My experience with ASN/P3D v2 is that an active and connected ASN will always override any weather theme settings. It looks like that this behavior is still the same with the ASN SP1 as before.

Spirit

As mentioned it's completely irrelevant what the Weather menu says in FSX/P3D, if ASN is running and the AS-Connect module is installed and working properly (i.e. you get no error warnings from ASN) then ASN has full control over the weather. Saving a different weather setting with a default flight has no influence over ASN's ability to control the weather. The only thing you may see is the weather morphing from what was saved with the default flight, to what ASN is injecting after loading it, but only if you start ASN after the sim has already loaded to a flight. You should be starting ASN first anyway to avoid that scenario.

 

Hifi Beta Tester.

Then I don't understand the problem/solution of the OP.

 

Harry

It was most likely a coincidental transient issue with performance on his PC, there are a million and one things that can cause temporary performance problems.

I'm not a software expert, I cant tell you what is happening in the software, only what I see happening on the monitors.

Some time ago I read in a post or an article that for use with external weather engine the internal weather has to be set to clear weather, so I always did this and because everything was working properly, I never thought about it.

 

ASN was injecting the right weather and all ASN functions worked properly, there was no problem there, only the very low FPS. So from what I was used to do, from the article I read, I changed the setting to clear weather when I saw it was set to something else and that solved the problem...

The FPS immediately went back up to around 25 and changing the setting back to user defined made the FPS drop again. If I would have more information I'd be happy to tell you, but my expertise doesnt go any further, I'm afraid.

Hi,

 

In fsx/p3d the "user defined weather" means that the weather info is first stored in each station and then internally the sim converts the station data to the final depiction using the internal "grid system". 

 

In theme mode (which ASN uses), the data are directly written to the "grid system". When switching from user defined to theme mode, in theory all the station data should be cleared (as is done in fsx) and then recalculated from the grid data. This may not work ok in P3D (I remember a similar issue a year ago when testing with v 1.4- In that case the p3d theme could not be loaded at all). 

 

These "station left-overs" may be in conflict with the grid data, reducing performance. I am not sure, so I can only speculate about this. 

 

You could do a simple test without ASN (or any engine running) where you could test this by switching in P3D from user defined to theme mode (just load a standard theme file, with similar conditions to the user defined weather set previously). If the performance drop is significant, then may be we should report that to LM.

 

Another possibility is this to be related only to the default flight and some things, when initialized on P3D startup, fail to clean properly. Not sure.

 

In any case, I find this very interesting (and I want to thank Maarten for this valuable observation).

ASN was injecting the right weather and all ASN functions worked properly, there was no problem there, only the very low FPS. So from what I was used to do, from the article I read, I changed the setting to clear weather when I saw it was set to something else and that solved the problem...

The FPS immediately went back up to around 25 and changing the setting back to user defined made the FPS drop again. If I would have more information I'd be happy to tell you, but my expertise doesnt go any further, I'm afraid.

 

This is really interesting - thanks for posting Maarten. I have exactly the same issue. In V2.2 the performance in ASN generated weather was ok but in V2.3 my sim grinds to a virtual halt with fps between 10-25 (with volumetric fog UNTICKED. With it ticked I am getting under 10fps!).

 

I shall try what you did on my P3D tonight and see if I get similar improvements to you

 

Everyone keeps saying ASN takes control of weather in P3D but I can change the cloud coverage using the slider in P3D weather settings even with ASN injecting weather. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

Adam

......

 

Everyone keeps saying ASN takes control of weather in P3D but I can change the cloud coverage using the slider in P3D weather settings even with ASN injecting weather. Has anyone else noticed this?......

Hi Adam,

isn't this normal behavior? ASN does the weather but who draws the clouds?

Spirit

Hope this may be of help. I noticed my default flight begins Selected Weather: 'User-defined', changes to 'Weather Themes' after ASN injects weather, the resulting frame rate is very poor, and GPU utilization is 99%. If I change back to Selected Weather: 'User-defined' using P3Ds /World/Weather menu items anytime after ASN injects weather, then the resulting frame rate is immediately much improved and GPU utilization drops to 35%. ASN's Conditions, Station:, Edit WX, menu items and Load Preset button were used to inject Instrument Conditions.ast weather conditions applied globally during testing.

Look for something else on your system. My frames are pretty much consistent throughout a flight. Some degradation of fps will occur in heavy cloud coverage over densely populated areas but not bad. Manually changing the weather settings in flight doesn't seem like a good idea and might cause issues.

 

Vic

HI

 

Posting this in case it helps. When the P3D ASN beta first came out, I was testing it out in a fully overcast situation, and frame rates dropped to the teens, even with cloud density set to "Medium" in P3D.

 

Working carefully through my settings I noticed that I had cloud draw distance in P3D set to 80 Miles, but in ASN I had set cloud options / maximum cloud draw distance to 90 Miles and minimum cloud draw distance to 70 miles.

 

I soon as I set the max cloud draw distance in ASN to MATCH the max cloud draw distance in P3D (80 miles, makes sense; why allow ASN to depict clouds further out that you are allowing P3D to draw, and min cloud distance set to 60), my frame rates jumped 10-15fps, and I was back in upper 20s-30s (happy, given the detailed airport I was at and the thick overcast). And the clouds then extended all the way to the horizon, whereas before I could see where they ended, creating a clear band along the horizon.

 

So maybe check that the cloud max cloud draw distance you set in P3D and ASN match, and see if that makes a difference on your setup. Makes sense to me as if ASN is sending more cloud stuff to P3D than you are allowing it to handle, some extra work has to go on in P3D to filter out the extra cloud?

 

Rob

I did two tests yesterday, Firs the difference between User Defined weather and weather themes and with comparable weather the FPS stays around the same.

I used the grey and rainy theme against a User Defined setting with: Overcast, moderate, 10mi, light. Which looked about the same to me and both run about 30FPS.

 

The second test I did was trying to recreate what happened the first time, which wasnt as easy as switching back to User Defined with ASN running, as it happened right after I got it fixed the first time.

To recreate it I had to uninstall ASN and setup my sim as I had it before I installed ASN first time, saved User Defined weather to my default flight again (I'm using the scenarion screen at startup, maybe that has something to do with it...) restarted the pc and installed ASN again. And behold, I got the same drop in FPS.

Also the fix wasnt as easy as I hoped, my first try to just switch from User Defined to Cleak Skies theme didnt do the trick and I had to play around with turning off and on several settings before this trick worked again. I had to play around with Cloud Shadows, cloud reflection and Cloud Draw Distance in P3D and tried different combination until at some point I had Cloud draw Distance set at 70, with ASN at 79/80, Cloud reflection back on and then changed from User Defined to Clear Skies theme I got my FPS back. Then I could turn Cloud Shadows back on with just a slight FPS drop and everything stabilized again. This took me almost two hours playing around with different combination of settings...

 

It seems to me like it's a combination of several settings, maybe with the my combination of hardware and software, and not something that is bound to one single setting.

 

Here's my complete setup, maybe someone recognizes anything in the components with what's happening.

 

Asus Z87-k

i7-4770k

Corsair Vengeance XML Blue 2x 4GBDDR3-2133

Kingston SV300S3 (Windows)

Kingston SVP200S (P3D)

Western Digital WD5000AAJS (other FS programs)

MSI Geforce GTX770 4GB

 

P3D 2.3

REX4 DT SP3

FSG2010 for FTX

FTX Global/Vector/OCL (plus FTXG freeware airports)

ASNext SP1

Milviz 737-200

Majestic Q400

Carenado C337, B1900D, C152, C172, B58, V35B, C90B

Mindstar GNS 430/530

FSUIPC 4.934f

SPAD 0.5.0

(Plan-G is on the same computer, but not active when P3D is running)

 

Saitek Pro Flight Yoke, Rudder, Trim Wheel, 2x Radio, Switch and Multi panel

CH throttle quadrant

VRInsight T&T

 

If you like me to do any more tests, just let me know.

I just tested what Rob said and set ASN minimum draw distance to 60 and maximum draw distance to 80 and P3D draw distance to 80, but on my system I see P3D's draw distance get pushed back to the minimum draw distance in ASN, in this case 60.

 

I notice that P3D's draw distance it pushed back to a round number in tenfold, at or below the minimum draw distance from ASN... If I set ASN to 79/80 and P3D to 80, close the menu and open it again, P3D has changed to 70, or with ASN set to 60/80 (as Rob's example) and set P3D to 80, close and open the menu, P3D's draw distance is set to 60.

 

Starting to think it might well be a bug in my system, somewhere...

Why not setting ASN cloud draw distance min/max the same at 90 msi and also in P3D v2 to 90 msi?

Spirit

 

PS: You know that there's now the new FSUIPC4.936 available?

I've kept my draw distance settings low so far, because of performance, but looking at the figures, it will go up once I'm done testing for this issue.

 

I know the new FSUIPC is out, but also because I'm testing for this problem I wanted to keep system exactly the same as it was when the problem occurred. I already have it downloaded and it's ready for install.

 

But thanks for the HU.

If I set ASN to 79/80 and P3D to 80, close the menu and open it again, P3D has changed to 70, or with ASN set to 60/80 (as Rob's example) and set P3D to 80, close and open the menu, P3D's draw distance is set to 60.

 

 

 

Starting to think it might well be a bug in my system, somewhere...

 

Guess we must also consider that ASN SP1 is also still Beta. Maybe its a bug in the beta, as it should really leave the P3D max draw distance as set, and certainly not reset it to ASN's min cloud draw distance.

 

Rob

 

Edit: Just had a thought. The min/max settings in ASN are supposed to help adjust performance, so ASN will choose what is best between those tow settings according to current cloud cover so as to preserve performance. Perhaps its cutting the P3D max cloud draw distance down dynamically because its a heavy cloud cover situation, whereas it will leave is set to p3D max if cloud cover allows such a higher distance without a potential hit on performance?

The whole point of the dynamic Cloud Draw Distance is for ASN to change the cloud draw distance in P3D so as to have the best of both worlds (performance when you need it, eye candy when you don't), so of course the slider is going to change in P3D. If you don't want the distance to change then set the minimum and maximum to the same setting in ASN and it will act exactly the same way as it does in P3D normally i.e. it wont move.