At first I thought maybe i had an issue with testing some addons like New York City X and also Manhattan X.. but turns out I think that my issue is "just the way it is".. curious if everyone else is about the same..

 

Im using the "math" tweak in cloud.fx and I have left volumize enabled as well, for reference.

 

I run a 780ti 3GB on three 24" screens at 5760x1080, though im proving single screen stats for comparison here.. i have a hex core 4930k cpu on windows 8.1 U1 x64..

 

Now to the stats..

Here are my settings, though I dont think any tweaking of settings will help, as i've gone down that route already...

 

Single Screen 1920x1080:

Prepar3D v2.3 defaults, cessna 172 Paused:   35 fps

Prepar3D v2.3 defaults, cessna 172 Unpaused:  22 fps

 

Multi Screen 5760x1080:

Prepar3D v2.3 defaults, cessna 172 paused:  23 fps

Prepar3D v2.3 defaults, cessna 172 unpaused: 16 fps

 

 

Prepar3D v2.3 with NYCx, cessna 172 paused: 19 fps

Prepar3D v2.3 with NYCx, cessna 172 unpaused: 10-13 fps

 

The above is done paused on the outskirts of NYC with the buildings in full view, also with the fair weather theme.

 

Manhattan X also rings in around 19 fps paused/ 13 unpaused up close to the city..

 

So clearly addons arent really the culprit.. the whole area I believe is just a natural performance hit, with no real fix..

If anyone has found a way to tweak bgls (defaults) or other settings to make this more fluid (with addons) I'd be curious..

 

By comparison, a similar test in an FTXg/v + Aerosoft San Fran test with some bgls turned off per other threads, i can achieve 30 fps paused with a moderate weather theme (built in one, not ASN in this case).. unpaused 23 fps on average with a low fly by of downtown..

 

With just P3D defaults, I can hit 60+ fps easily in some regions..

 

Thanks in advance

Try reducing Cloud Shadow Cast Distance, Mesh Resolution and LOD. In that order, they are performance heavy.

Try reducing Cloud Shadow Cast Distance, Mesh Resolution and LOD. In that order, they are performance heavy.

I'll give that a try. I did turn off terrain n cloud shadows with no real boost. Mesh I moved from 1 to 10m with no real change. I'll double check though

 

I also tried lowering AG as well.

Lod is already at 5.5. 4.5 ill try..

Yes, some areas will produce significantly more performance impact than others KPDX, KSEA, KLAX, KSFO ... I would recommend adjusting building density and scenery complexity.  Buildings induce a higher performance hit than trees.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

Buildings induce a higher performance hit than trees.

 

Very true. I usually fly above rural and bush areas and with all autogen on extremely dense performance is great over there, even when there are thousands of (FTX) trees out there. No problem at all. But when I get close to a medium city I could notice a performance drop when I turn on the fps counter (which I don't) and when I get close to really big cities, I start actually noticing performance is struggling a little. Luckily only around mega-cities it can become a bit too noticable. But as I said, I usually try to avoid large cities anyway so it's not a big problem. But yes, buildings clearly have a higher hit on performance than trees!

Large urban areas are putting quite a burden on a main thread and buildings consume quite a lot more horse power compared to trees as said. Effect is even more pronounced if you are using AI traffic: urban areas have usually more vector roads and like NY, one or more busy airports. I don't know if there will be a way for LM to optimize built areas autogen and objects draw somehow from current, but I don't think there will be an easy solution for AI traffic.

Halve the texture resolution... see if that helps, considering the size of your display resolution.

I tried all the above steps.. setting the AG for buildings to None gave me about a 1 fps boost ha  Nothing else really made a difference.

 

With NYCx i'm actually sitting 22 fps on pause.. latest test in p92 eaglet.. then unpause it averages 14 fps up close to the city, near the jungle.. however, i have disabled NY_Low.bgl per another thread i commented on before on here.. that is how this addon is at least "flyable".. otherwise it is sitting 10 fps on pause..

 

If i shrink to a single screen i can maintain about 22 fps unpaused which is one workaround (plus i have trackir v5).

 

So i guess until I can get another 780ti and do SLI or a better proc comes around, ill live with the frame rate if i fly much in this region.. or shrink up the screen.. or turn off all clouds (meh).

 

All this pretty much confirms things.. It is what it is.. other large areas, as i've mentioned, like KSFO seem pretty fluid.. its just NYC thats a bugger.

 

I guess an area like this would never really work with Oculus though.. not high enough of a frame rate even stripped down.

Hi all. I have been gone for a few months with family stuff, but I finally downloaded v2.3. I thought 2.3 was supposed to address he issue of building rendering. I see from my own experience over the last few days, and from this post, that it really has not. Are there any plans to improve this in 2.4? Like I said, I haven't been able to keep up with this stuff for a while, and would appreciate it if a very brief answer could bring me up to speed.

 

Thanks!

The uniqueness of buildings doesn't allow them to leverage the same benefits as trees.  LM continue to improve performance but I'm not aware of anything aimed at building performance.

 

SLI is dependent on nVidia at this point so I would invest in SLI until you see nVidia provide drivers specifically for Prepar3d v2.x.

 

1.  Unlimited Traffic 2 has induced stutters even though my FPS is good (over 30) - I manage my AI traffic settings

2.  Buildings ... there appears to be a certain threshold (building quantity) that will impact performance ... I run Building density at Normal

3.  Some aircraft introduce more stutters (long frames) than others regardless of FPS ... the A2A Cherokee and Aerosoft TwinOtter produce the most consistent time between frames (aka less stutters at 30-36 fps) ... next best is the Q400, CS 777, CS L1011, Airbus X, all produce consistent time between frames with a few occasional  long frames ... even though their actual fps is relative low (21-25 range).

 

But again, location is key ... once the threshold is hit, the long frames get frequent.  Weather used to be an issue, but with the adjustments LM have provided it's a non-issue for me now ... so much so I've bumped up ASN cloud layers from 2 to 3 but I leave my cloud density at Medium.

 

I've been flying Australia lately with Orbx scenery/airports and the experience (even with TrackIR5) has been very fluid.

 

My settings: http://www.robainscough.com/P3D_V2.php

 

Cheers, Rob.

I've been flying Australia lately with Orbx scenery/airports and the experience (even with TrackIR5) has been very fluid.

 

Rob are you having any issues with any ORBX AUSTRALIA scenery?

I just bought most of it but havent made the jump to P3d just yet.

Thank you Rob. I am bummed that buildings will likely always be a problem.

 

It is disappointing that now there are problems with shadows. It was shadows that really made P3D much different in feel from FSX. From what I read they can't fix the cloud shadow issues? That's a shame.

I too am having difficulties with New York and P3D v2.3

 

Half the buildings appear with the night textures (in the daytime) and performance is much slower than FSX.

 

Copy the folder over to FSX and the textures are fine

 

 

Rob are you having any issues with any ORBX AUSTRALIA scenery?

 

Only issue I had with Australia was the Capitol Hill - Canberra city scape ... this is actually a Vector conflict ... have to turn off a BGL to resolve.  But so far no other issues and I just purchased about 10 AU airports and completed a really nice flight from YSCH to YCNK in the A2A Cherokee.  Just love listening to the liveATC in AU ... G'day.  Odd, I'm of British citizenship originally, now US citizen, but really enjoy the Australian accents.

 

 

 

From what I read they can't fix the cloud shadow issues?

 

Not sure I understand you there?  I use Cloud Shadows at 80,000m and performance actually improves a couple FPS.  You'll need to be specific about what types of shadows you are referencing ... many shadow settings in P3D.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

Not sure I understand you there?  I use Cloud Shadows at 80,000m and performance actually improves a couple FPS.  You'll need to be specific about what types of shadows you are referencing ... many shadow settings in P3D.

 

I cut this from another thread:

 

"Beau Hollis of LM wrote this in regards to the disappearing cloud shadows in the P3D forums 

Quote from Beau on August 27, 2014, 11:22

We are aware of the issue, but there is not a way to fix it that won't come at a fairly hefty cost in terms of performance. What we may do is cone up with a fix and add a configuration option to enable it for 2.4. Basically what happens is only clouds you can see cast shadows. Clouds that are off screen don't cast so as you move the camera and clouds cull out, their shadows will disappear. We can do the visibility test separately for the view and shadow view, but this will mean that many more clouds will render into the shadow cascades. 

GPU performance of clouds is directly related to number and size of clouds that render to the screen which is why the performance varies so much and get bad in situations like flying though clouds where lots of big clouds are drawing."

 

This is what I was referencing. I really noticed it while flying the Orbx Squamish scenery, probably because the shadows are easy to see on the mountain sides.