Just Started with XP9.31

[Flaps30 3]

I am new to the X-Plane being a MSFS user for years. I decided to try it out but I am surprised that with my new system, it performs about the same as FSX does for me. In FSX I have most sliders turned up pretty well, and most features enabled. I also have lots of realistic ai aircraft with the correct airlines (ultimate traffic) and a realistic weather addon. I average about 20-30 fps. In XP9.31 I thought I'd be fine. On first startup it showed 60+ fps! Once in the air though I got a warning that my settings were too high and that I would have to deal with fog to keep my fps up. This is with only 1 aircraft selected (me) and most other rendering options at default or medium. Personally, things look kind of boring, especially at airports. I averaged 20-30 fps at my hometown airport (KAVP) and there isn't even a terminal! (I was surprised that XP doesn't have any airport buildings from what I could see). Any ideas how I can tweak this thing for better enjoyment? I've seen some great addons in the XP9 demos that I hoped to eventually get, thinking I wouldn't have to worry about performance. Here are my specs: Thanks . Regards, TomGateway FX6800-01e with Vista HP2 64 bit, Intel core i7 cpu 920@ 2.67 ghz., 3 gb DDR3 memory, ATI Radeon HD 4800 series video.

[Murmur 3,941]

Any ideas how I can tweak this thing for better enjoyment? I've seen some great addons in the XP9 demos that I hoped to eventually get, thinking I wouldn't have to worry about performance. Here are my specs: Thanks . Regards, TomGateway FX6800-01e with Vista HP2 64 bit, Intel core i7 cpu 920@ 2.67 ghz., 3 gb DDR3 memory, ATI Radeon HD 4800 series video.

You should get higher performance with your specs.However, as is the case with FSX, you cannot max out all the settings and still expect stellar performance.In particular, keep the draw distance at minimums, and also don't max out water reflection settings and object density. Keep visibility at 15 miles if you can.Unfortunately, ATI seems to be worse than nVidia regarding OpenGL drivers.Marco

[Flaps30 3]

You should get higher performance with your specs.However, as is the case with FSX, you cannot max out all the settings and still expect stellar performance.In particular, keep the draw distance at minimums, and also don't max out water reflection settings and object density. Keep visibility at 15 miles if you can.Unfortunately, ATI seems to be worse than nVidia regarding OpenGL drivers.Marco

Thanks for the advice Marco. regards, Tom

[flyerkg 62]

Hello,I have learned to not expect the same from X-Plane 9 series as I would from FSX. There are things I like about both. My PC specs are below a lot of those of other users so I have learned to reduce those things that I can live without and while flying I would never notice the difference between 20-30 fps with a few less features turned down. However, When I first loaded XP9 with the addon scenery for North America all the options were maxed out and everything ran so slowly that I couldn't even access the pull-down menu to reduce my scenery sliders. And still I occasionally get the warning to reduce scenery settings. So I turn down the wave heights a bit when I am not trying to fly flight deck ops with heavy seas. The problem I once had with ATI with an earlier release was that I didn't have the OpenGL drivers and had to go back to an older NVidia with less memory but with the right drivers. I have since gone up with my Nvidia 8600 GT 1GB video card. Switching video cards might be something to consider to get you the improved performance you are looking for. Also there are several plugins that will enhance the airports in XP9 and I think I have even seen various airport files from FS9 that can be converted over to XP9. You might want to look around for these as well.Most importantly, have fun!

[Guest Setanta]

Gateway FX6800-01e with Vista HP2 64 bit, Intel core i7 cpu 920@ 2.67 ghz., 3 gb DDR3 memory, ATI Radeon HD 4800 series video.

I'm running X-Plane 9.31 on a similarly specced machine (albeit a Macintosh) with rather better performance. I have everything bar objects maxed out in the rendering options and I get pretty much a minimum of 30 fps with custom scenery - if it's less than that I've probably got a scenery problem.I'm guessing that the killer for you is also the objects. X-Plane does 95+% of its processing in a single thread at present (a few things such as scenery loads are handed off but little else of significance) which means you won't get much benefit from extra cores, and virtually none that I know of for more than two cores. With most modern machines this means that it's CPU bound. My HD 4850 (Mobile version - it's an iMac) can handle everything that X-Plane is capable of throwing at it. Because of the single threaded nature of X-Plane however, I have the edge with a 3.06 GHz processor, but not by much. I also have 1Gb more memory though I'm not sure how much this improves performance.The upshot of this is...Try keeping 'number of objects' down to default and cranking everything else up to maximum. If you're still seeing low frame rates start lowering the 'world detail distance' and/or 'forest density'. Check your VRAM usage at the bottom of the 'rendering options' screen. If it's below about 150% of your actual VRAM you should be OK. If you can afford it, turn off 'compress textures to save VRAM' for a boost in image quality. (Actually you may find that using a lower texture resolution with this turned off gives better results than the higher resolution with it on). Finally, lowering the screen resolution will help immeasurably with the load generated by the pixel shaders. Turning these off will give a big performance boost but they are very nice visually. If you can afford it keep them on.Good luckSetantaOh, btw, you might want to check out XVFR World to give you some buildings to replace the missing 'autogen' scenery. Google it :)

[Flaps30 3]

I'm running X-Plane 9.31 on a similarly specced machine (albeit a Macintosh) with rather better performance. I have everything bar objects maxed out in the rendering options and I get pretty much a minimum of 30 fps with custom scenery - if it's less than that I've probably got a scenery problem.I'm guessing that the killer for you is also the objects. X-Plane does 95+% of its processing in a single thread at present (a few things such as scenery loads are handed off but little else of significance) which means you won't get much benefit from extra cores, and virtually none that I know of for more than two cores. With most modern machines this means that it's CPU bound. My HD 4850 (Mobile version - it's an iMac) can handle everything that X-Plane is capable of throwing at it. Because of the single threaded nature of X-Plane however, I have the edge with a 3.06 GHz processor, but not by much. I also have 1Gb more memory though I'm not sure how much this improves performance.The upshot of this is...Try keeping 'number of objects' down to default and cranking everything else up to maximum. If you're still seeing low frame rates start lowering the 'world detail distance' and/or 'forest density'. Check your VRAM usage at the bottom of the 'rendering options' screen. If it's below about 150% of your actual VRAM you should be OK. If you can afford it, turn off 'compress textures to save VRAM' for a boost in image quality. (Actually you may find that using a lower texture resolution with this turned off gives better results than the higher resolution with it on). Finally, lowering the screen resolution will help immeasurably with the load generated by the pixel shaders. Turning these off will give a big performance boost but they are very nice visually. If you can afford it keep them on.Good luckSetantaOh, btw, you might want to check out XVFR World to give you some buildings to replace the missing 'autogen' scenery. Google it :)

Hello,I have learned to not expect the same from X-Plane 9 series as I would from FSX. There are things I like about both. My PC specs are below a lot of those of other users so I have learned to reduce those things that I can live without and while flying I would never notice the difference between 20-30 fps with a few less features turned down. However, When I first loaded XP9 with the addon scenery for North America all the options were maxed out and everything ran so slowly that I couldn't even access the pull-down menu to reduce my scenery sliders. And still I occasionally get the warning to reduce scenery settings. So I turn down the wave heights a bit when I am not trying to fly flight deck ops with heavy seas. The problem I once had with ATI with an earlier release was that I didn't have the OpenGL drivers and had to go back to an older NVidia with less memory but with the right drivers. I have since gone up with my Nvidia 8600 GT 1GB video card. Switching video cards might be something to consider to get you the improved performance you are looking for. Also there are several plugins that will enhance the airports in XP9 and I think I have even seen various airport files from FS9 that can be converted over to XP9. You might want to look around for these as well.Most importantly, have fun!

Thanks for the help, Keith. Any idea what the best NVIDIA card would be for my system? Regards, Tom

[Flaps30 3]

I'm running X-Plane 9.31 on a similarly specced machine (albeit a Macintosh) with rather better performance. I have everything bar objects maxed out in the rendering options and I get pretty much a minimum of 30 fps with custom scenery - if it's less than that I've probably got a scenery problem.I'm guessing that the killer for you is also the objects. X-Plane does 95+% of its processing in a single thread at present (a few things such as scenery loads are handed off but little else of significance) which means you won't get much benefit from extra cores, and virtually none that I know of for more than two cores. With most modern machines this means that it's CPU bound. My HD 4850 (Mobile version - it's an iMac) can handle everything that X-Plane is capable of throwing at it. Because of the single threaded nature of X-Plane however, I have the edge with a 3.06 GHz processor, but not by much. I also have 1Gb more memory though I'm not sure how much this improves performance.The upshot of this is...Try keeping 'number of objects' down to default and cranking everything else up to maximum. If you're still seeing low frame rates start lowering the 'world detail distance' and/or 'forest density'. Check your VRAM usage at the bottom of the 'rendering options' screen. If it's below about 150% of your actual VRAM you should be OK. If you can afford it, turn off 'compress textures to save VRAM' for a boost in image quality. (Actually you may find that using a lower texture resolution with this turned off gives better results than the higher resolution with it on). Finally, lowering the screen resolution will help immeasurably with the load generated by the pixel shaders. Turning these off will give a big performance boost but they are very nice visually. If you can afford it keep them on.Thanks for the help, Setanta.It seems that knocking World Distance down a bit made a big difference. I have to admit I really like having some real buildings down there. I will take your suggestion and try that plug=in. It seems the big difference between XP9 and FSX is that FSX has some permanent or static buildings such as major city landmarks, or airport buildings and terminals, whereas XP depends on autogen objects for all its buildings. Hopefully, I will fine tune everything so that I will be satisfied. Regards, TomGood luckSetantaOh, btw, you might want to check out XVFR World to give you some buildings to replace the missing 'autogen' scenery. Google it :)

[mgh_06 0]

Hi,You should definately see quite a lot better performance. At default settings you should get way above 30 fps.X-Plane 9.20+ will use all cores you have available. However, not all tasks are multithreaded in X-Plane, but alot are and with more cores the workload will be distributed to each of these. Take a look at this post from software developer at Laminar Research Ben Supnik: http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2008/05/...ssed-basic.html