Trying to achieve the Dream of Smooth Stutter Free Simming

[vgbaron 3,627]

You proposed a test, and I showed you that I can clearly discern between 20 and 60 FPS. Not only, but I find 20 FPS displeasant to fly at, notwithstanding the smoothness. Again, I urge anyone reading this thread to try themselves the shortened test I described in my previous post. You could aso try it yourself, vgbaron! Have you tried it?

Again you miss the point - "notwithstanding the smoothness" - the point IS the smoothness and if you can see a difference - YOU ARE NOT SMOOTH. Is there a part of NOT SMOOTH that you misunderstand? One can discern the difference BECAUSE of the smoothness not in spite of it. I don't doubt that you see a difference but I doubt you understand the reason. It is NOT the FPS, it is the smoothness.

 

That brings the second point - as stated - your test is useless - it just proves that anyone can see a difference when there are too many variables and to assume that just one variable (fps) is the cause is poor scientific discipline.

 

As to providing video - wouldn't do it if I could find a method that didn't induce stutters - and if I could it would only prove that it works on my system.

 

You like the way your sim works for you - keep it that way - the point is enjoying the sim = however to say that something doesn't work because you can't make it work is incorrect.

 

If you are really interested, which I doubt, take the time to set your system up at 20 with NO stutters, lag, hiccups, blurries etc - and then compare.

 

BUT if in your humble opinion, YOUR system runs perfectly smooth at 30 - go for it. Wht screw up a good thing. However, if it doesn't - give my suggestion a try but remember - if it isn't SMOOTH - all bets are off.

 

Enjoy!

 

Vic

[Bobsk8 12,735]

I agree with this smoothness as being the Holy Grail of flight simming. Having flown in a few multi-million dollar military and commercial sims, the feature that attracts your attention the most is how smooth and glitch free the video is in those sims. Anything else destroys the immersion in a heartbeat. The best feature of P3D,  which I have never seen before in a home type sim before is the smoothness. I will take 20 FPS with no herky jerky's, over 60 FPS  with stutters any day of the week, and that gives me an enjoyable sim to really enjoy flying.  

[Murmur 3,944]

Again you miss the point - "notwithstanding the smoothness" - the point IS the smoothness and if you can see a difference - YOU ARE NOT SMOOTH. Is there a part of NOT SMOOTH that you misunderstand? One can discern the difference BECAUSE of the smoothness not in spite of it. I don't doubt that you see a difference but I doubt you understand the reason. It is NOT the FPS, it is the smoothness.

 

Let's recap it all. You stated that smoothness is the only thing that counts. You stated that "there is NO difference between smooth at 20 fps and smooth at 60 fps - PERIOD". You stated that you have your P3D at a smooth 20 fps.

 

I stated that I can feel the difference between 20 fps and 60 fps, that I find flying at 20 fps unpleasant and unrealistic, and that smoothness is not _the only_ thing important for me. I made the test you proposed spending almost 30 minutes to do it.

 

Then, after you put in doubt the smoothness I was achieveing, I proposed you the video test (with your 20 smooth fps) that you did not to do. Fine, it would have required a fair amount of time to do. Then I proposed you a much quicker test (about 5 minutes in total): two short flights, with fps fixed at 20 fps in one case, and at 60 fps in the other one, and see for yourself the differences.

 

Listen, if you like to fly at 20 fps, and if you find it as pleasant as flying at 60 fps, then GOOD FOR YOU! :smile: Just, some of you please don't claim that smoothness is the only thing that counts, and that there is no difference between 20 fps and 60 fps!

 

Just accept that some people can clearly see the difference between 20 fps and 60 fps (even in the _hypothesis_ that the smoothness is the same), and that some people find 20 fps unpleasant to fly with!

 

 

I agree with this smoothness as being the Holy Grail of flight simming. Having flown in a few multi-million dollar military and commercial sims, the feature that attracts your attention the most is how smooth and glitch free the video is in those sims. Anything else destroys the immersion in a heartbeat. The best feature of P3D,  which I have never seen before in a home type sim before is the smoothness. I will take 20 FPS with no herky jerky's, over 60 FPS  with stutters any day of the week, and that gives me an enjoyable sim to really enjoy flying.  

 

This is a straw man argument, if it's directed at my reasoning. Infact I NEVER STATED that smoothness is not at all important. I agree with you that indeed, smoothness is important, but I'm also saying that fps ALSO COUNTS, at least in my case, and that I find flying at 20 fps unpleasant, no matter the smoothness.

[Tomaz Drnovsek 440]

What we consider smooth can be subjective, maybe that's the problem here and the question about smoothness of what exactly are we talking about. From what I read I think vgbaron is talking mostly about smoothness of flying, are there microsttuters and jerkiness that are a result of refresh rate problems. At 20FPS I do believe he doesn't get this so the flight itself is pretty smooth but everybody else with FPS locked at 30 or higher for example do get this if they don't maintain steady 60FPS. On the other hand Murmur is talking about overall smoothness including looking around, panning, perception of fluidity of overall picture, which I totally get because I also can see very obvious difference between 20 and 60. As in most cases where there is a difference of opinion about the same thing, it's about what details we consider more important. I find those microstutters and jerkiness very annoying but probably not so annoying as the difference between 20 and 60 FPS specially when TIR is in action. vgbaron on the other hand want a smooth ride and doesn't pay attention on this difference. Maybe it's something completely different, and it's a hardware thing and he really doesn't see such a big difference or maybe it's something completely different. If somebody is enjoying their simming on whatever settings, that's absolutely great! I want that too so I'm trying different solutions and that's why we share our opinions and solutions on these forums. Some work for us, some don't. That0s just how it is.

[mickatmian 52]

Because like many I have been chasing the holy grail of  smooth flight sim experience since Atari 400 days (30+years) and the nearest I achieved was FSX full screen with half refresh rate.
So I tried the following.

 

Just as a test, and because Vic is so adamant that everyone should see things the same as he obviously does, ie smooth at 20 fps. I set every setting in P3D 2.5 to the minimum value possible flew the standard beech Barron from the cockpit, and I can categorically say for me it just jerks from one frame to the next in straight flight and in turns with the jerks on the horizon it is totally unplayable. I need an absolute minimum of 30 fps to get anything approaching smooth flight.

 

So you people with smooth sims at 20 fps what should I try next?

 

Running 4.5 o/c and 780ti and yes I have tried without o/c

 

Mick

[Bobsk8 12,735]

Because like many I have been chasing the holy grail of  smooth flight sim experience since Atari 400 days (30+years) and the nearest I achieved was FSX full screen with half refresh rate.

So I tried the following.

 

Just as a test, and because Vic is so adamant that everyone should see things the same as he obviously does, ie smooth at 20 fps. I set every setting in P3D 2.5 to the minimum value possible flew the standard beech Barron from the cockpit, and I can categorically say for me it just jerks from one frame to the next in straight flight and in turns with the jerks on the horizon it is totally unplayable. I need an absolute minimum of 30 fps to get anything approaching smooth flight.

 

So you people with smooth sims at 20 fps what should I try next?

 

Running 4.5 o/c and 780ti and yes I have tried without o/c

 

Mick

 

Got to be something wrong with your system. 

[LAdamson 240]

20 fps ........bla..

 

I've finally achieved smoothness. 40s to 70's, and even up to 200+ (alt least that's the count).  I7 3960x , GTX 980.   Micro-stutter is mostly a thing of the past. I say mostly, because there still is a case of slowdown, with FSX & X-Plane 10.  Happily, not often.

 

I can definitely tell the difference, as I've been using these sims with many different systems over the years.

[mickatmian 52]

 

 

Got to be something wrong with your system. 

 

Nothing wrong with my system it works everything just fine and will run P3D wit high settings on 3 x 1080p screens at 30+fps (albeit with micro stutters) but I have to question why some do not see the individual frames at 20 fps as I and others do. (my previous test was on a single 23" Dell 1080p screen)

 

I must say it does annoy me when it's stated that because some see 20 fps as smooth they assume everyone else should, and if they can not then either they have the sim settings to high, or there is something wrong with their computer.

 

For information I could always see refresh rate flicker on crt tv's but my wife had no idea what I was talking about.

 

Mick

[AnkH 2,267]

Listen, if you like to fly at 20 fps, and if you find it as pleasant as flying at 60 fps, then GOOD FOR YOU! :smile: Just, some of you please don't claim that smoothness is the only thing that counts, and that there is no difference between 20 fps and 60 fps!

 

The problem here is that people tend to mix things together: FPS numbers and "smoothness", the latter describing the appeareance of the moving image irrespective of the FPS numbers. It can be that a super-smooth 20FPS is more pleasant to fly compared to an avg. of 40FPS, fluctuating between 20FPS and 60FPS. Of course, if you simply compare the numbers, 20FPS and 60FPS are a huge difference and everybody can see it (even some might not be bothered as much as others regarding low FPS numbers). And of course, super-constant 60FPS still look better and smoother compared to super-constant 20FPS...

[alpha12125 213]

The word smoothness, is a word that should be used very careful in any sort of comparison as it hardly gets any more subjectiv as that word. And in any sort of comparison you want objective not subjectiv factors. Also the whole my way or the highway attitude displayed doesnt really help

 

Leaving the complete discussion about microstutters and other possible reasons out, 20FPS can be precieved smooth and not. In laymen termns, 20 FPS (frames per seconds) means that 20 times each second the frame is drawn. When you have a relativley static enviroment, like cruising at 38k this will be precieved as perfectly smooth, because the objects in the frame dont change much between each frame. However if you use TrackIR in a VFR Environment and probably some turbulence you will preceive the same situation as not smooth.  If you look from left to right in your cockpit in 2 seconds, you will have 40 frames to make a smooth pan from one side to the other. This is not possible each frame will have a "jump in the objects". This choppiness is preceived by some people as stuttering. Allthough technically smooth, alot of people will not call it smooth. This is where this whole argument breaks down to.

 

Incidently 3D faces alot of similar problems of smoothness and fps and perfectly demonstrates why this is so subjective. The Occulus Rift DK1 had not enough fps to deliver enough smoothness to avoid motion sickness. Interestingly this was not percieved by everybody as a problem. Some could do it for one hour without getting sick, others could do it for 2 minutes and had to stop.

 

So it is perfectly possible for some people to live happliy with 20FPS and others that cant stand it.

[rickdeckard 1]

Hi all,

 

Since this seems to be a very interesting and "promising" topic let me share my p3d v2 "smoothness" experience here:

 

the specs first:

 

CPU: I7 4770 with HT @4.3 ghz on non-stock air cooler  with 8 gb ddr3 @ 2000 mhz cl9 

GPU: nvidia GTX 770 with 2Gb of ram.

SIM Storage: 480 gb sdd

 

SIM software:

 

P3d v 2.5 with latest hotfix 

Active Sky Next

Rex 4 textures + soft clouds.

scenery addons: orbx ftx global textures and vector + openLC Europe package

aircraft addons: pmdg 737 ngx base, a2a c172, a2a comanche.

 

p3d.cfg tweaks: optimize_parts=1 and FFTF=0.01

 

Nvidia control panel settings: pre-rendered frames=3

 

Running with single monitor setup at 1920*1080@60hz (unfortunately my monitor does not support 30hz)

 

I was able to get stable 60fps and smooth (as far as my eye can judge) with fps locked at 60  (v-sync being on or off doesn't make much difference with my setup) with the comanche departing  and landing at london stanstead (egss) in daylight with fair weather even during turns and panning the view using fsuipc middle-mouse button option.

 

BUT 

 

unfortunately   60fps  stable in VC are a no-go with NGX for my setup, I had to set the limiter at 30 fps and I must say that even if the FPS remains stable only with some 29 to 30 fluctuations My "smoothness" perception is not as good as with 60fps locked (comanche). I will perform some other test removing the FFTF tweak and see what happens.. I'll let you know.

 

feel free to make your considerations.

 

Bye.

[SteveW 1,792]

I get between 40 to 240 fps on my rig in Unlimited. Leaving it in unlimited means that if it's over 60fps it's smoothish, under 60fps, it's below my monitor refresh and the swings of fps around 40 - 60 really spoils the panning, flying turns, and using trackir. But it doesn't do above 60 around town. If it never dropped below 60 I could set 30 fixed, but it doesn't.

 

...The question asked is how to get a smooth sim. I set fixed at half what's do-able. That's so there's at least one look ahead frame kept in hand. The look ahead frame fires when the next frame render is not going to make it in time to keep the consistent-time-between-frames going. That's what's important to the smoothness of the sim.

[vgbaron 3,627]

ok, let's try one more time - rereading my posts I see that it appears that I am talking in ABSOLUTES.

 

My bad. Just as there are people who can hear extremely high and low tones there will be people with sensitive vision. So, one size does not fit all.

 

My point overall - if ALL OTHER THINGS ARE EQUAL - the only way you will be able to see a difference between 20 and 60 or 6000 FPS is if you are sensitive to those frequencies. There are still some people who see flicker in film at 24fps.

 

As a community we all want to get the best graphics with the best performance out of our sims. Especially with P3D there is a reason the sim will default to 20fps. if your hardware and software supports a smooth experience at 20fps you SHOULD not be able to see the difference.

 

if you do - there are two reasons - you were not smooth to start with or your eyes are sensitive to frequency. For most of us, it is the former.

 

I'm just trying to get people to stop chasing the FPS demon - I can get smooth at 20 and smooth at 30 - with my settings and hardware, going above that is not constant so not smooth. However I run at 20 because I can see no difference, even with TIR and because my system isn't working that hard.

 

Just any of the tweaks and settings posted throughout the years - YMMV - if it works for you - use it - if not - pass. But if you are going to try it, the absolute key is to get it smooth at 20 - easier said than done.

 

I am perfectly happy at 20 with TIR, ASN SLI and all the addons with close to max settings on everything on a decent system but not the best. I know of quite a few others who have figured out the same.

 

SO if it works for you - enjoy.

 

Vic

[SteveW 1,792]

A couple of points on P3D worth noting:

 

Even small increases in screen size with P3D are more taxing than with FSX.

 

Don't have the menu bar showing in P3D, as this causes stutter.

 

When trying to set increasing fps, over a certain point "of no return", there's never going to be smoothness whatever settings chosen from there on in.

[GSalden 4,657]

If you fly a militairy aircraft at 500 knots at 5000 ft and then make a steep turn you will see the difference between 20 or 60 :

If your system + scenery is in perfectly balance and you can maintain 60 fps in the turn, of coarse this will look smoother than 20.

 

However I yet have to see the first Fs system with nice addons ( both scenery, aircraft and weather ) that is capable of maintaining 60 in either a steep turn at that speed.

Even more : there is no system that will display 60 fps at a detailed addon airport in a detailed aircraft...

 

If you do not want stutters/jitters you need to set your fps fixed at 30 or if needed 20 or even 15....

 

However, at the end, what you as a Flightsimmer finds that looks the best to you on your system , only that counts.