I have turned on the display of frame rate and get the folowing output in my window:

 

F-act F-sim Frame CPU

10.10 19.90 0.090 0.408

/sec /sec time load

 

Could someone tell me what these mean and which is the frame rate I should be interested in - the manual says a rate of 19 is only just acceptable so I tried setting all the settings for maximum speed but the rates displayed stayed the same.

I have turned on the display of frame rate and get the folowing output in my window:

 

F-act F-sim Frame CPU

10.10 19.90 0.090 0.408

/sec /sec time load

 

Could someone tell me what these mean and which is the frame rate I should be interested in - the manual says a rate of 19 is only just acceptable so I tried setting all the settings for maximum speed but the rates displayed stayed the same.

 

The first value (F-act) is the actual frame rate you see on the screen (the "classic" frame rate).

 

The second value (F-sim) is the internal "frame rate" of the flight model. It never goes below 20 (19.90 is actually displayed) otherwise the flight model would become unstable. This value is then multiplied for the "flight model per frame" value inside the "Operations & warnings" menu.

 

That's how it works:

 

If the actual frame rate is equal or greater than 20, then the two values (F-act and F-sim) should be the same (more or less, it depends on frame rate fluctuations).

 

If the actual frame rate goes below 20, then the flight model frame rate bottoms out at 20 (displayed 19.90). This means that WHEN THE ACTUAL FRAME RATE IS BELOW 20, THE SIMULATION IS SLOWED DOWN. For example, if you have an actual frame rate of 10, then THE SIMULATOR IS RUNNING IN SLOW MOTION at 1/2 speed (10/20).

 

The third value (Frame time) is simply the reciprocal of the actual frame rate, and is the time (in seconds) the simulator takes to draw a frame (in your example, 0.090 seconds = 90 milliseconds).

 

The fourth value (CPU load) should be related to the load of the CPU at current conditions. Probably if it's at or near 1.000, then the CPU should be the bottleneck in those conditions.

I guess your HD 3600 GPU is simply too weak to run X-Plane10 even at the max speed settings.

 

Flo

I understand what you say about my HD 3600 but before buying XPlane I did check the specs as follows :

 

MIn 2GHz rec 3GHz processor - mine is 2,6GHz

Min 2Gb rec 4Gb memory - I have 4Gb

Min Direct X 9 rec Direct X 10 - mine is Direct X 11

Min 128 Mb on board RAM rec 1Gb on board RAM - my card has 512Mb

 

Using DXDiag on my computer tells me I have 2042Mb of VRAM

 

So loking at those specs I ought to be able to run it fine.

Any suggestions why it appears to run so slowly.

Well, yes. The problem is that your system actually RUNS X-Plane10 - but you're stuck with very low framerates. That's what the minimum requirements tells you: It will load and "run" - nothing more.

 

X-Plane10 needs a LOT of GPU-Power (other than FSX) and even if all your other components would be able to deliver 30 FPS your GPU will be the bottleneck and you're stuck with 10 FPS. Your GPU is really very low end, I'm sorry

 

Cheers

Flo

 

(Are you sure it's a DX11 card. I think it's DX10 - but that doesn't matter. Vram is only the physical ram on the video-card when in comes to performance. Using the systems' ram as additional Vram slows the whole system down.)

Thanks for the comments Flo, I appreciate them.

 

DXDiag definitely says I have DX11 installed.

 

Do you think I should stop using system RAM as extra VRAM, would that make a difference?

 

The frame rates stay the same even when I up a lot of the setting to quite high ones by the way.

Well, yes. The problem is that your system actually RUNS X-Plane10 - but you're stuck with very low framerates. That's what the minimum requirements tells you: It will load and "run" - nothing more.

 

X-Plane10 needs a LOT of GPU-Power (other than FSX) and even if all your other components would be able to deliver 30 FPS your GPU will be the bottleneck and you're stuck with 10 FPS. Your GPU is really very low end, I'm sorry

 

 

I can get a new graphics card with 1Gb of memory for round about £30 - would that make much difference and if not what card would you recommend?

Could you please do the following test:

 

Set rendering settings to max speed and then quit XP. Restart X-Plane and run it in windowed mode (instead of full-screen). Reduce the size of the window to 1/2 and then 1/4 of the screen. Does that increase your framerate?

 

My gues is that the "computing power" of your card is the weakest point, not the vram. If you think about upgrading I would recommend a used GTX560 1GB or at least a GTX550 1GB. They should be available for less than 70 / 50 pounds. What would that 30 pounds card be? I hear the GTX560 does handle XP10 quite well with medium to high settings.

 

Cheers

Flo

Thanks Flo,

 

I did as you suggested and actually got a frame rate over 21 but the graphics were rubbish. Turning a couple of settings on, airport and world distance made it very slightly better and it maintained a framerate around about 17.

 

It seems the texture and HDR settings take it down the most.

 

Those results were in a windowed mode, reducing the size of the window, it would only go to about 3/4 of it's size, didn't seem to make any difference. Making it full screen loses about 1 point on the frame rate.

 

I can get a HD6450 1Gb Radeon card for £35 at Maplins, would that be any good?

I now have it running about 16-17 which gives good flying but the landscape is rubbish - in particulr even with Airport Detail set to high and number of objects set to too many there are no buildings at airports at all, some in the landscape but nothing at all in airports.

 

The odd thing is that on start up it shows a frame rate of 15-16 but if I then press Q 8 times to do a 360 degree look around the frame rate then increases to 21-22 but goes back down to 16-17 after taking off.

 

I really am getting quite angry at paying out for this package and spending far more time trying to get it set up rather than actually flying as each reset takes ages

in particulr even with Airport Detail set to high and number of objects set to too many there are no buildings at airports at all, some in the landscape but nothing at all in airports.

 

Well this is no problem of your graphics settings most airports have no buildings! But I have to say: with your computer you probably won't get happy with X-Plane 10.

I see a problem, the 3600.

I understand your frustration - but to be honest: It's a long way to get XP10 set up right and if you want some eye-candy then you will have to upgrade your PC, especially your GPU. (And a HD6450 won't help a lot).

I was a freshman with XP one year ago and it took 6 month and a lot of money until I felt comfortable with XP10 and had build a decend system to run it with eye candy.

I think you have to decide if you want to invest quite some money and time into XP10 (and get the benefit out of it) or just drop it right now and sell your copy. XP does not provide a "plug and play" experience and probably never will.

 

Best regards

Flo

Thanks for the helpful comments - on balance I think I will stick with it, I am happy to invest the time but the cash is a different matter but it is a lot better flight model than FSX I think anyway, and very realistic in that respect.

 

Just a coup[le of final questions then:

 

Can you recommend the lowest rated graphics card to run it with a good level of scenery graphics, not necessarily the very top rates.

 

Regarding what Longranger said about airport buildings I know I have flown from an airport where there were many buildings and ramps with aircraft on them but for the life of me can't find that again - I thought it would be Seattle but I get no airport buildings on that either - anyone know where I might have been or suggest a good airport to look at; I can even remember seeing a 747 taxiing whilst I was waiting at the end of the runway.

First of all: What version of X-Plane10 are you running. Have you updated it after installation?

Latest stable version out is 10.11. Make sure you run that version.

 

There are a couple of major airports in XP10 by default. Seattles' KSEA is one of them. You find all your airports (mostly european ones) in the "custom scenery" folder inside the main XP-folder. There are a lot more good freeware airports at the "x-plane.org" website (free registration needed).

XP10 has AI - but it's very basic and buggy yet. Look up the manual how to configure it and how to use the ATC (even more buggy

 

Re the GPU I wouldn't recommend anything below a GTX550ti or GTX460 1GB card. They will probably allow a lower-medium graphics setting. Keep in mind: even the latest 500 dollar high-end cards can't run XP10 on max settings with stable 30 FPS.

 

Flo