FPS problems - FSX not using 100% CPU

[odai 4]

hello,I have this setup:Core i7 920 @ 4.43GHz, HT disabledG.Skill Trident 6GB @ 1690 6-7-6-2T8800 UltraAsus Rampage II extremeWin Vista 64The problem I have is that despite this substantial upgrade from my previous system (E6600), I still cannot get FPS above 8FPS in places like Mega Airport sceneries with the LVLD 767. Previously, looking at the task manager, both cores would be utilised at 100%. With this quad core however, this is what the usage looks like:I've tried using the affinity mask tweak (am using SP2 BTW), but I am having no luck at all, there is no change whatsoever. Any ideas? :(

[ryanbatc 9,911]

That's odd, your at 4.4ish GHz and you can't get good performance? Be sure to turn off bloom and set water to 2x medium. Then see how your fps are.I don't think the charts will display 100% usage on all four cores, it doesn't mean the CPU isn't working though.Have you followed the suggested FS tweaking guide?http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

[odai 4]

hello,I did have a quick look at that excellent guide, I'll start trying things out tommorow. For now, the only thing I tried is the affinity mask tweak.I tried it again, and it seems to have worked, as I now get a little usage of cores 1,2,3 and no usage of core 0 (I set 1110):It still seems far from ideal though. Bloom is off, I'll try the water.

[Guest UlfB]

I believe that this is quite normal with a multicore CPU.If FSX should be able to utilize all cores CPU by 100% this would indicate that FSX never would have to wait for any graphics engine thread being finished by the GPU or any disk I/O to complete. It would also mean that your OS wouldn't spend any time on running the different OS processes including managing memory allocation for FSX.My guess is that the FSX process have to do some idling, waiting for graphics engine threads/GPU, disk I/O and such. With such a fast CPU a faster graphics card would get you a more balanced system. Ever considered to upgrade to a GTX285? I got a 25% increase in average fps when I replaced my 8800GTX with an OC:ed 285. Benchmarked a flight over a dense urban area (London).

[odai 4]

Very interesting you mentioned that, and I'm delighted you did! I have overclocked settings which have been used for a while on my graphics card, but I always disable it in FSX. I observed a similar thing with FS9. When using nhancer, if I were to use the highest AA setting, the CPU usage would not be 100%, and the FPS would drop considerably. Once I had reduced the AA settings however, the usage (on only one core ofc) soared to 100% and stayed there, and the FPS was much higher.I'll try it ASAP, dropping graphics settings may work too.

[odai 4]

Well, I've tried OC'ing my VGA, dropping down all the scenery settings to 0, disabling AI traffic, disabling AA and AF, locking and unlocking the FPS limiter, but all I get is this: And just 20 FPS. :( If it is a bottleneck, what else could be causing it? :(

[Guest UlfB]

Look like you use FSX is running on Core 1. Core 0 not used by FSX. Core 2 and 3 handling graphics threads for FSX. Right?

[odai 4]

I haven't got a clue. :(So the fact that core 1 is almost maxed out simply means my CPU isn't powerful enough? Is there no way to spread the load at all?On my dual core, both cores would be totally maxed out at 100% running FSX.

[Guest UlfB]

If you dont't use any affinity setting for FSX - your last picture shows an idling core 0. Something is terrible wrong with that picture.But everything looked allright in your first post. Nothing wrong then.

[odai 4]

I've heard reports of people seeing 100% usage of all 4 cores by FSX, and this is what happened with my dual core. With FS9, 100% usage resulted in far higher performance than when it was "spiky". I could try benching all the different possibilities and see what gives me the best results, but I'm sure I would end up with the best performance if I could find a way to get the program to use all 4 cores 100%? Thanks,Odai.

[Guest UlfB]

I've heard reports of people seeing 100% usage of all 4 cores by FSX, and this is what happened with my dual core. With FS9, 100% usage resulted in far higher performance than when it was "spiky".

OK - this goes beyond my knowledge and my own experience with FSX on a quad processor.I would advice you to get further advice from these people that are seeing 100% usage of all cores by FSX.

[Guest Nick_N]

NOTEFSX USES CORE 0 (or the 1st core being assigned based on the AFFINITY MASK edit) for the primary functions of the application except what is listed below.ONLY Terrain, Autogen and Ground texture calls are made from other cores, therefore what was displayed in post 1 WAS correctthe HIGHER the demand for autogen (AA level effects AG render load) and terrain (SCENERY RADIUS effects that too), the HIGHER the use of physical cores past the first core assigned to FSXhttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=181843#181843meter shown at the end of that postI was running a manually edited SCENERY RADIUS of 6.50000 with 100% Complexity/Autogen/Texture ResIf I drop those, the 3 cores past core0 will start showing a reduced use, NORMAL

[DRani 1]

Hi Guys,If you really want to see them hit 100%, just increase the sim rate to 2x,4x. :( David.

[odai 4]

NOTEFSX USES CORE 0 (or the 1st core being assigned based on the AFFINITY MASK edit) for the primary functions of the application except what is listed below.ONLY Terrain, Autogen and Ground texture calls are made from other cores, therefore what was displayed in post 1 WAS correctthe HIGHER the demand for autogen (AA level effects AG render load) and terrain (SCENERY RADIUS effects that too), the HIGHER the use of physical cores past the first core assigned to FSXhttp://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_post...D=181843#181843meter shown at the end of that postI was running a manually edited SCENERY RADIUS of 6.50000 with 100% Complexity/Autogen/Texture ResIf I drop those, the 3 cores past core0 will start showing a reduced use, NORMAL

Thanks for that.So if the load on the other cores past core 0 is not 100%, then no matter how much I increase the complexity/autogen, I will not see a drop in FPS? If only the first core in use if used for most of the applications processes, does that mean it is better to use core 1 rather than core 0, which is also being used by Vista's background processes?

[TechguyMaxC 516]

Thanks for that.So if the load on the other cores past core 0 is not 100%, then no matter how much I increase the complexity/autogen, I will not see a drop in FPS?

The more work FSX's worker threads do, the more work the single main heavyweight thread has to do, and likely the lower your FPS will be.

If only the first core in use if used for most of the applications processes, does that mean it is better to use core 1 rather than core 0, which is also being used by Vista's background processes?

Unless you're running updates or AV software in the background it is unlikely the background processes are using any significant CPU time. IOW: unless your PC isn't configured properly for FSX you don't need to worry about this.