Flytampa has perfect balance between awesome quality and FPS, I too can recommend their airports. 

 

Some Aerosoft airports are quite good too, however then especially Mega Airport Amsterdam gives horrible frames. 

Just thinking about FlyTampa Sydney makes me drooooool....... :australia-flag:

 

Probably contrary to many peoples experiences, I find FSDT and FlightBeam scenery to be exceptionally good on performance. I have no issues maintaining 40fps in the NGX VC with displays full of information (route, range rings, VOR course lines etc.) at LAX and IAD. It is amazing considering the amount of detail which are in these sceneries.

 

Why you said "contrary" ? Everybody knows our airports are very good on fps and optimized as best as possible.

 

They issue is, we don't cherry pick airports in the middle of nowhere, but we usually do very busy areas which were bad on fps even BEFORE adding our airport (like JFK, CYVR, KORD, KFLL, etc) and sometimes we even managed to improve the fps over the default airport in the same area.

 

And, since we have animated jetways on our airports, we must optimize the rest of the scenery even more compared to an airport with static jetways only, because static jetways is a cheap way to get an fps boost. A large airport with static jetways and good fps is not really difficult to do, but something with static jetways AND bad fps on top of that, seems to indicate the developer doesn't have many clues about optimization.

 

Those few that experience bad fps at our airports, are those that don't understand what is causing bad fps, be either the number of AI or the rest of the surrounding area.

 

And, since our sceneries USE the GPU more than the average scenery, due to their heavy usage of native FSX code with shaders and no CPU-heavy FS9 code, those users with systems optimized to rely mostly on CPU power and with badly-configured GPU settings and/or weak GPU, might get less fps than expected.

 

Another thing that might affect our sceneries more than other, because of their dependance on the GPU, is the use of shader post-processing products, such as ENBSeries. This tool was designed for old PC games (such as GTA) that didn't use the latest GPU effect, and are supposed to use SPARE GPU power to get an extra kick on graphic effects. So, they work good if you are running something that relies a lot on the CPU, but underuse the GPU. Which is exactly the opposite of what our sceneries do.

 

When I've tested the ENBSeries at KLAX, I've noticed HALF of my fps dropped, while it wasn't even noticeable on a defailt airport. This is very logical: since we USE the GPU, there's not so much spare power available to run ENBSeries, which relies on such unused GPU power to do its tricks.

 

Of course, with P3D DX11 coming, all sceneries that relies a lot on the CPU will be penalized a lot compared to those that are designed to use the GPU, and of course, it's way easier to upgrade to a better GPU (whose technical advances are faster than CPUs), those are both reasons why we try to push harder and harder on the GPU with each new release.

 

That explains why some user might get the wrong impression that our sceneries are "Hard on fps", when they obviously aren't: either they are just looking at the fps number, without checking how the fps was in that area BEFORE adding the airport (under the same settings) or, have configured their systems based on the old wisdom that "FSX relies only on the CPU", which was valid in FS9, less valid in FSX, and will be even less valid in the future, either with more widespread use of the DX10 fixes, and of course with the upcoming P3D DX11.

 

But of course, nobody has to take my word for it: since we have Trial version for all our products, everybody can freely verify this on his own system, and see for himself how good our fps is. And if it's not, reading this post might give some hints about WHY his system is not performing very well on GPU-intensive sceneries.

Why you said "contrary" ? Everybody knows our airports are very good on fps and optimized as best as possible.

 

They issue is, we don't cherry pick airports in the middle of nowhere, but we usually do very busy areas which were bad on fps even BEFORE adding our airport (like JFK, CYVR, KORD, KFLL, etc) and sometimes we even managed to improve the fps over the default airport in the same area.

 

And, since we have animated jetways on our airports, we must optimize the rest of the scenery even more compared to an airport with static jetways only, because static jetways is a cheap way to get an fps boost. A large airport with static jetways and good fps is not really difficult to do, but something with static jetways AND bad fps on top of that, seems to indicate the developer doesn't have many clues about optimization.

 

Those few that experience bad fps at our airports, are those that don't understand what is causing bad fps, be either the number of AI or the rest of the surrounding area.

 

And, since our sceneries USE the GPU more than the average scenery, due to their heavy usage of native FSX code with shaders and no CPU-heavy FS9 code, those users with systems optimized to rely mostly on CPU power and with badly-configured GPU settings and/or weak GPU, might get less fps than expected.

 

Another thing that might affect our sceneries more than other, because of their dependance on the GPU, is the use of shader post-processing products, such as ENBSeries. This tool was designed for old PC games (such as GTA) that didn't use the latest GPU effect, and are supposed to use SPARE GPU power to get an extra kick on graphic effects. So, they work good if you are running something that relies a lot on the CPU, but underuse the GPU. Which is exactly the opposite of what our sceneries do.

 

When I've tested the ENBSeries at KLAX, I've noticed HALF of my fps dropped, while it wasn't even noticeable on a defailt airport. This is very logical: since we USE the GPU, there's not so much spare power available to run ENBSeries, which relies on such unused GPU power to do its tricks.

 

Of course, with P3D DX11 coming, all sceneries that relies a lot on the CPU will be penalized a lot compared to those that are designed to use the GPU, and of course, it's way easier to upgrade to a better GPU (whose technical advances are faster than CPUs), those are both reasons why we try to push harder and harder on the GPU with each new release.

 

That explains why some user might get the wrong impression that our sceneries are "Hard on fps", when they obviously aren't: either they are just looking at the fps number, without checking how the fps was in that area BEFORE adding the airport (under the same settings) or, have configured their systems based on the old wisdom that "FSX relies only on the CPU", which was valid in FS9, less valid in FSX, and will be even less valid in the future, either with more widespread use of the DX10 fixes, and of course with the upcoming P3D DX11.

 

But of course, nobody has to take my word for it: since we have Trial version for all our products, everybody can freely verify this on his own system, and see for himself how good our fps is. And if it's not, reading this post might give some hints about WHY his system is not performing very well on GPU-intensive sceneries.

Hi Umberto,

 

Just by looking at other peoples post above, you can see that some people aren't happy with their personal performance at FSDT.

 

In the end, I am more than happy with it so please don't be offended by my post!

 

Thanks for the interesting explanation on how you make your scenery as best as possible..I admire your work guys! :im Not Worthy:

Skyathos X is brilliant.

SKYSOFT  HAIKOU MEILAN AIRPORT is a frame rate friendly airport

fly tampa for sure, as well as FS Dreamteam/with their airports like anything else might have to do some tweaking, but you get beautiful eyecandy, check out CYVR, Vancouver, a masterpiece, and flytampa/CYUL, Montreal.

I own FLyTampa St. Marteen package, excellent fps. Aerosoft Munich, quite good fps considering the amount of details.

I own FLyTampa St. Marteen package, excellent fps. Aerosoft Munich, quite good fps considering the amount of details.

I agree about AS Munich. A very underrated airport. Great eye candy, and excellent performance. One of my favorite AS airports.

Just by looking at other peoples post above, you can see that some people aren't happy with their personal performance at FSDT.

Well, it was just one guy basically, but your good experience is more the norm rather than the exception.

 

My long reply wasn't really directed to you, but I took the chance to explain some things that might not be so obvious without some background.

 

In general, I've been in this business for so long, that sometimes I feel the responsibility to set some things in motion in order to help the hobby, rather than looking at the immediate sales results.

 

See all the unfunded flak we got after the CYVR release: it looked like as "the scenery that causes OOMs", when it obviously wasn't, and our entire point was to have users starting to think more about what they are installing and having more realistic expectations on how much stuff can be used together in a 32 bit app.

 

Users started to give a more serious look at DX10, and the community put additional thoughts on it, and the result is the constant research towards improving the DX10 experience or, at the very least, the user's awareness of the problems. Now, a lot more people is aware of the FSX VAS limitation and how DX10 can help a bit, and I like to think some of this was triggered by the CYVR release, which was the scenery that took longer to develop, longer than KFJK and KLAX and way more difficult than both of them.

 

We are fairly sure that, once we'll move over to DX11, all our investment in pushing to the GPU and away from ancient FS8 code, will result in a large payoff for us and our users too.

I only have ZRH and GVA from FSDT but I'm very happy with the performance of both. I wish we could have more European airports from you guys!

See all the unfunded flak we got after the CYVR release: it looked like as "the scenery that causes OOMs", when it obviously wasn't, and our entire point was to have users starting to think more about what they are installing and having more realistic expectations on how much stuff can be used together in a 32 bit app.

 

Yeah, I never understood the attitude behind those people that were outraged at your YVR scenery.. I was amazed. I loaded up and was getting excellent performance.

 

I am still amazed how with the quality of your work equates to great such performance.. especially when there are companies out there making considerably bad quality scenery (visually wise) which also runs horrible.

 

Anyway, I look forward to purchasing IAH once shes out :Love:

FSDT KLAS, KDFW, and KLAX are very easy on the frames IMO. KLAX is better then default.

 

KLAS was the best of all on performance. I'm only holding off buying it because its the next airport up for a version 2 remake.

 

FB KPHX is good as well.

 

I tried KIAD and found it pretty heavy compared to those listed above.

 

The truth is its all about AI with these big airports. Even dropping to 75% airline traffic gives me a large boost and the airports are still well filled.

KLAX and KLAS awesome combo FSDT

Fly Tampa, Flight Beam and FSDT are the best sceneries out there. I fly commercial airplanes on the sim so I can't speak for sceneries of airfields. I don't get sceneries from aerosoft anymore because they are SO frame rate heavy. It's ashame because they have airporys I really want to fly in but it's impossible to fly with those FPS. I have an extremely powerful computer that was made by a company that builds computers for FSX so it runs all other other types of addons without difficulty.

In conclusion, I advise against aerosoft airports because they kill frame rates. I highly recommend the three I mentioned earlier; the only fsdt airport I have difficulty with on fps is ft lauderdale.

One more thing. If you fly PMDG airplanes then aerosoft is not a good idea. Captain can will do better in those sceneries but the poor fps is still noticeable. It will be bad fps unless your flying a default airplane.