Still have the mouse-over-FPS issue!

[Alec 370]

Wow, I never realized this, after more than 10 years using FS, until today... I don't know if I feel sad because I've been loosing almost 10fps my whole life when the curson was on the screen, of happy that I found a way to get more fps when I need it most.With the PMDG the difference was brutal here. I run FSX with fps locked at 30, and when the curson was outside the window, 30fps, 29, sometimes went to 19 but for a very short moment. When the cursor was on the screen, 19,20 fps. Made a lot of difference.If that's not a reason that would make P3D worth migrating for, I don't know what might be. But since neither PMDG nor Lockheed have any plans on going entertainment with Prepar3d, nothing to do but wish ACES did it different.

[Nyxx 6,994]

I now have 2 monitors, I have my second one below...yes below the main for the displays CDU ATC window and I move the mouse to this screen and it's the same as if the mouse is off on the main screen. So a second monitor works well as you dont need you mouse showing on the main screen for more than a few seconds.Any old monitor is great for this.

[Sekstifire 10]

You can also put your mouse pointer over a 2d panel

[3-2-1-Now 126]

So the mouse issue only appears when it is over ANY 3D element of the window (and for the VC this means the whole damn view??? :-| ).EDIT: I lose 10 FPS!!!!!!!!EDIT2: My mouse cursor hides itself after 10 seconds. At that time FPS is restored. Maybe people want to find a program that can hide the cursor after e.g. 1 second?Best regards,Robin.

[Tabs 2,790]

This has been brought up a bunch of times...Why it happens:FSX's graphics engine does not implement what's known as a "hardware cursor." A hardware cursor is a mouse pointer that is drawn by the GPU as part of the 3D game world. All modern GPUs contain routines in the chip hardware for doing this that make it extremely fast and accurate with no performance cost. In FSX the mouse cursor is the standard Windows 2D/GDI+ version and as a result the FSX engine itself has to do a bunch of complex math on the CPU to figure out what the 2D cursor is pointing at in the 3D world that's behind it. The performance loss gets worse as you add more clickspots to the VC because they're added into the math it's doing. ACES was aware of the problem and they were going to add a hardware cursor in FSX SP3, but we all know what happened before they could do that.It's not true that there's nothing that can be done - we did a ton of things actually during the NGX development trying to mitigate this problem. If you took an equally complex VC that does not have the optimizations and tricks we used, the performance would be a *lot* lower. Look at how much better the NGX looks than some of the competition and yet it still manages to run reasonably well. That's where the improvement is - you get way better looks at the same (or even slightly better) performance level. The NGX has more polys, more clickspots and higher resolution textures than basically any other addon out there - it really should be a total slideshow.

[Alec 370]

Damn MS to fire ACES team before SP3... Things could have been much better for all of us

[ZachLW 37]

Has this been confirmed?

Confirmed. Reported. Factual. Yes. Check the FS9 forums and you'll find 5 year old posts from myself with the same issues in (you guessed it) FS9!

[Alec 370]

That's what happens when the developers don't listen to what the community is trying to communicate. Probably a simple thing to fix that now ruins my simulation taking away 10 precious fps that could be used in a lot of different ways

[enyap 0]

Does Prepar3D have this problem? Can someone check this out? John

[martin-w 3,260]

It's not true that there's nothing that can be done - we did a ton of things actually during the NGX development trying to mitigate this problem. If you took an equally complex VC that does not have the optimizations and tricks we used, the performance would be a *lot* lower. Look at how much better the NGX looks than some of the competition and yet it still manages to run reasonably well. That's where the improvement is - you get way better looks at the same (or even slightly better) performance level. The NGX has more polys, more clickspots and higher resolution textures than basically any other addon out there - it really should be a total slideshow.

Ryan, I don't know what tricks PMDG used to reduce this effect, but they didn't work too well for me. As I've reported before, I see a full 40% reduction in frame rate with the cursor on the screen.Last time I mentioned this to you, you suggested it might be related to graphics card settings.I asked you which ones, and you didn't reply.You probably missed my post.Anyway, you should know that your optimisation don't seem to be effective for me. 40% is a big frame rate loss.i7 920 @ 4GHz6gb DDR3GTX 580P.S. It looks like the OP has exactly the same frame rate loss as me... 40%.

[Paul Deemer 13]

To the OP. To make this very simple. Flying Complex aircraft such as the NGX into Complex sceneries such as FSDT is never going to work out well on a Laptop at 2.0 ghz. with an ATI 4670M.

Discrete: 8800 GS, 9600 GSO, GT 240 (DDR3)Go (mobile): GTX 260M (96), GTS 150M, GTS 360M (DDR3)Discrete: HD 3850 512 MB, HD 4670, HD 5570 (DDR3), HD 6570 (DDR3)Mobility: HD 3870, HD 5730, HD 5650, 6500M (DDR3)

First off Your Video Card falls into the category above which is 2 levels below an 8800GT and 3 below an 8800GTX which is what I Still have currently. Even with an 8800 GTX its barely suitable for Complex FSX Aircraft and Sceneries in 2d-Panel mode. In Virtual Cockpit the NGX is unflyable for me even at 3.0 ghz.Your video card accounts for roughly 25 percent of your frame rates.On the CPU side. FSX scales beautifully the higher your clock rates go. If you search around the AVSIM forums and other places on the web you will find that the ideal clock rates for FSX to run smoothly with complex sceneries start around 3.0 ghz. Many have their rigs clocked from 3.6 - 4.8 ghz. Even at these high clock rates you will experience issues from time to time especially if you try to max out your sliders when flying into complex sceneries with the NGX. Your CPU accounts for the other 75 percent of your frame rates.So if your frame rates are taking you down to a point where the NGX is unflyable you have 3 choices.1) Fly in 2D Panel mode2) Cut back your Sliders3) Invest in current generation hardwareYeah I know nobody likes hearing that their computer is not up to spec and that they gotta go out and spend a bunch of money to get the NGX to fly well. I am in the same boat and have been saving up for IVY bridge and the GTX 600 series. My rig is like 4+ years old and I just have to accept that investing money in computer hardware is a necessary evil if you want to be serious about this hobby.

[Squishy 0]

Sigh.. I know my system isn't strong enough to render NGX with 40+fps and many addons. But that doesn't change the fact that using my mouse drops FPS by 35%. When not using my mouse FPS in virtual cockpit is usually around 20 which is good enough for me.Also, your story about video cards isn't true for many systems. I'm 100% CPU limited. Activating FSAA and AF or even changing resolution hardly changes my FPS.So does anyone know if this problem persists in P3D?

[Paul Deemer 13]

• Sigh.. I know my system isn't strong enough to render NGX with 40+fps and many addons. But that doesn't change the fact that using my mouse drops FPS by 35%. When not using my mouse FPS in virtual cockpit is usually around 20 which is good enough for me.

• The problem is FSX and everyone else experiences this problem as well. The difference is the guys with the fast rigs don't have as much trouble with it because the hit on them even if its the same 35 percent is not as bad as the hit on you. They could be running at say 30 fps and then get cut back to 20 fps. See my point here? If anyone could fly the NGX (Virtual Cockpit) on 4 year old computer hardware you wouldn't be seeing all these guys investing in Intel core i5 2500k CPUs and overclocking to 5 ghz.

[Foghorn 4]

Squishy......It doesn't change the fact that using your mouse drops FPS by 35%, nothing will.......it's part of FSX if you haven't quite got the hang of it yet!Give it a rest, and put your efforts into upgrading your pc........

[kittyatyi 3]

To be honest, I never ever heard about this mouse FPS thing, until I have read this topic. I don't have an extremely powerful PC (2.8 Ghz not yet overclocked) yet I didn't actually notice a single drop in FPS when using the NGX, and just as Ryan said, surprisingly it performs much smoother than most of the other complex stuff. So those tricks to prevent the mouse FPS drop must be working.When my bride wanted to buy me the NGX, I told her don't do so and buy me some scenery instead - because it won't work on my PC. But she did buy the NGX and my jaw was on the floor how smooth it is. Using Bojote's tweaks, most sliders maxed out, I can smoothly fly in any complex airports with the NGX.Therefore, I can only suggest to upgrade your PC. See my specs, not a powerful machine yet I can enjoy this simulation to the max.