The final good news, mixed with some bad....

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Well...3PD can look pretty awesome, whether plain Vanilla, or loaded up with all your port-over ORBX goodies.

 

Now..here is the bad...and for some, could be a deal breaker:

 

If you load up with FSXG, VECTOR, Regional such as PNW, CRM, Pacific Fjords...etc...

 

Your FPS are going to dump between a low of 15-22 as the run.  That's right.  If you crack the sim open, so as to see the features you paid for, and even on my system, you WILL lose about 10-13 FPS from Vanilla.

 

But here is also another point.  I found the fresh install 'Vanilla' P3D to have pretty darn good graphics, at full Extremely Dense settings of all three tabs. Shadows all enabled, etc...and could easily stay at 30 FPS, in or out of the cockpit as viewing the world.

 

I would say that the Vanilla (nothing added to P3D) except perhaps airports, but NO ORBX anything...can be very satisfying..as Vanilla really looks like a close cousin to FSX-Global anyways.  I know that I would fly the sim that way. I would only add airports, but no other scenery, which is the culprit and FPS sucker in P3D v2.2.

 

Final comment:  If you have a perfectly running and well maintaing FPS rate in FSX...you might want to stay with that, and would still have a very premium experience in flight sims.

 

I have no regrets in buying into P3D and will enjoy it, for you can still get a somewhat smooth experience even down to 15-18 FPS. This can't be said for FSX.

 

Also, one very important item:  You need to MANUALLY (right click upon the desktop) bring up your driver mask..and make 3D adjustments from there.  If you want to have P3D adjust, you need to make all the masks in the driver 'Application Controlled' That is most important, or you will NOT be actually making any adjustment to your driver from within the sim.  Most of us use nVidia Inspector for FSX..but this program DRIVES and forces the actual driver to conform to what you want...under DX9 and DX10.  Again..unless you manually change the settings in the driver mask to Application-Controlled...you are beat.  If you fly FSX, you need to run nVidia Inspector again, and save the custom driver dips. If you don't, you will still have all your settings for P3D. There is no way that I can see, to have it change for you...because P3D is DX11, and there is no control of this via nVidia Inspector.

 

Back to the flight.... (bottom line)...you will lose 10-12 FPS in P3D, to render what FSX does at full bore graphic settings. I run it this way because even VECTOR will NOT show you all elements unless you run your graphic setting within P3D at the full 'Extremely Dense'.  If you do that..than you will see a total transformation of P3D...to what ORBX had placed, in Vector and FSXG.

 

Mitch

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Great news....I didn't give up....and FPS are back to 30...with everything installed

 

What the h*ll happened, I do not know...but I did do three defrag runs in a row....and upon firing up P3D, in PNW....at KORS...I have 30 FPS!!!!!!   

 

So...I have no idea what happened, but obviously I had some sort of issue in the install.  Three defrag runs, seems to have clear it up...so, it appears that one can have the sim cranked, and STILL maintain 30 fps...which is my limit setting. 

 

This is great news...for I was yes...bummed out as my FPS kept dropping with each layer of install...

 

So as far as I am concerned....you need to now disregard my report of a 33 percent drop in FPS...as it obviously was the result of P3D getting indigestion per one of my installs....

 

Post Edit:  That did the trick...P3D needs serious DEFRAGGING, after scenery installs. I did three passes, one after another...and got my performance back. I have been flying all around KORS and the islands of PNW...and have kept 27-30 (locked) FPS all the time. Before the defrag runs, I was luck to get 19!

 

 

 

Mitch'er

[spirit_66 2]

Hi Mitch,

 

pardon, why are you telling us this? What should we do to get the best out for P3D v2.x in your opinion?

 

On my side I can say that I'm pretty much satisfied with P3D v2.2.1 even with all the ORBX NA sceneries installed. My FPS is pretty stable at locked 44.

 

I didn't get your message.

Spirit

 

PS: Don't you know about the profiles in nVidia Inspector?

[LB777 100]

I was gonna defrag my drive and then I remembered my Prepar3D was on an SSD...

[pmanhart 176]

Mitch,

 

Something I've found is that if I mess with the display settings a lot in P3D the framerate is not always indicative of what it should be. If I feel like the FPS should have gone up and it didn't, I'll either save my flight if in route or just exit, then reload the sim and the FPS increase I thought I would have had is there.

 

Needless to say, Lockheed still has some things to iron out.

 

And remember, never give up, never give in!

When it comes to being happy with your sim!

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

Hi Mitch,

 

pardon, why are you telling us this? What should we do to get the best out for P3D v2.x in your opinion?

 

On my side I can say that I'm pretty much satisfied with P3D v2.2.1 even with all the ORBX NA sceneries installed. My FPS is pretty stable at locked 44.

 

I didn't get your message.

Spirit

 

PS: Don't you know about the profiles in nVidia Inspector?

Spirit...hello...I was loading in ORBX stuff from the virgin state, and went from 30 sustained (locked) FPS to 12-14 FPS.  No amount of slider back-off was really helping. I was quite bummed out.  Well...on a hunch, I decided to defrag right there and then.  I did...not once, but three times in succession.  I then fired up P3D...and to my utter amazement, in PNW, with all sliders full out...blah, blah...I held 30 FPS on the ground at taxi, and then departed KORS and flew around the entire area for an hour...and stayed between 27-30 FPS!!!   I have stayed there, since. P3D is performing most excellently. I trying to suggest to everyone, that perhaps P3D really needs things nice and tidy on the hard drive of which it is installed,  perhaps more so than FSX, etc.  

 

So, if you experience less performance than you feel you should get with your equipment, perhaps try a defrag session, one to three times on the drive that holds P3D.  You might find that it picks up your FPS, like it did mine.  I have no other plausible explanation for suddenly getting my FPS performance back, but back, it is...and I am thrilled like a pig in you-know-what.....

 

Mitch

[mike2060 4]

I am getting awful framerates with all sliders turned back and a 780ti. Too bad P3D can't just work out of the box. Unfortunately FSX runs and looks better than P3D for me right now.

[eminyilmaz 17]

I am getting awful framerates with all sliders turned back and a 780ti. Too bad P3D can't just work out of the box. Unfortunately FSX runs and looks better than P3D for me right now.

 

Don't use vysnc. I don't know why but fps fluctuates a lot. I was using vsync and fps was jumping between 50, 25 and 16 (my refresh rate is 50hz). I had low performance and massive stuttering issue. Now, I just limited to fps 25fps without vsync, it still stutters but much better. I am using DylanM's settings which is quite high settings actually with almost everything enabled. See here http://forum.avsim.net/topic/441047-going-from-fsxdx10-to-p3dthe-difference-in-my-case/page-2

[spirit_66 2]

.......Well...on a hunch, I decided to defrag right there and then.  I did...not once, but three times in succession.  I then fired up P3D...and to my utter amazement, in PNW, with all sliders full out...blah, blah...I held 30 FPS on the ground at taxi, and then departed KORS and flew around the entire area for an hour...and stayed between 27-30 FPS!!!   I have stayed there, since. P3D is performing most excellently. I trying to suggest to everyone, that perhaps P3D really needs things nice and tidy on the hard drive of which it is installed,  perhaps more so than FSX, etc.  ....

Hi Mitch,

my recommendation is to change your HDDs to SSDs!

Spirit

[pmanhart 176]

I am getting awful framerates with all sliders turned back and a 780ti. Too bad P3D can't just work out of the box. Unfortunately FSX runs and looks better than P3D for me right now.

 

It sounds like you have a problem, as that's not the case with anyone else.

 

If you need help just let us know.

[Michael Moe 494]

I actually use both VSync and triple buffering with relativ good performance.

 

PNW KORS with water at ultra i have 55-62 fps with ASN and 3 cloud layers. This holds up to FSDT CYVR then fps drops to 30 and 20-25 on approach in the A36

 

Michael

[MikeT707 1,181]

It sounds like you have a problem, as that's not the case with anyone else.

 

If you need help just let us know.

 I agree with this.  With a 780, your system should be working extremely well.

[HUSSAR 263]

 

 

If you fly FSX, you need to run nVidia Inspector again, and save the custom driver dips. If you don't, you will still have all your settings for P3D.

 

Hi Mitch,

 

I don't think it matters because you are adding the application (fsx.exe or preapr3d.exe) to the FSX or P3D profile which are applied when you start either sim.  I don't think you have to go through the trouble of setting NI up each time you switch back and forth.

[saed45 38]

Great news....I didn't give up....and FPS are back to 30...with everything installed

 

What the h*ll happened, I do not know...but I did do three defrag runs in a row....and upon firing up P3D, in PNW....at KORS...I have 30 FPS!!!!!!   

 

So...I have no idea what happened, but obviously I had some sort of issue in the install.  Three defrag runs, seems to have clear it up...so, it appears that one can have the sim cranked, and STILL maintain 30 fps...which is my limit setting. 

 

This is great news...for I was yes...bummed out as my FPS kept dropping with each layer of install...

 

So as far as I am concerned....you need to now disregard my report of a 33 percent drop in FPS...as it obviously was the result of P3D getting indigestion per one of my installs....

 

Post Edit:  That did the trick...P3D needs serious DEFRAGGING, after scenery installs. I did three passes, one after another...and got my performance back. I have been flying all around KORS and the islands of PNW...and have kept 27-30 (locked) FPS all the time. Before the defrag runs, I was luck to get 19!

 

 

 

Mitch'er

 

question for you. i remember you were an xplaner and seen your glowing reviews about prepar3d 2.X

how do you feel as a person who went to another platform. compared to xplane what things do you miss if any.

 

thanks

[Gregg_Seipp 565]

This is good news...though, it's surprising it was solved by a defrag.  My investment in Orbx was one of the reasons I've sat on the sidelines.  Slowly but surely, the issues continue to be resolved.