Hello,

 

I've searched the forums and have not found any direct answers for this combination. Normally, I'm getting 30 FPS with Autogen set to max, cloud cover set to max, etc.

 

However, now that I've added REX4 and ASN, all runs GREAT until I encounter overcast clouds.

 

Then the FPS runs mainly in the upper teens, but sometimes below 10 FPS.

 

I've adjusted Autogen to NORMAL when in overcast conditions, but it doesn't really help.

 

I'm looking for someone with the same basic setup below, who has overcome the low FPS or made it better...

 

I currently have the following:

 

FSX with Acceleration

Windows 8.1 64 bit

RealAir Simulations Duke V2

4GB RAM

i5 4670K Haswell, running at non-overclocked 3.4 mhz

GTX 650 2mb video card

REX4 Textures set to use 2048 clouds

Active Sky Next Max Cloud Layers set at 1

Multi Crew Experience

 

Nvida Inspector setup per the guide, but specifically:

 

Antialiasing Mode - Override any application

Antialiasing - Setting - 8xS (Combined: 1x2 SS + 4x MS)

Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling - 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling

Anisotropic filtering mode - User-defined / Off

Anisotropic filtering setting 16x

 

Texture filter - Negative LOD bias - Clamp

Texture filtering - Quality - HIgh quality

 

Frame Rate Limiter - 30 fps

Power management mode - Prefer maximum performance

 

Vertical Sync - 1/2 refresh rate

 

if possible. I would prefer not to overclock as I'm not convinced it would drastically increase the FPS. By drastic, I mean 10 fps increase...

 

I welcome any suggestions, but I am really looking for those that have a similar setup, experienced the same issue, and have increased the FPS by 5 or more...

I thought the rule of thumb was a one increase in fps for each point one incease in ghz.

So if you can get the i5 to 4.4, there's your 10 fps.

 

Isn't that 650 a bit under spec too for your system?

 

You could try reducing cumulus clouds back to 1024

and cirrus to 512.

 

gb.

Reduce cumulus and cirrus to 512. Instantly better fps.

Water to 256. From 500 ft and up you won't see the difference.

 

It will even look more real.

 

Also try MultiSampling instead of Supersampling.

Thanks GB,

 

I was not aware of the rule of thumb...actually the first time I've read this and very good to know.

 

If that's the case, then I'm open to overclocking.

 

You're right, the 650 is a bit under spec, but I don't want to buy a better card unless I know it would help. Again, I'm open to it, but I don't want to spend money only to find out it didn't make a significant difference

 

Anyway, I will try your cloud suggestions and reconsider overclocking.

 

I appreciate your help!

Thanks Gerard,

 

I'll give that a try. I couldn't find the water setting in REX4 for 256...maybe I'm looking in the wrong place. Do you know where I would find this setting?

Thanks for everyone's help. The multisampling setting made the biggest difference. The FPS is jumping around a bit, but it is very smooth when I make turns, etc.

 

 

Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling set to Multisampling

Mid Level clouds and cirrus set to 1048, the FPS moved between the low 20's to 30's.

 

Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling set to Multisampling

Mid Level clouds and cirrus set to 512, the FPS were mostly solid 30's

 

In both of the above settings, the plane was very smooth. Before any setting changes, at times it was a bit of a slide show.

 

At this point, I'm going to stay at Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling set to Multisampling and the clouds set to 1048.

 

Thanks again for the quick responses and help.

 

You guys are great!

The clouds from Rex4...what type of textures?  make sure you only install DTX5 type textures, otherwise your system will crawl.

Thanks Will,

 

I'm running 32 bit. I just tried the DTX5 and I didn't really see a difference, but I'll give them both a try for a while and see which one works best!

 

Thanks!

Interesting post. Thanks

My search was similar,

REX4 (I like 512LO softerclouds at ground,no edges, 1024HI CU nice edges,),ASN,ORBX Austr.DX10Fixer,

i7, 16GB580

 

NVidia,Insp.4xAA, vsync half, 30fps,

 

NO OVC 28, OVC 12 and down!

If I reduce FSX AI car traffic down from 15pc to 2pc

OVC steady 20s !

 

Ben

you could probably back off that anistropic filter setting to 8x or 4x...

 

dense overcast kills frames because it's very fillrate intensive so AA settings will also have a big impact..

 

i'd also suggest trying without the framerate limiter to see what results you get. on my system my frames are consistently much higher without it, in all conditions... i know some people swear by it though

 

cheers

-andy crosby

If your clouds are killing your system it is probably down to extreme levels of AA. These settings put a lot of stress on the GPU and eventually when it cannot cope it stalls and your FPS suffers. The best way to reduce this is to reduce texture sizes and also AA/Multisampling. If you use Inspector it might be worth dropping AA to 4xS (Combined 1xS +2MS) This works great for me in cloudy settings but then again as mentioned by someone in this thread I use 512x512 DXT5 clouds too. I noticed you had the setting Supersampling in Inspector set at 2x Sparse Grid Supersampling, this is okay for a top end graphics card like a Titan but it will absolutely kill most. I know mine cannot cope great with it in a clear weather setting so overcast clouds kill it much more.

I use the topic starters original N.I. Settings, just bumped mid-high level clouds from 2048 to 1024. Immediately my frame rates went to an average of 28 to 30 frames per second. This was from an earlier experience that day of snow and clouds which caused my frames to go as low as 15 to 19 frames per second. They say that you should not count frames per second however at 15 to 20 frames per second, the choppiness is very noticeable. I have an Nvidia 780 GTX video card which ensures that my transparency super sampling set to 2 sparse grid super sampling does not tax my computer's performance too much. One question I do have is the maximum amount of cloud levels to set ASN to. I currently have five and to be honest it is visually stunning when you have five layers of clouds, but I'm sure it takes quite a performance hit.