FSX FPS issue on new setup. NOT the same questions as everyone else!

[dewie93 0]

So, Had FSX installed for a while, wasn't impressed with the FPS on my i7-920 powered system (OC'd to 4.2GHz) so I took the plunge for a new system entirely.

 

i7-3770k @4.6GHz watercooled

16GB Corsair Vengeance RAM 1600MHz

2x 2GB EVGA GTX670 in SLI (OC'd)

850Watt Hybrid Modular PSU

120GB SSD (Win 7)

3x 1TB storage (1 dedicated for games including FSX) defrag'd regurlaly

Corsair Haf X case

 

Built the system, got incredibly high 3dmark scores (16k 3d Mark11)

 

Cleared drive of old FSX installation and started fresh, with a restart after most installs (didn't mind with a 20 second shut down to boot up lol)

 

Got FSPS FSX booster and Multicore advanced reinstalled and setup.

 

For shits and giggles I maxxed out FSX settings (other than traffic which i left at 0% for everything including cars and boats)

 

I got about 13/14FPS at most in my test setup which is Airbus X A321 in thomas cook colours on 05R at EGCC (Manchester) with FTX England and UK2000 EGCC Xtreme at lunch time (12 midday local time) with 'fair weather' (Standard clouds, REX not installed yet)

 

Deleted my FSX.cfg (after backing the previous one) and booted FSX up.

Loaded up my test setup and I was only getting about 14-15 tops. (even with resolution at stock 800x600 and FPS locked at 20)

 

Changed resolution to full 1080p and no change.

 

So started from the top on my scenery detail. Put all scenery sliders at 0 so I got some flat land, a bare strip of concrete and thats about it. With FPS locked at 30 it was stuck at 30. Set the limiter to 'Unlimited' and it stuck at 60FPS (Due to my EVGA Prescision GPU Overclocking software set at 60 for all games)

 

So I embarked on the task of moving the sliders up one by one gradually and low and behold, after gradually putting the sliders up to max, it works... well to a point.

 

And thats where my main issue comes in. When I load up the flight, frames are about 14FPS for about 10 seconds until I presume all the surrounding scenery finishes loading. with FPS locked at 30 I can pan around either VC view or spot plane view and it sticks at 30 (well, 29.9) Happy days. I thought it was sorted. Pah. no.

 

I left it sat in VC mode looking straight down the runway text a friend for a couple of minutes, look back up and FPS are down at 16-20FPS, barely more, the occational flick up to 26 or so. Nothing has changed, same angle, same weather nothing. Then after a couple of minutes it flicks back up to 29 and sticks there. Then after another couple of minutes the FPS drop back down again (no specific amount of time) sometimes its only for a few seconds, but the longer I seem to leave it the longer the FPS stay low. 

 

To illustrate this, i have made a video for you to watch showing an example of me moving the camera and the FPS coming back to 30, then going back down.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xqjYyBaVxA

 

If you need me to upload anything like my FSX.cfg then let me know. 

 

It just seems like its suddenly under more load, then it stops. I've not been able to narrow it down to what is causing it.

 

[pocketwatch50 6]

I have a system not too far off from your just a 580Ti card and the frames are always changing from 1 sec to another. I don't worry about it anymore. I found once I tweaked my system with the usual tweaks my frames went right up but I still need to keep the sliders down a bit.

[G MIDY 101]

Have you checked your system for stability/heat etc? Have you experienced blue screens or anything weird during the install of anything on your new system? Judging on your new stuff you shouldn't be having any FPS issues when sliders are lowered, it should be able to deal very well with the highest settings really. The fact that your FPS is hampered no matter what your FSX settings are set to suggests a problem elsewhere with your setup. I was thinking as well, seeing as you have a completely new system have you reinstalled Windows or just started from the current installation? Smells of either a problem with the hardware setup or the software, IE drivers or something similar. I really doubt it's anything to do with your FSX settings. Have you tried other games for their performance?

 

One more biggie, try unlocking your FPS followed by locking it externally using for example the Nvidia drivers through Inspector and see how it is then.

[dewie93 0]

I have a system not too far off from your just a 580Ti card and the frames are always changing from 1 sec to another. I don't worry about it anymore. I found once I tweaked my system with the usual tweaks my frames went right up but I still need to keep the sliders down a bit.

What sort of frame rates are you getting? i've tried most of the tweaks but its just not getting above this 20FPS limit it seems to stick to. If its not at 30, its at 20 or 15. Really annoying! I'v seen people with much lower powered systems operating at the same airport with the same scenery with frames that look like the 60's :(

 

Have you checked your system for stability/heat etc? Have you experienced blue screens or anything weird during the install of anything on your new system? Judging on your new stuff you shouldn't be having any FPS issues when sliders are lowered, it should be able to deal very well with the highest settings really. The fact that your FPS is hampered no matter what your FSX settings are set to suggests a problem elsewhere with your setup. I was thinking as well, seeing as you have a completely new system have you reinstalled Windows or just started from the current installation? Smells of either a problem with the hardware setup or the software, IE drivers or something similar. I really doubt it's anything to do with your FSX settings. Have you tried other games for their performance?

 

One more biggie, try unlocking your FPS followed by locking it externally using for example the Nvidia drivers through Inspector and see how it is then.

Yeah, stability is fine, OC was tested (briefly) with prime 95, only reaching 78*C after 5 hours flat out. In FSX CPU gets to 68*C after a couple of hours doing some VFR stuff in Carenado Cessna.

 

Do you mean FSX setup or PC setup? But thats what I thought, like FSX is trying to load up something that it can't, but its a fresh install with all the sceneries installed properly etc. I wish there was a way to see a log of what its trying to do. 

 

I tried setting FSX to unlimited and used EVGA prescision to lock the FPS at 30, no difference, well, it sticks more around 20 FPS now, but that could just be FSX in a strop.

 

I doubt its hardware since all my other games run flawlessly (Euro Truck Simulator 2 maxxed out with loads of mods, FS9, Dirt 3, 3Dmark etc etc. the list goes on) but what do you mean by IE drivers?

 

Cheers for the help, keep it coming

[G MIDY 101]

What sort of frame rates are you getting? i've tried most of the tweaks but its just not getting above this 20FPS limit it seems to stick to. If its not at 30, its at 20 or 15. Really annoying! I'v seen people with much lower powered systems operating at the same airport with the same scenery with frames that look like the 60's :(

 

Yeah, stability is fine, OC was tested (briefly) with prime 95, only reaching 78*C after 5 hours flat out. In FSX CPU gets to 68*C after a couple of hours doing some VFR stuff in Carenado Cessna.

 

Do you mean FSX setup or PC setup? But thats what I thought, like FSX is trying to load up something that it can't, but its a fresh install with all the sceneries installed properly etc. I wish there was a way to see a log of what its trying to do. 

 

I tried setting FSX to unlimited and used EVGA prescision to lock the FPS at 30, no difference, well, it sticks more around 20 FPS now, but that could just be FSX in a strop.

 

I doubt its hardware since all my other games run flawlessly (Euro Truck Simulator 2 maxxed out with loads of mods, FS9, Dirt 3, 3Dmark etc etc. the list goes on) but what do you mean by IE drivers?

 

Cheers for the help, keep it coming

 

Yep those temps are fine, i get 75-80 on air at a slightly lower freq on Ivy so i'm sure your much better off stability wise!

 

I've just watched your video and i was about to suggest checking Vsync but it does go up to 30 and stays there when you move upto the overhead panel, very odd! I'm assuming it's the same for the default aircraft and at other airports? It's as though something in the scenery/aircraft or even in the view or something is causing a slow down.

[dewie93 0]

Yep those temps are fine, i get 75-80 on air at a slightly lower freq on Ivy so i'm sure your much better off stability wise!

 

I've just watched your video and i was about to suggest checking Vsync but it does go up to 30 and stays there when you move upto the overhead panel, very odd! I'm assuming it's the same for the default aircraft and at other airports? It's as though something in the scenery/aircraft or even in the view or something is causing a slow down.

You might have just solved it my good friend! You mentioned Vsync... I went into my nvidia control panel (where I set all the extra AA modes ... Including Vsync, which is, well, 'was' set to Vsync (Smooth) I turned it off completely, went into FSX, frames at a steady 30 FPS (Set at 30FPS so happy days) but there was alot of tearing going on. shut it down, set the Vsync to just On, not 'Smoothed' and FSX looks great and i'v got a constant 30FPS, no drop even with road traffic and stuff Absolutely ecstatic!  

Thank you so much for your help!!

 

If your ever at the Aviation Viewing Park at EGCC when im there, then i'll treat you to a beer or a drink of your choice! 

Massively appreciated!

[G MIDY 101]

You might have just solved it my good friend! You mentioned Vsync... I went into my nvidia control panel (where I set all the extra AA modes ... Including Vsync, which is, well, 'was' set to Vsync (Smooth) I turned it off completely, went into FSX, frames at a steady 30 FPS (Set at 30FPS so happy days) but there was alot of tearing going on. shut it down, set the Vsync to just On, not 'Smoothed' and FSX looks great and i'v got a constant 30FPS, no drop even with road traffic and stuff Absolutely ecstatic!

Thank you so much for your help!!

 

If your ever at the Aviation Viewing Park at EGCC when im there, then i'll treat you to a beer or a drink of your choice!

Massively appreciated!

Good to hear, glad it's sorted! It looked very fishy in the video the way the FPS would stick at 20. A really good program is Nvidia Inspector, you can get down to the nitty gritty much better setting Vsync and stuff like that up, I think the best known method on here is to get that program, then turn on Vsync and set it to 1/2 refresh rate. With a 60hz monitor and whilst FPS stays around 30 it makes FSX very very smooth! I'm around there every now and then haha, not so much recently with the mad weather!

[Jim Young 2,356]

This is normal.  Just because you have the limiter set to 30 fps does not mean it will stay there constantly.  It may go down to the single digits once in a while depending on the gravity of the scenery and the view.  Move the fps limiter down to 20 and see if that will reduce some of the up and down movements.  I went down to 20 and had it constantly hanging near that figure but saw a lot of stuttering so now I have FSX set at 40.  Some payware makers recommend unlimited for their scenery.  I like 40 as it stays at 40 once in the air and enroute.  Taking off and landing though I see the teens frequently depending on the scenery, aircraft, or weather loaded. Occasionally I see single digits but the sim is still running smoothly.  I have LOD_Radius at 6.5 and the Texture_Max_Load set at 2048 as 90% of my flying time is spent over photoscenery in my PMDG737NGX (or iFly737NGX).

 

Best regards,

Jim

[dewie93 0]

Good to hear, glad it's sorted! It looked very fishy in the video the way the FPS would stick at 20. A really good program is Nvidia Inspector, you can get down to the nitty gritty much better setting Vsync and stuff like that up, I think the best known method on here is to get that program, then turn on Vsync and set it to 1/2 refresh rate. With a 60hz monitor and whilst FPS stays around 30 it makes FSX very very smooth! I'm around there every now and then haha, not so much recently with the mad weather!

Yeah, I couldn't get my head around it, still dont quite understand how it was making it slow down that much, I mean cmon, Vsync surely can't drag 2 GTX 670's to their knees can it!? I'll download Nvidia inspector now, i remember seeing some sort of setup guide, i'll do a little hunting for it

 

Yeah, weather has been awful, I think i've been twice this year, and most of it was spent sat in my car at the end of 23R, in the cafe/restaurant at the viewing park, or in the pub! Its been far too cold to spend a day outside. Where has the summer gone!?

 

This is normal.  Just because you have the limiter set to 30 fps does not mean it will stay there constantly.  It may go down to the single digits once in a while depending on the gravity of the scenery and the view.  Move the fps limiter down to 20 and see if that will reduce some of the up and down movements.  I went down to 20 and had it constantly hanging near that figure but saw a lot of stuttering so now I have FSX set at 40.  Some payware makers recommend unlimited for their scenery.  I like 40 as it stays at 40 once in the air and enroute.  Taking off and landing though I see the teens frequently depending on the scenery, aircraft, or weather loaded. Occasionally I see single digits but the sim is still running smoothly.  I have LOD_Radius at 6.5 and the Texture_Max_Load set at 2048 as 90% of my flying time is spent over photoscenery in my PMDG737NGX (or iFly737NGX).

 

Best regards,

Jim

Thanks for the info Jim! The main reason I was concerned is that with a £2k+ brand new PC, it should be able to chomp through FSX quite happily, but it wasn't. I think i'v solved it now anyhow, so i'll see if it stays that way I'm using the Airbus X extended, but dont get many FPS gains with any other aircraft, even the default cessnas! I heard the NGX was quite the performance eater? 

[G MIDY 101]

Yeah, I couldn't get my head around it, still dont quite understand how it was making it slow down that much, I mean cmon, Vsync surely can't drag 2 GTX 670's to their knees can it!? I'll download Nvidia inspector now, i remember seeing some sort of setup guide, i'll do a little hunting for it

 

Yeah, weather has been awful, I think i've been twice this year, and most of it was spent sat in my car at the end of 23R, in the cafe/restaurant at the viewing park, or in the pub! Its been far too cold to spend a day outside. Where has the summer gone!?

 

Thanks for the info Jim! The main reason I was concerned is that with a £2k+ brand new PC, it should be able to chomp through FSX quite happily, but it wasn't. I think i'v solved it now anyhow, so i'll see if it stays that way I'm using the Airbus X extended, but dont get many FPS gains with any other aircraft, even the default cessnas! I heard the NGX was quite the performance eater? 

 

This is a good one to get it setup.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/324786-nvidia-configuration-guide-inspector-2xxxx-drivers-version-20-explanations-of-all-settings/

 

I've been trying to get there over the last few weeks but we just haven't had any good days! I haven't been to the runway pub for a long time. Hopefully it'll pickup!

[pocketwatch50 6]

My frames really depend on the weather. I pretty much stay around 30 (I have the limiter) but do go into the 40s. With heavy weather it will drop into the teens.

[Slayer 190]

There is a bug with Nvidia driver I was going to post here about but I had nearly forgotten. This post reminded me of it. For some strange reason under certain circumstances your frame rate limiter will cut your FPS in half of what you set. So if you set it to 30 in FSX it will give you 15. This is regardless of overriding settings in the Nvidia control panel for vsync or may be the cause of it. I'm not talking about using adaptive 1/2 either. The behaviour was the same with or without adaptive. Not sure if this is a new bug or it's been here for a while.

 

At any rate I abandoned the whole idea of frame rate limiting etc and just went to unlimited. I now use D3D overrider to turn on vsync and the problem is gone. I very rarely drop  below 50 FPS even at KLAX...

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Thanks for the info Jim! The main reason I was concerned is that with a £2k+ brand new PC, it should be able to chomp through FSX quite happily, but it wasn't. I think i'v solved it now anyhow, so i'll see if it stays that way I'm using the Airbus X extended, but dont get many FPS gains with any other aircraft, even the default cessnas! I heard the NGX was quite the performance eater?

 

Your system is very nice and it should have no problems with the PMDG737NGX.  I run FSX with DX10 Preview turned on and maybe that's why I have good performance 90% of the time.  I think the more tweaks you have in your fsx.cfg does more harm than good.  If you have a bad tweak (and there are many if you do not know what they are doing to your computer), it will cause some problems.  Some individuals have had their fsx.cfg's automatically configured via the ******* Bojote website and sometimes it does a good job but, from looking at a lot of crashes and performance problems, his auto configurations do a lot of damage too.  I think the bufferpool setting is the most dangerous setting if you make a mistake and put down the wrong information.  I left the BP tweak out of my config.  You have to look at things logically (like Mr. Spock).  When you first installed FSX and ran it for the first time without any tweaks or any addons, it ran great and the fps sometimes exceeded 100 fps.  It worked great again when you installed Acceleration and ran it without any tweaks or commercial addons.  Then you started installing addons and things started to go downhill from there.  Your autogen setting is a framerate hog when set to the max but not so much without any addons installed.  It's a killer with addons installed.  So, that's what has happened.  You installed a lot of addons.  Some people disable all their addons in the Scenery Library except for areas they will be flying over.  I use a freeware program called SceneryConfigEditor that can do this before I even start up FSX but it still will take some time to get to the startup screen as FSX needs to fix the information in the Terrain.cfg to let it know about the changes.

 

Again, what is happening with your fps is normal.  You might be able to get a few more fps here and there with some adjustments or changes in the fsx settings but not much. 

 

Best regards,

Jim

[dewie93 0]

Right, Had some issues with some parts of the aircraft or scenery not showing up (wheels, propeller cones etc, but turns out I need to have Direct X 10 enabled. HOWEVER. since enabling that it seems all my nvidia settings have gone out of the window, despite them being set in Nvidia inspector etc. Do I need to just re-do them and apply them again? or is there something deeper?

 

This is a good one to get it setup.

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/324786-nvidia-configuration-guide-inspector-2xxxx-drivers-version-20-explanations-of-all-settings/

 

I've been trying to get there over the last few weeks but we just haven't had any good days! I haven't been to the runway pub for a long time. Hopefully it'll pickup!

Yeah, weather has just stayed shocking, i keep seeing glympses of hope in the 14 day forecast i get on my phone, but it always changes...

 

My frames really depend on the weather. I pretty much stay around 30 (I have the limiter) but do go into the 40s. With heavy weather it will drop into the teens.

 

Weather doesnt seem to effect my system, a sunny day or full blown thunderstorm i get barely any difference, I think thats down to having 2 graphics cards.

 

There is a bug with Nvidia driver I was going to post here about but I had nearly forgotten. This post reminded me of it. For some strange reason under certain circumstances your frame rate limiter will cut your FPS in half of what you set. So if you set it to 30 in FSX it will give you 15. This is regardless of overriding settings in the Nvidia control panel for vsync or may be the cause of it. I'm not talking about using adaptive 1/2 either. The behaviour was the same with or without adaptive. Not sure if this is a new bug or it's been here for a while.

 

At any rate I abandoned the whole idea of frame rate limiting etc and just went to unlimited. I now use D3D overrider to turn on vsync and the problem is gone. I very rarely drop  below 50 FPS even at KLAX...

Is this bug in the latest drivers? I might try that if the problem returns

 

Your system is very nice and it should have no problems with the PMDG737NGX.  I run FSX with DX10 Preview turned on and maybe that's why I have good performance 90% of the time.  I think the more tweaks you have in your fsx.cfg does more harm than good.  If you have a bad tweak (and there are many if you do not know what they are doing to your computer), it will cause some problems.  Some individuals have had their fsx.cfg's automatically configured via the ******* Bojote website and sometimes it does a good job but, from looking at a lot of crashes and performance problems, his auto configurations do a lot of damage too.  I think the bufferpool setting is the most dangerous setting if you make a mistake and put down the wrong information.  I left the BP tweak out of my config.  You have to look at things logically (like Mr. Spock).  When you first installed FSX and ran it for the first time without any tweaks or any addons, it ran great and the fps sometimes exceeded 100 fps.  It worked great again when you installed Acceleration and ran it without any tweaks or commercial addons.  Then you started installing addons and things started to go downhill from there.  Your autogen setting is a framerate hog when set to the max but not so much without any addons installed.  It's a killer with addons installed.  So, that's what has happened.  You installed a lot of addons.  Some people disable all their addons in the Scenery Library except for areas they will be flying over.  I use a freeware program called SceneryConfigEditor that can do this before I even start up FSX but it still will take some time to get to the startup screen as FSX needs to fix the information in the Terrain.cfg to let it know about the changes.

 

Again, what is happening with your fps is normal.  You might be able to get a few more fps here and there with some adjustments or changes in the fsx settings but not much. 

 

Best regards,

Jim

Awesome good to know, might fork out for the NGX, looks epic! 

[Slayer 190]

I just rechecked my notes my other post was incorrect. The bug is this (not sure if it has always been there or not): 

 

With DX10 mode enabled, when you set the FSX FPS limiter, it limits at 2x of what you set(not the other way around as I previously stated). I really noticed this when I installed the TITAN my FPS was running over 100 FPS when I had the limiter set. As I tinkered more it became apparent that whatever I had set the game was limiting it at a multiple of 2. So 60 FPS=120, 30 = 60 and 15  = 30.  This was without forcing any kind of vsync or adaptive rates or anything. I had just left it at app controlled in NVI. It may be a quirk with my setup a driver issue or the game itself but I didn't want to waste anymore time tweaking.

 

As of now I set it to unlimited and use D3DOverrider to force vsync in DX10 preview and I run at a steady 60 FPS glassy smooth. Sometimes it dips into the 50 ish range at real heavy airports with lots of traffic and addons running.