We're now at 2.2 and to run this sim properly we're still at FSX levels of "tweaking" and ridiculous amounts of trial and error with behind the scenes cfg edits to hopefully make things run as expected...  *shakes head*..  Still have no regrets deleting everything and never going back.  It's seriously Stockholm Syndrome on a technological level.  How does anyone seriously put up with this after investing thousands of dollars into what is essentially a amateur level IT career with no paycheck?

I assume you've forgotten about the good ol' days of NickN's bible and the venetubo tweaker...

 

Edit: just looked at your specs and running in surround with the 2GB 680 (similar to mine) on high or ultra settings may be what's causing you issues.

 

 

Rob, did you say Vector adds the same amount of processing overhead as an FTX region

 

No I didn't say that, I said Vector takes about 200MB of VAS.  The only extra processing would probably come from car/truck traffic that will increase because of more roads ... so manage that slider to meet your performance needs.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

How does anyone seriously put up with this after investing thousands of dollars into what is essentially a amateur level IT career with no paycheck?

 

Hopefully no one here is in IT, because that would probably offend them ... certainly not productive ... but I'm guessing you're just blowing off steam.

 

I can understand your frustration, but I do FAR less "tweaking" in P3DV2.2 than I did in FSX ... in FSX my tweaking was done on a "flight" by "flight" basis ... I'm happy to say that's not the case with P3D.

 

If you are looking for "plug, play, and forget" then console games is the only platform I know that can get "close" to that, but I doubt that will ever happen in this market, just too small, sorry.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Rob Ainscough, on 27 Apr 2014 - 08:19 AM, said:

I can understand your frustration, but I do FAR less "tweaking" in P3DV2.2 than I did in FSX ... in FSX my tweaking was done on a "flight" by "flight" basis ... I'm happy to say that's not the case with P3D.

 

Same here. I don't recall ever having had a Flight Simulator requiring so less tweaking as Prepar3d2.2, and I am with Flight SImulators since FS4. No longer do I have to mess with NI or Venetubo magic or subtle config entries (the only entries I have at this time concern things like the nasty brake messages). In-game "tweaking" is really easy with Prepar3d2.2.

 

Kind regards, Michael

I'm slowly coming round to P3D, BUT, and I hope this is not too far off topic, I can't for the life of me get Vsync to work. I have tried forcing it through NI, I've tried inside P3D, I've tried with D3D Overrider and recently tried with Aero switched on. Still, I get tearing either with unlimited or with locked frames. Can anyone offer some hope for me 'cos I really want to keep P3D, but unsure if I can tolerate flying without Vsync. BTW, there's one thing I find confusing and that's I fail to understand how to determine whether Aero is on or off. I think it's on, but not sure... :(

AF isn't related to loading of Higher resolution textures ... if that's what you mean by LOD?

 

No, not the loading of, but low AF will make distant terrain look very blurry, just as it does with those runway markings. It could be mistaken for V2 not matching the distant terrain LOD of FSX which was mentioned many times, esp with photoscenery.

 

I'm not on my FS PC, so can't post them, but I did take some screens showing the change between AF 4x and 16x on the terrain, and the difference in clarity is very noticeable.

 

Anyway, now LM are aware of this it will hopefully not be an issue in the future.

 

 

 

BTW, there's one thing I find confusing and that's I fail to understand how to determine whether Aero is on or off. I think it's on, but not sure... :(

 

I had the same thing when I first used v2 but cannot remember at this point how I resolved it now. You don't have any of the compatibility boxes on the P3D exe ticked, like 'visual themes' which might disable aero features... same in the Windows visual customisations, stripping it back to a basic theme and losing aero.

Hi,

 

Moving back on topic, if I may, I'm now wondering whether our experiences which prompted the Anisotropic filtering debate have a much simpler explanation.

 

Could it be that LM discovered that 16x proved to be too costly computationally and led to a degradation in performance in all but the most powerful of setups? I think we would all agree that there is a lot more going on graphically in Prepar3D v2 than was ever achieved in FSX. For example, look at what has been achieved with the display of autogen! This all comes at a cost as you don't get something for nothing and processing overhead is no different in that respect.

 

Achieving sharp textures right out to the horizon, while certainly possible, is frankly completely unrealistic in the real world. I've flown on aircraft on many occasions and never yet have I seen well defined landscape details as depicted, somewhat artificially, by an AF setting of 16x in the simulator. Inevitably distant detail is compromised by atmospheric haze and pollution and ground detail becomes more indistinct the further out you look. Surely, if we are serious in our endeavours to achieve a level of realism in the simulator, as experienced in the real world, we should be abandoning the notion that ground textures should be sharp all the way out to the distant horizon. Instead, far better to aim for that hint of clarity which more closely mirrors our true real life experiences.

 

My guess is that LM rationalised all this and decided that an AF default setting of 4x helped to preserve performance for the majority of their clients while, at the same time, creating a much more realistic displayed dynamic image which always ensures high levels of definition in the fore and middle ground. My recent experiences appear to confirm this to be true. I look further out and, while sharp detail may be lacking, there persists a level of clarity, without muddiness, more closely matching what I have come to expect in the real world.

 

How often have we stood and admired what Mother Nature has to offer and, jokingly remarked, "Isn't that great, it's almost as good as the simulator!" Whereas what we should be thinking is, "What can I do in the simulator to get close to what I'm seeing displayed by Mother Nature?"

 

Think of all that terrain which at times is obscured by mist, fog or clouds. Do the AF computations on those ground textures continue despite them being hidden from view? If so, think of the penalty in terms of performance. A lower AF setting must help alleviate the consequent drag on computational time spent needlessly in this way.

 

Certainly, the AF setting of 4x has transformed my experience and, dare I say it, enjoyment while flying in this wonderful simulator.

 

Mike

I don't drop a single frame by going from Trilinear to 4x to 16x... and the fact 16x does work, but defaults back upon restart, indicates a bug rather than a hard limit; if that was the case they would remove the option altogether... AF really is not expensive with even a half decent GPU.

 

Sharp texture/terrain to the horizon is realistic, unless you have an eye condition... at 4x the mid to far distance turns to mush. I use visibility to make the distance look realistic, and that does not induce blur.

 

If you happy with 4x fine, no problem  :smile:  but I want 16x without buggering about.

under DX10 we could force certain AA settings in the FSX.cfg, has anyone tried this with P3D ?

For the first time in many years I'm spending more time tuning my flying skills than the damned sim.  I'm having a blast.

I don't drop a single frame by going from Trilinear to 4x to 16x... and the fact 16x does work, but defaults back upon restart, indicates a bug rather than a hard limit; if that was the case they would remove the option altogether... AF really is not expensive with even a half decent GPU.

 

Sharp texture/terrain to the horizon is realistic, unless you have an eye condition... at 4x the mid to far distance turns to mush. I use visibility to make the distance look realistic, and that does not induce blur.

 

If you happy with 4x fine, no problem  :smile:  but I want 16x without buggering about.

Novation, your GTX 670 benchmarks more than twice as fast as a single GTX 580M:

 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html

 

So, I would expect your card to be more capable than mine in this regard. However, I have 2 in SLI which LM have now started to optimise. So, the performance gap is likely to be narrowing. In fact I can use AF 16x without significant loss of performance but, for some reason, the textures closer in don't appear as crisp as they do with a setting of 4x on my M18x's 18.4" monitor. Perhaps monitor size is the key, I just don't know. My resolution is 1920x1080x32.

 

I never suggested you or anyone should be using an AF setting of 4x. My speculations are based on my own experience and observations in the real world (incidentally, I had my annual check recently and my vision remains stable at better than 20/20). My proposal is that folk should consider giving AF 4x a try first before making further adjustments.

 

Regards,

Mike

 

 

We're now at 2.2 and to run this sim properly we're still at FSX levels of "tweaking" and ridiculous amounts of trial and error with behind the scenes cfg edits to hopefully make things run as expected...

 

Were the sim static all the tweaking would already be over.  It's only a response to the scale of changes coming w/ each revision change, and that is a very good thing.  

 

 

Were the sim static all the tweaking would already be over.

 

Yes, lets not have 7 years of static again ... although much was accomplished with FSX (Steve's DX10 tool and others) it had to be accomplished "externally" with no core internal changes.

 

I can understand much of the disappointment in seeing one's GPU that was working well for FSX but not for P3D ... but 2 years from now when Titan level processing power is cheaper and folks are swapping out their GPUs they'll understand the benefits of being GPU bound -- it's good for both low budgets and high budgets.

 

Ok, gotta go do some training...

Still not clear I understand what you are saying about 16X.

 

I have 16X set in NI and when I go into settings in 2.2 I see the setting at 16x. So you're saying that it really ISN'T at 16x until I set it back to 4X, accept and then back to 16X? And this needs to be done for each session?

 

Would this be the same if the entry was just set in the CFG file manually?

 

 

Vic

I'm slowly coming round to P3D, BUT, and I hope this is not too far off topic, I can't for the life of me get Vsync to work. I have tried forcing it through NI, I've tried inside P3D, I've tried with D3D Overrider and recently tried with Aero switched on. Still, I get tearing either with unlimited or with locked frames. Can anyone offer some hope for me 'cos I really want to keep P3D, but unsure if I can tolerate flying without Vsync. BTW, there's one thing I find confusing and that's I fail to understand how to determine whether Aero is on or off. I think it's on, but not sure... :(

Hi Howard,

 

This may be helpful:

 

http://superuser.com/questions/479576/windows-7-easiest-way-to-tell-whether-aero-dwm-is-enabled

 

Also, can I suggest you try reinstalling/updating your graphics driver via GeForce Experience. Choose a clean install. This should reset everything back to default.

 

Be sure to reboot after completion of the installation and check all is well with DxDiag.exe

 

Then delete Prepar3D.CFG and allow the sim to rebuild the file.

 

Reconfigure your preferred settings in the running sim and try re-enabling VSync and set the frame rate limiter to unlimited as before.

 

Forget about NVidia Inspector for the time being.

 

Fingers crossed!

 

Regards,

Mike