I am going to describe 3 different scenarios that I've noticed while using the sim. Between them I haven't changed or add anything besides mess with the display settings. Particularly the 3 autogen/scenery sliders. Besides that, everything else remains the same. But there's a drastic difference in performance between these scenarios and I'm trying to figure out why.

 

1) I get about 7-10fps when sitting at the FSDT KDFW airport with ASN, Rex4 Textures, Rex Soft Clouds, PMDG 777, OrbX Global, Vector, OpenLC Europe, FS Global Ultimate meshes, EZDOK, GSX, MyTraffic 6. When taking off into the air it'll slowly go up to 12fps, and once further from the airport to maybe 16-17fps. I have my display settigs set to mostly medium (the sliders). Like for autogen density, scenery complexity, etc. and unlocked framerates in the sim.

 

2) Next scenario is using FSDT Honolulu airport, sitting at the gate, engines running, same addons and settings as the above, I notice I get decent frames at about 20-45fps, even when taxiing and taking off. and I have AI traffic around me doing there thing. AI traffic set to 35%.

 

3) But when flying over Europe in the A2A Cessna 182, using OrbX airport addon and OpenLC, ASN, etc. I get about 20-35fps consistently throughout the flight. And this is with my sliders set all the way to max on all 3 sliders. Which is the only different change in settings compared to my first flight.

 

 

 

 

In general AI traffic eats up FPS. Solution, you shpuld try Traffic Optimizer. Freeware available here in the forums. FSDT KDFW might have a an P3D2 installer but i would say it is rather compatible than a native P3D2 add on. That may cause the low FPS combined with your settings. Scenario 2: You are on a simple island in the middle of the pacific ocean and not much heavy autogen around. It is obvious that the FPS are high. Scenario 3: A2A might be not as demanding as PMDG.

 

Conclusion:

 

Either you reduce your settings when flying in and out mega hubs with PMDG (the mega hubs looks stunning but perform really bad) or you simply use add ons which are native P3D2 but they are rare to find if any exist. The most mega hubs you find are P3D2 compatible not native.

 

Native means, add ons which take full advantage of the P3D2 SDK.

Adjust your settings using your most demanding location/scenery for your most demanding plane to give you acceptable performance. Save this configuration and load it each time you fly that plane. This will give you the performance you selected and will only get better once you leave that area.

 

For example, my worst location is EGLL (UK2000 extreme) in a PMDG plane. I know I can go fly pretty much anywhere and my performance will only ever be as bad as my worst case scenario. Accept your slider positions and your performance then turn off your FPS counter and go and enjoy flying.

 

You can create as many configurations as you like. Personally I only use two. I have one when flying tubes and one for GA. When i first started doing this, I would fly a proper flight and assess if I needed to adjust anything. Eventually you will find a combination of settings that both suit you and what your PC can deliver.