Here is the situation-- My normal performance is 30 fps with planes such as the NGx at a big default airport and using the external frame limiter. After a few weeks of relative abscence from FSX and a perhaps a few changes I don't think are related (installed DCS, some new aircraft, etc, nothing unusual), I now have the following problem:

 

Independent of aircraft, even stock Cessna, my frame rate always is hovering around 18 or 20 when I load up at even a small regional airport in which I would normally get 30 locked and much much more if unlocked. I typically use the external frame limiter application which has worked for years and seems to be the best for me. This new problem just seemed to happen out of the blue.

 

Here is that catch. If I hit Ctrl-shft-end to go minimize to desktop briefly, and then go right back, my performance all comes back in all its glory, for say 5 minutes. This is all just sitting on the runway in fair weather, and seems to differ little even if I change it to bad weather.

 

The situation is independent of video driver, as far as I can ascertain, I haven't done a Windows update, and the only activity of the last month has been the installation of DCS and its planes on a different disk, the installation of a new TM Warthog controller, and in FSX, the installation of a helicopter. I don't think any of these things would account for the kind of problems I'm seeing all of the sudden, and I can't think what else might have happened.

 

I still have the usual things to do, double check settings, rebuild config file, you know, the usual troubleshooting steps. But I wanted to put this out there to see if anybody has experienced something similar like this, and could give me some wild guesses as to what might be happening. Why is it going back to normal when I take the sim out of focus and then put it right back?

Here is some additional information as I go about troubleshooting the problem. I rebuilt the fsx.cfg file (no tweaks), picked the F1 Cessna 310R with dual reality xp gps and weather radar, and picked a heavy airport, Seattle. I had 0 airline or vehicle traffic enabled. With frame rates unlimited, when I started the sim my fps counter was holding steady at about 60. I taxiied all around the airport and it remained near 60. I took off, and flew a pattern, and the fps counter remained high. But then, when I came onto very short final, the fps went down to the low 20s and remained. I taxxied back to the same spot I had started at. It remained in the low 20s. However, when I minimized to desk and immediately came back, my fps counter came back up to around 60.

 

I've never seen anything like this. What the heck?

do you undock any of the instruments?

 

try updating you video drivers, also start disabling your add ons one at a time

 

also lake sure you disable the windows anti virus.

I'm happy to say I got the problem sorted. It was more stupid than I could have imagined. As expected it wasted hours of head scratching until I finally saw what was wrong.

 

The Problem: FSX performance was falling off consistently and predictably, but could be "refreshed" by minimizing FSX and then maximizing again. The performance would then drop off again after a minute or two. I thought I either had a new thermal problem or the card was finally on its last legs.

 

The Answer: In Nvidia Inspector there is the line POWER MANAGEMENT MODE. This is supposed to be toggled to "Prefer Maximum Performance" and of course that was how I had it set...... :LMAO:

 

 

Well, guess what...The other day I must have unintentionally fat fingered in "Adaptive Mode" while examing some options, and then accidentally ended up saving it. My video card was dropping into an energy saving mode, and it was obviously temporarily kicking back in to high gear for a short time only when I minimized/maximized FSX. Not exactly "Adaptive" when it kicks you down into energy saver while on short final into a major hub is it!

 

But anyway, I had feared that it was a hardware failure. Fortunately, it was just a single line error. So I'm back to full performance now and greatly relieved--goes to show that the difference between great performance and dismal performance in FSX is just a dropdown menu item away. :Whew: