FPS Help and Suggestions (FSX)

[skwaL 36]

Some of you might not know of these things and some of you might. The key topics which will be included here are Nvidia Settings, EVGA, and FSX.CFG. All of those things should go along with PMDG Setup. 

Let me straight one thing out: I will not hold responsibility if your GF Dumps you or if you PC will blow up. Or if your FSX will start uninstalling everything on its own. (Who knows). Do everything at your own risk.
Let me straight another thing out: This topic is designed to help people. The help might not even be on my hands but on the hands of other helpful users.

Lets start from the top.

PMDG 777 is an amazing aircraft, once you load it up and you see everything starting up, loading and eventually running at full throttle and you might say YES, LETS FLY! But during flights and on the ground with detailed airports in sight with those highly complex sceneries you see your FPS jumping around, spiking. We all know to get things running nicely, the best thing would be to lock your FPS....but wait a minute, you load your FPS, you see lag spikes and stutters disappear/get reduced, but now your FPS has dropped down a bit. This will make everyone unhappy. In general you hate when you lose the FPS.
You 0 - FSX 1.

I have already created a thread "FPS, What FPS do you get" but I find that, the topic starts creating frustrations as some with good computers get lower scores than those with worse computers or people simply cant get the help they want. So I decided to create this tread. I know that this is a Aircraft Specific forum but with the amount of people looking for help with their Mighty 777 and PC...this might be a useful feature.

Various threads might have people speaking and throwing around their FSX.CFGs and Nvidia Inspector settings but things of that matter are specific to one computer. Very few of us have identical hardware setups. We all know that the rule around is if you want help .... first ... search the forum. I know sometimes it is much easier to make a post, but trust me with the amount of variables to include, it is best to look around first. Lets talk about FPS. The fact is, unless you have a super computer or a very modern system (Q3-Q4 2013), running something smooth will always be of trouble. So I will lay out some basic ideas and everyone can join in with their help requests and suggestions. But lets bring up the highlights first. What I have found out:


Basics for PMDG 777 help (if you have FPS Problems only)

You can try disabling RAAS, and
Set your refresh rates for your LCDs from your PMDG FMS menu to 15.

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FSX


The "BufferPool" battle. Many of us have questioned which value brings out the best out of your sim. Trust me, I have tweaked that value so many times, that I was kind of getting sick of it.
FSX.cfg has so many variables that NONE of us in here will have everything the same, well....maybe we will but its highly unlikely.
Nvidia Settings has a base which everyone can follow up with, and some settings to tweak around. I do not have an ATi card therefore it is up to the readers to ask for help, and up to the readers to give suggestions.

The truth is, no specific value will be good for all of us. Everything is hardware balanced, you might want to ask "But where do I start?" , Well, here's what going to happen:
In this thread I will post as many settings and values as I can and its up to you to play around with it. (Or give your own suggestions) 
 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=X - This value can be used if you want to control your CPU affinity from the Sim internally, I use the value 84, but you can try the following 14, 20, 84 and 255. Or Leave this out of CFG.
 

[bufferPools]

UsePools=X - The big battle is always here, "But what do I use" here are few suggestions to try and play around with:

UsePools=0 or 1

(If usepools=1) Poolsize=1048576, 2097152, 4194304 and 8388608

(If usepools=1) RejectThreshold=126976, 196608, 262144, 524288, 96155

I know if you do the math that's over 20 variables, but hey, I did it all ... why shouldn't you
 

 

[GRAPHICS]

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=X - Try using 1024, 2048 and 4096

 

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce GTX 670 .0]

Mode=XX - Your chocie of resolution. Depends whether your monitor is 16:9 or 16:10, or 4:3

TriLinear=1 - I would suggest having it @ value 1 (but other suggestions are welcome)

HIGHMEMFIX=1 - I have it and see no harm, why not.

 

[Main]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=X - If you want to play around with this .... try anywhere between 0.12 - 0.33, if not than leave it out.

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=X - I would suggest having it at 4.5 because it help out with OOM errors

MESH_COMPLEXITY=100 - I use 100, Do not go below 90, suggestion >90

MESH_RESOLUTION=X - I use 23, but you can use it all the way to the MAX

TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=29 - I have this at 29, but anything between 27-30 should be ok

AUTOGEN_DENSITY=X (Not the highest) This is all up to you, but autogen density does affect FPS. My suggestion would be anywhere between 3-5

WATER_EFFECTS=4 - I would not suggest going higher than 4, but anywhere from 3-5 should be OK.

ALL IN ALL IT WILL TAKE YOU DAYS TO SET UP YOUR FSX CORRECTLY (IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLES). BUT TRUST ME, ITS GOING TO BE WORTH IT!

 

 

NVIDIA SETTINGS
Must have Nvidia Inspector

Behavior Flags - None
Anti-aliasing Mode - Override
AA Settings - 4xS or 8xS
AA Transparency Supersampling - I would suggest to have it OFF, but you can try 2xSGSS (Good video card, GTX680)  and 4xSGSS (GTX690, GTX TITAN)

Anisotropic Settings - I would suggest 16x, it does not reduce performance that much, but it really helps out with sharper textures in FSX
Texture Filtering Negative LOD Bias - Clamp
Texture Filtering Quality - High Quality
Texture Filtering Trilinear Optimization - Off

Vertical Sync - 1 Monitor - 1/2 Refresh Rate; 2 monitors - 1/4 Refresh Rate

FPS LIMITING

This has been too long of a debate on "How" to limit FPS. Some see better performance when FPS Limiter in FSX is set to unlimited, some see it better then its locked to 30, some use external limiters. Everything after you set up your FSX.cfg, FPS limiting should go afterwards, do things in trial-and-error mode, try limiters, internal limiter and unlimited.

EVGA Nvidia USERS - Here is a BIG tip. 
The EVGA website, once you register on it, has a pretty cool utility available to download its called Precision X. Essentially it's an overclocking software for your video card. No, I will not be telling you how to clock you card, do it at your own risk. If you do decide to clock you card, make sure to read enough about this. I am not responsible for any damages.
Precision X has a small but an amazing feature .... as you have all guessed, FPS Limiter. It does an amazing job at limiting FPS with in a 3D application, I personally think this is the best FPS Limiter out there, from having jumps @ FSDT CYVR and PMDG 777 from 22-28FPS (when I was FSX Locked to 30), with this device (tiny overclock) and Precision X limited to 30FPS and FSX Unlimited, I never go below 30. I am not sure whether this software with work on other Nvidia Cards. Once again, use it at your own risk. I will not be responsible for any damages to your cards.

SOOOOOO!  IF YOU HAVE PROBLEMS, POST YOUR PC SPECS, POST YOUR SETTINGS FROM YOUR FSX.CFG (which I mentioned above) and YOUR Nvidia Card. This way people can have less trouble in figuring out your problems and devote more time to solutions.

Sample:

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Help me please I do not know what to do! My PMDG 777 is getting max 5FPS. 

CPU - i7 2500K
Video Card - Nvidia GTS250
Memory - 16G

FSX.CFG
Bufferpools -> 0
TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD -> 1024
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION -> 0.15

LOD_RADIUS  -> 6.5

MESH_COMPLEXITY -> 100

MESH_RESOLUTION -> 23

TEXTURE_RESOLUTION -> 28

AUTOGEN_DENSITY -> 6

WATER_EFFECTS -> 6

Nvidia:
AA settings - 8xS
AF - 16x
SGSS? - No
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And off we go!    B)  B)  B)  B) 
 

[aceridgey 330]

One thing

 

DO not overclock your gpu for FSX, you will incure lots of performance loss and stutters in my experiences

 

Alex

[skwaL 36]

I clocked mine a bit, not enough to boost performance but more of stability due to having externally locked FPS. But yes, it could be dangerous and performance loss could be the least of problems. You could fry your Video Card. For max temperature, I think the key is not to get over 70% of temperature on your card. Ex if your video card max temperature 90degress C, don't go over 65-70 because even at 85C there is a very high chance for smell of burned plastic

[Haase 0]

Kind of wish this topic took off more. Would like to see what everyone else is using for an i5 2500k with a gtx560Ti

[Jamesie79 9]

There is nothing wrong with OC'ing your GPU for FSX. DO it!

What you are experiencing is a single user issue.

 

Don't go over 65-70c??? Rubbish.

 

I`m glad you guys know a lot about flying because hardware is obviously not your strong point here.