Guys,

 

I am about to pull the Little bit of hair I have left. Here is the story:

 

I play my FSX using 2 monitors (same screen resolution than they are in windows 1600x900x32) my average FPS in highly populated areas using the PMDG aircraft is about 13fps. A couple of days back I found out that if I go on Windowed mode my FPS double!!!!, trying to understand why I went ahead and unplugged my Second monitor. When I do this my FPS double again regardless of windowed or full screen mode.... 

 

Why when I go in to full screen mode (even if I am not using the second screen my FPS drop in half????? Any advice?????

 

 

 

 

What OS, what NV driver version?

 

Do you notice any difference in image quality, AA changing etc between windowed or full screen?

 

Reason asking is I recall with some older hardware/drivers or? ..that in some mode you would loose the GPU filtering and then gain it back, thus the difference in FPS.

 

If that's what you see then that is the reason, if you dont see a difference in quality then wait for others to chime in.

 

I'm sure someone will post an answer for you.

Thanks for chiming in PigsInSpace.

 

Actually no changes in quality at all, now i did some more experiments.

 

If I keep both monitors plugged but go in to windows remove one monitor, FPS stay high, if I go again and select "Clone this display" (whereas the both screen will display the same) FPS stay high. Now... If I select "Extend this screen" then I see FPS drop by half!!!!

 

Wierd!

 

I am upgrading my MOBO and Processor this weekend as I budgeted for it, but I do not think it has to do with that.

Hiya Danny

 

Using 1 screen, your PC only has to render and feed enough info to show 1600/900 (1.44million pixels), so frames will naturally be higher...

You double that from 1600/900 to 3200/900 and suddenly your having to feed twice as much info (2.88 million pixels worth) to your graphics card to be able to render the screen...

 

In clone mode, your still only feeding enough info to show 1.44 million pixels, so the CPU can cope, but its then upto your graphics card as to how many screens it can clone it to and keep up..

 

It has everything to do with your Motherboard and CPU, as those are the heart and nervous system of your PC... Fast hard drives also are a massive help.

If you can get a motherboard that has RAID0 on it, using 2 x SATAIII 6Gbps ports, and stick something like 2 x WD Caviar black drives on it, you WILL also notice a speed improvement, by a LOT. Not quite SSD performance, but very close indeed.

 

Also worth checking out the FSX tweaks. I only use 2 or 3 adjustments to my config file and thats it, its smoooth and looks good.

 

I run the NGX on 3 screens @ 5760 x 1200, and it runs at around 24FPS at the absolute worst, thats landing at heathrow extreme in the NGX, but if I switch it to 1 screen, then my FPS would rocket skywards, but then of course I'd be wearing blinkers flying with only 1 screen...

 

FSX is a CPU HOG! So even with the best graphics card, it will be the CPU thats the bottleneck.

 

You can adjust the NGX from high res graphics to low res textures in the PMDG start menu items, and also adjust its performance by using the CDU in the cockpit too, something I have yet to mess about with, but I can only imagine what I'll get if I lower the NGX textures and its performance, I'm sure FPS will be a lot higher, but I like it smooth, stutter free and looking awesome at where its at currently..

Hello RCITGuy,

 

Thank you much for the detailed and excellent explanation. I did suspect that perhaps this whole thing was a product of my processor trying to feed my 2 screens but I aways hope to hear the miracle fix that would make it work without spending money!

 

Ayway, I will be upgrading soon and I will include a new and bigger monitor in to my budget, I feel like if I get me a bigger screen maybe I will not need a second screen at all..

 

Thanks again.

 

Danny

Hiya Danny

 

Depends on the screen resolution.

 

I see LG make a freakin awesome 29" super wide screen 21:9 ratio @ 2560 x 1080 for a shade under £400, or you could go nuts and grab am ASUS 31" UHD for a bargain price of only £3400.. Take 2 at that price huh :-)

 

Good luck with it bud..