Prepar3D 2.2 Released!

[maddoc 0]

Hi guys,

 

my experience about cloud shaders :

 

I setup cloud shaders like as many of yours and had micro stutter especially when flying at low altitude and high speed

 

So I disable cloud and terrain shadows and no micro stutter at all

 

Then I tried this attempt : I start my flight without cloud and terrain shadows; when the flight started on ground I entered in P3D setup and now set cloud and terrain shadow to on and 20000m distance ; then I started my flight flying over ORBX Alaska scenery with 3/8-4/8 covering clouds and I had not any micro stutter any more

 

Hope to be useful

 

My system : i7-3770k OC 4,5 , GTX680 4gb dram

 

Bye

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

I haven't gone beyond 30,000m ... guess I could test higher tonight.

 

Did you make any tests?

 

my experience about cloud shaders :

 

With cloud shaders do you mean cloud shadows?

 

Your experience sounds really weird. Can you reproduce it every time?

[maddoc 0]

Oh yeah, sorry ! I mean cloud shadows

 

I tried it 3 times in different flights and worked every time

 

I'll try other times

 

Why is weird for you ??

[ChaoticBeauty 6,692]

Why is weird for you ??

 

Because you're microstuttering at a similar situation but on a different order of events.

[maddoc 0]

If i active cloud shadows after star the flight I don't have micro stutter

[Noel 4,503]

If i active cloud shadows after star the flight I don't have micro stutter

Thank you for sharing your experience--I will give it a try.  In some sense I think it is compatible w/ something I have experienced:  I can go out one time w/ note very dense clouds, sunrise, and get some micro stutter going or worse yet drastic reduction in frame rate, yet return to the same place w/ very similar clouds on a different session and voila, smooth as butter.   Today I flew from P40 (California) to O89 (California) and went thru some lovely fairly dense cloud clusters at about FL090--smooth as butter.  Yesterday on approach to KRNO RWY 16R, came into some clouds and frames went from the low thirties suddenly down to 12-13!  It was a rocky horror picture show!  Anyway, I guess maybe that is the so-called sunrise/sunset performance drop issue.  Yes, I will give your method a try and let you know.

[Guest]

drastic reduction in frame rate, yet return to the same place w/ very similar clouds on a different session and voila, smooth as butter.  

 

 

Noel, I've reported this to LM with specific .fxml and .wx ... it's perfectly setup to replicate the issue ... too bad I can't attach the two files so you could see.  Don't need to move or doing anything with my flight, just watch the fps ... in my case around 50-60fps, as a cloud moves in front of the sun (not moving my viewpoint at all) the FPS start to drastically drop 20-30 fps ... as soon as the cloud passes by the sun, back up to 50-60 fps.

 

Wish I could attach the two files so you can see the issue ... load direct from the fxml don't do ANYTHING with your view, just watch fps count and the clouds move.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Noel 4,503]

Yes I know you've commented about this.  I had it happen again a little while back.  Took off from CYPW about 40min before sunset, solid performance w/ pretty aggressive cloud shadow distance and all was well until I got outside of Nanaimo and into some fairly light clouds actually, at least not as dense as what I was seeing in my nor cal trip earlier.   Same same took off w/ total loveliness at around 42 frames or so, then as I was approaching the smallish town w/ some autogen load to deal w/ and bam, down to 14 or so, quite quickly.   Can you predict when this happens then?  I sure can't it seems so random.  I tried turning off cloud shadowing, then on in sim, I don't think it did anything significant but I can say despite the crash of FPS I had very smooth performance for sure.  

 

I know one thing man this sim just gets better and better it's remarkable.  The single Titan is really quite decent but I'd like to do a 2nd--just have to find one.  Apparently they have collector value, or so the market prices would indicate  :rolleyes:

 

In fact tonight I decide to do the deed, and did a few minutes ago:  wiped everything FSX!  It was a very long run and provided years and years of enjoyment.  So glad to be out of it though--P3D is really looking great.   

[rrich 0]

In fact tonight I decide to do the deed, and did a few minutes ago:  wiped everything FSX!

Notice any difference in pr3 since

[AlexMD11 15]

Currently doing my first full flight in the AXE. I am impressed with the visuals, with performance not so much. In terms of fps, everything is great (pegged at 30fps), however I do get horrible stuttering all the time. I have never seen this in fsx, where I did get some micro stuttering, but this is really bad. Have been playing with graphic settings, but even at very low settings the stuttering continues to occur. Vsync on or off does not make any difference, as does setting foes to unlimited. I feel like I have tried everything...

[Noel 4,503]

In fact tonight I decide to do the deed, and did a few minutes ago:  wiped everything FSX!

Notice any difference in pr3 since

Everything seems fine in P3D w/ one full test flight after uninstalling FSX and all of its add ons.  I also uninstalled and reinstalled Estonia Migration Tool and all seems well.  Nice to pick up a huge chunk of SATA III SSD space ;o)

[rrich 0]

I was planning on doing the same, but have had issues with my radio and switchpanel, have tried patches and upgrade to no avail , then imported exe.eml from fsx in control panel of pre3d and both started working as long as i use basic planes in pre3d.

So will keep install for now, don't know what else I might need

[Guest]

Yes I know you've commented about this.  I had it happen again a little while back.  Took off from CYPW about 40min before sunset, solid performance w/ pretty aggressive cloud shadow distance and all was well until I got outside of Nanaimo and into some fairly light clouds actually, at least not as dense as what I was seeing in my nor cal trip earlier.

 

Another test you can do to duplicate issue is get some nasty weather from ASN with rain, set time to 7am ... notice very low frame rates.  Do nothing else other than change the time of day to Noon and frame rates will almost double.  The position of the sun (and current view angle) appear to be the triggers.  If I turn Cloud Shadows OFF, I don't experience any significant change in FPS regardless of time of day, so I think it's "safe" to suggest cloud shadows are inducing the performance load.

 

Also, whenever testing graphic settings difference, I always follow this process:

 

1.  Make one and only one change to the graphics settings

2.  Exit P3D

3.  Delete my shaders

4.  Load up flight from desktop (double click the fxml file)

 

What I've noticed is that too many simultaneous changes to my graphics settings can result in odd behavior (i.e. Trees not appearing at all), cloud shadows not happening, etc.  So I've adopted the 4 step process above whenever I'm changing/testing settings.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[jonnycash 0]

Hi all,

 

I've been reading all your tips whilst I've been installing add-ons and testing extensively.

 

First of all my system specs

 

Motherboard Asus p9x79 pro

Cpu I7-3820 (3.6ghz) qaud core. Overclocked to 4.4ghz

Memory 16gb ddr3

Gpu evga gtx 570 2560mb (no overclocking)

 

I'm using a 1680x1050 single monitor for my tests.

 

Add-ons:- rex4 texture direct

Red essential plus overdrive(for weather only)

Orbx global, vector and England plus all freeware airports.

Pilots fs global ultimate

Fsuipc

Airbus x extended

 

I have more but they aren't important to this.

 

So I setup a flight from egss (stanstead) to lipz (Venice)

Using my Airbus x extended (very demanding aircraft)

Using real world weather

Global central set to Europe and vector lights off.

I've also only allowed vector traffic on highways.

 

My settings were as follows:-

 

no nvidia inspector profile

Graphics

Fxaa _ off

Msaa _ 2 samples

Anisotropic _ 4x

Texture resolution _ medium 1024

 

Vsync on

Triple bufferring on

Frame rate 33

 

Wide view _ unchecked(else I can't read my cockpit)

Mipmap checked

 

Scenery:

 

Everything to the right except

Mesh at 5m

Autogen veg and building normal

Water medium (with default reflection)

 

Land detail checked

 

Lighting is all at default

 

Weather

 

80mi

Unchecked volumetric fog (conflicts with red if using real visibility)

Detailed clouds

Coverage maximum

Rate of change none

 

Traffic

Airline 16%

Ga 16%

Airport minimum

 

Land and sea traffic all at 5%

 

Trust me I've played with these settings until I've gone mad!

 

So I found these settings work best for my system in terms of frame rates, stuttering(which is still present but minimally) and appearance which I will also jump on the bandwagon and thank LM for the most immersive flight sim I've used.

 

But what I really wanted to share was the next two things.

 

I found setting the cloud shadows above and I need to test exactly when but let's say above 15000ft there was no change in my frame rates even when landing. Setting this to 10000m or 30000m made no difference.

 

It also did not increase vas.

 

The other thing which I found most surprising was that when selecting from the menu bar during/near the end of my 10 test flights, world / map and scrolling around and checking for the airport ils frequency then returning to flight my vas would increase by 300mb.

 

This may not sound like much but I found that this pushes my vas high enough to give an oom.

 

When I start my flight at egss. My vas is 3gb

 

When I end the flight at lipz my vas is 3.6gb

 

So you see using the built in map causes me to go to 3.9gb which is basically why I was getting crashes.

 

I also belive the more I checked the map the more my vas increased...

 

I know your probably all wondering why my vas is so high to start with but I believe it's due to the add-ons as when I start with the default flight my vas is 2.4gb

 

I would love to know If anyone else has noticed this?

 

Also I flip between virtual cockpit and outside locked spot views.

 

I did notice that when turning on cloud shadows only the virtual cockpit view has a drop in frame rates and it drops a lot from 30 to 13 but outside view nothing.

 

At lower flight levels my gpu load increase to 90% but is stable at high altitude at 50-60%

 

Please note in all cases England was overcast with showers and thunderstorms in Venice.

 

My frame rate starts off at around 20fps

Steadys to 30_33fps at high altitude and stays that way.

 

Two major things which I have forgot to mention have helped achieve this was the following config changes

 

infinity mask at 15 (my hyperthreading is off)

Fibre time fraction at 0.15

 

Without these I was getting blurring like you wouldnt believe.

 

I'm no expert and don't claim to be but I hope this helps.

 

Please also note everyone's system is different.

 

I'd like to thank Word Not Allowed and Rob as I've been reading there posts and taking tips from then which have been a great help.

 

My setup is not the best but I have finally reached settings that work well with my add-ons and can finally fly the Airbus in heavy weather with photorealistic scenery.

 

It's not perfect but it is a beautiful sight to see.

 

Not sure if I've wasted some money here but I just bought another identical gpu in the anticipation of sli support in 2.3.

 

Anyway try the map and cloud shadows thing and let me know your findings.

 

Good luck.

[mas618 17]

I thought adding Affinity Mask to 2.2 making use all four CPU cores, was helping my terrain loading, but doing some testing has shown me just how much...

 

Cured my blurries completely! Thx.. And that's only the AF entry...

 

Mss

Edited April 21, 2014 by n4gix
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