Hi Guys,

 

I've searched for a long time to get the best setting but 99% of the time it's about quadcores...

In the past my only tweak was the highmemfix but I'm reading about the Affinitymask tweak and used the calculator on a website. It gave me Affinitymask=4.

But now I read on 2 forums that the correct number is 9??

I sure could use some help!

Some extra fps is welcome, especially with the pmdg!

 

Thanks guys!

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Respectfully, when you start adding tweaks that you do not fully understand, you are looking for trouble. I have never seen settings as you have indicated in your OP. If you own a product like ASN, they will enter the tweak for you. Any FSDT product will also set up your AffinityMask setting (plus a bunch of other tweaks) when you go to their Addon Manager. That's what I would recommend unless you have the expertise to figure it all out for yourself.  There are also many so-called "experts" out there who have recommendations.  I did a search for Affinity Mask and came up with this link that looks fairly accurate - https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?id=308405692536710&story_fbid=435484003162211

 

Just be careful with any tweak.  If you get a crash and you cannot figure it out, suspect your tweak first.  Everyone loves to tweak things as they think it makes things work better but I have not found that as the case.  If you look in the CTD Forum here at AVSIM you will see a lot of members who have had crashes because of tweaks (most likely putting in the wrong parameters for their particular computer system).  It's no fun when your flight sim crashes unexpectedly.....

 

Best regards,

Hi Guys,

 

I've searched for a long time to get the best setting but 99% of the time it's about quadcores...

In the past my only tweak was the highmemfix but I'm reading about the Affinitymask tweak and used the calculator on a website. It gave me Affinitymask=4.

But now I read on 2 forums that the correct number is 9??

I sure could use some help!

Some extra fps is welcome, especially with the pmdg!

 

Thanks guys!

 

It's certainly not 9.

 

The correct value could be either 4 (=0010, that is using only the second physical core) or 5 (=1010, that is using both the first and the second physical core).

 

I use the value 5, IIRC it has been suggested by the Bojote fsx.cfg tweaker.

 

I suspect that the rationale behind, is that on a quad or six core, you use all the physical cores except the first one (reserving it for O.S. tasks), but on a dual core, you just "throw at it" both the physical cores you have (and hence using the value 5).

 

So you could just try 4 or 5 and see if you see any differences in smoothness, texture loading or fps.

Ray, for a good explanation of why FSX doesn't use hyperthreading, take a look at http://www.simforums.com/forums/fsx-ht-usage_topic48363.html. Read the whole thread (it's not too long) as some of the interesting detail is near the end. Multi-core - yes, hyperthreading - no.

Thanks everyone! I'm now using 5 and its a little bit faster i think!

Dual core with HT enabled: use 14=(11,10), or 13=(11,01). Can any of you spot why?

http://www.gatwick-fsg.org.uk/affinitymask.aspx?SubMenuItem=hardware

 

A must have bookmark

I have used a certain individuals tweak guide and he recommended with a quad core with hyperthreading to use an Affinity Mask of 84. Based of feedback from OpenHW and ProcMon; but did it improve performance in FSX, well it certainly didn't detract from it. I undertsand FSX itself doesn't use hyperthreading, but an affinity mask can theoretically allow one of the cores to work exclusively on add-ons or background tasks.

 

I'm going to read the above mentioned articles and then try to run FSX with hyperhtreading turned off in the bios and then with it on and with a couple of different affinity masks and monitor cpu activity and of course FPS.

 

Thanks guys for the article links posted above.

I have used a certain individuals tweak guide and he recommended with a quad core with hyperthreading to use an Affinity Mask of 84.

A quad core is not a dual core with HT enabled.

 

For a dual core, enable HT and use 14=(11,10), or 13=(11,01).

Just read NickN's posts from an above link- apparently it had only appeared that all the threads were being used. As has been conclusively stated by an original FSX developer, FSX simply does not see threads, to quote Nick "FSX IS DUMB AND THINKS THE PHYSICAL CACHE IS A PHYSICAL CORE. THAT THREAD CAN BE SEEN IN THE TASK MANAGER, BUT THE THREAD DIES IN PROCESS SINCE THE APPLICATION CAN NOT, DOES NOT, WILL NOT, READ OR EVEN KNOW THAT THREAD EXISTS. FSX HAS NO, NONE, NADA, ZERO, ZIP CODE THAT WILL PROCESS LOGICAL CORE THREADS ...AKA: HYPERTHREAD"

 

So now I'm just confused if I should turn off hyperthreading in the bios when I'm using FSX (I'll need those extra threads for Photoshop) and use an affinity mask of 14 or just omit the affinity mask from the fsx.cfg completely. Guess there's only one way to find out! God, sometimes I really feel like I'm spending more time trying to find the holy grail of fsx.cfgs than actually flying. Hopefully after tonight's experiments, I can just stick with highmemfix=1 and widescreen=true. DirectX 10 fixer has sorted out all my OOMS thank goodness!

Thanks Steve, I will try a few different variations tonight. You don't have any opinion on the BUFFERPOOL tweak by any chance. I'm currently using USEPOOLS=0. Am I wasting my time?

Sorry, something else just occurred to me- can any of the add-ons on my FSX rig benefit from hyperthreading. I currently use REX 4 HD (no wx engine), Aerosoft traffic, EazyDok, TrackIR 5? In which case should I always keep hyperthreading switched on? 

The dual core is a SPECIAL CASE. Since we need to allow at least three threads on three processors for FSX/P3D, and on a dual core we only have two processors, then we actually NEED to set HyperThreading enabled on that, to produce 4 logical processors. However, we want the first thread on a core of its own, so we use an AM of 13 or 14 which masks one of the LPs on the first core. This means the first thread starts on core 0, and the next two threads start on core 1 LP2, and LP3.

 

Quad core need not apply HT, but the system improves in multitasking with HT enabled. Again if we enable HT our only worry is to keep the first thread to a core of its own, so we can mask one of the LPs on the first core of that too.

 

 

Thanks Steve...should I always keep hyperthreading switched on?

With your 4 core CPU, enable Hyperthreading, unless you are pushing an overclock. With HT enabled apply an AM that masks one of the first Logical Processors. So with 8 LPs you should use an AM of 254=(11,11,11,10) or 253=(11,11,11,01).

The dual core is a SPECIAL CASE. Since we need to allow at least three threads on three processors for FSX/P3D, and on a dual core we only have two processors, then we actually NEED to set HyperThreading enabled on that, to produce 4 logical processors. However, we want the first thread on a core of its own, so we use an AM of 13 or 14 which masks one of the LPs on the first core. This means the first thread starts on core 0, and the next two threads start on core 1 LP2, and LP3.

 

Quad core need not apply HT, but the system improves in multitasking with HT enabled. Again if we enable HT our only worry is to keep the first thread to a core of its own, so we can mask one of the LPs on the first core of that too.

 

 

 

With your 4 core CPU, enable Hyperthreading, unless you are pushing an overclock. With HT enabled apply an AM that masks one of the first Logical Processors. So with 8 LPs you should use an AM of 254=(11,11,11,10) or 253=(11,11,11,01).

Apologies Steve for only replying now, I hadn't been following this thread unfortunately.

 

You say to enable Hyperthreading unless overclocking, which I am- an i7 4470K from 3.5Ghz to 4.5Ghz (I think I got lucky with the batch my CPU came from!). Does this mean I should disable Hyperthreading in the Bios, in Nvidia Control panel or Inspector and/or either change my Affinity Mask to a lower number like 84 or 16 or just remove it from fsx.cfg?

 

Sorry for all the questions, but you obviously know what you're talking about and with so many conflicting opinions floating around it would be nice to get one from an expert.

 

Thanks, any reply will be much appreciated.

With HT enabled (in the bios) use AM=254=(11,11,11,10). If you're getting too hot with the OC, disable HT and remove the JOBSCHEDULER section (AM=0).

Since we're at this tweaking of FSX:SE, and because I re-installed it and was eager to test it with my new video card ( GTX 960 4GB ) which wasn't there the last time I had FSX installed many months ago, I went ahead and decided to use the AVSIM Basic FSX / P3D Configuration Guide 2.0.0. which proved to be an excellent option!

 

The only options where I diverted from the Guide's recommendations were:

 

.) I tried not to use the Affinity Mask tweak, but when installing ASN it prompted me to do so, and I accepted it, setting my AffinityMask=14, the correct value for my "old" i5 2500 with no HT...

 

.) I tried all possible combinations of using the VSync option in the Nvidia Inspector profile, together with the corresponding entry in FSX.CFG for full screen mode, and also UsePools = 0, but I found that in my case it's best to set, so No "Vsync" and No "UsePools=0" entries in FSX.CFG!

 

- FPS to Unlimited in the game

- VSync to use 3D Application Setting in Nvidia Inspector and no VSync entry in FSX.CFG ( full or windowed modes )

 

.) I was about to try using the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT tweak, which I never used before, setting it away from the usual default 40 to something as high as 100 or 120, but found that FSX:SE installed and automatically set it at 160 !!! probably because of the high end graphics card ( ? )

 

.) I also used the:

 

[CONTROLS]

stick_sensitivity_mode=0

 

in FSX.CFG because I do not want the filter that comes built in and active by default interfering with my control inputs.

 

CONCLUSION: I never had FSX:SE with A2A, PMDG and AEROSOFT add-ons running so smoothly and beautiful, and yes, I installed ORBX FTX Global too!

 

And, btw, a couple of notes:

 

1) Aerosoft's Airbus A320/21 when installed corrupts the fonts in some Windows 10 applications, including, but not only, EDGE, and Aerosoft hasn't fixed it yet, but there's a thread at their Forums where a user posted an alternative font that you can install to fix the problem. Sometimes it also helps to clean the fonts cache from Windows, something I do often when I run CCleaner...

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/473640-problem-with-win-10-fonts-aerosoft-airbus/?hl=%2Baerosoft+%2Bairbus+%2Bfonts

 

2) Aerosoft's Madeira Airport corrupts the scenery Library, and when you go to the airport, you find weird effects. The solution is to manually add the scenery area which lays inside of the "aerosoft" folder in the root of your FSX:SE main folder...