The joy of lower settings

[Guest]

I finally got so fed up with the reflections in water problems AND the unrealistic huge waves that I decided to turn it all off. And wow, in my eyes it looks more real than ever (at 4500 at least). While I was at it I turned off the special effects (have no clue what they do anyway: I sure as hell never see fireworks anywhere so why keep it on?) and while I was at it again I set autogen for trees and buildings from my beloved extremely dense to very dense. I love extremely dense forests but once you are used to very dense you don't notice a real difference all the time. 

 

And now the announced (and to be expected) JOY part of this post: while fps was hovering in the mid twenties with my previous settings above FTX Norway (lots of little waters and lot of trees) it is now happily moving along at almost 40. An improvement of 50% at least. I can assure you that when you use TrackIR things look a lot more smooth when fps is up to 40 compared to when it is in the mid twenties. 

 

Now performance often was better (>30) but recently I seem to be flying more often in areas where performance drops (could be 3.1 too, btw...): changing these few settings and accepting that things may look a little bit less good cured this performance problem and I am very happy with the sim again! No flickering reflections and better performance. As I said: after a while you don't notice the differences anymore anyway.

 

I btw also limited fps to 33 now (used unlimited before) to avoid spikes and save power for texture loading etc. It's quite odd how you suddenly can change your mind and change settings you've used for 'ages' and find things still look okay but perform a lot nicer. Why didn't I do (and accept) this before...

[Bobsk8 12,711]

I finally got so fed up with the reflections in water problems AND the unrealistic huge waves that I decided to turn it all off. And wow, in my eyes it looks more real than ever (at 4500 at least). While I was at it I turned off the special effects (have no clue what they do anyway: I sure as hell never see fireworks anywhere so why keep it on?) and while I was at it again I set autogen for trees and buildings from my beloved extremely dense to very dense. I love extremely dense forests but once you are used to very dense you don't notice a real difference all the time. 

 

And now the announced (and to be expected) JOY part of this post: while fps was hovering in the mid twenties with my previous settings above FTX Norway (lots of little waters and lot of trees) it is now happily moving along at almost 40. An improvement of 50% at least. I can assure you that when you use TrackIR things look a lot more smooth when fps is up to 40 compared to when it is in the mid twenties. 

 

Now performance often was better (>30) but recently I seem to be flying more often in areas where performance drops (could be 3.1 too, btw...): changing these few settings and accepting that things may look a little bit less good cured this performance problem and I am very happy with the sim again! No flickering reflections and better performance. As I said: after a while you don't notice the differences anymore anyway.

 

I btw also limited fps to 33 now (used unlimited before) to avoid spikes and save power for texture loading etc. It's quite odd how you suddenly can change your mind and change settings you've used for 'ages' and find things still look okay but perform a lot nicer. Why didn't I do (and accept) this before...

 

I have used middle of the road settings since the beginning. What I value most is smooth, no stutter frames around 30. Not interested in eye candy, road traffic, ships, waves, neon signs, etc. I couldn't be happier with the way my P3D looks and runs. I just added PreciptFX yesterday, and the snow and rain effects are fantastic, as well as some effects it added to all my aircraft plus my My Traffic AI aircraft, and didn't affect the FPS at all. 

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Yes, it is funny how we get stuck in our ways of think I must have my settings "always" set at this level.  It must be the developers fault that I can't run everything at max, ha! While I luv my eye candy, I agree there is nothing like having a completely smooth approach and landing as compare to all things maxed and your stuttering your way down.   I have always been a FPS to unlimited simmer but am playing more and more with FPS at 31 (with vsync), and adjusting sliders to attain that most of the time.  Ah.. the fun of it all.

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

To me, it's like the people that want ultra-realistic AI aircraft models. Is this really the point of a flight sim app? Every tiny bit of added realism that  enhances the so-called "immersion" also comes at a price. And that price is decreased performance and reliability. LM keeps adding these eye candy goodies, knowing that future hardware will just laugh at the increased computational burden. But most of us are stuck with yesterday's computer and we have to be realistic about what visual options to employ. After all, the purpose of a flight sim to to simulate flying an aircraft, not posting videos and screenshots.

[Bobsk8 12,711]

Yes, it is funny how we get stuck in our ways of think I must have my settings "always" set at this level.  It must be the developers fault that I can't run everything at max, ha! While I luv my eye candy, I agree there is nothing like having a completely smooth approach and landing as compare to all things maxed and your stuttering your way down.   I have always been a FPS to unlimited simmer but am playing more and more with FPS at 31 (with vsync), and adjusting sliders to attain that most of the time.  Ah.. the fun of it all.

 

The issue that made me quit flight simming for years until I discovered P3D was the stuttering that was always there in FS9 and FSX. After flying in real life for years, there was nothing that ruined the immersion experience in a simulation, like stuttering did. I used to fly commercial simulators for the military and airlines as part of my job, and stuttering was something that you never saw, but you also didn't see much of the eye candy either. I have always been a FPS locked in MSFS, and I started out that way in P3D, but I quickly found out that on my system unlocking FPS gave me more FPS and it was still smooth. 

[irrics 1,517]

Smooth > Max'd out settings

 

Always

[klamal 282]

 

 

I finally got so fed up with the reflections in water problems AND the unrealistic huge waves that I decided to turn it all off. And wow, in my eyes it looks more real than ever (at 4500 at least)

 

I just did the same within this past week and couldn't agree more.  The water has looked better than ever and to me, the reflections look more real set this way too.  I think with the (unrealistic) waves that were there, we were losing reflections.  Or at least the detail of those reflections.  Water now is closer to X-Plane, which IMO, has more realistic looking water than FSX/P3D.

[pipeorgan 0]

Jeroen, I love reading your posts as you have such a way with words which many times express my own feelings/opions.

 

The joy of lower settings is so true with Oculus Rift DK2. When I dial down the settings to obtain 75 fps although the graphics would not be acceptable using a monitor the resultant immersion is unbelievable. The smoothness of apparent, but virtual, flight is something to behold and I can only say to myself, as I sit looking around the cockpit and the world outside, "Wow, this is truly amazing, is it not real!".

 

I gave up TrackIR some time ago but appreciate your love of using it. I guess you have not yet experienced Oculus Rift, which is a major game changer in flight simming, but when you do I will very much look forward to reading your posts. Role on CV1:)

[Guest]

Jeroen, I love reading your posts as you have such a way with words which many times express my own feelings/opions.

 

The joy of lower settings is so true with Oculus Rift DK2. When I dial down the settings to obtain 75 fps although the graphics would not be acceptable using a monitor the resultant immersion is unbelievable. The smoothness of apparent, but virtual, flight is something to behold and I can only say to myself, as I sit looking around the cockpit and the world outside, "Wow, this is truly amazing, is it not real!".

 

I gave up TrackIR some time ago but appreciate your love of using it. I guess you have not yet experienced Oculus Rift, which is a major game changer in flight simming, but when you do I will very much look forward to reading your posts. Role on CV1:)

 

Haha, thanks for the kind words. :wink:  

I would LOVE to give the Rift a try and was waiting for (and planned to buy) the CV1 but it turned out to be a lot more expensive than I (and everyone else) thought...! I was hoping for something like 350 euro's but with shipping and all it is around 740 for me...! Add to that the fact that I would need a new GPU and were are talking about >1000 euro. A bit too much right now. And even if I would order it now it wouldn't be until July before the Rift would arrive at my home. So my posts about P3D and VR won't be here anytime soon.  :wink:

 

I do own the Gear VR (because I already owned a Samsung S6 phone) and I do appreciate what's possible and the immersion it gives (it's true that you really can get immersed even into basic looking games that you wouldn't think of playing on a regular monitor!) but flying in P3D with a Rift won't happen anytime soon, unfortunately. Maybe if I can find a cheap DK2 somewhere, although I've read the quality of the DK2 is lower than that of the Gear VR and I already think that one isn't too good...

[DT506 9]

Hi Jeroen,

 

What settings do you change and what do you find the best?

[Guest]

All the settings I changed are in the OP already...? I set Water detail to off (or whatever the lowest setting is called), turned off all reflections, turned Special effects off and lowered autogen trees and buildings from Extremely dense to Very dense. If you want to know ALL my settings I would have a look at it later on: can't check that right now. But most graphical settings are medium to high.

 

But what's best for me and what's best imho might not be best for you or anyone else, of course. The best settings are the settings YOU like. I didn't post this to say 'You have to try these settings!'  :wink: It all depends if you are into eye candy or smoothness or a combination of both. You could say that right now I am totally into smooth and sacrificed eye candy to achieve that. I do however (for instance) have ALL shadow options enabled: they are too important for me to turn off. Luckily I can use them all without any problems right now. We all have different wishes and expectations when it comes to flight simming so in the end you have to figure out what's 'best' yourself.  :wink:

[G-YMML1 582]

To me, it's like the people that want ultra-realistic AI aircraft models. 

 

Different people have different priorities. 

[TurboTomato 90]

While I was at it I turned off the special effects (have no clue what they do anyway: I sure as hell never see fireworks anywhere so why keep it on?)

 

Well inspired by this thread (and the fact that Jeroen posts useful and level-headed stuff) I tried it and I think I have the answer! I need to double check tonight but I switched the special effects stuff to minimum and then flew EGKK-LSGG. Completely flummoxed when I arrived at Geneva (FSDreamTeam) to find that there were no airport buildings showing. It was only this morning when I was driving into work I realised that this was -post having turned off the special effects. I'll test tonight to confirm.

[Guest]

LOL Never heard of buildings being special effects...! Could well be though: you never know what tricks dev use to create their products...!

And thanks for the 'useful and level-headed' compliment.

[TurboTomato 90]

Stop the cavalry! Tried again with Geneva and it was fine, must have just been a glitch in the matrix for that particular flight before Umberto starts shouting at me