Hi Rob, no I didn't add an affinitymask entry.  core zero was the most active for sure, up around 80-90% cpu, the other cores would sometimes drop down to 20-30%

Hi Rob, no I didn't add an affinitymask entry.  core zero was the most active for sure, up around 80-90% cpu, the other cores would sometimes drop down to 20-30%

 

Something is strange about that. Core 0 should have activity but should not be pegged at 100%...in fact, the other cores should be pegged to the max. Just for giggles, try an affinity mask of 84. Sometimes distributing processing across too many cores can actually hurt performance especially if some of the cores are using different cache memory.

Something is strange about that. Core 0 should have activity but should not be pegged at 100%...in fact, the other cores should be pegged to the max. Just for giggles, try an affinity mask of 84. Sometimes distributing processing across too many cores can actually hurt performance especially if some of the cores are using different cache memory.

Eeeeh....that is a new one for me! It is well known that FSX hits core 0 hardest! My core zero is pegged at 100% and the other 3 cores are up and down between 50 and 80% with occasional spykes up to 100% but also as low as 20%. The main part of the simulation is run on core 0 by default. The other cores do not help the actual simulation but only help with texture loading. Which is why if you shutdown core 1,and/or 2, and/or 3 your textures will become more and more blurry. Core 0 is also running most other Windows task which is why the Affinitymask tweak can be helpfull. With Affinitymask=14 on a four core CPU with hyperthreading off, you make core 0 inop for FSX, so the simulation part is moved to core 1. And since core 1 was doing way less in terms of background/windows programs you now have more CPU cycles on core 1 available to FSX than you had previously on core 0. I tried it the day before yesterday. Core 0 was running at about 10% (background stuff) with Affinitymask=14 and core 1 was now at 100%. This did increase my framerate a little (10%) but at the exspensive of blurrier textures because now I only had two cores left for texture loading (core 2, and core 3). You have in fact now robbed FSX from a CPU core.I guess I could start playing with FFTF again.....upping it again from 0.10 to 0.15 or so, but I thought it kind of pointless to first try and give FSX more CPU cycles with Affinitymask to then change the priority render system with FFTM and take away CPU cycles again for the simulation part and move them to texture loading.

Hi Rob, no I didn't add an affinitymask entry. core zero was the most active for sure, up around 80-90% cpu, the other cores would sometimes drop down to 20-30%

Ok, so things did change with the new .cfg file then! You first said there was not much load on core 0 and now it is 80-90% So that is normal. Now the question remaining is why do you still get only 15fps? I am not familiar with your CPU so I dont know if it is fast or slow. What I do know is that most agree that Intel CPU are better for FSX than AMD :-(

(no need to start a discussion about that jere though)

We now need somebody with the same CPU so we can compare his/her and your performance. Or...you can compare against other airplanes in your hangar. Do you have the PMDG737NGX? What frame rate are you getting with that?

 

Ok, I just looked at your CPU....thats and 8 core...wow

Is that 8 Physical cores, or 4 and 4 hyperthreading?

 

Now with 8 physical cores you could benefit from Affinitymask more then me cause you still have 6 cores available for texture loading even if you move the simulation part from core 0 to core 1.

I dont know what number you need for that with an 8 core though....wait....let me see if I can find something....

 

Edit:

http://#####.wordpress.com/fsx-software-and-hardware-guide/

Read how to calculate Affinitymask for your CPU there.

 

To get some more frames, you can experiment with FFTF in the .cfg file.

 

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.12

 

If I remember correctly, if this line is not in the .cfg file, then FSX will default to 0.33.

As you reduce this number (try 0.10 lowest to 0.20 or so) more CPU power becomes available for frame rate at the exspensive of blurry textures at some point. So reduce it untill you get blurry textures while flying in 3000ft and 250kt in the 777.When you get blurry textures then you have gone to far. Unless you dont mind blurry textures :-)

Ok, I just looked at your CPU....thats and 8 core...wow

Is that 8 Physical cores, or 4 and 4 hyperthreading?

 

I don't think AMD has "hyperthreading" in their chips. I think his chip is legit 8-cores.

 

That said, throwing more cores at a problem does not necessarily equate to greater performance. I see this naivete in my work constantly, "2 threads double my performance, so 20 or 200 must be 10x or 100x better!" False. The architecture of the CPU - especially the layout of the L2 cache - should be taken into consideration when deciding what to run on what cores. It may be that odd cores share a CPU cache, and even's share another, in which case the conventional wisdom for affinity mask may not apply (I'm not familiar with the design of this chip, so I don't know the answer to the question - I'm sure you could find out from AMD's site though). You should also consider what these cores are busy doing too and what resources they're trying to access. If you have 6 cores trying to lock down the same resources, you're going to end up with "CPU thrashing" with most of your cores stalled out. It's usually better to see a core pegged solid at 90-100% (doing actual work) than bobbling up and down between 30 and 100% which is sometimes a sign of resource contention.

 

Sometimes (oftentimes?), in parallel systems, less is more.

 

I don't know what the correct answer is for an 8-core AMD processor. I don't know if MS knew either as they didn't exist back in 2006.

thanks for the help, I appreciate the time you've spent responding here.

yes I have 8 physical cores, no hyperthreading. 

So I think it should be a mask of 254 according to that calculator.

I will try that and the FFTF setting.

I'm starting to wonder if I should have switched over to an intel chip.

I need to try turning off Ultimate Traffic to see if that's the culprit as well.

if you go to KTPA 36L, what FPS do you get from inside the T7 cockpit?

 

scenery tab set to ultra-high I get 16-18fps. 

med-high I get like 19-24fps,

 

in the default 737 virtual cockpit I get

 

ultra-high 30-45fps

med-high 75-90fps

 

PMDG 747

 

ultra-high 24-29fps

med-high 39-45fps

 

Level D 767

 

ultra-high 28-32fps

med-high 38-42fps

 

Captain Sim 767

 

ultra-high 22-25fps

med-high 32-36fps

 

what still makes me wonder is why it doesn't seem it's touching my GPU.  Is GPU-Z not reliable?

it never shows above 60%, and it many times shows my clock set to only 135mhz (max is 1071mhz)

if it's downclocking that tells me it's not even hardly using the GPU.

what still makes me wonder is why it doesn't seem it's touching my GPU.  Is GPU-Z not reliable?

it never shows above 60%, and it many times shows my clock set to only 135mhz (max is 1071mhz)

if it's downclocking that tells me it's not even hardly using the GPU.

 

See my earlier post about FSX being CPU-bound not GPU-bound. You'll never see your graphics card break much of a sweat in this sim unless you really have massive amounts of anti-aliasing and filtering going on.

 

Your graphics card is also designed to throttle itself back when idle (to conserve power/heat).

You need a thorrow understanding of what it is your hardware monitoring software is actually doing and displaying.

 

I dont have that knowledge.

But I do recall reading that many interpret things into GPU-Z and the likes that are not correct or complete.

 

Are you sure you have Windows setup to use a High Performance Enegery plan?

 

I will take a look later what my GPU is doeing in terms of load.

Mmm very confusing using using CPU-Z......ah wait.....you are using GPU-Z?

Ok...CPU-Z is indicating:

 

core 705Mhz

memory 3004 Mhz

 

No idea what that 705 means yet....the numbers are the same with FSX running and when not running.

 

I use MSI afterburner to monitor GPU performance.

With FSX running it sais:

Core clock 1006Mhz

Memory clock 3005 Mhz (I guess that is DDR2, so 2x3005=6010MHz)

 

With FSX not running:

Core clock 810 MHz

Memory clock 3005 MHz

 

My GPU specs:

GTX680

Base clock 1005 Mhz

Boost clock 1058 MHz

memory clock 6008 MHz

 

So with FSX running, both core clock and memory clock are at 100% (for some reason that boost to 1058 is not used however).

 

Which shows that a good GPU DOES help FSX (unless I am interpreting those numbers incorrectly)

 

Corepunch, can you try MSI Afterburner to compare?

 

Now, if your CPU is actually so slow that it is not feeding enough data to the GPU, then that could be the reason your GPU is waiting, doing nothing.

I cant imagine that with a 4Ghz CPU, even if it is not an Intell.

 

I could simulate this by downclocking from 4.4Ghz to 3.0Ghz and see what happens to the GPU then.

But first see what readings you get from MSI Afterburner please.

 

Ps to all other readers...I am far from an expert on this stuff....so please jump in and help or suggest things!