Why does DX10 work so badly for me?

[ArjenVdv 190]

Everyone who tried DX10 always seem so delighted, happy, and positive about it. But for me, it works completely differently. I have a pretty strong and rock-solid FSX machine which I never have problems with. FSX runs rock solid, and I never have CTDs or freezes.

FPS are mostly very good. A drop below 30 even in the most demanding situations, is extremely rare. For example, in the PMDG 777 at Aerosoft EHAM, 30-40 FPS is no problem, near the terminal I am in the high 20's. In the skies, I'm always at 40-60. 

Because everybody was reporting such postive results, I decided to try DX10 myself to get just that little bit more out of my performance that I want: a minimum of 30 FPS (I run 1/2 refresh rate with unlimited frames). I tried DX10, followed all the steps, set the fixer up as supposed to, started FSX and I was a bit disappointed. With the exact same settings and fsx.CFG, I was getting 10-20% less frames. Where I would previously get 43 FPS, I would now get 38 FPS, and where I would get 30 I would now get 26. 

Of course, I thought it must be a setting as always, so I tried a fresh fsx.CFG, but the performance in DX10 wasn't influenced at all. I tried all kinds of different settings for my fsx.CFG but none of them seemed to have any effect unlike in DX9. When I tried DX9 again with this fresh fsx.CFG, performance was significantly worse than in DX10. That made me realise something: perhaps the people who report all these good results were previously running a default or barely tweaked fsx.CFG, so DX10 performed much better. This works the same for me, with a default config, DX10 is about 30% better. But as soon as I start tweaking for DX9 (and foremost the BP=0 tweak), then DX9 performance matches or even beats DX10 performance. Perhaps my DX10 performs just fine, but my DX9 simply performs exceptionally well, making DX10 look bad. Could this be it? 

Apart from performance, there is more. Of course, you can now have shadows and light bloom with pretty much no performance impact, and DX10 water is gorgeous. However, I found the cockpit shadows often to be so low in contrast, that they are barely noticable unless you really start looking for them, and they are only well visible during mid day, at dawn and dusk, even when there is sun, there are no cockpit shadows. Then there is the water, looks gorgeous, but the reflections that the mountains cast onto the water, flicker heavily in the distance (just check yourself in the Friday Harbor area). Then the massive bugs on add-on scenery airports. From a distance, some lights seem to flicker as if a hundred people are making pictures with their cameras all at once. Then there's the Aerosoft airports: some of the green lights on the taxiways at night will turn off when your landing lights are off. Turn your landing lights on, and the lights will come on too. It is not always noticable, because it only happens with a small portion of the lights.

Maybe it's just me, but how come my experiences, unlike others, is so negative? I can't be the only one with these problems. And I don't believe in these "It doesn't work for everybody" statements. As long as your PC is a decent, solid and stable Intel + NVIDIA system with the same configuration, results should match up, shouldn't they?

[Ron Attwood 3,465]

You're not confusing 'performance' with FPS are you? Try turning off the frame counter and look out of the window!  Is FSX delivering the experience smoothly in DX10? I'll bet it is. Seriously, in my humble opinion 'frames' is the biggest bogeyman in FSX. I haven't looked at frames for more than two years and I can see and feel the difference.

Free yourself from the tyranny of "What's it like on frames?"

 

...And have a Happy New Year!

 

 

P.S. I lied about the 'humble'. :biggrin:

[ArjenVdv 190]

You're not confusing 'performance' with FPS are you? Try turning off the frame counter and look out of the window!  Is FSX delivering the experience smoothly in DX10? I'll bet it is. Seriously, in my humble opinion 'frames' is the biggest bogeyman in FSX. I haven't looked at frames for more than two years and I can see and feel the difference.

Free yourself from the tyranny of "What's it like on frames?"

 

...And have a Happy New Year!

 

 

P.S. I lied about the 'humble'. :biggrin:

Everybody on the forums is always telling me how obsessed I am with VSync. And this because I often find FSX so jerky that I just can't live without it. In DX10, my experience isn't all that smooth at all. Between 20 and 30 FPS it is, despite the low frames, pretty fluid, but between the 30 and 50 FPS area it is horribly jerky. Only when I run above monitors refresh rate things are starting to become butter.

 

But this is all completely subjective. It depends on what you are flying. If I select some GA plane, default or add-on, it's butter. But when I select a PMDG plane on an add-on airport at 30 FPS, it's quite jerky. Not when panning, but when taxiing, and making turns. Just constant litttle lags. VSync used to be the perfect solution for me, it just gets so unbelievably smooth. Unfortunately though, it doesn't want to work for DX10 even though it is enabled in NI. 

[RWFeldman 159]

Same thing I experience experimenting with Preview. Just doesnt work for me. Maybe bad FSX DX9 good DX10 preview, good FSX DX9 bad DX10 preview.

[ArjenVdv 190]

I guess I will just stay with DX9 then. I already knew my DX9 was performing exceptionally well compared to others. 43 FPS on an Aerosoft Mega Airport in a PMDG plane on a 2 year old system is very well. So it's probably just my DX10 performing normally, with my DX9 performing exceptionally well, making DX10 look bad in comparison. 

The water, shadows and bloom are nice, but apart from performance there are other little bugs and imcompatibilities I just can't live with. 

[SteveFx 258]

You can fix the aerosoft lights with the included light fields

 

The photographer effect can be fixed by setting the headlight bloom option to "never" there are 3 options , always, switchable and I think never, it's the most negative option.

[Michael Moe 495]

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