A first glimpse at Prepar3d v2.3

[adi518 73]

I personally think in HDR mode the mid-day lighting is still too dark usually.

HDR is a pretty definition for something that is purely a contrast mod. They (LM) know how users like to use contrast mods, via external plugins like enb and sfx, so they added this thing, called it 'hdr' and that's it, it saves users from messing about with external add-ons. Now, since stock coloring in dx10/11 isn't as pale as dx9, there's essentially no need for this 'hdr' feature to be ON at all (that's the absurd!). Well, at least from my pure technical scrutinizing of it. What it does now, is causing another 'placebo', where people think their sim got better because they turned it ON. Well, remove it and you just got rid of another unnecessary, post-processing effect and the colors are great again (IMO). Oh, and if you really want a contrast mod, better off write your own shader (based off LM's SDK) or just use sfx.

 

As for water in P3D2, just ignore it for the time being. It's 1/4 baked. The waves are out of proportions, too flat & bland looking, no whitecaps etc'. When LM is done with it, I'm sure it will look amazing.

[alulekk 3]

Interesting point.

I will try HDR off for a while and see what I think.

Thanks.

[Guest]

 

 

Visuals are great but heaps of stutter even at 144 here.

 

Agree on the stutters, I get them with everything turned off or low ... I'm investigating and working with LM since they don't have the issue on their test PCs.  So there appears to be some environmental (as in hardware/software) differences ... trying to discover what that difference is and why it has this impact (not an easy task).

 

Cheers, Rob.

[alulekk 3]

Makes you wonder what LM is using/not using for test PC's since almost everyone around here reports varying degrees of stutter under basically all scenarios of settings.

[Arismac 10]

Hello Rob, 

Do you know if the SLI  is supported by the 2.3 ?

JM

I think there are quite a few of us very unofficially testing SLI. It is working very well and a big performance improvement.

 

Mac

[jabloomf1230 2,452]

 

 

When LM is done with it, I'm sure it will look amazing.

 

LM doesn't do much with it at all. It's all done by a 3rd party SDK called Triton, authored by the same company that created SkyMaxx for XP10:

 

http://sundog-soft.com/sds/features/ocean-and-water-rendering-with-triton/

 

LM keeps the SDK updated, so there are probably slight improvements from that and also they may be getting better at using the SDK.

[peppy197 165]

Makes you wonder what LM is using/not using for test PC's since almost everyone around here reports varying degrees of stutter under basically all scenarios of settings.

 

Which OS are they using

I found, contrary to everyone else's opinion, that there are less stutters in 8.1

 

There are stutters, they may be smaller tho

[alulekk 3]

Which OS are they using

I found, contrary to everyone else's opinion, that there are less stutters in 8.1

 

There are stutters, they may be smaller tho

I'm on 8.1

Plenty of stutters in lots of situations.

Can only imagine the frustration if it were actually *worse* when on Win 7 or something.  Yeeks.

[n4gix 4,968]

LM doesn't do much with it at all. It's all done by a 3rd party SDK called Triton, authored by the same company that created SkyMaxx for XP10:

Interesting, and oh how so very convenient for the L-M team, since both of them are located in Orlando, FL... :Thinking:

 

I had to watch closely while waiting for the "Customer" display to cycle through to "Lockheed Martin". They should have a static list available as well for faster reference. :hi:

[mgh 89]

Keep reading the thread...

 

This Oxbx post says

 

 

I wanted to see how the cloud shadows performed in the new P3DV2.3 beta

 

and

 

I didn't have any draw distance issues with 2.2. This is 2.3 beta so more changes to come, but what they have focused on is increasing performance, I can't say yet what they've done as it might change, but I was able to use the cloud shadows with very small impact on frames, so it's looking good.

 

Isn't that all about cloud shadows?

[DocBird 79]

Makes you wonder what LM is using/not using for test PC's since almost everyone around here reports varying degrees of stutter under basically all scenarios of settings.

 

Well, actually: Some (few) poeple here in the forums whine and complain about "stutters" while the big majority of users might not have that problem (or do not coplain) for whatever reason.

 

So it might be the worng approach to say they use the "good" systems so that they don't have to deal with this issue.

 

I (as an example) have them only very rarely (and have them also in other applications - so it might not even be application specific). Adaptive-Sync helped me a lot.

[alulekk 3]

Well, actually: Some (few) poeple here in the forums whine and complain about "stutters" while the big majority of users might not have that problem (or do not coplain) for whatever reason.

 

So it might be the worng approach to say they use the "good" systems so that they don't have to deal with this issue.

 

I (as an example) have them only very rarely (and have them also in other applications - so it might not even be application specific). Adaptive-Sync helped me a lot.

 

I personally wonder if those of us running far higher resolutions than you may get it more (I see you're on 1080p).

 

No matter how many are "whining" about it, there are *lots and lots* of reports of it.  Too many to dismiss as all just people complaining.  Even LM has admitted they are there and are a working issue.

[jabloomf1230 2,452]

Well, actually: Some (few) people here in the forums whine and complain about "stutters" while the big majority of users might not have that problem (or do not complain) for whatever reason.

 

I (as an example) have them only very rarely (and have them also in other applications - so it might not even be application specific). Adaptive-Sync helped me a lot.

I don't understand this either. But a possible reason for this is the variety of 3rd party add-ons (both supported and not) used with P3d, combined with the variety of hardware used. I also think that the amount of "fiddling" that some people do with IQ settings, video drivers and nVidia Inspector also contribute to the uneven nature of P3d performance.

[WarpD 824]

I've said it before... and apparently it tends to get lost... but stutters are caused by the type of display we use... not the software.

 

When we were using CRT devices for display... the physical device would retain a 'copy' of the image briefly which prevented us from seeing 'empty' or 'unmoving' images. For the same reason movies are at 24fps, CRTs would support lower frame rates rather easily without showing anything that one might call a stutter.

 

With an LCD... it's on or off and it's pretty much instantaneous. If the physical image isn't updating at exactly the same rate as the LCD surface... then there is going to be stutters. How much and how widespread etc... all depends on size of image and actual physical refresh rate.

 

You are complaining to L-M about a hardware issue that isn't their doing. You demand massive graphics capabilities with state-of-the-art rendering techniques (not fastest, rather bestest, prettiest). You demand maximum eye-candy and then when the hardware doesn't support it (it really can't)... you complain that L-M needs to fix it.

 

To have absolutely no stutters the software would have to render at exactly the same frequency that your LCD updates... most are 60hz, some are 50hz. So, you'd have to get rendering to sit at exactly that frame rate... not faster, not slower. Exactly. Of course... that's an impossibility. People run different resolutions, different number of displays per card, etc. It would be nigh impossible to ensure that all systems ran at exactly the same frame rate as the LCD refresh under all conditions and settings.

 

Yet... that's what you demand.

[alulekk 3]

 

 

If the physical image isn't updating at exactly the same rate as the LCD surface... then there is going to be stutters.

 

Fair enough - But how does X-Plane accomplish it?

 

I get FPS all over the place in that sim and as long as it's not below about 23 (for me) it's always super smooth.