A Couple Of Days In

[gfd 15]

Greetings

 

I am here to further abuse your good nature.

 

I have removed FSX from my machine. That's it...that's all. I have a couple of issues with P3D and perhaps I could get some coaching.

 

-I don't seem to be able to achieve the same performance in P3D as I did in FSX.

-the stuttering seems worse than FSX.

-I can't seem to get a handle on the simmering. I realize that there are graphics issues that are being addressed. So perhaps I'll just have to live with it for now. With my current performance, I wouldn't want to be messing with sparse grid sampling.

-I was going to whine about the AI strobes, taxi and landing lights. However, Rob mentioned they'd been fixed for 2.3. Hooray!

 

-biggest problem is AI. I migrated MyTraffic X 5.4b from FSX. P3D started to crash while loading the default flight. Furthermore, my FPS are being reduced by 8-10 when I have MyTraffic activated. I have set it up as the FSX Ultralight at Friday Harbor. I deactivated MyTraffic and all was well. I enabled MyTraffic and disabled all addon scenery.I then activated it one group at a time. FSDT/Flightbeam were OK. So were FlyTampa, LHS and Taxi2Gate. Ultimate Mesh...OK. FTX Vector...OK. I then activated Orbx Pacific Northwest and P3D crashed again while loading the flight in Friday Harbor, which is within the bounds of PNW.

 

Can anyone give me any pointers on how to deal with the AI issue? I don't want to remove any scenery. However, it's not much use if I can't load a flight. I would be willing to try another package, I see some of you guys are using UT2. I'd be willing to make the switch, but not if the improvement is marginal. Improvement could be better performance and/or stability when I have Orbx regions installed.

 

As far as performance goes, you have access to my specs and software setup. You'll note that my CPU is set at 4.4Ghz. I didn't do too well in the silicone lottery  :angry:  I have also posted my config file, scenery config, dll.xml, exe.xml and my Nvidia Inspector settings. Any advice would be welcome.

 

I plan to upgrade my CPU (again?!?!?) and either get another 780 in SLI (assuming a profile is coming), or go for an 880 when it becomes available. Perhaps a Titan. But that would be a major, major investment. Probably too rich on top of a CPU, motherboard, memory and G-Sync monitor.

 

This is a lot of hand holding and I must express my appreciation for any guidance, in advance.

 

Here's the link to the data in my shared OneDrive folder http://1drv.ms/1q7fixY

 

 

Thanks,

Graham

 

 

 

[gfd 15]

Bump. Just checking to see if the post was alive.

[William J.S.S 173]

Ok. One of the things I may be able to help with is the performance.

I too quit FSX after almost putting my fist through my monitor after the CTDs and OOMs.

 

When I went to P3D, it took me a long while to figure out, that the performance issue is a weird one, but mostly can be fixed....

 

What I came to understand, performance wise, is that I got lower frames, yet smoother flights. Win in my book.

 

Autogen, and everything you know about it from FSX, throw it out the window. The biggest jump I got was from doing 2 things.

 

I set autogen to Normal...this is just like Very Dense in FSX.

Mesh to 5m, and turn down the cloud shadow distance to like 30.

 

I run steady at 28-30 with frames locked at 30 in sim. Larger airports like JFK and BOS I go down to 23-25, but it is SMOOTH!

 

I would try those settings first. Also, ditch any cfg. tweaks you have.

 

Also, affinity mask settings in Trash Manager will need to be played with by you to see what is best for your system. 

 

My i7-2600k, with HT on I run all cores checked except core 1. I get very smooth flights, no blurries, no CTD no OOMs.

 

Start small, but please forget all you know about getting FSX to run smooth. Vanilla settings are best for P3D

[zmak 331]

you have a great system! and the best joystick . look for FSforce software for your stick.

Regarding P3D  and AI why don't you try World of AI? its free and the models are stunning. You can test it easy by choosing an airport from the home page and then adding a few airlines via their installer and see how you go

 

http://www.world-of-ai.com/packages.php

 

edit

Had a look ,doesn't say P3d but might still work

[Clutch Cargo 384]

You may have some non-compatible AI models causing your crash.  It becomes a "hunt" testing various situations to find the culprit.  If you think it is an AI model(s) causing issues I would:

 

1. Pick a location with lots of AI aircraft displayed. 

2. Try the flight first with no AI activated to see all is OK.  That way you have a basiline to make sure P3D is running properly in the first place.

3. Now load all AI, 

4. If a crash happens, divide the number of AI models by 50% by literally moving the models to a temporary folder.  (make backups of you models before you start moving stuff around to cover your bases).

5.  Try loading again - if still crashes reduce the number again by 50% and continue this until P3D loads correctly.

6. When there is no crash, the non-compatible model may be in the last group of models you moved offline and you may be able to then just take that group and test it separately until you find it.  Again, using the "divide-and-conquer" routine.

 

This can take awhile to perform this as not every incompatible model will be at the airport you are currently at.  It may take visiting different airports over a period of weeks of flying.

 

Hope that helps.

 

Clutch

[Baylorguy 39]

I have had P3D for awhile.  It was running smoothly for awhile and then once I tried to install My Traffic 5.4c I started getting .NET crashes.  Had to hunt for awhile but after checking the windows event log it turns out my numerous .NET errors were being  caused by the my traffic package.  I quickly uninstalled it and then bought UT2, which requires zero modifications if installed through the EMT.  I can now turn up more traffic with less of a performance hit and P3D is exceptionally stable... and no annoying .NET crashes yet.

 

I will say that others seem to have gotten my traffic working with zero problems... but for me I would rather have working traffic package that requires minimal tinkering.  I think the poster above is correct... there is an AI matching issue. 

 

Stick with it... once you get things sorted out it is a wonderful sim.

[gfd 15]

William, Zoran, Clutch, Phil. Thank you all for your replies.

 

I seem to have gotten the AI sorted out. I rolled back to a time before installing mytraffic x. Reinstalled 5.4c using the Estonia Migration Tool. No longer any stability issues and can use the communicator interface through EMT. Frame rates take a beating though. I realize frames not as important as in FSX, but I seem to be losing 8-10 with AI on. How about UT2 and performance? Might give it a try. AI currently set at 40%.

 

I've used FS Force since day 1. Great piece of software, eh?

 

I will make the adjustments to autogen, affinity mask, mesh and cloud shadows; and check the result.

 

I must say that this beats FSX by a mile and will only get better. I understand the graphics quality will have to wait for LM and Nvidia to produce a profile. Didn't realize it was so involved.

 

Will report back with my results.

 

Thanks,

Graham

[niyoko 7]

Start small, but please forget all you know about getting FSX to run smooth. Vanilla settings are best for P3D

I second this about the settings in Prepar3D being not 1-to-1 with FSX's entirely. I've recently reset my settings back to default and I'm back up to a steady and smooth 30fps. I'm happy at 20, but 30 is nice.

 

I noticed that the default settings had the cloud shadow slider all the way up to 80,000m. I thought this was a bad idea, but I'm going to leave it there for now. The fps I'm getting it fine, and I saw Rob in another thread mention that he saw better fps when he raw at 80km then at 30km of cloud shadow distance. It seems a bit counter intuitive by the numbers. Although it seems to work OK so far.

Edited August 6, 2014 by n4gix
Removed excessive quote!

[gfd 15]

Am in the process of installing 2.3 from scratch. Will report back.

 

Thanks

Graham