So I abandoned FSX because I got tired of having to wrestle with it EVERY SINGLE FLIGHT.  With the ability to transfer my addons over with the migration tool I made the leap and I was happy for the most part.  I am currently just trying to find the sweet spot.   In some locations I get 30+ FPS with most everything maxed and World of AI traffic armed with 40% and 10% car traffic.    In other locations not so much.   This is a screen cap sitting at KDFW in Dallas (FSDreamTeam version) with performance graphics overlaid.

 

Can someone explain to me WHY for the love of all that is Holy I am getting 18 FPS when the GPU and CPU are twiddling their thumbs according to the performance graphs?   According to the graphs I have so much overhead left over I should be running @ 40 FPS with even more stuff turned on!   @_@    FSX did this too me as well only WORSE.  There is no excuse for this miserable performance (well I am sure there is an excuse somewhere).  I have watched videos from Froogle and others on YouTube and their Prepar3D is running like a bat out of hell with a lot of the sliders maxed, INCLUDING shadows.   Any insight into what is making my system go on strike would be appreciated.

 

Specs:

 

i7 3930k 6 core @ 3.8ghz HT On (12 cores total)

Asus GTX 770 OC II with 2 gigs of DDR5

32gigs G.Skill 1866mhz RAM 9-9-9-24

ASUS X79 Sabertooth OC Motherboard

10k RPM Velociraptor is my simulation drive

Win 7 Pro 64-bit

Corsair Liquid Cooler

 

Can someone explain to me WHY for the love of all that is Holy I am getting 18 FPS when the GPU and CPU are twiddling their thumbs according to the performance graphs?

 

The reason is you need to add the affinity mask line at the top of your p3d.cfg file for your cpu as I have 4 core 3770k I cant tell you what it should be but do a search and there will be an answer for you - thats it no other changes to you cfg file and you made a wise decision 

Edited August 10, 201411 yr by n4gix
Delete EXCESSIVE quote!

Both FSX and P3D rely on one CPU core to do the heavy lifting.

 

The other cores do useful work, like texture loading, but they do not produce the main rendering picture.

 

On your performance graph, you can see one core maxed out.. that is the way it works..

I am actually running the Affinity Mask with 12 cores running.    Core 0, 1 and 3 have been forced off but the others are in use now.   This spread the load slightly but didn't get me more than 1-2 FPS.    However....  I just found a tweak that did in fact help me gain 10 FPS back and it's something I would have never expected.   I stumbled upon it while pulling my hair out.  Someone actually DOWNCLOCKED their video card and got a massive boost.   I tried it out of despartion and I'll be damn if my FPS at KDFW didn't go from 25 FPS to 35 FPS.    I guess the Factory default overclock works wonders for modern games but is damaging to FSX/P3D's performance.

 

That being said, wouldn't it be great if we lived in a computer world where our favorite SIMS would actually use more than one core to it's fullest potential?   Ahhhhhh.. perhaps one day in the future.   Also, 64 bit would be nice.   I have 32gigs of RAM just sitting in here doing nothing when it comes to FSX/P3D.  XD

On your performance graph It looks to me like LP2 is being reduced in efficiency by work on LP3. You want to see next to nothing happening on LP3 if the main work is on LP2. It's possible the affinity has changed and the downclock did nothing. Instead I would arrange an AM to select LPs from alternate cores and retest.

On your performance graph It looks to me like LP2 is being reduced in efficiency by work on LP3. You want to see next to nothing happening on LP3 if the main work is on LP2. It's possible the affinity has changed and the downclock did nothing. Instead I would arrange an AM to select LPs from alternate cores and retest.

 

Exactly Steve there is an excellent thread here on how to do it - just not sure of link as its 3:30 am - yikes

...as its 3:30 am - yikes

 

Hey Rich, I find it's the best time of day  Keep well, speak later bro.

Hey Rich, I find it's the best time of day  Keep well, speak later bro.

 

Been hanging around you to long lol kidding take care my friend - lets get some Idealflight going in P3D  

Thnx for the mention Rich, yes would be good. Speak later.

LP2, LP3?    Is that short for Logical Core 2 and Logical Core 3?

Yes LP0 being the first. Generally referred to as 'logical processor', whereby cores can have a number of LPs, a CPU a number of cores.

Right.  So I have 6 Physical and 6 Logical cores.    Okay.... bedtime.   I am so close to perfecting this build for the smoothest simulation possible... then... I am going to add my preferred air liner.. and watch it all unravel... XD  lol.     Here's hoping iFly 737NG won't break the camel's back.   This is why I am trying so hard to get all the frames I can NOW before I add a complex aircraft that I know is going to eat 5-15 FPS.

I installed p3d thinking I'd get better perf than FSX - and I get worse even at default settings.

 

I assumed since it used more GPU I'd be better off...

 

I wish there was a guide on what settings to use for "slower" systems.

I think this is better.   Someone mentioned that P3D is hard to benchmark because it does not give consistent reporting and I found that.    I got 40FPS on one test and was like YES!   But I had to go and play around with the AM again and I can't get that 40 FPS to pop again under identical conditions.  I don't know what magic spot I found but I screwed it up and haven't been able to get 40 FPS back on the counter in over an hour of screwing around with just the AM and my hardware settings.    I have spread out the load quite a bit better now I think but there is a TON of overhead still.   Why won't P3D use the rest of my system resources?   ARGH!   Can my mainboard RAM be choking stuff if it's too slow?   My RAM is rated at 1866mhz but the system has it underclocked at 1333mhz... Is it because there is so much of it?    Is it possible that I have TOO much RAM and its forcing me to slow down the timing and MHZ on it to make the system stable with 32gigs?  What happens if I pull out 16gigs of RAM?  Would that potential help or hinder?

 

(This is my FPS sitting at FSDreamTeam's KDFW with ASNEXT weather running. ))

 

(This is my FPS sitting at FSDreamTeam's KDFW with ASNEXT weather running. ))

 

Here you go read carefully - this will solve your am choice - worked great for me - dont pull ram has nothing to do with it by the way I use NI so I would pay attention to how to get the ideal AM

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/444793-one-tweak-to-rule-them-all-how-to-set-affinity-mask-correctly/

Edited August 11, 201411 yr by n4gix
Removed excessive quote, again!