I found no increase at least in FPS (initial paused fps) by making this cloud.fx change with my sample saved flight (before/after were the same)..   The only line i commented out was the one single line.. this is correct right?  There may be a smoothness increase, ill have to examine that later..

Yes, just change the line: #define VOLUMIZE

to: //#define VOLUMIZE

 

You did also delete your Shades folder, right?

Sounds good! The performance on my PC is great as it is but if this helps even a little, I will also use this trick. I doubt if anyone could notice the difference this new option brought us...?

For me, this fix mainly reduced the stuttering for me (that increased after v.2.3). Overall, I'm happy with the way P3D runs on my system.

 

I didn't notice any difference at all in the appearance of clouds since making the edit (but I'm using ASN).

Riccardo,

 

The best way to enjoy a flight simulator if you are having problems is to ask questions and not make ridiculous uneducated and ignorant comments that have no useful meaning and certainly don't encourage people to want to help.  We don't get paid to help you and life owes you NOTHING, if you come in with a good attitude, then you are likely to get better results.

 

1.  SGSS AA (even at 2X) will have very poor performance with clouds, SGSS AA is not something LM control, you are forcing an AA across the entire frame ... everything, so particle systems with 1000's small particles/objects will suffer, volumetric clouds will suffer, A2A Cherokee smoke effects will suffer -- SGSS AA will override any AA flags set in D3D11

 

2.  SS AA will also induce a heavy performance penalty

 

3.  It seems DXT5 clouds have a huge performance penalty also, I'm not exactly sure why, so stick with 32bit clouds

 

4.  If you use REX 4 ... cloud type selection can also impact performance, you'll just have to experiment here

 

5.  P3D currently doesn't have any GPU profile driver support from nVidia (or AMD for that matter) ... in fact nVidia's latest drivers have broken P3D, so lets wait and see what happens, perhaps contact nVidia or AMD and make your voice heard ... do it politely as you are more likely to be listened too otherwise if you come with a bad attitude will be ignored. 

 

6.  Keep your cloud density at Medium settings.

 

7.  If you use weather engines keep your cloud layers to 2 or 3 max.

 

8.  FXAA and MSAA are better options if you have shimmers and/or sparkles from smaller objects.

 

9.  Clouds did get some visual improvements in v2.3 making them more realistic, especially FOG. 

 

SGSS AA looks the best but regardless of software (game or sim), SGSS AA will have a very negative impact on performance when running clouds or anything with particles (smoke, etc.).

 

Cheers, Rob.

Everyone need to complain to LM so they finally flag SGSS out of cloud textures, then your fps will be as good as fsx if not 2x better.

 

Again, this is just LM not flagging SGSS out of the cloud rendering.

I've just finished an extended test flight using the volumize tweak and can confirm that cloud-related stutters are pretty much cured.  I noted some dips on the frame-rate counter but they were extremely transient (less than a second) and for me, subjectively, didn't translate into microstutters.  The overall experience was extremely smooth.  So for me at least, this is the answer and 2.3 is now delivering on its promise.  Obviously there's no guarantee it'll work as well on other systems but it's certainly worth a try.

Yes, just change the line: #define VOLUMIZE

to: //#define VOLUMIZE

 

You did also delete your Shades folder, right?

 

.

 

Yeah.. i deleted the shaders folder under appdata\local\lockheed martin\prepar3d v2

 

3.  It seems DXT5 clouds have a huge performance penalty also, I'm not exactly sure why, so stick with 32bit clouds

 

4.  If you use REX 4 ... cloud type selection can also impact performance, you'll just have to experiment here

 

 

 

I have always read that DXT5 should perform better.. i'm assuming you've swapped back and forth and found this to be the reverse.. if so.. curious why it might be?

 

Do you use random weather type generation with Rex 4 or a specific cloud set/theme.. which types have you found work best (but at a cost of appearance/realism maybe?)..

Again, this is just LM not flagging SGSS out of the cloud rendering.

 

No, it's not that simple, if it were LM would have done it a long time ago.  D3D10 and D3D9 are not the same as D3D11 - and yes I've had a discussion with Beau Hollis regarding this very topic and the details are much more complex than you think and I'm not sure I'm allowed to share.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

I have always read that DXT5 should perform better.. i'm assuming you've swapped back and forth and found this to be the reverse.. if so.. curious why it might be?

 

Yes, I have gone back and forth ... I don't know why my REX DXT5 option isn't working well on the performance front ... perhaps it's a nVidia driver issue but I don't know, I only know what works and doesn't work for my system.

 

 

 

Do you use random weather type generation with Rex 4 or a specific cloud set/theme.. which types have you found work best (but at a cost of appearance/realism maybe?)

 

No, I use a theme set, but Clouds set 1 (high and low) works well, but you'll just have to experiment, I haven't tried them all ... I tend to avoid the "stratus" cloud sets as they seem to be the source of spinners.  If you have a option to tell you Weather Engine to NOT use stratus clouds I would ... I think PILOT's product lets you control stratus cloud usage, but it's always a trade off as cumulus clouds tend to have more of a performance impact.

 

Right now I'm using ASN for a weather engine when I'm not doing my own weather.

 

Cheers, Rob.

This Volumize edit really helped me out. I had such a disappointing experience yesterday with the AXE in heavy ASN weather, FPS dropping to the low teens. I tried changing settings; turning off cloud shadows, different autogen settings, but nothing really did seem to help. I've just tried the VOLUMIZE edit and my FPS never went below low twenties the exact same scenario as yesterday, and that on max settings (excep shadow quality at low). 

I agree.. they must find a solution though. MSAA alone isn't enough.

. MSAA alone isn't enough.

I second, especially if you have orbx global. Bridges and light poles shimmer bad.

 

 

3.  It seems DXT5 clouds have a huge performance penalty also, I'm not exactly sure why, so stick with 32bit clouds

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GPU have to decompress the DXT5  cloud files first, hence adding to the computational load?

FSX can not do antialiasing in windowed mode worth beans.

 

Ummm... I have beautiful AA with FSX in windowed mode.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the GPU have to decompress the DXT5  cloud files first, hence adding to the computational load?

 

Yes, but the GPU is fastest place to do this, definitely don't want the CPU doing it.  But in P3D's case it's as if the GPU isn't doing the work for DXT5 decompression and the CPU ends up doing the work which is why I think we're seeing such a drop in FPS?  I have no idea why this would be the case ... an LM issue, a nVidia driver issue, I just don't know?  But I do know that I'll take a 60% FPS hit when using DXT5 on clouds while flying thru or close to them that I don't suffer when using 32bit.

 

For those not familiar with various texture compression here is a really good article on it and written in a way that I think non-techs can get a general idea: http://www.reedbeta.com/blog/2012/02/12/understanding-bcn-texture-compression-formats/

 

BC6H and BC7 are the best formats and D3D11 exclusive, but try finding any graphics software that will compress to those formats??  I have no idea if P3D will work with them ... "I think" they will but you need to set the DDS with D3D10 flag and then the GPU will do the work.  BUT -- and this is a big BUT -- I don't know if P3D code needs to be changed to support such a compression format ... the format is intended for HDR so one would think it's the compression to use ... but information is sparse and seems hit and miss in implementation and requires Shader 4.0 or higher (but any DX10 supported card or higher should have this) -- DX11 is shader 5.0.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Hey Rob, have you pointed out your DXT5 vs 32BIT observation to LM or REX? Wonder if it'll trigger an "a-ha" moment for either of them...

Well, I did this sequentially with 2.3 and got back to the performance that I had in 2.2:

 

1) Disabled HDR - this made a little bit of difference in heavy weather conditions... nothing new.

2) Made the volumetric cloud shader fix - this improved performance almost back to 2.2 levels.

3) Put the REX clouds at 512 and 32 bit. - all three together boosted everything back roughly to 2.2.

 

 

 

"Yes, but the GPU is fastest place to do this, definitely don't want the CPU doing it."

 

I have to look this up, but I believe the nVidia decompression algorithms are built into CUDA. I suppose that it's possible to disable that, read the file directly and decompress it with a custom routine:

 

http://www.matejtomcik.com/Public/KnowHow/DXTDecompression/

 

But it seems like a lot of work for not much gain.

"VOLUMIZE " edit dose nothing on my end so removed it - I was not having any issues to begin with so maybe thats why - anyone else finding that this edit does nothing ?