Micro stutters and shimmering in P3D

[AviatorMan 253]

Have been using P3Dv2.x since it came out last year. Have thought I was happy with it compared to FSX, but another thread on this site motivated me to do some specific comparisons. Have noticed that in P3D2 I often have micro-stutters even with good FPS. Have also noticed shimmering (vibrating?) of vertical objects like light poles, particularly at addon airports. Did a comparison betweenP3D2 and FSX: the RealAir B60 at UK2000 EGBB and EGNT over ORBX FTX England, with ORBX weather theme 4: FPS 14 - 25 in both simulators; micro-sutters and vertical shimmering in P3D2, no micro-stutters or shimmering in FSX. The vertical shimmering is particularly noticeable in UK2000 EGNT (Newcastle) when approaching from the west. Does anyone else have these problems? Can anyone advise if any display/scenery parameter settings should affect the shimmering?

 

Thanks for any response.

[WR269 367]

How are you comparing the two? The way P3D handles textures is totally different to fsx, also you would have to disable shadows, tessellation, volumetric fog, cloud and cockpit shadows, water effects and modify the affinity mask in P3D so it handles textures like fsx does.

 

In other words, you cannot really compare them like for like. Can you list your hardware and settings used in P3D? I get no shimmering or stutters but my sliders are not set to my old fsx level, they are set to whatever P3D needs for best results.

[Bunkers 52]

Have noticed that in P3D2 I often have micro-stutters even with good FPS. Have also noticed shimmering (vibrating?) of vertical objects like light poles, particularly at addon airports.

 

I cannot offer a solution, only confirm that I also have shimmering (like sparkling) objects in P3D, most notably light poles as you mention, but also other objects. Would appreciate if anyone has a fix/tweak/setting for those. And the stutters...  well flying level and looking straight ahead it's acceptable. Banking and panning views it's significant and ruins the immersion. 

[Gordon Hutchison 76]

Have been using P3Dv2.x since it came out last year. Have thought I was happy with it compared to FSX, but another thread on this site motivated me to do some specific comparisons. Have noticed that in P3D2 I often have micro-stutters even with good FPS. Have also noticed shimmering (vibrating?) of vertical objects like light poles, particularly at addon airports. Did a comparison betweenP3D2 and FSX: the RealAir B60 at UK2000 EGBB and EGNT over ORBX FTX England, with ORBX weather theme 4: FPS 14 - 25 in both simulators; micro-sutters and vertical shimmering in P3D2, no micro-stutters or shimmering in FSX. The vertical shimmering is particularly noticeable in UK2000 EGNT (Newcastle) when approaching from the west. Does anyone else have these problems? Can anyone advise if any display/scenery parameter settings should affect the shimmering?

 

Thanks for any response.

 

The object shimmering is a symptom of poor anti-aliasing in P3Dv2, in FSX this was fixable by setting AA options in Nvidia inspector to over-ride the FSX internal AA - however this approach does not work in P3Dv2 due to the DX11 graphics engine changes. We have recently learned that the P3D dev team are talking to Nvidia behind the scenes, so hopefully this will result in better graphics drivers in the not too distant future.

 

With regards to the stutters - I also experienced this when I first started using P3Dv2, the cause of my stutters was an unstable overclock on my CPU. The frequency was too high and the volts were a bit low, this was causing the CPU to constantly error correct.

Your stutters may be caused by something completely different though?

 

Your system specs and P3Dv2 settings would help us diagnose any potential issues - please provide this info if you can.

[vgbaron 3,496]

I set 4xSGSS in Nvidia Inspector to eliminate the shimmering. Yes, NVI works just fine, at least for that setting.

 

Vic

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

There is some confusion regarding how to use the AA settings in NI for P3d. Enhance AA seems to work but override AA doesn't.

[FlyIce 354]

Or try DSR supersampling. It works well for me. I'm now running AA with only 4x DSR in Nvidia driver plus 2x or 4x MSAA in P3D. It's not perfect, but the shimmering is minimal, at least to my eyes.

[dokelly07 0]

You can try everything and most likely will still have microstutters.  We cannot do the 1/2 refresh rate fix that worked so well with FSX due to P3D being a pseudo-fullscreen (windowed) app.  I am hoping there is a fix from this down the road either on Nvdia's side (for me) or from LM.  Fingers crossed.....I have minimized it and there are still more postives for P3D so I am for sure not reverting. 

[AviatorMan 253]

Hi, my system specs below:

• i5 3570 3.4 - 3.8 GHz
  
  4 Cores
• 8 GB RAM
• Video Board Nvidea PhysX>GeForce 650 Ti

In P3D have set:

[Display]

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=160
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0

TEXTURE_FILTERING=4
MSAA=2
SSAA=0
VSYNC=0
FXAA=1
TRIPLE_BUFFER=0

[sCENERY]
POP_FREE_AUTOGEN=1
AUTOGEN_BATCH_LOD=2
AUTOGEN_TREE_MAX_DRAW_DISTANCE=9500.000000
AUTOGEN_TREE_MIN_DISTANCE_TO_LOD=2500.000000
IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=2

Volumetric Fog OFF

Interior shadows ON (Shadows on or off don't seem to affect my FPS or micro-stutters)

 

Have set NI to 4x [4x Multisampling] (couldn't find 4X SGSS or 4X DSR on my NI?)

 

Anyway, this NI setting seems to have noticeably smoothed the micro-stutters, but the shimmering is still there.

 

Any suggestions on my settings?

[Bunkers 52]

I set 4xSGSS in Nvidia Inspector to eliminate the shimmering. Yes, NVI works just fine, at least for that setting.

 

Thx alot for that, shimmering now gone!  B)

 

 

Have set NI to 4x [4x Multisampling] (couldn't find 4X SGSS or 4X DSR on my NI?)

 

Anyway, this NI setting seems to have noticeably smoothed the micro-stutters, but the shimmering is still there.

 

Tried this setting as well, but no reduction in stuttering for me. :(

Regarding SGSS you will find it under Antialiasing - Transparency Supersampling as "Sparse Grid Supersampling". 

[rjack1282 316]

 

 

Tried this setting as well, but no reduction in stuttering for me.

 

I notice that I only get stuttering when my CPU pings out at 100% which only happens when I have background programs running alongside P3D and when I'm in a scenery intense area.  You might want to check your CPU usage when you experience stutters to either confirm or eliminate that possibility.  I also found that running the autogen building density slider at the mid setting is the best balance between building density and performance at least on my system.  However I do most of my flying in and around LA where the scenery is pretty demanding.  If your flying across Montana that slider may not mean much.

[Bunkers 52]

I only get stuttering when my CPU pings out at 100%

 

It seems my CPU core #0 goes to 100% whichever setting I choose. I can only change this by deselecting the core in taskmanager (affinity setting) and reselecting it again. Then all working cores stay below 100%. This has not eliminated my stutters though. Which I think is strange, as I'm sure it's CPU related.

[sparkie66 81]

Or inherent program flaw at this time.

 

Other sims for me (like dcs/ xp) smooth as butter, dcs even capped by my monitor refresh at 60 fps.

 

Give it time is my advise.

[pasayten 4]

 

 

Hi, my system specs below:
i5 3570 3.4 - 3.8 GHz
4 Cores
8 GB RAM
Video Board Nvidea PhysX>GeForce 650 Ti

 

I have an i5-3570K and run it at 4.6 GHz...  No micro stutter for me....  other settings in signature.

[TrafficPilot 121]

I only get that shimmering when flying around England/Ireland using FTX Global. The rest of Europe looks fine. I believe this is a known Orbx issue. Would nice if they could fix it at some point in the near future.