Hello!

 

Pardon me if this is in the wrong area of the forums, I don't post very much.

 

Before I begin, I'll let you know about my processor. Detailed specs should be on my profile. The processor is an Intel i5-2430m with 2 cores, 4 threads with HT enabled @2.40ghz turbo boost to 3.00ghz, but usually only 2.90 in Fsx. (sidenote, if anyone knows how to get it to run at 3.00 all the time, that would be greatly appreciated :lol:)

 

I seem to be having an issue fully understanding the infamous affinity mask tweak. I understand that altering the value in the fsx.cfg file sets which processor cores are used by FSX, and that higher settings deal with more cores. Bojote's tweaking tool determined that for my system a value of 5 would be optimal. Now, here is my confusion. I have seen that most dual cores are supposed to use a value of 14. So, I tried it on my system. I saw a minimal FPS increase of about 2-3 frames, however there were quite a lot of stutters, thus I reverted back to the 5 value. On my system, I regularly achieve 25-40 fps externally and 20-25 IN FLIGHT in the cockpit with the PMDG 737 NGX, REXE and heavy scenery. Not bad for a laptop B) However on the ground I see the fps go down to a dismal 10 fps in the cockpit in dense scenery areas. Therefore, in my never-ending quest to gain as much frames as possible, I am curious as to whether I can further optimize the affinity mask tweak to achieve optimal performance, however my limited knowledge on the affinity mask topic leads me here.

 

Long story short, does anybody know of a good value for me to use for the affinity mask tweak based on my situation? Or have I already found an optimal value at 5? Please and thank-you! Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

Regards, Matthew.

No AM is both cores on. FSX does not use HT so it should be turned off, but that will slow your computer down with other programs. AM 5 is incorrect, 3 cores. I would not use AM with 2 cores. It is best used with 4 cores where AM 14 unloads core 0 and puts it on the other 3. AM 255 is for 6 cores.

 

To turn on a higher CPU speed, yoi need to overclock the CPU in BIOS. You need to do a lot of research to learn how to do this and only if your computer allows you to do this. Most laptops are not good enough to run FSX smoothly.

 

Highly suggest you use Word Not Allowed's guide to setup your computer.

 

Have fun

Dave

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply.

 

Okay so from what I understand, I should turn affinity mask off, correct? Does that involve simply deleting the line in the fsx.cfg? Or setting the value to 1 or 0? Thanks for the reference to Word Not Allowed's guide, I'll have a look at that for sure.

 

I am aware that a laptop is a less than desirable choice however at this time it' my only option. I don' mind it; it's certainly better than my old desktop, but I think I'd rather spend money on real-world flight training than on a new rig :P .

 

I doubt I'd be able to overclock it... I don't really want to take the chance. I was just curious as to why the CPU is capable of running 3.00 ghz (I've seen it outside of the sim), but seems to only run 2.90 in flight sim. Again, I'm not an expert, especially with turbo boost.

 

Thanks for the help! It's greatly appreciated.

The [Jobscheduler} is not there by default so just don't put it in. Remove it, and the AM line, if you have put it in. The computer will default to 2 cores.

 

Turbo Boost seems to work ok and helps a laptop.

 

Dave

Hi Matthew,

If you don't specify an affinitymask in the cfg FSX will use AM=5 for a dual core with HyperThreading.

I would recommend you to use AM=9.

It is a very widespread misconception that FSX can't use HyperTreading. It can!

In the case of a dual core you are better off by using HyperThreading and manually setting AM=9 in the cfg.

Please read here if you want to se why: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/377105-texture-loading-ssd-vs-hdd/

Hi Matthew,

If you don't specify an affinitymask in the cfg FSX will use AM=5 for a dual core with HyperThreading.

I would recommend you to use AM=9.

It is a very widespread misconception that FSX can't use HyperTreading. It can!

In the case of a dual core you are better off by using HyperThreading and manually setting AM=9 in the cfg.

Please read here if you want to se why: http://forum.avsim.n...ing-ssd-vs-hdd/

 

Thanks SAAB! I''ll try out 9 and see how it goes. Your post that you linked was very informative and detailed. Great work! Thanks for the help everyone.

Sorry for the double post...

I tried 9 and I'm not too sure what to do. There is maybe a slight performance increase, not too sure at this point, however I'm concerned that it disabled Turbo Boost, which I NEED to bring the clock speed from 2.4 to 2.9. In flight I checked the Task Manager and Turbo Boost manager. The task manager showed that Cores 0 and 1 had a low load and core 2 had a near max load, and core 3 had a medium-low load. Very unbalanced for sure...also, in checking the Turbo Boost manager I saw that it was running at 2.4 ghz....normally FSX woulld bring it up to 2.9. (it's supposed to be a max of 3....not sure why it refuses to when running FSX...) So, I'm not quite sure what to do. Disable AM for Turbo Boost, or just leave it as is.

 

Any suggestions?

AffinityMask=9 shall give you pretty much full load on core#0 by the main thread. Core#1 should have very little load. Core#2 should be probably around half load and Core#3 should be a texture loader that cycles up to full load every minute. (That's when you are CPU limited).

 

It's very hard to control turbo boost apart from making sure its activated in the bios. The CPU itself will turbo up depending on the temperatures and type of CPU load.

Hi SAAB,

 

Well, I've done about 8 hours flying time with AM9, and I've run into some issues. Lately I've noticed random FPS drops in flight down to around 7 or 8 fps when it should be 20+. It seems the only way to fix this is to modify ANY setting (no matter how small) and it snaps back to normal. However on my latest flight (YVR-YOW) There were about 3 occasions where it went down to 1 FPS or less! There was sound cracking and I was forced again to change settings, after which the sim corrected itself. Very strange indeed. I'm curious whether its due to the affinity mask, or yet another new bug that's formed <_< .

 

Also, I'm experiencing unbalanced loads. The loads on my CPU that you suggested I should be getting is in fact not the case. I've attached a screenshot. (be advised that I don't always use windowed mode... just for the purpose of the screenshot.) Note the uneven loads especially core 2 which is running at full capacity. Also note the fact that the processor is running at stock 2.4 ghz, yet when I exit the flight (even with FSX still running in the main menu) Turbo Boost engages and runs at 2.9 ghz....very strange seeing that it should run in the sim to gain maximum performance. Unless it's a heat issue, I'm very confused.... :(

 

Any suggestions? Thanks in advance!

Edited July 29, 201213 yr by i_am_canadian737

That picture of the task manager is not making sense for AM=9. (It would for AM=12 and that would give you rubbish performance.) But it doesn't make sense for the standard AM=5 you would get if you didn't have a valid entry either. What happens if you change to AM=1 just for test purposes to make sure your AM entry in the cfg is working?

That should leave you with full load on core#0 and only a little on the remaining ones. Does that happen?

That picture of the task manager is not making sense for AM=9. (It would for AM=12 and that would give you rubbish performance.) But it doesn't make sense for the standard AM=5 you would get if you didn't have a valid entry either. What happens if you change to AM=1 just for test purposes to make sure your AM entry in the cfg is working?

That should leave you with full load on core#0 and only a little on the remaining ones. Does that happen?

 

I'll try AM 1 tomorrow and I'll post the results. Hopefully it's working; I can't really see why it would not work. As for the random FPS crashes, do you have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

Again, sorry for the double post.

 

Hello again SAAB, Here are my results with AM=1. The two images are attached. Do know that the tests were done at KJFK in the 737 NGx with REXE and WOAI Traffic set to 90%....basically the heaviest load I could think of so frames are low.

 

Note that in the first image all cores are working at about 50%...not quite balanced but better than before. However I don't think it's what you said it should be.

 

In the second image note that turbo boost is engaged OUTSIDE of the sim yet on the first image INSIDE the sim it is not....temps were not changed significantly. Very frustrating considering I could get a huge performance boost with it engaged inside the sim.

 

Hope I have given you all you needed, thanks in advance for any help! B)

Ok, I understand a bit more of what's happening now and your AffinityMask entry is working as it should. But you have other add-on programs running as well.

 

May I ask what GPU you have running in your laptop? The pictures of your task manager is basically telling me that you are mainly limited by somthing else that isn't the CPU. The first core assigned by the AM should be running at max. When it's not we are held back by something that isn't the CPU. In your case I strongly suspect the GPU. So you'll have to lower your settings to get better performance.

 

In the previous case using AM=9 when you showed the load in flight you can see that the load on core#0 is only around 20%. This is the thread that is producing the FPS. Core#1 is around 10% load so the total load on the first physical core (core#0 + core#1) is only around 30%. In this case it doesn't matter if your CPU is running at 2.4 or 2.8Ghz. You have plenty of CPU cycles availible anyway. Something else is holding you back.

 

In your latest case on the ground with AM=1 Core#0 is around 75% and Core#1 is around 50% giving a physical core load of 125%. As this is more than 100% it means that your CPU speed is now actually restricting your FPS. But you only used AM=1 for testing. Using AM=5 or 9 will take away some of the load from core#0 and you'll most likely end up not beeing CPU limited @ 2.4Ghz again.

 

Your add-ons are using a lot of CPU cycles. But as we already established it doesn't really matter as it's not your CPU holding you back. In your latest case with AM=1 FSX is most likely responsible for all the load on core#0 and possibly around 30% total load on the other 3 cores. All the other loads are generated by other programs. I don't know anything about your add-ons but if there is a way for you to set the affinity for these programs you don't want to include core#0 and core#1 in it. I know you can set affinity in windows 7 itself and exclude the cores in there, but I wont guarantee that it works problem free. If you for example were to exclude core#1 for FSX that way you'll unfortunatly end up with loads of hard stutters.

 

As the add-ons use a significant ammount of CPU cycles I can't be sure what AM to recommend but I still suspect 9 is the best one. The 4 AMs you can play with are: 9, 5, 10 and 6 in the order I guess how good they will work.

 

You should't be surprised that your CPU isn't turboing up even thou your temperature remains the same. Given how much load your add-ons together with FSX put on your CPU it doesn't have the headroom needed to turbo up. The turbo calculations use a lot of variables and complex calculations to decide what speed you get. This "turbo computer" on the i7-lynnfield CPU was using around 1 million dedicated transistors. The equivalet to an old 486 CPU. So it's not just as simple as what temperature you have that will decide your turbo ratio.

 

I hope this can be of use for you.

 

Just saw in your specifications that you have a GT525m in your laptop. There's the problem. You'll have to lower settings to get higher FPS. Your CPU is very capable but the GPU is unfortunatly very underpowered.

I'd say that you need either a 460m, 560m or 640m or better to get decent performance with FSX on a laptop.

Hi SAAB, thanks for the in depth reply!

 

I'd say that you need either a 460m, 560m or 640m or better to get decent performance with FSX on a laptop.

 

Wish I'd known that before I got it haha. It was a Christmas gift so really I had no choice. Wish they had opted for the i7 version though . I doubt there is a way to replace the card...I will have to live with it I suppose. I'd rather save for real life training than buy a new rig, so I'll work with what I've got. I could overclock the card....but I'm not very experienced with overclocking in general and am concerned that the heat dissipation on my system is not the greatest. I have followed an Nvidia Inspector guide (can't remember which) to set anti aliasing and such. I could try and decrease those settings however the anti aliasing with my card is very bad as is...at 1.00 zoom external view I can barely read the tail marking .

 

As for the AM, I'll play around with the values you suggested and test the results. I've read around and seen that possibly disabling speedstep in the BIOS could force turbo boost on all the time. I may try it and see how it goes.

 

Thanks!