Obtaining smooth frames below 60FPS

[Slayer 190]

P3D devs have recommend to not even use Vsync unless you have tearing. Mostly you will not get tearing anyways unless you consistently run above 60 FPS - which is hard to do. On my system it causes the framerates to jump all over the place in heavy scenery/aircraft.

 

As far as limited vs unlimited - my observation is that unlimited is great...until you load the sim down either from too much autogen, too high of settings or an aircraft like a PMDG. once you get an overload either on the CPU or GPU the stutters will start.

 

Unlimited is great though as it gives you a way to see potentially how fast your sim can pump out the FPS - if you cannot achieve what you want on unlimited you need to start reducing settings.

 

Some aircraft will not run at 60 FPS no matter what you do, so look for an average FPS number that you see using shift z

 

Once you find a FPS target you with your chosen aircraft and scenery ( I recommend to use your heaviest scenery that you normally fly in with heavy weather) then go back in and turn off unlimited at set your FPS to approximately 2 FPS lower than the average you saw running in unlimited.

 

This will give your sim the headroom it needs for smooth flight, no stuttering and no blurry textures.

 

Now once you have done this , save a profile in the graphics settings. You can now choose this on the setup screen when you set your flight. IMO there is no shortcut or one for all settings for anything but default aircraft. So it is good to use multiple profiles.

[Pilatus Matt 8]

So I'm not sure what exactly I did to help with the problem, but I narrowed it down to two things. It's by no means buttery smooth, but 30-40 FPS is now tolerable, rather than the sickening mess that it was before. At some point, I had disabled the Nvidia processes that run in the background, like the Nvidia helper service. I re-enabled those and let them run. I also ran a full virus scanner, which located a number of issues. I'm not sure which one to give credit to, but I'm thinking it's the Nvidia thing.

 

I also discovered that I am still very bottlenecked by my CPU. I can up many of the non-cpu-dependent graphics options, and see little or no FPS impact, even at 5900x1800 resolution. The frames I get are really limited based on the complexity of the aircraft I'm flying. Was tempted to chuck some more cash at a 4790K, but that would take a complete rebuild from my 3770K, and I'm not ready for that yet.

 

Thanks to everyone for the suggestions, it always helps to get some new knowledge and fresh ideas.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

 Intel has no interest in substantially improving the single thread capabilities of their CPUs, so as long as FSX and P3d are CPU-limited, these performance limitations will continue. Offloading work to the GPU is even more important than going to 64 bit.

[newtie 533]

 

 

Was tempted to chuck some more cash at a 4790K, but that would take a complete rebuild from my 3770K, and I'm not ready for that yet.

 

Bigger and faster does not equal better. I've owned two Jetline systems (excellent) with the most current being a 4770 with a Titan.

 

CPU speed has limits. I've settled at 4.2gHz which gives me the best smoothness.

 

This hobby is a game of well planned inches and increments. It's about managing those two variables with the hardware you have to attain the smoothest flow of data thru your entire system. I used to have an Ivy Bridge at 3.9gHz running FSX. Dialing everything in made for a very enjoyable sim experience.

 

I've not found it any other way.

 

Cheers,

[Pilatus Matt 8]

Bigger and faster does not equal better. I've owned two Jetline systems (excellent) with the most current being a 4770 with a Titan.

 

CPU speed has limits. I've settled at 4.2gHz which gives me the best smoothness.

 

This hobby is a game of well planned inches and increments. It's about managing those two variables with the hardware you have to attain the smoothest flow of data thru your entire system. I used to have an Ivy Bridge at 3.9gHz running FSX. Dialing everything in made for a very enjoyable sim experience.

 

I've not found it any other way.

 

Cheers,

Trust me, I'm well aware of this. Every upgrade I've done for the last 20 years or so has been due to me wanting better performance from flight Simulator in one way or another.

 

Edit: Try this on - I remember that first upgrade was to add 4MB of ram at the price of about $100. Yes, you younger guys read that correctly - 4 MEGABYTES!

[vgbaron 3,615]

Edit: Try this on - I remember that first upgrade was to add 4MB of ram at the price of about $100. Yes, you younger guys read that correctly - 4 MEGABYTES!

How about a 4K yes K s100 bus ram card and a 192K 8" floppy drive?

 

Yup - I'm that old.

 

Vic

[newtie 533]

How about running PhotoShop on an AppleII GS with 8mb of ram!

:Big Grin:

[Pilatus Matt 8]

How about a 4K yes K s100 bus ram card and a 192K 8" floppy drive?

 

Yup - I'm that old.

 

Vic

You have me beat there Vic. 8" floppy were gone by the time I entered the scene.

 

We're dating ourselves here, but as I always say, it's better to date yourself than to date no one at all.