Clouds/HDR affecting FPS

[molleh 451]

I'm not even using HDR. And in FSX, I can fly through the thickest cloud cover you can imagine at 40+ fps without a single frame drop, all with 32xS antialiasing...

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Opus only injects weather at fairly long intervals (60 minutes or 160 km) by default. It's not the injection that kills performance, it's the realistic weather. You are generally getting 3 cloud layers, plus turbulence, wind effects and precipitation. Add P3d's volumetric fog and you have enough to kill frame rates on the best systems out there, when flying in high overcast conditions.

 

In ASN (which should be updated for P3d 2.3 by next week some time) you can control the number of cloud layers, but then the weather may not be realistic if you set the maximum number to only 1 or 2.

 

My suggestion is to reduce both cloud draw distance and cloud density from within the P3d2 UI. You could also use REX 4 Texture Direct and set the cloud textures to 512 instead of 1024. Other possibilities are either to turn cloud shadows off or change these variables in Prepar3d.cfg to:

[GRAPHICS]
...
GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512
CLOUD_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

Experiment and see what works best on your system.

[Alan_A 1,650]

My suggestion is to reduce both cloud draw distance and cloud density from within the P3d2 UI. You could also use REX 4 Texture Direct and set the cloud textures to 512 instead of 1024. Other possibilities are either to turn cloud shadows off or change these variables in Prepar3d.cfg to:

[GRAPHICS]

...

GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

CLOUD_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

Experiment and see what works best on your system.

 

That's the only solution that works for me.  I keep cloud coverage density at medium and cloud draw distance at 80 miles.  I can manage a little more than that if the weather isn't too cloudy to begin with, but in anything from "mostly cloudy" on up, the frames grind down and the stutters set in.  I also use low-res REX4 clouds (they look more realistic to me) and I've applied the shadow texture size tweak.

 

In 2.2, the heaviest performance hit I took was with ASN, with Opus a close second.  I got my best results with FS Global Real Weather, I think because it doesn't use cumulus to render stratus.  Maybe for that reason, its cloud coverage looked heavier even at medium density.  ASN tended to give me rainstorms under sunny skies, but for me the tradeoff in realism was worth it to gain back performance.  

 

Since neither ASN nor FSGRW works with 2.3, I'm hanging in with Opus at the moment.

 

My system specs are in my profile.  Highlights: i7 3770k @ 4.8 MHz (delidded and water-cooled), 8 megs GSkill 2400 DDR RAM, EVGA 780ti Hydrocopper.  Autogen sliders at normal, MyTraffic at 15 percent, Water Ultra, cockpit, building and cloud shadows on, shadow quality medium.  In all not a bad system and (I think) sane sliders, but clouds need very careful handling.

[ryanbatc 12,814]

Alright at least I know it's not just me....  like most still fiddling my way around P3D.

[Skywolf 992]

 

 

[GRAPHICS] ... GROUND_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512 CLOUD_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

 

Wow, - I never knew about that tweak.  My clouds were already set to 512 (along with Rex4 512 clouds)...but ground shadow texture was set at 2048.  Changed it to 512

 

Thanks

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Wow, - I never knew about that tweak.  My clouds were already set to 512 (along with Rex4 512 clouds)...but ground shadow texture was set at 2048.  Changed it to 512

 

Thanks

 

This is great not sure if it will make difference but thinking 2048 is probably that for a reason - hope not as this would be a nice edit

[spearmint_flyer 579]

Very interesting. I am going to try changing the texture size today because in FSX that is what I have 512 for cloud textures and it really boosted my FPS back in the day.

[Don Quixote 76]

I've also noticed a significant performance loss in 2.3 when flying through or just looking at clouds, both with and without HDR. I've mostly used FSGRW in 2.2 with almost zero fps drop. Now since many weather tools don't work with 2.3 I've switched to default weather for a while and that's when the performance issues occured. Interestingly, I've now used Ideal Flight 10's weather engine for a while and had no fps issues at all - possibly because the weather depiction is fairly simple without much stratus.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

I've also noticed a significant performance loss in 2.3 when flying through or just looking at clouds, both with and without HDR. I've mostly used FSGRW in 2.2 with almost zero fps drop. Now since many weather tools don't work with 2.3 I've switched to default weather for a while and that's when the performance issues occured. Interestingly, I've now used Ideal Flight 10's weather engine for a while and had no fps issues at all - possibly because the weather depiction is fairly simple without much stratus.

 

Your using Idealflight in P3D 2.3 ? are you using all its features - I know Steve has not started any work in IF for P3D

[Don Quixote 76]

I've been using IF10 for a while now in 2.2, and as far as I can tell everything is working as it should - except that you can't start a flight from the IF10 screen, but instead have to load the flight in P3D and then click the "start from menu" button in IF10. Otherwise, everything seems to work: Flight plan creation, flight evaluation, weather, etc. Even importing flight plans into the Majestic Dash 8 FMC is possible.

I have only made four flights with IF10 in 2.3, so I can't say for sure, but so far I've not encountered any problems.

Note that I'm using a beta version (10.011 sg17) which can be found in the IF10 forums. However, the previous release version worked fine too.

[FLAPS15 8]

Yes disappointing all this fps hit with clouds.

 

Just like the rest of you I am also taking a hit and that is with default clouds just try running the theme thunderstorms.....

 

I thought this release was all about performance improvements from LM? I have only just got onto the p3d bandwagon, but sorry to say FSX runs fine with heavy clouds with ASN or Opus.....do I even keep p3d.......as I have not even installed any decent aircraft or scenery

 

Back to the settings page again!!!

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

I've been using IF10 for a while now in 2.2, and as far as I can tell everything is working as it should - except that you can't start a flight from the IF10 screen, but instead have to load the flight in P3D and then click the "start from menu" button in IF10. Otherwise, everything seems to work: Flight plan creation, flight evaluation, weather, etc. Even importing flight plans into the Majestic Dash 8 FMC is possible.

I have only made four flights with IF10 in 2.3, so I can't say for sure, but so far I've not encountered any problems.

Note that I'm using a beta version (10.011 sg17) which can be found in the IF10 forums. However, the previous release version worked fine too.

Thanks for the info - sounds interesting IF flight planning is excellent 

[Taver 57]

I have an AMD R9 290 running 5760x1080. I too had problems in clouds until I figured out a few settings.

 

I have max clouds and max could distance.

Shadows on low and set to 40,000.

FXAA is ON

MSAA is None

Texture Filtering is Trilinear. (this is the setting that made the biggest difference.)

Texture Resolution is Ultra 4096x4096

HDR is on

Flare is on

 

I have REX4 Texture Direct installed with all clouds set to 2048x2048.

 

Now I get on average 22FPS flying through the clouds in ORBX Weather 1 theme. (Thunderstorms)

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

Since neither ASN nor FSGRW works with 2.3, I'm hanging in with Opus at the moment.

 

 

Me too. I'm guessing that FSGRW is looking for the wrong version of SimConnect. ASN injects weather in such a way that every time that LM tinkers with P3d, Hifi's novel approach to weather injection gets borked. Have you tried OpusFSI, which is available in open beta to OpusFSX users? It has a number of new features, including enhanced weather maps.

[Slayer 190]

Me too. I'm guessing that FSGRW is looking for the wrong version of SimConnect. ASN injects weather in such a way that every time that LM tinkers with P3d, Hifi's novel approach to weather injection gets borked. Have you tried OpusFSI, which is available in open beta to OpusFSX users? It has a number of new features, including enhanced weather maps.

 

You can install the  the FSX SP2 simconnect located in the your p3d/redist folder for compatibility with older stuff that needs it. Even with FSX every time they made an update a new simconnect .msi was required to be installed. This is no different.

 

Hifi directly connects possibly through lvars or hooks directly into the program so they have to compile a new version every time P3D changes.....FSX never changes....it's code is frozen in time which sometimes is a good thing and sometimes a bad thing.

 

Are all you  guys using REX for sky textures? They just came out with a service pack today that mentioned HDR but I've been working and haven't had a chance to try it out.

 

In my experience so far with P3D the shadow quality is a big performance hit...when you use 3 (surround)screens the effects of setting changes can really be seen performance wise. Weather engines just seem to amplify the effect ( but aren't really the cause) because you get more layers of clouds and thus are pushing the the shaders even harder medium or low for me on 3 screens ...even with a Titan.