Yes the key here is LM on going development.

The big proof of how good P3D is lies entirely in the next 3-6 months, when they have to show how they deal with customer/user-care and bugfixing in general.

 

Right now i think a bunch of people have the feeling this is FSX all over again, because the product doesnt deliver out of the box. (which is very likely mainly due to the "promise" of compatibility)

 

A continuously improving system is what everyone wants in the end (eventho this will ofcourse have ongoing implications with compatibility), lets hope LM will deliver.

You are pushing all the sliders right and your current hardware cannot keep up.

 

Agreed.

 

I've had to significantly dial back many of the perks in my vanilla P3D to achieve the same fluidity that I get in my fsx setup. All shadows except internal and external cockpit are disabled, HDR is disabled, and my sliders are set comparably to FSX. Then and only then is the sim enjoyable. I also reset my p3d.cfg, because many of the tweaks I've been reading about had actually hurt my performance. Shadows and HDR, disable those and the sim is unbelievably smooth.

 

So as of right now I have my addon infused/addicted FSX = to my boring vanilla P3D. This is not good.

HDR doesn't seem to influence the performance at all on my PC. Volumetric fog and vegetation shadows are the heaviest things for me. Well, and all reflections apart from clouds and terrain but I've had those disabled from the start. 

Did my own testing last night.

 

i7 950 @ 4GHz

8GB ram

GTX 660Ti 2GB

 

FXAA off, MSAA 4x, Anisotropic 4x, texture resolution 2048x2048, vsync off, frames set to unlimited, full screen, level of detail radius high, tessellation max, mesh & texture resolution max, scenery complexity & building autogen 1 setting above normal, vegetation autogen normal, HDR on, only cockpit shadows enabled at low setting.

 

I did the tests with FTX Global, HDEv2 2048 resolution clouds, REX Essentials+ OD textures (no clouds), SweetFX 1.5 with SMAA injection/LumaSharpen, and the latest OpusFSX client generating the weather.

Went to KORD where it was overcast.

 

Clear skies = 33 FPS

Overcast skies (cloud density maximum) + volumetric fog = 21 FPS

Overcast skies (cloud density maximum) without fog = 24 FPS

Broken skies (cloud density high) + fog = 27 FPS

Broken skies (cloud density high) without fog = 33 FPS

 

Setting tessellation to max or high didn't change anything for cloud generation or the FPS.

Maximum cloud density will give complete overcast with OpusFSX, but you take a 10 FPS frame hit.

Broken clouds is almost like overcast but you get some holes in the sky where you see blue, but you gain those 10 FPS back. As far as I can tell, the cloud density settings vs what you actually see is exactly how it was in FSX. Setting broken in P3Dv2 does NOT = overcast in FSX.

 

I hope LM can optimize this.

Right now i think a bunch of people have the feeling this is FSX all over again, because the product doesnt deliver out of the box. (which is very likely mainly due to the "promise" of compatibility)

 

A continuously improving system is what everyone wants in the end (eventho this will ofcourse have ongoing implications with compatibility), lets hope LM will deliver.

I feel that in general terms, the promise of compatibility has largely been achieved. I also feel that it's vastly more important to get the core engine tuned and delivering maximum performance, even if we can't run it all right now this moment, due to hardware limitations.

 

Again, in the broadest sense, a lot of addons work and the majority have relatively minor problems. How easy they are to fix will depend how willing the developers are to spend the time. It could be a beneficial learning curve for them, and the knowledge they gain will not be lost. I'm sure they are all busy planning their strategy and asking questions, such as; "to charge or not too charge?"

 

Some developers have openly stated that they will bring out a free update. Other developers, who shall remain anonymous, I'm sure will be laughing all the way to the bank.

 

As for LM Delivering, so far, so good. They released on time and they have been communicating. It's now down to the customers to make positive noises, even when theirs something negative to pass on.

 

 

When might you be acquiring this new video card. Would love to see your in depth reports when you get it.

 

To get back on this: I think I will wait until version 2.1 has been released or until at least a few things have been patched before I buy that new GPU. I notice I am mainly testing the sim and don't feel like actually flying (apart from a few short hops) because there are just a few things too many bugging me and a few addons too many not working. I probably won't go simming flat out like I am used to until those things have been addressed and by that time, GPU's might have become even cheaper! If I buy a GTX780 now but don't really use it because I don't really fly, I'd be ###### a little if by the time 2.1 has been released and I do start flying more seriously, the GPU's have become cheaper! Since I will buy that GPU only for P3D, I think it's simply more wise to buy it when I actually think P3D is worth my time. So my report will have to wait a while. (I have no clue if LM is planning on releasing the first patch within days or within months so that while may take some time!)

 

 

To get back on this: I think I will wait until version 2.1 has been released or until at least a few things have been patched before I buy that new GPU.

 

I'm feeling the same way but for slightly different reasons.  I'm just at the point of being able to consider some "fully developed" flights (as opposed to sim-test flights).  Not all the way there by any means but with the Coolsky DC-9 in place (thanks, Q_Flyer) and a couple of payware airports, I can at least start flying point-to-point.  But I'm doing it by trimming a few settings to get the most out of my GTX 680.  When P3D V2 first came out, I was ready to rush out and buy a 780ti, and the only thing that held me back was the lack of a water-cooled version at the moment.  However, on reflection, I think I'd rather see if anything changes in 2.1, whenever that arrives.  It's not only a matter of the graphics cards becoming less expensive - it's also possible that LM or third-party developers will refine the way the graphics card handles the load.  At some near-future point, there might be a different or better option than the 780ti.  So for now, I'm OK with P3D V2 as a much smoother, much better FSX, running on my FSX hardware.  There'll be time later on to figure out what hardware to use to get the most out of P3D.  

I turned off volmetig fog but I still feel it is heavy to fly in clouds. It seems that AA, especiialy MSAA on clouds seems to be heavy on my GPU. (My PC is i7 4770k boosting to 4Ghz + 760GTX 3 monitors)

 

When I am flying in heavy clouds GPU usage is about 75% with FXAA on but it stays 100% with FXAA on and MSAAx4 causing shattering. It is ok to fly without MSAA but runways do not look nice. At the same time it is a bit bothersom to change AA setting depending on weather or where you are (close to clouds or airport). Yes, I am in the syndrom that I get more then I want more .

 

Maybe a stupid question but can AA be turned off on clouds somehow? I remember that the steves DX10 fixer had a option to turn off AA on clouds, wasnot it? it would be nice if such a thing is possible in P3D2.

 

/YY 

You can't turn off AA for clouds. The DX10 fixer had that option but it was utterly useless because it couln only be used when you turned another mandatory option off (can't remember the exact option but no one used that no-AA-cloud-fix!).

 

BTW You might want to turn of FXAA (which simply blurs the entire screen: I hate it) and see what happens when you use nVidia Inspector, set it to Enhance P3D and set 4x SGSS. This mainly works (very) well on the VC but overall I like this more than only using 4xMSAA with FXAA. (4xMSAA on its own is rather uselss and makes a shimmering mess of the VC).

 

We are ALL waiting for nVidia to support P3D 2.0 and enable us to use all options we are used to. Most people have problems with bad AA on runways etc.