Clouds kill FPS in 2.3

[theskyisthelimit 48]

You should try 2.2 The performance there was much better I think...

I get better performance with 2.2 over 2.3. I also had better in 2.1.

 

2.3 from 2.2 whether fresh or upgrade is roughly a 10 fps drop in performance, at least for me.

 

Also certain saved flights perform better on a fresh reboot. After one run, close reopen I lose about 8 fps.

 

No tinkering of settings gives much of a boost either. Just depends largely on addons. Some us cities x ones are killers as well as new York city x (at 5760x1080, 780ti, 4930k with the CPU manually set for certain cores too)

[ginopatrassi 7]

I guess it's a matter of how clouds are rendered in p3d v2.3. I use medium cloud coverage and it is a problem if I find an overcast or bad weather situation. The worst situation is experienced when passing through clouds with a conservative anti alias too. My settings are no ssga, 4x antialias and 4x anisotropic.

Too many clouds textures are injected in the sky. This are my two cents.

I5 at 4.4

Gtx 760 4tb

8gb ram ddr3 1600

Win 7 64 bit

[Richard99_Photography 2]

Ciao (Hello) Gino.

I wonder if it is only a problem related to clouds and their shadows or not, I cannot understand.

Just moments ago I was flying nearby Houston with broken clouds @FL290 (cloud coverage Medium/High). Well, I got a lot of stutters, even with a quite good fps, so I tried to disable all shadows effects: nothing to do, dozens of continuative stutters.

So, putting shadows off cannot allow to fix the problem, IMHO.

[aheli 1]

If you need more meat on the bones i can confirm that i am having the same issues. Anything more than fair weather my FPS is cut in half. I am running GTX780 6 GB. SLI vs Single = no difference. 

[Nytro 29]

Thanks for your suggestion. Two questions rising up:

1. I cannot understand why such downgrade in terms of performance: we are asking for performance improvements, while we get worse.

2. v2.2 no more available for download (I guess)?

 

1. Yeah that's a good question, probably just to generate more money. Updates from a product give you more sells. You see it works, a lot of guys in the Prepar3D cheering up for v2.3 but they have no clue. Compared to FSX is 2.2 the only version who gives you the same fps with FSX + DX10 Fixer. 2.1 and 2.0 was ###### compared to FSX...

2.3 ###### everything without tweaks and tricks atm.

 

2. I don't know, I've saved the 2.2 Installer on my hard drive   I stick to 2.3 now and try to figure out if I can tweak it to get the same fps as in 2.2 and let you guys now.

[mike2060 4]

If you guys are running PrecisionX, MSI Afterburner, or one of the many other GPU tweaker programs, try turning up "Power Target" to the max it will go. In terms of my 780ti I can bring it up to 106% with the stock BIOS. This may solve stuttering while in clouds (when GPU is at 99%).

[Nytro 29]

Okay guys, looks like I found it. You have to set SSAA on 4x instead of 8x. This give me a huge fps boost from around 15 to 24 fps in my test scenario (Aerosoft Mega Airport BER Landing). Also you can should set your clouds on Medium, I can't see almost any difference between ULTRA and Medium and 4x vs 8x SSAA. It's way better to fly with 4x SSAA instead of using 8x MSAA! 2x SSAA gives almost nothing more fps, but a huge loss of quality...

 

If you need more fps in urban areas like KLAX or KJFK it's best to lower your autogen from Dense to Normal. That give you the hugest upgrade in FPS next.  If your FPS drop down at Approach in foggy weather, just set the clouds on Low.

 

Cloud Resolutions on max. in REX. Volumetric fog OFF!

[fulcrum_64th 9]

what is the difference between MSAA and SSAA ?

[Nytro 29]

what is the difference between MSAA and SSAA ?

 

I can't tell how exactly it works, but it depends on the game and engine. In some games MSAA looks better, in others SSAA. In general SSAA gives a huge impact on the fps. For Prepar3D SSAA is indispensable I think, it looks much better then MSAA.

[mike2060 4]

.

[ginopatrassi 7]

Well, the most interesting new things in prepar3d are the volumetric fog, cloud shadows, auto gen management ,HDR and dx11.

We do not have any addon natively developed for dx11. Also the new aerosoft Airbus a318/319 is made for fsx and no dx11 api has been used. Fsx-p3d v2.3 same files-fps hit

Coming from fsx there's no deal switching from it to prepar3d v2.3 if I have to disable all of the new things in order to have a good frame rate

[Nytro 29]

@ginopatrassi

 

You are completely right. I only switched to Prepar3D because I have an AMD Radeon HD 7950 Card. This doesn't work with DX10 Fixer in FSX ^^

 

But you can use Cloud Shadows on water only, that costs you only a few frames.

[Richard99_Photography 2]

I can't tell how exactly it works, but it depends on the game and engine. In some games MSAA looks better, in others SSAA. In general SSAA gives a huge impact on the fps. For Prepar3D SSAA is indispensable I think, it looks much better then MSAA.

 

Excuse me, but I cannot find any SSAA filter in P3D's menu, did you set it somewhere (e.g. nVidia Control Panel)?

 

 

Well, the most interesting new things in prepar3d are the volumetric fog, cloud shadows, auto gen management ,HDR and dx11.

We do not have any addon natively developed for dx11. Also the new aerosoft Airbus a318/319 is made for fsx and no dx11 api has been used. Fsx-p3d v2.3 same files-fps hit

Coming from fsx there's no deal switching from it to prepar3d v2.3 if I have to disable all of the new things in order to have a good frame rate

 

Gino focused the right point.

P3D V2 has introduced many interesting features, but it is ridiculous setting OFF most of them to get a good performance. I agree perfectly with him.

Compaired to V1.4 (now) there is no battle, about performance.

[Guest]

Okay guys, looks like I found it. You have to set SSAA on 4x instead of 8x. This give me a huge fps boost from around 15 to 24 fps in my test scenario (Aerosoft Mega Airport BER Landing). Also you can should set your clouds on Medium, I can't see almost any difference between ULTRA and Medium and 4x vs 8x SSAA. It's way better to fly with 4x SSAA instead of using 8x MSAA! 2x SSAA gives almost nothing more fps, but a huge loss of quality...

 

If you need more fps in urban areas like KLAX or KJFK it's best to lower your autogen from Dense to Normal. That give you the hugest upgrade in FPS next.  If your FPS drop down at Approach in foggy weather, just set the clouds on Low.

 

Cloud Resolutions on max. in REX. Volumetric fog OFF!

 

SSAA is a known fps performance killer. 8x is IMPOSSIBLE so no wonder you were getting low fps.  ^_^ Even 4x is too much, really. I fly without Inspector and hence without SSAA: yes, it sure doesn't look at good as it does with SSAA but I gladly pay that price for the huge performance improvement!

 

About the clouds: you mean the density slider? It depends on what weather engine you use, I think, but with ASN I see a huge difference between the various settings! When I get an overcast sky at the highest setting and move that slider to a lower setting, the day changes to an almost sunny day on my PC. A far better performance saver is to NOT set the cloud res at max in REX! It only makes things look less realistic imho.

 

 

Coming from fsx there's no deal switching from it to prepar3d v2.3 if I have to disable all of the new things in order to have a good frame rate

I simply depends on your PC. I have all the options you mentioned turned on and even have autogen at Extremely dense. Yes, performance can drop in 'heavy' places but again, that's also a price I gladly play for the beautiful graphics I get! (I luckily usually fly in rural/bush areas where fps usually is high.) On my previous PC I couldn't turn on volumetric fog and HDR but the pop free autogen alone was worth it anyway. It all depends on what options are important to you! 

[Christopher Low 5,352]

When you say "SSAA", are you talking about normal super sampling, or Sparse Grid super sampling?