I've recently started to get back into XPX rediscovering the marvelous FlyJSim 727 with SkyMAXX Pro and would like to know what the optimal settings be for anyone out there who has a GTX 560ti 2GB graphics card or similar as I do.

 

I can't post a screenshot of my settings at the moment but will be able to later after I get home but have some of the following set.

 

-Currently have HDR on and would prefer to have leave it on as it dramatically improves overall lighting particularly in the cockpit, but feel I have to sacrifice other settings like texture res (which I have now turned down from 'extreme' to 'very high') and turn down to just FXAA (would like to increase this as I'd prefer to minimise jaggies in the distance).

-My cloud 'puffs' are around 60%

-Stuff like objects, trees, roads etc have been turned down to mid-high settings.

 

Is there anything else I should be looking at? Right now performance is pretty good at those settings but just wondering what else I could fine-tune so I can at least go above FXAA to get rid of jaggies with minimal performance hit particularly around airports and built-up cities.

Get rid of Crepuscular Rays probably, or at least turn them way down. Turning down road traffic can help. Choose a lower resolution cirrus layer. Play with cloud size, draw distance and cloud detail.

 

I have a 560ti too.  :smile: 

 

By the way, there is an interesting thread by Redpiper1 at X-Pilot.com regarding SkyMaXX Pro and the question of running with HDR on or off. Some interesting numbers regarding frame rate are displayed, and curious people might want to take a look.

Get rid of Crepuscular Rays probably, or at least turn them way down. Turning down road traffic can help. Choose a lower resolution cirrus layer. Play with cloud size, draw distance and cloud detail.

 

I have a 560ti too.  :smile: 

 

By the way, there is an interesting thread by Redpiper1 at X-Pilot.com regarding SkyMaXX Pro and the question of running with HDR on or off. Some interesting numbers regarding frame rate are displayed, and curious people might want to take a look.

 

Awesome! I'll try turning the rays down as I think I have them over mid way. I also notice that during the day the clouds seem to have this slight 'glowing' appearance when on the ground after loading up a plane.

 

Do you use anything higher than FXAA with HDR? That's probably the one thing I would like to increase a little bit.

 

I find that when flying high & fast you don't really notice the performance hit till you begin the approach. I'm staying away from a lot of the OSM scenery at the moment as this also seems to have a big impact on FPS.

Awesome! I'll try turning the rays down as I think I have them over mid way. I also notice that during the day the clouds seem to have this slight 'glowing' appearance when on the ground after loading up a plane.

 

Do you use anything higher than FXAA with HDR? That's probably the one thing I would like to increase a little bit.

 

I find that when flying high & fast you don't really notice the performance hit till you begin the approach. I'm staying away from a lot of the OSM scenery at the moment as this also seems to have a big impact on FPS.

My card can handle 4Xssaa-Fxaa but 2x is more sane.

 

However.

 

You are going to get a framerate hit (obviously) and with the clouds, turning off crepuscular is a must. Honestly, I suggest running without HDR at all, but that's a no-go for many people, apparently.

 

And the manual, of course: http://www.x-aviation.com/downloads/SkyMaxx_Manual.pdf

I think I'll stick with just FXAA as the performance hit is a bit much especially when flying into the clouds. It doesn't actually look that bad and the jaggies are fairly minimal.

 

You're right about the rays, had to turn those off as well as it did hit the FPS during approach into EDDT. The thing about HDR is I notice there are certain light sources that can't be seen without it especially at night and particularly at high quality airports such as Chris K's YSSY or YPAD. An example would be when parked at the gate the terminal lighting doesn't actually shine onto your aircraft and everything looks pitch black from outside, I like to see the exterior lighting in action on the aircraft and on something like the 727 this can't be seen at all.

 

I guess I could always just turn on HDR for night flying only.

 

Overall, I am VERY happy with the way X-Plane is evolving lately and SkyMAXX Pro is just awesome! Really adds a whole new dimension to the sim now.

 

For some added fidelity for the weather, I was toying with the idea of using the NOAA plugin mentioned by Jcomm, but the instructions seemed pretty unclear for installation, and other people seemed to being having the same issue.

 

Then I went to this site: http://x-plane.joanpc.com/plugins/xpgfs-noaa-weather and just hit "Win Net Install" showed it my X-plane folder, and poof it all set itself up.

 

Which left me thinking about myself "Derp!"  :lol:

Try running without HDR and use the external Sweet FX its super OK!!! I have 30FPS locked by nVidia inspector, never saw low frames with my system with 727 or 777!!

Try running without HDR and use the external Sweet FX its super OK!!! I have 30FPS locked by nVidia inspector, never saw low frames with my system with 727 or 777!!

 

Are you sure about this? I had a look and seems Sweet FX only supports DirectX applications whereas X-Plane is rendered using OpenGL and they make no mention of it there. If that's the case then this would only be a useful tool for FSX and P3D.