PROBLEM: Autogen rendering is major FPS hog!

[Guest]

Can somebody please address this problem: clearly, the autogen rendering in FS2004 vs. FS2002 is causing significant problems, especially after flying the sim for a period of 5-10 minutes.Perform any flight, preferably in an urban area, then note the FPS upon landing (either on approach, or as you're sitting on the ground pointed toward autogen buildings). Now, reset the autogen by going into the settings and flick the slider down a notch and then back to the original setting. Voila, now your frame rate is anywhere from 5-15 fps higher, although visually, the density of buildings hasn't changed.Again, it's not the autogen itself that is killing frame rates. It's what happens after about 5-10 minutes of flying, so we're dealing with some sort of memory leak and/or excessive rendering of buildings that aren't even visible.What gives?

[Guest GamePlayer]

I have this problem and I posted this same problem a few weeks ago. It doesn't have to happen every 5-10 minutes in flight. It can happen by just slewing aroud in a matter of seconds as well. One thing I noticed is that once that frame rate hit starts with the autogen if I zoom in I can see a few distant autogen buildings that I can't see in normal zoom. I just turn off autogen when I fly and enjoy the smooth frame rate. It's not the video card as I tried my TI4600 as well and same problem. What are you system specs?

[Guest]

P4 2.4ghz/1gb ram, Ti4600 w/128mb; I've got the reduced size autogen textures available here on Avsim, but the frame rate increase is trivial compared to the rendering problem we're experiencing.I can start out in the densest of areas with maxxed out scenery detail and autogen with a comfortable 30fps; the second it starts rendering the autogen (either fly for a while or slew) it's down to 10-20fps and jerky. Only practical solution right now is when I get about 10 miles from the airport lower the autogen a notch which resets it and seems to cure the problem long enough to allow me to fly a smooth approach.One other thing since we're still on the same page here - I tend to get an increase in frame rate when flying in either full visual view (the one when you click 'W' once) or in visual cockpit. This is completely unrelated to the autogen problem, but it seems like when the outside view is shrunk to anything besides the full length and width of your screen it suffers a frame rate hit... try it out. (This has nothing to do with full screen vs. windowed mode).

[Guest]

i agree completely!, i have a radeon 9700 pro and i think i is soem sort of memory leak which needs to me adressed by micrsoft, its the least they could do after hiring some cheap 2-bit microsoft game developing team to develop a program that is so, so popular. its one thing if its just some game but flight sim has the flight sim community behind it. we expect a good sim, microsft came close to delivering, btu its little things like this that keep fs9 from really takign the cake.

[Guest jcuellar]

The same problem here also, my FPS started with 35-40 and then is dropping to 10-15 with stutters.RegardsJaime CuellarMonterrey, MexicoMy Simulator system:PC # 1P4 2.8 GHZ 800 FSB HTMotherboard MSI NEO 465PE1 GB PC3500 DDR Corsair XMS RAMHard Drive 80 MB 7200 RPM IDEGeForce 4 TI 4400 (45.20 drivers)Viedeo Proyector Proxima LX1 100" ScreenFlight Simualaror 2004 "Century of Flight"Windows XP Pro SP1.PC # 2P4 1.7 GHZ 400 FSBMotherbaord Intel 850 MD768 MB RAMBUS PC-800Hard Drive 40 GB 7200 RPM IDEGeForce 2 GTS Pro 32 MBGeForce 2 MMX 64 MBMonitor # 1 Sony 17" FlatMonitor # 2 Acerview 15"Project Magenta (PFD & EICAS)Windows XP Pro SP1.PC # 3AMD Athlon 1300 XPMotherboard GigaByte512 MB SDRAM PC133Hard Drive 40 GB 7200 RPMGeForce 2 MMX 64 MBMonitor HP 15"Project Magenta (CDU & MCP)Windows XP Pro SP1PC # 4Toshiba Satellite P3 Celeron 1.1 GHZ256 RAMHard Drive 40 GB14" TFT displayFsMeteo 6.01, Active Sky 1.9, PM Sounds, FliteStar 8.1 & Jeeppveiw(Jeppesen), SquawkBox 2.3 and Roger Wilco.All PC's are networked with a registered FSIUPC 3.03 & Wide FS.Additional hardware:PFC Jetliner Yoke & PedalsSafeline Jet throttle consoleSaitek Cyborge force feedback JoystickBest RegardsJaime CuellarMonterrey, M

[ulisses 1]

My system is a XP2400+, 1gb RAM, ATI 9800pro and...My AUTOGEN is OFF, a lot more fluid without autogen. Could anyone call Microsoft please ?Thanks,Ulisses

[Guest Turnbull2000]

I'm finding the autogen scenery very frustrating. It's so annoying that a certain setting may be smooth in one terrain, but jerky in another. The framerates are just not consistent. I prefer to use 'Dense' for autogen as this creates a decent level of buildings/trees without leaving the ground too exposed, especially when viewing countryside or mountainous terrain. Unfortunately, this same setting tends to cause a slowdown in dense areas such as Seattle or Chicago, so have to drop it down a notch when flying over.

[Guest JonP01]

I was also amazed at the autogen hit. In the end I turned it off, because it just wasn't worth the trouble. Even the "sparse" autogen setting is far more dense than I ever had it set to in FS2002.I have to say though that the progressive slow down syndrome is not on account of the autogen alone. I'm sure it makes the problem a whole lot worse, but I also get the problem even with just about all sliders hard left and the new features such as 3D clouds and dynamic weather turned off.I'm starting to wonder if the progressive slowdown has something to do with the texture memory on our graphics cards getting "clogged up" (how's that for a highly technical term?). Maybe the graphics card caches all the textures in the onboard memory and there comes a point where there is no memory left for the new textures that FS keeps wanting to continually feed it. So the card slows down trying to manage the textures that just keep coming and coming. I tried an experiment yesterday where I let FS use my machine's AGP aperture. It took longer for the major slowdown to occur, but much earlier than this, the performance dropped off, as if to indicate the machine had started to use the lower speed main memory instead of the much faster graphics card onboard memory. If I add the line "TextureAGP=0" to my FS9.cfg file, I find the performance stays consistently high for a good half hour, then drops all of a sudden. Using the AGP aperture, the performance starts to go south much earlier, but the decline is also more gradual. Take your pick :-lolIn any case, if I save the flight at the point where the game starts dying, then re-boot, everything is fine again for another half hour. Is there any way to monitor the onboard memory usage on an AGP graphics card? I'd be interested to see what happens when FS9 is running. It would also be interesting to know if any running 256MB graphics cards are noticing the problem less, if at all.

[Guest SlimDady]

i keep a normal or dence setting.. thats about the same amnt as there was in 2002 ,runs about the same then for me

[Guest freequest]

Yep I found that out early... I realy love to hae autogen but .. well the fps hit is not worth it especialy when your loacked at 15fps so its off the only thing i keep is the sirport scenery and the coulds set to 50% at max setting i found thats smooth... also the mesh appears to cause me quite a hit i have the mesh detail set at 79 as strangly enough if its over 80 its kills of my fPS.my 2c

[Guest odog]

Im not having serious FR issues (very dense), but I noticed something yesterday.I saw an AG building inside of AG buildings.... it looked like a smaller building on the inside at certain angles. There were MANY like that.weird. I thought it was my vid card playing tricks on me (Gf 5200fx ultra, runs great by the way)so if someone else sees this i'll be pretty sure im sane :-)maybe the problem is infact this. buildings inside of buildings. Ill try to catch it in a pic if possible.joe

[ulisses 1]

I'm not sure about autogen realism...Sometimes with autogen the sim looks like a game, the houses and buildings sometimes are big and unreal. Some autogen objects looks like super nintendo :)For now my autogen is OFF, while flying the terrain looks more realistic this way.Only my opinion...Ulisses

[Guest Glenn]

I have the ATI 9800 Pro with 256 MB RAM. Yup, I'm seeing what you guys are. I had a 1 hour flight yesterday and landed in a T-storm. I had the usual major stutters at altitude but the approach was smooth, until I got within sight of the airport. Then it was reminiscent of FS2000, and the sim was almost unflyable. A difficult landing was made really tough by that. Now, I have my Scenery Density and Autogen sliders maxed. I guess I'll have to start pulling those back too. My specs are:P4 3.0 GHz, 800 FSB, H/T1 GB DDR RAM (Kingston PC3200)ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256Audigy GamerGlenn

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi,Just wanted to say that I too am seeing the same thing. FPS is great when first starting up the sim and taking off. About 10 minutes in, FPS drops considerably when I'm near/in or looking towards an urban area and/or on approach to an airport. Not sure if it's different when trying a smaller airport. I have yet to try a smaller one. I ususlly take off and fly right towards a large urban area. FPS is fine while the area is in sight and as I pass over it. Then as I get towards the edge of the area, FPS starts to drop. Once I get past the area, FPS goes up to my locked amount of 22 and stays there. If I look back towards the urban area and/or I turn around and fly back to it, FPS takes a huge drop. Sorry I don't have much more to add to this than the following below.I hope lots more people post here about this and make it become a 'hot topic'. :-outta*** Please rate this thread! I rated it a 5. ***Regards,Jimmy RichardsOne Tin Soldier"Variable, this is EasyRhino. Do you copy? Over." Loud and clear EasyRhino. "Do we have a gig? Over." That's a Roger, we have a gig. Target is painted, start the music. "Roger that Variable. Into attack. Pickling target. Target is acquired and lit. LGB comin' down!" EasyRhino, circular error probability zero. Impact with High Order Detonation. Thank You, have a nice day.

[Guest]

Bump!!!