I'm confused here.  Everything that I have read has stated that Prepar3d is miles ahead of FSX, and that it runs so much better than FSX...with fewer tweaks to boot.  So based off of that assumption, I spent the money and purchased Prepar3d, spent all day yesterday installing addons and setting it up.  Here's the problem; I'm getting horrible fps...like 8-10 fps.  I am getting around 30fps in the same situation in FSX, with higher settings and more addons.  I have lowered my settings very low in Prepar3d, but I don't see the point in doing that.  Am I doing something wrong here?

 

What are your specs?  P3D can be more demanding than FSX.  Still, it seems pretty strange.  Maybe some people very versed into P3D sorcery might help you out - else, you always have 60 days to take advantage of the refund policy.

 

I'll keep an eye - I'm still debating P3D.

 

Edit- Read your specs, that's definitely the problem.  Laptops won't run P3D great.

I don't think your system is good enough for Prepar3D v2.

spent all day yesterday installing addons

 

You might want to try flying default for a while to see what it looks like before loading it up with add-ons that may not be compatible with P3D.

 

I didn't like it at first either.  Unusable stutters, low fluctuating frame rate, some ugly ground textures that I'd never seen before.  I didn't fly for a month after that.  Eventually I wanted to do some comparisons and for some odd reason the more I flew the better it got.  I cranked the autogen up to max which hid the ground textures, the stutters went away except for maybe a minute or two on each flight, and the frame rate got up to 30.  I turned on cloud shadows, the frame rate dropped a bit but seems to have stabilized and even climbed.  I started adding things like Accu-Feel, ASN, some aircraft.

 

Don't forget to delete your shader cache files when you make changes to the settings.  It appears that the stutters on my system are caused by P3D building new shader files.  So... set it up, delete the shader cache and forget it... the performance may improve.  But hold off on most of the add-ons until the system stabilizes.

 

Good luck. 

 

EDIT:  forgot to mention... don't touch the Prepar3D.cfg file.  The worst thing you can do is add a bunch of tweaks that worked in FSX.  They don't work in P3D and will kill the performance.

 

Hook

My fairly uneducated two pence worth is this:

 

FSX seems to want a very powerful CPU and doesn't really care much for the GPU whereas P3D v2.3 is more inclined toward a good GPU and can work with a lower horsepower CPU.

 

I base this purely on my own experience as I run P3D with no FPS issues at all with many great addons and an old i5 750 CPU but a GTX 770 4mb.

 

To say P3D is tweak free isn't entirely true. Yes you'll still have to mess with the setting provided within the user interface, but you won't spend time messing around with undocumented cfg file tweaks.

 

Also make sure that all your addons are P3D compatible as this is a well known killer of frames.

Am I doing something wrong here?

 

Probably not. Many others also suffering in the latest version because of issues with the way clouds are depicted. Have you tried the "cloud.fx" fix? Check the clouds thread for more info. The fix worked for me...

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/449369-clouds-kill-fps-in-23/

 

Also worth unticking tessellation, volumetric fog and HDR. Does your performance improve after that?

 

Just noticed you're running a laptop. That may be the reason your performance isn't good. You will really benefit from a newer GPU with more RAM.

 

Cheers

 

Adam

Yeah, P3D scales with GPU speed unlike FSX which is pretty CPU bound. That said, it seems like you should get FSX-like performance by disabling/lowering some of the Prepar3D specific features (lighting, shadows, HDR, maybe tesselation?). 

 

I would definitely fiddle around with default before installing add-ons, just to establish a baseline, but I understand that ship may have already sailed.

Edit- Read your specs, that's definitely the problem.  Laptops won't run P3D great.

 

I don't think your system is good enough for Prepar3D v2.

 

I understand that line of thinking, but the same would be said of FSX...wouldn't it?  A 2.4ghz i7 that turbo boosts to 3.2ghz and a 2gb dual core graphics card should be nowhere enough to run FSX smoothly, yet I am locked at 30 FPS at FSDreamteam's KLAX in the PMDG 777 with a heavy overcast.

 

Yeah, P3D scales with GPU speed unlike FSX which is pretty CPU bound. That said, it seems like you should get FSX-like performance by disabling/lowering some of the Prepar3D specific features (lighting, shadows, HDR, maybe tesselation?). 

 

I would definitely fiddle around with default before installing add-ons, just to establish a baseline, but I understand that ship may have already sailed.

I ran a gpu/cpu monitor during a Prepar3d session;  the gpu never got over 85% (yet the memory clock never rose over 400mhz) and the cpu was around 90%-95% yet fps varied from 8-18.  I've messed with sliders, tesselation on and off, volumetric fog on and off, simple and detailed clouds,  no shadows, different levels of AA...no effect.  The addons installed for this session were ASN, and the Q400.  The default F-22 gives me around 22-25fps...which is acceptable for me.

 

My thing is is that, if I cannot run Prepar3d as well as FSX (with lower settings mind you,) what's the point?  Thanks for the replies.

My thing is is that, if I cannot run Prepar3d as well as FSX (with lower settings mind you,) what's the point?  Thanks for the replies.

 

Yeah, there may not be a point. FSX might just perform better on your platform. Hard for me to say why. Generally I'd say the very poor performance you are experiencing is an outlier, and I wish I had some tips for you. I do know that Prepar3D performs and looks much better on my system, but every system is different.

 

You may want to save yourself additional frustration and take advantage of the generous refund policy, though I know that doesn't make up for your time lost getting it all set up. The biggest advantage of Prepar3d, for me, is the complete lack of fiddling around to try to get decent performance. It's the "set it and forget it" of flight sims. If I had to futz with it in the same way I had to futz with FSX, I sure as heck wouldn't bother.

I totally agree with the OP.

 

For me, P3D runs horribly. Mr Rich Sennett did his best to help, but in the end I have a VERY similar experience with the OP. I have some faith the P3D will run better. At the moment I can't test 2.3 because of the tessellation issue. I do know the 8 to 11 frames was the best I could get using any addon. So in the interim I fly FSX and wait for P3D to be able to be as good as FSX (DX10) on my system. I sure hope it's sooner rather than later...

 

For the record I have 

i3770k oc to 4.6

8 GB of RAM @ 2100Mhz 

ASUS 780GTXti direct cuii with a very mild OC

Dedicated 7200 RPM HDD for FSX

Win 7 Professional 64

I've uninstalled it...for now.  I won't request a refund, because it does look like a great platform.  One that I will most definitely take advantage of once they iron out the performance issues.  Until then, I'll stay with FSX.

I've uninstalled it...for now.  I won't request a refund, because it does look like a great platform.  One that I will most definitely take advantage of once they iron out the performance issues.  Until then, I'll stay with FSX.

 

Its somewhat temperamental I get between 20-35fps i run a [email protected] 4gb ram and a EVGA 570 nvidea card I run standard settings as when P3D boots up i only have clouds shadows on up to 80km %25 AI in commercial and GA 6% road %12 large boats %6 small.   

 

I only have ORBX global on.

 

People with higher end systems have far worse performance.

 

My only bit of advice is start with a fresh install leave it on default settings and then slowly add stuff and adjust settings incrementally that is over a period on time test it for a long time P3D is a odd sort of beast.

 

My thing is is that, if I cannot run Prepar3d as well as FSX (with lower settings mind you,) what's the point?  Thanks for the replies.

 

FSX is primarily CPU bound, P3D is more GPU bound (but does also require a good CPU).  With FSX, one will not see significant differences (if any) between a 680GTX and a Titan GPU.  In P3D the differences between a 680GTX and a Titan are very obvious.

 

P3D has many points:

 

1.  It's being actively developed

2.  It's using both sides of the equation CPU and GPU

3.  It may eventually get SLI support

4.  May eventually see a 64bit version

 

The problem you are running into (which is common for users of a static FSX) is the same problem folks ran into when moving from FS9 to FSX.  There were endless debates about "What's the point" as many didn't have the hardware to run FSX at their performance goals.  Over the seven years of no FSX development (other than 3rd party support), people slowly but surely upgraded hardware and moved from FS9 to FSX.

 

The exact same process is repeating itself ... P3D V2.x has only been out for < 1 year and it has pushed the CPU/GPU boundaries.  

 

Before P3D v2.x was released I was actively warning folks on their expectations of DX11 ... everyone seemed to think DX11 = Faster ... this is a false assumption.  DX11 can do other types of processing (shaders, instancing, and more) better than DX9 but nothing comes for free ... for example if you tried to do tessellation in FSX it would have to be software rendered (meaning all CPU) and that would impact FSX performance considerable (think 2 fps) because DX9 has no accelerated support for tessellation in the API.

 

If you have no plans to upgrade your hardware then you might want to stay with FSX until you decide to upgrade your hardware.  P3D is just an investment of the future of flight simulation, at what time you want to  do that (or not) will be when your ready for more capable hardware.  It's really not much different than when folks transitioned from FS9 to FSX.

 

Cheers, Rob.