seems logical since many are going this route. I hope this is taken into consideration in future releases.Regards, KendallDell 8400 3.2 GHZ H.T.800 FSB/2MB L22 GB 533 DDR2X800XT 256MB/Catalyst driver - 6.9's6x Adaptive AA/16x HQ A/FIntegrated SoundDual Monitor: Dell 2405/1905CH Yoke/Pedals

[Emile 28]

Hello,I found a topic on an other site saying that the 3D cockpit undocked has less impact on FPS.I'll try.

[Guest mmcarden]

You are NOT seeing things with this. There is a SIGNIFICANT loss of frame rates when moving to a second monitor. When a Second monitor is used there is a DRAMATIC (as in 5 to 40 fold) increase in PAGE FAULTS.Generally page faults can be corrected by increasing RAM, however, it does NOT appear that this is the case with FSX. Memory utilization, processor utilization and page file utilization remain constant regardless of how many monitors are in use. Yet in the testing which I performed (data attached) page faults increased an average of 40x. The only bright spot in this testing is that when using a better GPU the page faults only increased 5 to 10x. (unfortunately I accidentally did the log in binary instead of ascii-- will post when I retest and save in ascii). However, frame rates did not improve much.Data is attached. methodology for gathering data was to initiate a flight in fair weather using the "ultralight" and set the ultralight into a slow, banking turn. Once a stable turn was established, I started PERFMON to log data every 5 seconds for 5 minutes. I stayed "hands off" of FSX. After data was gathered, I rebooted the machine and restarted the same flight and profile. I created a new view, undocked it, expanded it to full screen and again started PERFMON with the same data collection parameters.Data attached is from a P4 3.3Ghz, 800 mhz fsb, 2 gb ram. 256 mg NVIDA 6200. 3 Hard disk configuration with WIndows on IDE 0 Page File on IDE 1 and FSX running on a SATA drive. Machine was defraged prior to start of testing.Attachment #1 is Single Monitor, Attachment #2 is Dual Monitor. Files are CSVAnyone have any ideas on this?Matt C, MCSE, MCP, CCA

[boris4356 4]

How does this compare to using 2 video cards. My main monitor is connected to a PCIE ATI X1900XTX, and my secondary monitor is connected to an AGP ATI X800XL. In theory you would think there should not be any frame rate loss on the main monitor when using only the 2D GPS on the second monitor being driven by a card that is being used as the main card for FSX by many people.

[Guest Breeder]

No I think there will still be drop in frame rate. FSX is CPU not GPU bound.