Mr. Marziaz (sp?)... help me ...

[BlueStar 323]

Charles,

 

This is what I did when my high end machine got out of whack - Go to the setup guide TABS created and set your machine up using 4XS and follow all of TABS recommendations for a low end machine.

 

If you have the B737, RR did a very good review on setting up the B737 in the manual.  I followed it to the letter. 

 

TABS did a rework of on the  machine of one of the members.  Find that thread and compare that setup to yours. 

 

Check VAS.  I am using VMMAP as recommended by one of the forum members. 

 

I have a high end machine and it got out of whack.  I went back to basics and all is now good.  One thing is I do not overclock.  Hope that helps for a start. 

 

Billy Bluestar

[wlix261 79]

I have spent a well documented $2,700 for a machine that somewhat reliably attains 4.7GH and always attains 4.6GHz.

 

I have followed all requirements (minimalistic) as have been presented.

 

But still ... when I approach KFJK on the Parkway visual approach for 13L ... my fps drops to 14 ... ish ... and the presentation is jerky.  I don't care about fps ... I just it to be smooth.

 

Other than purchasing a Cray computer ... I'm at a loss ...

 

I do not use any add on scenery except for KATL and KFLL ... and Orbix Global.

 

#####?

 

You have a rig almost as mine with the same processor OC at similar speed. In fact, you have a better GPU.

I have not seen that poor performance on KJFK with my FSX setup.

But to be sure, I will try that same landing approach this evening.

I you don't see a post back tomorrow is because I could not duplicate the problem.

[CTBlankenship 36]

Robin ... our discourse began poorly ... the most valuable action on these boards that all of us must adhere to is this ... turn the other cheek ... be kind ... have a righteous heart ... and most importantly ... forgive ... and move on. 

 

It was nice to meet you ... and I mean that sincerely.

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

But still ... when I approach KFJK on the Parkway visual approach for 13L ... my fps drops to 14 ... ish ... and the presentation is jerky.  I don't care about fps ... I just it to be smooth.

 

Other than purchasing a Cray computer ... I'm at a loss ...

 

I do not use any add on scenery except for KATL and KFLL ... and Orbix Global.

 

 

As funny as this may sound, you might want to run the FSDT JFKv2. On my rig which is a 2700K (not clocked yet), 8GB RAM 2133mhz, and a GTX670FTW, I get a LOT better performance out of the FSDT JFK vs. the default version which isn't really optimized to todays standards.

 

Also, I am setup per NIcks instructions, however as he notes somewhere in those instructions, sometimes when running a plane like the NGX with complex addon airports, you may need to unlock the frames and run unlimited.

When I run the T7 or NGX I go from locked at 30 to unlimited and set the Vsync in Inspector to Force On, not 1/2. With a lot of testing I have found that works best for me in these type of situations and is still smooth and stutter free. Although it might not work for you, its worth a shot.

 

Below is a quick grab into 13L in the T7 with FSDT JFK, MegaScenery NY, and UTX night lights. FPS remained in the 50's most of the time and was smooth as silk. Plus I was able to run 70% UT2 traffic, but had the car and boat traffic turned off and that photoscenery doesn't include a bunch of autogen, so that might help as well.

 

Click to full size to confirm the FPS

 

 

 

Sean Campbell

[3-2-1-Now 126]

Robin,

 

Re-enable your autogen and AI like the rest of us and tell us your FPS on final at KJFK.

 

Assuming FSX doesn't crash, it will be a very stuttery 15 if I'm lucky. If I max everything I get a paltry 5 FPS, depending on where I'm looking.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

Robin ... our discourse began poorly ... the most valuable action on these boards that all of us must adhere to is this ... turn the other cheek ... be kind ... have a righteous heart ... and most importantly ... forgive ... and move on. 

 

It was nice to meet you ... and I mean that sincerely.

 

I shall take it in the manner intended.

 

I suggest you try the suggestion about NO TWEAKS (except for the HIGHMEMFIX) and trying first without any AI or AutoGen, because no amount of tweaking can fix the memory leaks and problems associated with these. The perf hit you see depends on too many factors to list.

 

Be sure to run the latest FSUIPC at all times, as Pete Downson intercepts a certain class of crash and prevents it taking out the whole sim. No registration is required - just make sure FSUIPC is installed and running to benefit.

 

Above all - remember that FSX sucks as piece of software, and so if you try and max everything, you WILL have problems. I'd be interested to know how many suffered a CTD/crash/OOME during CTP. I know that during the crossing the number of pilots diminished quite a bit.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

[zmak 331]

so far I have gathered this

 

a $400 pc= a $5000 pc same frames for fsx

 

tweak it or dont tweak it

 

lock frames at 30 or go unlimted

 

disable autogen

 

 AI is fine...disable AI

 

this thread is a mish mash of information. I have found that basically your frames will steadily decrease after a fresh install. My last install got me 20fps at YBBN orbx on Orbx oz at max settings. Its now 12fps at sliders at max settings and no way to get back there again

[Tabs 2,790]

Robin,

I'm sorry but I disagree with virtually everything you've said in this thread:

 

- AMD CPUs and GPUs are well known to perform worse in FSX than the Intel/Nvidia combination. I have personally had both and it's no contest. Their CPUs don't come anywhere close to the Intel stuff at the high end, especially in largely single-threaded applications like FSX. Even heavily overclocked AMD CPUs have trouble matching Intel's performance at stock speeds in benchmarks.

 

- A representative from AMD's driver team directly told me that they didn't care about FSX and wouldn't be fixing/optimizing anything related to it. I'd tried to get them to look into the performance issues in heavy weather/cloud situations and at the issue (which still exists even on the HD 7000 series cards) where offset diagonal lines end up running through 2D GDI+ gauges.

 

- AMD GPUs are involved with a high percentage of the bizarre graphics related tickets we get at support. Whatever AMD does differently than Nvidia in how they execute FSX's graphics results in a lot more of the skeleton VC and model stuff, blacked out scenery etc.

 

- The notion that HIGHMEMFIX=1 is the only tweak that does anything is just plain wrong. UsePools=0 and RejectThreshold are both well understood and result in higher framerates on modern hardware. When FSX was released GPUs had only 256 or 512MB of RAM on them and processed data streaming from the CPU at a rate that's orders of magnitude less than today's cards do. The vertex buffer pooling system was implemented by FSX's designers to stop the FSX graphics engine and the CPU from overloading the GPU driver with too much vertex data and crashing it. What UsePools=0 does is remove this throttle, allowing the CPU to send the maximum amount of vertex data to the GPU. When UsePools=1, RejectThreshold sets the size in bytes above which the pools system will send directly to the GPU. RejectThreshold = 0 is the same thing as UsePools = 0. This is 100% confirmed information that was given to PMDG by a former ACES programmer who was looking at the code when he replied to us - it is not speculation and he directly told us it would improve performance.

[BlueStar 323]

Charles,

 

The article I referred to earlier is - http://forum.avsim.net/topic/413244-some-changes-ryan-made-to-my-fsx/.

 

As stated earlier review the Nvidia Reference Guide and do a specific search using "Tabs" to get all the posts Ryan made in the Guide.

 

Billy Bluestar

[Fabo 213]

First,

 

thanks Ryan for the info. very valuable.

 

 

Second,

 

I have found that generally there are two approaches to setting up FSX, especially on highend rigs.

a) Set up everything to max, tweak to hell, and see if one needs to lower any settings

 

b) Set up everyting to minimum (or at least half the expected setting), only use conservative tweaks (highmemfix basically) and go up seeing what can the sim take until you are satisfied.

 

 

 

I found that second approach works better. Partly due to fact that you might end up with lower settings turning out high enough for you, partly due to fact you will not riddle fsx.cfg with every known tweak.

 

Some lower settings might even turn out better, for example you would rarely have full visibility in flight...

While 6+ miles is common, FSX interprets that usually as unlimited, and sets to whatever you happen to have in settings - meanwhile, really you would only by able to see maybe closest 60 miles around you...

[Michael Moe 495]

Robin,

 

I'm sorry but I disagree with virtually everything you've said in this thread:

 

- AMD CPUs and GPUs are well known to perform worse in FSX than the Intel/Nvidia combination. I have personally had both and it's no contest. Their CPUs don't come anywhere close to the Intel stuff at the high end, especially in largely single-threaded applications like FSX. Even heavily overclocked AMD CPUs have trouble matching Intel's performance at stock speeds in benchmarks.

 

- A representative from AMD's driver team directly told me that they didn't care about FSX and wouldn't be fixing/optimizing anything related to it. I'd tried to get them to look into the performance issues in heavy weather/cloud situations and at the issue (which still exists even on the HD 7000 series cards) where offset diagonal lines end up running through 2D GDI+ gauges.

 

- AMD GPUs are involved with a high percentage of the bizarre graphics related tickets we get at support. Whatever AMD does differently than Nvidia in how they execute FSX's graphics results in a lot more of the skeleton VC and model stuff, blacked out scenery etc.

 

- The notion that HIGHMEMFIX=1 is the only tweak that does anything is just plain wrong. UsePools=0 and RejectThreshold are both well understood and result in higher framerates on modern hardware. When FSX was released GPUs had only 256 or 512MB of RAM on them and processed data streaming from the CPU at a rate that's orders of magnitude less than today's cards do. The vertex buffer pooling system was implemented by FSX's designers to stop the FSX graphics engine and the CPU from overloading the GPU driver with too much vertex data and crashing it. What UsePools=0 does is remove this throttle, allowing the CPU to send the maximum amount of vertex data to the GPU. When UsePools=1, RejectThreshold sets the size in bytes above which the pools system will send directly to the GPU. RejectThreshold = 0 is the same thing as UsePools = 0. This is 100% confirmed information that was given to PMDG by a former ACES programmer who was looking at the code when he replied to us - it is not speculation and he directly told us it would improve performance.

 

 

I can totally back up this as i am testing DX10 and AMD HD7970 3GB GHZ Edition with and without Steves´s DX10 fixer and so far we have serious issues with ATI/AMD HD7000 series in FSX.

 

 

look here 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/422802-serious-issue-with-ati-and-steves-dx10-fix-tears-and-spikes-everywhere/?p=2832681

 

 

 

 

Thanks Ryan for the explanation above btw.

 

Michael Moe

[Foghorn 4]

I don't think you'll find it's related at all to the speed or OC of the processor. If it was the pc would either lockup or most likely totally shutdown.......I wouldn't be thinking it would slow......

[777simmer 117]

Ollie ... noted ... and I apologize to the forum ... but you can imagine my disappointment ... and exasperation ... ##### is not really a expletive ... for me it means Where is The Fps ... so ... thanks to you for keeping it clean!

 

Rob <here is the skinny>:

 

Weather and airports ... None .. this was a check ride for DVA:

 

Graphics:

Full Screen Resolution:  1920x1200x32 (usually only fly with one monitor ... use the second for EFB)

Target Frame Rate: 30

Global Texture Resolution: Very High

Device: GTX 780 (OC)

Lens Flare

Advanced Animations

 

Aircraft:

Global Settings: Very Low

High Resolution 3-D VC

Aircraft Landing-lights illuminate ground

 

Scenery:

Level of Detail radius: Large

Mesh Complexity: 100

Mesh Resolution: 10m

Texture Resolution: 7cm

Water Effects: Low 2.x

Land Detail Textures: Checked

 

Scenery Complexity: Very Dense

Autogen Density: Dense

Special Effects Detail: High

 

Weather:

Cloud Draw distance: 60mi/96km

Thermal visualization: Natural

Disable Turbulence and Thermal Effects on Aircraft: Checked

Rate at which weather changes: No Change

 

Cloud Detail: Cloud Coverage Density: Maximum

 

Traffic:

Airline Traffic Density: 3%

General Aviation Traffic Density: 3%

Airport Vehicle Density: Minimum

 

Land and Sea Traffic:

Road Vehicles: 0%

Ships and Ferries: 5%

Leisure Boats: 15%

 

Where is FSX Installed?  This was a custom rig built for FSX to NickN's specifications:

 

FSX is installed to D:MSFSX ... a 120GB Sansung 840 SSD

 

Antivirus software is set up to exclude the entire D drive.

 

Before we get into any hardware considerations ... read this ... it documents a month long immersion into my entire machine ... including delidding, lapping ... and stress testing.  At 4.6GHz all temps, using all tools available, never leave the 60C range ... there is no throttling going on here.

 

Memory ... Latency ... quantity ... recommended by NickN ... I even returned my Corsair Dominator Platinum for these ... (DDR3 2400 (PCS 19200 ... 9-11-11-31 CAS 9 ... not overclocked) ... smoke tested each and every one of them, individually, using MemTest 5.0 ... before the OS was even installed.  The only advice I didn't take was to use 4 sticks (instead of 2) of 4GB for other applications ... like Photoshop ... installed on C: (a 250GB Samsung 840 series).  But, I never planned to OC the memory anyway.  And yes, I'm stable running the stock MHz ... (Timings ... DRAM Frequency of 1200.0MHz ... which is 2400 ... remember ... there are two cycles to a sine wave).

 

NorthBridge is running at 4200.0 MHz.

 

And, finally, and this is most important ... I'm not blaming PMDG for anything ... I simply reached out to Ryan in the hopes that he'd offer to tunnel into my rig and see what's wrong ... I'd even offer to pay a nice steak dinner at Outback ...

 

Yes, there is something wrong with the setup ... thanks for pointing that out :lol:  ... which ... by the way ... is why I'm here!  But for the life of me ... I can't figure out what it might be.  Now ... that the particulars are out of the way (and did you enjoy the read about how to delid and lap an i7) does anyone have any viable suggestions?

 

Luv ya guys ... appreciate the great work!

The only thing I dont have ticked I think is "Thermal visualization: Natural" I think I have that off, but I can not verify as I am abroad at the moment. Try it though, I think Nick recommends not using that but I would have to check his new Bible to be sure.

 

Anyway, system, time you spent investigating, etc all suggest everything is in order there.

 

I read someone suggested a general benchmark test.

I think that is not a bad idea.

Especialy since you delidded the CPU....who knows, maybe somerhing got damaged.

 

Nick will say no to affinity mask as you rob FSX from 1 core doing that.

Normally my core 0 is at 100% with FSX running and core 1,2,3 anywhere between 20 and 80% up and down.

I tried Affinity mask on my PC and core 0 was then used only 10%.

This I assume is the 10% CPU cycles that windows uses.

 

Core 1 was now at 100% (instead of core 0) and with that 10% Windows cycles now not being on the same core as FSX (FSX on core 1) I did get a bit higher frame rate (also about 10%).

However, since I now only had core 2 and 3 left for scenery loading I got blurry scenery!

 

Now I also use FFTF at 0.10.

Are you familiar with FFTF?

I am sure you are, but just in case.

Lowering FFTF in the FSX.cfg results in FSX shifting priority to the simulation (frame rate) and taking it away from scenery loading.

Per default this line is not in the .cfg and then FSX uses 0.33 if I remember correctly.

As you reduce (lowest 0.10) you get more frame rates.

You can reduce untill you get blurry textures, indicating you have gone to far!

Try this and find a balance if you have not already (which I doubt since you said you have been following Nicks guide, but anyway, just wanted to remind you).

 

So I could have upped the FFTF again to prevent blurry textures with affinity mask....but that all seemed like kidding myself.

I mean first I put in FFTF at 0.10 for more frame rate (I dont get blurry textures at 0.10 so neither should you with your hardware).

Then I put in affinity mask to get even more frames but in the process I get blurry textures.

And then I have to up FFTF again thereby reducing framerate but getting sharp textures again....however now with 3 cores in use rather than 4!!

Pointless it seems, so I advice against using it unless you have a six core and you can actually afford core 0 sitting at 10% cause you have five more cores!

 

Something else, do you only have this low frames rate at KJFK?

What If you go someplace else?

Could it be ORBX?

Can you turn that off in the library?

I dont have ORBX as I am afraid they are too detailed and thus heavy performance wise.

I have GEX which is said to actually help increase performance when compared to default FSX scenery.

 

If I come up with more ideas I will ya know.

 

Ps: dont go out to buy an AMD ;-) I am no specialist, but everything Ryan has said is completely in line with all that I have learned in the last two years!

[wanabflyer 53]

So Rob, What's the verdict on Affinity Mask, use it or no? (IYO)

 

Regards,

[3-2-1-Now 126]

I don't think you'll find it's related at all to the speed or OC of the processor. If it was the pc would either lockup or most likely totally shutdown.......I wouldn't be thinking it would slow......

 

Intel processors have on-board monitoring, and will forcably reduce the clock speed if it detects an overheat condition.

 

Best regards,

Robin.

Disagree all you like Tabs - just reading the AVSIM forums shows a high proportion of Intel users complaining (just like this thread) about poor performance, stutters, and CTDs when using FSX.

 

I built an Intel rig a few years ago to really see if it was better than AMD, and despite building the then highest spec system possible, considering the cost, it was a disappointment.

 

You could argue that I'm biased in my opinion, being an AMD user, but I'm not the one tweaking FSX to death, then posting about how I'm getting CTDs, stutters, etc....

 

I'm not kidding when I say that FSX runs very nicely. The glitch of the diagonal line through 2D panels is not a deal breaker, and to be honest I don't even notice it. Maybe my tolerance to small issues like that is higher than most, but then again I understand the problem. As for the skeleton - sure, for the 2 seconds it takes to resolve itself it would be nice if it didn't occur, but really..... it *does* correct itself, and it doesn't appear to be a long-term problem (e.g. causing CTDs).

 

I think people need to be a bit more realistic about FSX and accept that it has problems. I really do think some people are in denial about that.

 

Right now in the PMDG 777 forum, are 4 threads on the first page about CTD/OOME! People really need to get used to the idea that loading the sim with a dozen memory-intensive add-ons is not conducive to a stable platform.

 

I'm going to state right here and now that when I bought the 777 I was fully expecting it to be CTD nightmare (me and FSX have historically never got on) but I'm very pleased to say you guys did a great job with it, and so far I have not had any major issues with it. I even did a 21 hour long-haul without problems (an awesome flight by all accounts).

 

Best regards,

Robin.

[777simmer 117]

So Rob, What's the verdict on Affinity Mask, use it or no? (IYO)Regards,

I say no, unless you have a six core or better. But Word Not Allowed (who is way more specialist then I am) does promote its use and who am I to say he is wrong?!

 

I just really dont see the point of first boosting frames rate with lower FFTF, then using AF to further boost frame rate, but end up with blurries (on a four core CPU) and then, to get rid of the blurries increase FFTF again!

 

It seems to me that you can get the same result by leaving FFTF at 0.10 and not using AM. But now you have 4 cores working for you rather than 3 and maybe that helps under some conditions.

 

I really dont mind to be proven wrong here by the way!

But untill then, I am not using it and I also know that if I ever buy a second PC, that it will be a six core or better to try AM on that.