Hi everybody. I've been away from the simming community for a couple of years now. As I look around I see so much has changed...including all of my past posts seem to have disappeared. No doubt the result of the AVSIM hacking a while back. So I guess a brief re-introduction is in order.

I've been involved with Flight Simulator since 1981. That's right, I flew Flight sim, even before Microsoft owned it. LOL. I flew it on a Tandy TRS-80 computer, no less!! I've been a member here at AVSIM since the late 9o's, despite the "Newbie" monicker you see now. It seems that since I left, there are a lot of new folks to the community, some have left, and sadly, some have been taken from us far too soon. Miss Ya "Opa."

I'm a veteran of the United States Air Force and a career airline guy for better than 25 years. I'm a real world pilot (not for the airlines) and hold an A&P license as well.

 

So I'm back into simming again. FS9 and FSX both have a place in my world, but I recently did a reinstall of FS9, which brings me to the real purpose of this post.

 

Like most of you, I've spent countless thousands of dollars and countless thousands of hours on FS, trying to achieve the "Perfect Simulator." Of course, the one thing we have always fought were the relentless stutters and blurry textures, regardless of how much time, energy and resources we threw at it. In 2008 I built a system that, on paper, should eat right through FS9. As I read through the many post's here, I see that there is much that hasn't changed, LOL. People are still throwing the newest technology at it in the hopes of eliminating all that ails flight sim.

 

Fast forward to this most recent reinstall. I had decided to run through the forums to see if there had been any new advances or advice to fix the dreaded blurries. I found that NHancer no longer worked properly as I had gone beyond the supported driver so I set out to find an alternative. I see that NVidia inspector is now the choice to deal with the various graphics enhancements needed for FS. Now I don't have the NVidia inspector , but I do have NVidia control panel for my, now old 8800 GTS. The same settings are available, as are in the NVidia Inspector, for the most part, so I went ahead and tried it out. The one big difference from my NHancer days is that with Control panel, AA is turned on in FS9 and control panel will enhance that setting. So I played around to find the best quality I could get. I have a pretty well customized and overclocked system so the results weren't bad, but I still had some stutters and blurries. I've tweaked my FS9.cfg file as most have, with Nick N's settings.

 

Now, the one setting I had always been told to leave alone was the one called "Maximum Pre-rendered Frames." It has always defaulted to "3" so I left it there. As I read about that setting, It seems to me that it is there to prevent the CPU from overloading the GPU. Basically, it limits the number of frames the CPU can prepare before being processed by the GPU. This makes a lot of sense with 99% of the games out there because the GPU does all, or most of the graphics work. But as we all know, this isn't so with Flight sim. So I cranked up the Pre-rendered frames limit from the default 3 to the max of 8. Well my friends....Big improvement. Textures are better and load quicker, blurries are significantly reduced, stutters are all but gone. The higher you fly, the better it looks. It can still have some blurs on departure as you're climbing out, but that's to be expected. The only thing that hits on FPS for me now, is the REX Cumulus clouds which are beautiful, but enormously tough on frame rates if you aren't careful. Even the big payware airports aren't knocking frame rates down. I have my frames locked in the sim at 30 FPS. It's usually pegged at 29.8 FPS, and rarely does it dip below 20 FPS.

 

Now I'm not saying this is going to work for everyone. Every system is set up different so be aware that YMMV!! But I also know that this is no placebo affect. Textures load faster, crisper, and stay that way a lot longer now. Of course, one prerequisite is that you have an NVidia card as I don't know if the ATI cards even have this setting. I've put my system specs in my sig for comparison purposes.

I tested this with the usual suspects installed and running. Active Sky, Rex 2004, GePro, UT-USA, and FSGenesis mesh. I've tested these settings with some of the bigger payware sceneries installed too. Fly Tampa Boston and Midway, some Imaginsim and Blueprint sceneries like KDEN, KORD, KJFK, KLGA, etc. I tested with the Eaglesoft Cirrus SR22 GTS, the Eaglesoft Citation X 2.0 Extreme, the PMDG 737, and the IFLy 737.

 

So give it a shot and see how it works out for you. The worst that happens is you have to go back and try different settings. I know that for me, it is the most trouble free, smoothest, nicest looking FS9 install I've ever had. The system I built almost four years ago to cut through FS9 has finally fulfilled it's potential. I hope this can help some of you have a more pleasant simming experience. I can't promise I didn't leave anything out so, I'm happy to answer questions as best I can, if you have them.

 

Fly Safe!!!

Hi Jeff

 

Welcome back. I'll give that a go at the weekend - unless the weather's nice ;-) Thanks.

Hi, Jeff!

 

Nice to have you back here in our great FS9 community.

 

As a great victim of blurries and jaggies, I will be one of the first to test your trick today.

However I do use Nvidia Inspector and will start with changing the setting there.

If it doesn't work, I will see how it goes with the default Nvidia panel.

 

By the way which Nvidia drivers version are you currently using?

Hi,

 

I tried your fix this morning, unfortunately it did not seem to make any difference. As you say, every system is different. The thing I have noticed is that my blurry textures seem to be worse on the left, if I take-off from KSEA, just before the Seahawks stadium thats when the blurries start. (Maybe I should clean the left hand side of the cockpit window) Oh well I will keep tweaking.

 

Barry

Hi Rafal. According to my system info, I'm using version 285.58. I'm not sure that's the most recent. In fact it probably isn't, but I tend to be of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" school of thought. It would be good to know if that setting is even available in inspector, as I haven't seen it in any screenshots of the settings. At least I don't think I have, lol. But that certainly doesn't mean it isn't there. :) Oh, and thanks for the kind words. It seems you have become one of the "go to" guys for support here at AVSIM, so I look forward to hearing from you about your experience with this little tweak when you have a chance to test it out.

All the best!!!

 

Hi Barry. Sorry about that. One suggestion I would make is to take a full flight around the block. As I said earlier, You will still have some blurries, particularly on climb out as the textures change a lot as you climb to altitude. Get your bird up to cruise altitude for a little bit, just to be sure. I can only speak to the effectiveness on my system as it is configured. This is also a fresh install of FS9 for me so that could play into it as well. Not knowing your system or how your FS is configured makes it difficult to offer suggestions, but if I can help further, I'm happy to do it.

 

Barry, if I can offer one other suggestion...I note that your processor is clocked at under 3 GHz. I'm overclocked to 3.87 GHZ. This is almost certainly a part of your issue as your processor's clock speed has a big influence on the sim. I recall noticing it being less effective at slower clock speeds but not a ton less. The slowest I've tested this on is about 3.2 GHz and there was a bit of a difference from where I am now. I can honestly say that the improvement for me is there at both speeds, though maybe not as pronounced at slower speeds. You could also experiment with lesser values than the max available. This might result in some incremental performance improvements.

Hi Gavin. Thanks so much!! Let me know how it works out for you. :D

Hello Jeff,

 

As you suggested I cruised around but I did not notice any difference, I even lowered the pre-rendered frames from 8 to 5.

 

Regarding my processor's clock speed, I have always been reluctant to overclock as basically I do not know what I am doing. However, needs must. What would you consider a safe overclock without watercooling?

 

Thanks

Barry

Oh boy, is that a question fraught with peril...for me, lol. I've gotten into many discussions here in the past on the subject of overclocking and for the most part, I try to avoid it now, lol. That being said, I'll speak more in generalities. First, your ability to overclock is governed by your motherboard just as much as your processor. Understand that overclocking is as much art, as science. There is also a difference between a safe, stable overclock that will let you run windows and such, stable, and an over clock that will run FS stable. An I5 750 can overclock safely to about 4 GHz on good air cooling but It really shouldn't be necessary to go that far. Assuming you have the right motherboard and a good (read aftermarket) CPU cooling solution, you should be able to do 3.5 on air with no issues, assuming you do it right, lol. I've had my system to 4.2 GHz on air, but it was not stable at that speed for FS. For me, the limiting factor is my north bridge and processor voltages would need to exceed safe spec to remain stable for FS use. As it is, I'm overclocked to 3.87 with a good cooler and my core temps don't ever exceed about 55 under load. My Northbridge hits about 71 c on a hot day under load. I know this may all be gibberish to you, but it will also illustrate my point that Overclocking is not something that someone can really give you step by step instructions for. There's more to it than just set this value to this, and that value to that. My best advice is to research overclocking on some of the websites dedicated to the practice. You'll find people in those forums with experience on your exact combinations of equipment who can likely give you more specific direction. I started from zero knowledge at one point, just like you. It's just something you need to learn so you can be effective with it. Knowing how your particular system reacts to changes in core voltage or Northbridge voltage, for example, will make all the difference in getting a good overclock. There's a "feel" to doing it. And that feel is different for every system. The good news is that with some research and experimentation, you'll learn more about your system than you ever thought you would, and there's very little danger of doing any permanent damage if you screw it up. But to be on the safe side, always back up your important files before you start. Let me know if I can do more for you.

Isnt prerendered frames faster set to 1 then 5 ?

The CPU renders a frame, and send it to the GPU. If both are fast, en you got the most FPS from setting this to 1. FS9 does everything on the CPU tough, so the GPU plays no role in it.

Higher number of prerendered frames gives more fluidity, but lower frames, and low number give higher fps, but more possible stutters.

Also input devices may suffer at high prerendered frames. So, in theory high should give a smoother ride, if the cpu can cope with it. Remember it has to do more then only generating frames..

 

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_6.html

Maximum Pre-Rendered Frames: If available, this option - previously known as 'Max Frames to Render Ahead' - controls the number of frames the CPU prepares in advanced of being rendered by the GPU. The default value is 3 - higher values tend to result in smoother but more laggy gameplay, while lower values can help reduce mouse and keyboard lag. However extremely low values such as 0 may hurt performance, so I recommend this option be kept at its default of 3 globally, and only adjusted downwards in specific game profiles. Remember, in most cases mouse lag is due to low framerates, so adjusting this option is not an automatic cure to lag issues, nor should it be the first thing you try. Finally, it only works in DirectX games, not OpenGL games.

Well, yes and no, Johan, LOL. You are right in suggesting that your processor needs to be able to handle it. No question as more rendering puts more load on the processor. However in the case of most games that are GPU dependent, the GPU is already doing most of the work so adding more to it will, in theory slow things down because more is coming at it at the same time. The setting LIMITS the amount of pre rendered frames going to the GPU. However, with flight sim, the GPU is grossly underutilized. By limiting the number of frames that are pre processed, you're slowing down the amount of stuff getting to the GPU, does that make sense? This "Limit switch" is essentially a bottleneck between the CPU and GPU. I know I'm not explaining it in a very technical way but I'm also not a graduate of MIT, LOL. Basically, with the setting at 8, eight frames are being processed ahead of the GPU instead of only 3. I can also say that higher settings do seem to require a very little extra juice to Vcore and often, the northbridge. as you are putting more load on the CPU and FSB. THe issue of control lag is certainly something to be aware of. If higher settings result in control lag, you have two options. Lower the pre rendered frames setting to a point at which that lag no longer occurs. You also have the option of bumping the voltage on the southbridge up a little for your peripherals. It's also important that your CPU, FSB, northbridge, and RAM are all tuned together, properly so that none of those become a bottle neck. Does that make sense? If not, I'll try again after I get a little sleep.

I use a setting of 7 (before this post existed), this has helped me with some smoothness and FPS stability but no impact on blurries/scenery.

Hi.

 

Supporting Jeff's explanation, here's a screenie of my very cheap (£35 new a couple of years ago) motherboard's inability to keep up with a very good video card (also a couple of years old). Compare CPU usage (Windows Task Manager, top left) with GPU load (Nvidia Inspector graph, upper trace bottom right).

 

Yup, that's 9.1 FPS!

 

 

 

I don't think any amount of tweaking will help this hardware but I'm happy enough with it.

 

This was taken at a maxed-out LICJ, the creator of which suggested it might hit the framerate. It's AI that cause the drop for my PC as my hopeless base unit simply can't keep track of so many objects. That means I have to reduce AI at busy airports in order to keep things flowing. Cross-country, with full autogen, scenery and weather but no AI, unlocked FPS will happily run up to 70+ and usually sits around 40 to 50. I lock at 36 to fit with a 72 Hz monitor and reduce peripheral vision flicker.

 

I would upgrade my hardware but the days of reinstallation, registering and tweaking currently outweigh the benefit. :P

 

I think I have the flight saved so I may try different settings of pre-rendering and let you know if it does make any difference...

 

Best regards,

D

I just ment that the more you prerender, and thus creating a smooth ride, the less time the cpu has to do other things, like reading the control devices, like a joystick. Its important that the stick needs to be polled as much as possible to get smooth reactions. Also, the CPU does more than rendering frames, the OS needs cycles too, the audiocard, etc etc... if you starve them, you got other problems.

The catch22 is: less prerender is higher fps, the more prerender is lower fps, but a smoother ride.

Just start with 1, then 3 then 5 etc, and see when you see problems, like lag in stick input, or crackling sound.

In FS9 its hard to overfeed the GPU, so using 10 frames is not gonna hurt it, but may cause other troubles, but not so in FSX, since the card has a bit more to do. But same mechanic applies.

This is al least what I understand of it all.

Thanks for the help Dave. Much appreciated.

Yes Johan, you're right. On my setup, I have my frames locked at 30, and with a pre-render setting of 8, my FPS still stays at 30 in all but the worst weather. I'm not really looking for higher frame rates here, but if I were, I would indeed need to have that setting lower. The fact that my frame rates don't change with either setting, and all my controls work the same as always, indicates that my CPU was being underutilized and had some power to spare. As we are talking about FS, even during flight with the big add ons, my CPU usage never get's much above 65% and my RAM usage peaks at about 58%. My system has plenty of overhead to handle the load. Were FS to have been coded to take FULL advantage of multiple cores, this would almost certainly be different. You also raised a great point earlier in that it is possible that my improved scenery isn't just about this one setting, but maybe a result of the over clock along with it. I believe folks will see a definite improvement in the quality and fluidity of the sim, provided their system is configured to be up to the task, i.e. CPU clocks up above 3.5, a wide open FSB, and good Memory settings. For me, it has at least mitigated my desire to dive head first into Ivy Bridge, or Sandy Bridge for the time being. :) Stutters are definitely gone now, and that's HUGE!!! Thanks for sharing your views on this.