P3D3.2 looks really good, but hesitations are really bad!

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

It's 2016 and we're still dealing with the idiocy of 32-bits. I'm back to hiding, nothing changed here.

Although I am also disappointed that their isn't an FSX clone that is 64 bits, it shouldn't be too much longer before there are one and maybe two 64 bit alternatives that will handle at least some of the FSX format files like BGL, MDL, fx, etc. If nothing else, add-ons that are purely based on DDS textures (like ORBX FTX Global) will most likely work in 64 bit.

[Anxu00 176]

One other finding added to this thread, I was flying around the Boston area with UTX USA and I noticed some stutters, so decided to do an experiment:  I uninstalled ORBX Global to go back to default.  Lo and behold the stutters are gone.  I remember that ORBX Global does more aggressive change to autogen or modified some innards of autogen, so I am not sure if that has a factor in what I saw.  I was also surprised to see that the default texture is pretty good too.  I have hundred if not thousand of dough invested in ORBX stuffs, so in a sense I hate my finding, but I can't stand the stutters   , so in the next little while all my ORBX stuffs will be tested and will be removed if stutters are found.  My test is pretty simple: take a RealAir Legacy V2, get up to 3000 FT, start putting the plane into a 30 degree bank and keep turning, look at what happen to the screen.

[JNS 106]

Thanks, Vu.  This should be interesting.

 

Jeff

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

One other finding added to this thread, I was flying around the Boston area with UTX USA and I noticed some stutters, so decided to do an experiment:  I uninstalled ORBX Global to go back to default.  Lo and behold the stutters are gone.  I remember that ORBX Global does more aggressive change to autogen or modified some innards of autogen, so I am not sure if that has a factor in what I saw.  I was also surprised to see that the default texture is pretty good too.  I have hundred if not thousand of dough invested in ORBX stuffs, so in a sense I hate my finding, but I can't stand the stutters   , so in the next little while all my ORBX stuffs will be tested and will be removed if stutters are found.  My test is pretty simple: take a RealAir Legacy V2, get up to 3000 FT, start putting the plane into a 30 degree bank and keep turning, look at what happen to the screen.

 

Interesting for sure wonder if fligth1 GEX might not cause this also I noticed that Boston area has always been hard of performance compared to other areas - strange 

[holliwutt 11]

With me the same phenomenon with ORBX Mini Stotters , ORBX remove smooth flight

 

 

Karl

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Beware looked into it - you cant use Orbx landclass with these textures

[Slayer 190]

There are certain areas going back to FSX that cause problems. Seattle, Boston and Toronto come to mind. Once you add more complexity to the area it makes the problem worse.

 

IMO it's because you have a lot of elements combined ( water + a dense city + uneven terrain) that puts a heavy strain on the sim engine that you normally don't see elsewhere. If I remember right Flytampa ran into this with Toronto and found it to be something in the default scenery that they were unable to exclude or get rid of so that may be a separate thing...not sure

[Anxu00 176]

 

 

Beware looked into it - you cant use Orbx landclass with these textures

My suspicion is the way ORBX handle or modify autogen, especially the term "hand placed autogen" or something in that line.  If you think about it, autogen needs to be firmly in the control of the sim.    

[Gregg_Seipp 571]

I've been following this thread all along.  Is the performance of 3.2 worse than 2.5?  I'm wanting to upgrade for the VAS improvements but it's making me nervous with all the talk of hesitations and stuttering.  2.5 is running well for me right now.

 

Gregg

[Slayer 190]

 

 

Is the performance of 3.2 worse than 2.5?  I'm wanting to upgrade for the VAS improvements but it's making me nervous with all the talk of hesitations and stuttering.  2.5 is running well for me right now.

 

It's about the same. Haven't had an OOM and no difference as far as stuttering compared to previous versions. You can always make any of the past versions stutter with too high of settings or traffic.

[Guest]

 

 

Anyway, the ANSWER to my originally posted problem:
 
It was the video driver. I installed the latest from nVidia, 364.xx.  My friend Thomas told me that the 364.xx series were bad on his system -- lower frame rates and bad stutters -- and that he'd gone back to 361.43 and it solved all that.
 
So I tried that ... and it made all the difference!

 

I finally got around to testing this out, used DDU, went back to 361.43 and came up with the results, far far fewer long frames (stutters) with the 361.43 drivers.  So thanks for pushing me to test this observation.

 

I'm actually a little surprised at how much better these older drivers are ... there is one issue with this driver, using ShadowPlay when activiting On/Off recording (I use Ctrl + F12) ... on about the 4th or 5th recording On/Off "nvspcaps64.exe" will cause 46% CPU utilization which causes P3D to pause/stutter very badly.  Solution is to pause P3D, kill "nvspcaps64.exe", bring up Services, stop NvStreamService (which sill stop NvStreamNetworkService), restart NvStreamService, bring up GeForce Experience and re-enabled ShadowPlay, return to flight.  The issue is ONLY trigger by start/stop ShadowPlay recordings, if I just leave a single LONG session to record I don't have the issue.

 

Anyway, thanks Pete, good suggestion.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Michael Moe 496]

 

I'm actually a little surprised at how much better these older drivers are ... there is one issue with this driver, using ShadowPlay when activiting On/Off recording (I use Ctrl + F12) ... on about the 4th or 5th recording On/Off "nvspcaps64.exe" will cause 46% CPU utilization which causes P3D to pause/stutter very badly.  

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

Hi Rob ,,

You dont think it could be related to GSX that uses the same controls ?

 

 

Btw , i dont think i have shadows from the clouds on my aircraft . Is there any setting that need to be on in the graphic section. ?

 

Maybe i also will go back to my 361.43. I remember having a blast with it . I am at 364.51 at the moment and ASN 5921

 

Thanks

Michael Moe

[brianbash 26]

Well, I think I'll chime in on this one. I have done a few things the past few days that have had monumental results on my performance. At first I was thinkin "Man, all these addon's really screw up P3D". I wanted some AI that I could have at a higher setting than 8%, I wanted the autogen to actually be pop-free etc. etc.

 

Let me Preface this with a statement. Nothing would make me happier than a completely smooth sim with a modest amount of addon's and eye candy. We all know how that goes, let the addon games begin!! Unfortunately, that just isn't possible with P3D at this time. 32-bit can only handle so much. We are a lucky to be apart of such a giving and helping community. Now, onto my findings!!

 

 

One day while cleaning my HD's, I came across Texture Optimizer. Hey, I remember this!!  We used to get the more FPS with AI traffic higher than 1%!

 

I said "**** it", I'm running this on every texture in that doomed Prepar3D folder. My ORBX Folder (75GB!!), my texture folder, my scenery folder, my addon Scenery folder...all of it!!  Boy am I glad that I did. Besides the over 8GB of space I got back, I got a much smoother flying expierience and less loading time. It brought me to the question of "Why do they still keep using .BMP files?" Or  "Why do they need to make the .dds files DXT5 instead of DXT3 or even DXT1c if there is no mask present?"

 

Texture optimizer can be downloaded HERE 

 

 

I was so happy, the effects of my "FS Flying Withdrawl" took over and before you know it, I was off the wagon and knee-deep in everything. Config files, .xml files, the whole thing! I thought when I started "Oh boy, there goes another week of my life". I couldn't have been more wrong. I only added the following lines to my .cfg file....

 

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=15603

 

[MAIN]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.01

 

AUTOGEN_TREE_MAX_DRAW_DISTANCE=12000.000000

AUTOGEN_TREE_MIN_DISTANCE_TO_LOD=1500.000000

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=1000

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=2000

UseGlobalTerrainView=True

 

[GRAPHICS]

CLOUD_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

CLOUD_SHADOW_TEXTURE_SIZE=512

HIGHMEMFIX=1

IMAGE_QUALITY=3

 

 

Easiest way to calculate AffinityMask need as follows:  Load Prepar3d with NO AM line in the .cfg file. With the help of project Lasso, saw which core's Prepar3D liked to use the most. It loved Cores 0, 2, 3 and 6 (Intel 5930K) so I calculated with the fantastic Affinity Mask calculator found HERE and viola, that's the number it came up with.

 

I thought "Wow! Now I just wish I could have AI". After a little digging, I found my WoAI mass downloader. This is a mass downloader for all WoAI Packages! 

 

To say I was blown away when I could put my traffic to 100% and sit at default airports at 35 and complex add-on airports at 18-20 is an understatement...mind you I am running at 3820x2160...I'm also using a Texture Load of 4096...which really is only the HD Airport Graphics I love so much. Nothing like those HD runways

 

 

 

I have converted all of Ray Smith's fantastic scenery to be working in Prepar3D V3.2. I'm thinking of contacting Ray to seek his permission to upload this for all to have. Crucial work done by that fine man IMO. If you download Texture Optimizer, follow these three easy steps.

 

STEP 1: Do this on every desired folder with textures you'd like to compress/optimize. DO NOT DO THIS TO THE SCENERY/WORLD/TEXTURE FOLDER!!!! SEE STEP 2!

 

STEP 2: For your SCENERY/WORLD/TEXTURE folder make sure you DO NOT resize the img files. It will resize files with sizes like 8,124x256 to whatever the number would be. THIS IS NOT GOOD, it will mess up your entire planet. Luckily, there is a backup option which allows you to easily fix any issues...as seen in the second image.

 

 

STEP 3:  Kill MyTraffic, UT2 and try a WoAI package.

 

 

 

 

As I said with my Preface, stutters will ALWAYS be there, it's just being able to keep them as quiet as possible.

 

 

Happy Simming!

 

 

 

[charleslee201 19]

Thanks for the leap of faith... backing up everything and will try it ...

 

edited  :  seems to have cured black textures loading  delai ..  on  some of my complex airport

[Guest]

 

 

You dont think it could be related to GSX that uses the same controls ?

 

No, I have those remapped to Ctrl + F10 and ASN is Ctrl + F11.

 

 

 

Let me Preface this with a statement. Nothing would make me happier than a completely smooth sim with a modest amount of addon's and eye candy. We all know how that goes, let the addon games begin!! Unfortunately, that just isn't possible with P3D at this time. 32-bit can only handle so much.

 

See my video HERE - 179 add-ons installed (Orbx Vector, Mesh, Regions, Airports, HD Tree, ASN, TrackIR, GoFlight, PrecipitFX, etc. etc.) ... I stayed at around 3.2GB VAS usage.  The extreme graphics settings I was using HERE. I agree, 32bit does have limits, but we can do A LOT and stay well below those limits and keep all our existing add-on compatible.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

EDIT: But yes, I'd like to see 64bit too ... I'm sure it'll come eventually.