Prepar3D setup guide from Nick N

[GSalden 4,656]

@Driver170

 

With Prepar3D v3 screen tearing appeared ( ne er had with v2 or FSX ) on my 3 monitor outside view setup.

 

I had 2 ways that worked to eliminate it :

- monitor frequency set to 25 or 30 + VSync On + Triple Buffering On + Franerate set to 25 or 30

Or

- enable Aero... and I could leave VSync Off.

[Driver170 42]

Hi gerard. My monitor is 60hz and my setup as you is this -

 

 

If you use Nvidia Inspector in the past for Prepar3D, please open it, select the Prepar3D profile and then click the green Nvidia icon in the top of the box, click APPLY. This clears the profile and assures NVI wont interfere with P3D using old settings.

 

 

Launch the Nvidia driver control and select the Manage 3D Settings> Click the tab Program Settings and then bring up the Prepar3D profile. Scroll down to:

 

Power Management Mode and select PREFER MAXIMUM POWER

 

Set Vertical Sync to: ADAPTIVE (half refresh rate)

 

click OK.

 

 

Close the driver control.

 

 

Then make sure VSync is ON in P3D and lock frames at either 30 or 60 one of the two. If you run unlimited frame lock you must disable Vsync in the P3D GUI

 

 

And still get tearing but only at the top screen though

[gboz 157]

Hi gerard. My monitor is 60hz and my setup as you is this -

 

Set Vertical Sync to: ADAPTIVE (half refresh rate)

 

click OK.

 

 

I thought we all agreed that this setting does not work with P3D's pseudo "Full Screen" mode?

 

gb.

[Driver170 42]

Works perfectly here for me! Smooth as butter

[Nyxx 6,993]

Sorry never been a fan of Nicks tweaks.

 

The hide info line was great upto v3 and now you can set that in the general tab. So its not even needed now. 

 

v3 needs very little tweaking. FPS Locked or like Ive found unlimted works best, AM for HT ON, job done, thought most people on this forum know that. 

 

NVI, there was a big post about that, again unless you have a 980> dont use it. Its mainly clouds that kill FPS, all in that post.

 

Also what "looks" good on one monitor and looks bad on another I have two and colours/contrast/etc  are so different, both samsum but one is so much better, so when it comes to how something looks no one should go there as every screen is different, you can go into normal nvidia setting and play with colour contrast there if you wish. So when its come to looks HDR etc. Its pointless because everyones sim will look different depending of your Monitor before anything else. Ask yourself is your monitor calibrated right? even then its down to how good it is.

 

Glad its all working for you Vernon.

[Driver170 42]

Hi david its all running nicely! Could never go back to fsx lol

[Nyxx 6,993]

Good to hear mate.

Happy days  :smile:

[OzWhitey 3,353]

I like the fact that Nick made his thoughts available for FSX. However, I did always feel that he was a bit too sure of the right way to do things - like install order - that didn't seem to make much difference.

 

I see P3D v3 as being a bit different. FSX needed tweaks because it was an unfinished sim. P3D v3 has a modern engine and is in active development, so if there's a performance gain to be made I'm confident that the devs will work it out before I do most of the time!

 

It's plausible that on certain systems a given tweak might help. I figure if you go with mainstream hardware - e.g. modern NVidia cards - then the sim is likely to be designed to match that sort of gear and tweaks are less likely to be necessary..

 

I don't run any clever tweaks at all at the present time. I use the brilliant SIMstarter program to set the sliders for all the different areas I fly in, to ensure that the sim is setup to maximise smoothness whilst giving me an acceptible level of eye candy.

 

The quote from JV referenced by a previous poster has also stuck in my mind. Buy the best hardware that you can to maximise your fly:tweak ratio

[ErichB 3,642]

I'm glad that Nick is doing a P3D specific version. When it comes to PC's, flightsim and setups  - he knows.

[Nyxx 6,993]

I use the brilliant SIMstarter program to set the sliders for all the different areas I fly in, to ensure that the sim is setup to maximise smoothness whilst giving me an acceptible level of eye candy.

You dont even need that anymore, when you start the sim in scenario, bottom left you have your grafic setting, make them and save under the name you like. Start the sim chose the one you want, no rebooting or anything needed. Select and go. 

[Jimm 437]

After posting a comment to this thread yesterday, I put Nick's expertise to the test on my own rig.  I skipped over a few things in his process of testing, since my rig has fared pretty well up until a recent addition of FlyTampa's CYYZ airport.  First off, I love FlyTampa's attention to detail and it really shows, but a couple of nagging issues plagued my flight experience at that airport so I thought, why not try out Nick's suggestions and see if it made a difference.

 

I went ahead and reset my NVI back to default and didn't touch it again.  I also set my P3D graphic settings internally to reflect his recommendations.  I didn't run ASN, but I did opt to keep ORBX's OpenLC NA Alaska/Canada active, as well as FT's CYYZ.  I fired up a new flight, utilizing A2A's C182 and gave it a go.  I performed a quick circuit around the area of CYYZ, and did notice that my fps stayed consistent while in flight, with a gain of about 3-4fps over my previous setup.  The kicker of dropped fps at the airport still occurred, but not as bad as before.  I ended the flight, then opened my cfg file and made the suggested changes, per Nick's text.  I once again opened P3D, set up a scenario exactly as before and flew again, with my results about the same as before.

 

Now, I'm not complaining, not blaming, not angry at all with the performance.  I look at it as a 'maintenance' test, meaning that my system was running decent prior to the changes, but figured I'd try them out to see if I could achieve a smoother flight (notice I didn't say better fps, because that is not my goal).

 

-I did find that setting P3D at 60fps instead of my locked 30, did gain the 3-4fps while in the air.

-Flying away from any heavy scenery does increase fps, which seems to be how it just works all around.

-Scenery generated at the same pace through both tests, although I found increased tile anomalies around the area so i have to investigate whether this is a clash between ORBX and FT or maybe a P3D issue.

 

The surprise I had though was after the second flight, I decided to delete my shader cache (which I did do previous to the beginning of my tests).  I found that after a second flush of the cache did actually bump my fps and smoothness higher, not much, but enough to notice.  This may be a stretch, but I am inclined to believe that flushing the cache every time you fly helps P3D run better.  I'll look into that a little more later, but for now, i did honestly find my performance increase with that simple step.

 

-Jim

[Michael Moe 495]

You dont even need that anymore, when you start the sim in scenario, bottom left you have your grafic setting, make them and save under the name you like. Start the sim chose the one you want, no rebooting or anything needed. Select and go. 

Hi,

 

Could you do me a test having to load BOTH a saved graphic setting and a saved scenario ?

 

I dont get the new graphic setting when you load both. 

 

Only when i starts normal by picking up an airport ,plane ,time etc etc 

 

Thanks  :wink:

 

Michael moe

[Driver170 42]

Nick has updated his guide about setting 1/2 vsync in NVIDIA 3D settings NOT NVI and lock frames at 30 or 60.

 

My sim = smooooooth now

[Driver170 42]

Just to mention this initial setup document isn't complete its in the process of still getting built and modified. I shouldn't of posted it here!

[gboz 157]

Just to mention this initial setup document isn't complete its in the process of still getting built and modified. I shouldn't of posted it here!

I wouldn't lose any sleep over it Vernon.

Nick must of had a moment of nievity if he thought that anything he writes will not go viral pretty quickly.

 

gb.