DX10 performance: no fps improvement over DX9?

[FlyIce 354]

I just converted the FSX to DX10 and did everything according to guide (thanks a lot to you great people!). I kept all the settings in FSX configuration identical to my DX9 which is pretty much all maxed except traffic etc. Of course I enabled AA and added those DX10 specific lines to the FSX.cfg. I have a pretty fast computer (4.9GHz i-2500/GTX580/SSD and Win7 64bit).

 

Overall, things are fine and I don't have any serious complains. DX10 water looks much nicer than DX9! But I have to say that the overall image quality is not noticeably better than DX9 (I use 30fps vsync, 8xS + 4xSGSS, same as DX9). I was bit disappointed that I see no improvement in terms of FPS. It is pretty much identical to or even slightly lower than DX9, and those places where I got dipped down below 30 still chokes like they do in DX9. The shimmering is little worse and I actually think that I got slightly more micro-stuttering in DX10, albeit not to the point that is seriously distracting.

 

Any comments how I can further fine-tune the DX10 performance? Would greatly appreciate to know them..

[VeryBumpy 272]

If you fly in CPU bound situations, you really won't see much frame rate gain. DX10 seems to help make more efficient use of your video card.

 

I must say, I do find it odd how some people don't see ANY gain however, I had a large improvement in most areas I tested and flew when going DX10.

[Muskoka 104]

must say, I do find it odd how some people don't see ANY gain however, I had a large improvement in most areas I tested and flew when going DX10.

 

Same here, and any fps increase in FSX is very much welcomed. Even a 5 fps increase can make all the difference in the world when your on final, it is perceivable.

[Paul J 349]

Hi FlyIce:

 

This is a conundrum!! One cannot say

I just converted the FSX to DX10 and did everything according to guide.

, because, in the same breath you say:

I kept all the settings in FSX configuration identical to my DX9

it does not happen that way, FlyIce:

To get DX10 running with the performance most of us have starts with a fresh cfg, and takes a week or more to find that sweet spot: it includes getting rid of Windows "Aero" themes, processes, screen backgrounds, matching cpu to gpu, alpha texture and mip fixes, Inspector settings, particularly BufferPools, and testing testing testing testing, to get the computer, the driver settings, and those cfg settings where they need to be.

 

In answer to your last query - you need to post your precise pc specs in your profile at left, and then copy and attach your fsx.cfg here, (renamed as "FlyIce_fsx.txt") so i/we can properly make a reasonable evaluation - OK?

 

All the Best,

[FlyIce 354]

Hi Paul, first and foremost, please allow me to thank you sincerely for your efforts on making DX10 work in FSX. You are one of the few outstanding examples showing how wonderful the FSX community is.

 

Now, yes, you got me squarely. One thing I skipped in the protocol is to generate a brand new FSX.cfg. I only modified the old one with those entries mentioned in the guide (some of them I already had in DX9 cfg). Once I go home tonight I'll give new FSX.cfg a try.

 

Anyway, from what you said it seems I need to play the tuning game again with FSX in DX10. I spent countless hours tuning FSX in DX9 so please excuse me that I got lazy to do it again with DX10... but yes I should do it again....

 

By the way, one reason that I perceived little FPS improvement in DX10 probably is just due to that I locked ftp=30 with vsync? Any improvements above 30fps I don't see it. And in those harsh situations where fps dips below 30 in DX9 the CPU/GPU is so bottlenecked that DX10 doesn't help? By the way, I tried both BP=0 and your BP settings and I think at least for DX10 your BP=1 Rejection_Threshold etc settings are doing a better job. In DX9 BP=0 seems to work the best.

 

Again, thank you for your time and efforts on DX10. Please keep your good work.

[wulfbindewald 5]

Hi FlyIce,

 

the gain with DX10 vs DX9 is a moderate framerate improvement in scenery/airport area, but not so in dense autogen area. The mayor benefit for me was when flying in areas of 15 to 30 fps. The simulation smoothness compensates the lack of framerate performance in high dense area (Seattle). So even steering and landing with only 15 to 20 fps is managable now.

But I would be very surprised if Your high end PC would have any problem at all.

 

Wulf

[Paul J 349]

Hi FlyIce! Yeah - no frames above 30 - and we don't need it, as even 24 is smoooth in DX10. The thing that FSX/Nvidia has always had trouble with, is Vsync, and since the 300 series drivers came out, they've managed to get it right in full screen mode, as FSX (or any other app) will be now able to control Vsync by setting the fps to 30 inside FSX, with the driver synchronizing 1/2 the frame refresh rate with the FSX frame rate. If you can "tune your FSX to hold that 30 frames, there will be little or no screen tearing. The secret is in getting the fsx.cfg settings where there will be no frame rate drop regardless of weather, traffic or scenery. With your machine running "lean", you should have no trouble in achieving this. We're not looking for 40, or 50fps - just 30 under pressure. I'll put it this way, if you'll follow: you start off with 30 over the desert in the C172, with no weather and settings wound back, then slowly increase the texture load, the complexity load, the LOD load, the traffic load, the water load, the cloud load, bit by bit over a very constant, maybe four-minute circular, flight path. Do this using the Nvidia settings - and the other parameters, too, that are recommended in the How-to doc. You'll slowly see a pattern emerging - that 26fps will vary dependent upon 6 or 7 parameter changes, then as you increase the load that drops dow, until you're running at 29, and only one or two settings impcat the frames - but the weather can increase, or the traffic, or the scenery - but the frames stay up there!

We could do this in DX9, too, but DX9 is ok in most situations, flyers generally being satisfied with what they have, and not sufficiently interested to do this kind of tuning.. or fiddling. I learned two new swear words doing this, but the sim is solid, whether the Maddog at Seattle, or the SF260 at Anacortes in a thunderstorm.

As Wulf also says - even 15 to 20 fps is managable now, because of that smoothness. Others have noted, too they don't get OOM's any more. Big plus!.

 

As a quick addon to this - there is a slight bottleneck/mismatch with the 580, and I will be upping to the 680 sometime soon, so that I can get a better BufferPools setting. I used to run BP=0, but that was partially responsible for framerate swings.

 

Anyway - good luck with the fiddling and tweaking of the whole thing!

 

All the Best,