Update killed frame rate and broke flight model?

[tranglos 0]

My system was strongly spec'ed when I built it almost 5 years ago; today - not so much. But Flight used to be perfectly smooth for me, with all visuals set to High. (Pushing textures and terrain up to max did introduce occasional stutter.)

 

Now, after the update which you can't refuse, I'm seeing a slide-show :-( I don't know how I can measure the actual frame rate (the game engine does not display it, does it?), and I could not compare to the frame rate I had previously, but the difference is unmistakable. I can see the terrain move in little increments, so I'm guessing 10 fps max?

 

Not only that, but now there's a significant flicker around some finer objects in the distance, like bridge supports or the little silver square thingies on rooftops of some houses. They're kind of shimmering now, and I'm certain they did not before.

 

Insult to injury (and no idea if this is connected to the drop in fps), I no longer seem to be able to land softly! Now, I started my simming adventure with the release of Flight, so my skills are far from expert, but I did manage gold on most of the challenges that came with Hawaii, and after nearly 200 hours in flight I could grease any landing in the Maule and RV-6 except in some nasty weather. I don't remember the last time my passengers weren't happy; my happiness score is at 75%. Well - no more! I've tried the RV-6, the Maule and the new Cub in Hawaii, airports I know well, in fair weather, and in some 10 touchdowns I did not get a single soft one! The RV feels much heavier now, the Maule hits the ground hard with its tail wheel when I flare, and the cub just plops down. The Cub is new to me, so that's OK, but it looks like MS just flushed all my experience down the drain.

 

It's not even about Alaska. The update killed Hawaii for me. What happened here?

[RoboRay 126]

I'm not an expert on Flight's video settings, as I have not needed to touch them. MS did make some changes to video rendering in the last update, though. I haven't seen anyone else report such a dramatic performance drop, however.

 

Did you also receive any recent video driver updates? Or install any Windows updates?

[HummusLord 0]

I've noticed some frame drops at times, enough to be annoying, using the same graphics settings in Alaska that I used in Hawaii (all at their max setting except scenery density which is at high). Maybe it's all the pine trees being rendered in certain scenes but my computer is no slouch (i5 3570k @4.1Ghz, 6950s xfire, 8 gig) so I don't know why I'm getting frame drops other than it being related to Flight unless I have overestimated my system. It would be nice if Flight could take advantage of multiple GPUs though, I see no diff between xfire and single card usage.

 

Other than noticing a substantial increase in propeller torque effects most of the planes seem to perform the same but the Maule does seem more difficult to land softly.

[LuisFelizTirado 33]

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/378251-explanation-performance-degradation-alaska/

[malibu43 2]

My system was strongly spec'ed when I built it almost 5 years ago; today - not so much. But Flight used to be perfectly smooth for me, with all visuals set to High. (Pushing textures and terrain up to max did introduce occasional stutter.)

 

Now, after the update which you can't refuse, I'm seeing a slide-show :-( I don't know how I can measure the actual frame rate (the game engine does not display it, does it?), and I could not compare to the frame rate I had previously, but the difference is unmistakable. I can see the terrain move in little increments, so I'm guessing 10 fps max?

 

Not only that, but now there's a significant flicker around some finer objects in the distance, like bridge supports or the little silver square thingies on rooftops of some houses. They're kind of shimmering now, and I'm certain they did not before.

 

Insult to injury (and no idea if this is connected to the drop in fps), I no longer seem to be able to land softly! Now, I started my simming adventure with the release of Flight, so my skills are far from expert, but I did manage gold on most of the challenges that came with Hawaii, and after nearly 200 hours in flight I could grease any landing in the Maule and RV-6 except in some nasty weather. I don't remember the last time my passengers weren't happy; my happiness score is at 75%. Well - no more! I've tried the RV-6, the Maule and the new Cub in Hawaii, airports I know well, in fair weather, and in some 10 touchdowns I did not get a single soft one! The RV feels much heavier now, the Maule hits the ground hard with its tail wheel when I flare, and the cub just plops down. The Cub is new to me, so that's OK, but it looks like MS just flushed all my experience down the drain.

 

It's not even about Alaska. The update killed Hawaii for me. What happened here?

I had the same issue regarding performance. Turn shadows down to medium. All the extra trees in Alaska and the low sun angles resulted in lots more dynamic shadow being cast. It doesn't look quite as pretty, but it got my FPS back up and the game still looks great.

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/378097-flight-cfg-tweaks-and-performance/

[HiFlyer 9,358]

I am wondering if video memory plays into this as well. I think I am seeing that even systems with lower specs are reporting less slow-down (or none at all) if their graphics card memory is high.........

[quadraspleen 7]

I am wondering if video memory plays into this as well

Devon,

 

My specs are in my sig..I have 1536mb of DDR3 in my over-clocked GTX580 and I still see 20-21FPS in heavily wooded areas..this is even after turning shadows down to high from extreme. All other settings are maxed out..

 

I have Vsync ticked as if not I get really bad screen tearing (slow, big Dell 2709FP)

 

I'd love to be seeing a steady 30, as I get in FSX (locked) but in high AG areas, I can now really see the stutters appear..I am surprised, seeing as how fluidly stuff like ###### and IL-2 run on my rig (and FSX!)

[Mork 34]

I too see a less performance after the update. Alaska runs less smooth than Hawaii ever did.

 

For me this option works best:

 

I lowered the Scenery densitiy from MAX to High. Now its real smooth again, so i'm happy :)

There still are a lot of tree's, so for me this is just fine.

[Bobsk8 12,679]

To know your exact frame rate, get this program. It is free for the framerate part and it just puts the number of frames per second in the corner of your screen while you are flying. With the paid version you can take videos of your flight( I didn't get that yet) http://www.fraps.com/faq.php

[quadraspleen 7]

Hey Bob,

 

A bit OT, but...I'm using FRAPS..it's good but adds a bit of lag itself (which the author freely admits) sometimes up to 2-5FPS depending upon the game and FPS

 

Try DXTORY (http://www.dxtory.com) It's a competitor for FRAPS. It is a little harder to set up and configure (and its author is from JP so expect some stuff to geta little lost in translation), but it does the same as FRAPS but seems to add much less lag. (good support forum, too)

It can also do distributed HDD writing, which, if you are writing to two SSD's as I am, makes writing the video files so fast, you can turn down the compression when recording. It comes with a built-in muxing program which stitches the separate files back together again (it's recording de-interlaced alternate frames into each stream)

 

I'm still evaluating it, as I like to make movies of FSX, and FRAPS has outgrown itself a bit...

[HiFlyer 9,358]

Hmmmmmm....... I have noticeable slowdown over heavy areas like Anchorage, but nothing like a jump or stutter at all, even with settings maxed. Just a smooth, steady, but lower frame rate.

 

I and another player just flew over a huge city with hugely wooded areas nearly wingtip to wingtip and settled down to land with no difficultys except the frame rate was different enough from normal that I was aware of it.

 

It was mentioned that the last update had special code for sandy bridge processors but I don't remember ever seeing what exactly the code was intended to do.

[quadraspleen 7]

Hmm..Devon, you have a "similar" system to me..I wonder why you don't see any penalty..it must have a lot to do with VSync I think..What monitor do you have and do you use VSync?

[HiFlyer 9,358]

Hmm..Devon, you have a "similar" system to me..I wonder why you don't see any penalty..it must have a lot to do with VSync I think..What monitor do you have and do you use VSync?

 

I have a penalty, but it's not big enough to be an issue in my flying. If I did a video, I suspect most people would barely notice it. I use the games internal v sync and turned off all external settings on my card.

[Bobsk8 12,679]

Hey Bob,

 

A bit OT, but...I'm using FRAPS..it's good but adds a bit of lag itself (which the author freely admits) sometimes up to 2-5FPS depending upon the game and FPS

 

Try DXTORY (http://www.dxtory.com) It's a competitor for FRAPS. It is a little harder to set up and configure (and its author is from JP so expect some stuff to geta little lost in translation), but it does the same as FRAPS but seems to add much less lag. (good support forum, too)

It can also do distributed HDD writing, which, if you are writing to two SSD's as I am, makes writing the video files so fast, you can turn down the compression when recording. It comes with a built-in muxing program which stitches the separate files back together again (it's recording de-interlaced alternate frames into each stream)

 

I'm still evaluating it, as I like to make movies of FSX, and FRAPS has outgrown itself a bit...

 

 

Not off topic at all. In the original post the OP stated that he had "no way to measure the exact frame rate". I posted a solution. How is that off topic? I have had no lag at all with Fraps, whether it is off or on, I see no difference at all. I like Fraps because you start it up and that's it, nothing else to do.

 

Hmmmmmm....... I have noticeable slowdown over heavy areas like Anchorage, but nothing like a jump or stutter at all, even with settings maxed. Just a smooth, steady, but lower frame rate.

 

I and another player just flew over a huge city with hugely wooded areas nearly wingtip to wingtip and settled down to land with no difficultys except the frame rate was different enough from normal that I was aware of it.

 

It was mentioned that the last update had special code for sandy bridge processors but I don't remember ever seeing what exactly the code was intended to do.

 

 

I get about 30 FPS over Anchorage with no stutters. As high as 45-50 in other places. Vertical sync is off on mine.

[quadraspleen 7]

Bob, i meant I was going off-topic, not you And I definitely get lag with Fraps..not much, but measurable (with FRAPS itself and FSX frame counter) I also find that not using an AM setting in my FSX.cfg of 62 (thus freeing up my 0 CPU core) makes FRAPS frame-rate when capturing lose 5-6FPS (now I am really going OT!)