DX10 performing poorly

[drewsaw2 3]

Hey guys, I need some help...

 

Last week I started playing around with DX10 for the first time to see how it would run. While the visuals look a little better (I think, it's marginal) my performance has dropped. On average I'm getting around 6-7 fps LESS when using DX10 from DX9, and I cannot figure out why. This contradicts most people's claims of the improvements and benefits they've found after switching over. 

 

I've been consuming posts and guides and Youtube videos, slowly making adjustments to FSX and NI setttings one at a time, and nothing has really helped. If I create a flight in FSX and get 28-30 fps, then I load the same flight with DX10 enabled, I'll get 22-23 fps, with occasional drops to 15fps - and some hard stutters.  

 

I haven't purchased Steve's fixer yet because I want to first make sure I can actually make it run on par with FSX performance (if not better). 

 

Syetem:

15-2500k OC 4GHz, 8gb ram, GTX 560 Ti

[HighBypass 2,339]

Does setting the fps to unlimited help?

[drewsaw2 3]

Yes unlimited is set to on

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

If I create a flight in FSX and get 28-30 fps, then I load the same flight with DX10 enabled, I'll get 22-23 fps, with occasional drops to 15fps - and some hard stutters.

 

I really don't see any difference in fps.  DX10 Preview (and I emphasize "Preview") is broken.  It never functioned well, and it never will function well w/o Steve's fixes.  The Aces Team wanted to have a full fledge DX10 setup with Acceleration but Microsoft wanted Acceleration released immediately and the techs had no time to make DX10 work so they called it "DX10 Preview".  If there are hard stutters, then, IMHO, that's what happens with broken software that was not fully developed. 

 

DX10 is not a product that will enhance your fps although the developers stated you will get about a 10% increase in performance from just running FSX.  That happens to some but it does not happen to everyone as everyone has a different computer system setup and different FSX/NI settings.  That's the hard thing about FSX to understand.  Everyone thinks they have the same CPU and GPU and their FSX should run exactly the same.  Absolutely not true, because what one runs in FSX may not be the same as what is run in another computer system.  There are just too many variables.

 

What does DX10 give you?  Great performance?  Maybe.  Great graphics?  Maybe.  But the best part of DX10 is the ability to have shadows in your cockpit and thus more immersion in flight simulation.  With DX9, you cannot have shadows in the cockpit.

 

So, if DX10 is not working for you (and it does not for everyone for some reason), then you might want to consider moving up to P3D with DX11 and soon DX12.  This way you'll not only have shadows inside the cockpit, but also shadows from clouds and buildings and stuff like that. 

 

This forum provides a lot of suggestions for configuring your DX10 to work the best.  Steve's DX10 Fixer forum has even more suggestions but it is mostly related to his product. 

 

Bottom line:  DX10 Preview is pretty much trash as it has a lot of anomalies (not to mention it does not provide better performance for many like you).  DX10 Fixer pretty much fixes all of the problems the Microsoft techs would have fixed if they were still developing FSX (well, they are fixing FSX and that's over at Lockheed Martin where the FSX engine is getting better and better).

[TheFamilyMan 280]

If you are really interesting in giving DX10 a test drive, there is a free version of the DX10 shader fix that fixs lots of major problems and is a good place to start.  It was developed by the person who created the paid version of the DX10 Fixer.  You can get it in the AVSIM library, search for DX10 Shader Fixers V3.2.3. Other big features of DX10 beyond the dynamic cockpit shadows are the improved water visuals which include wind aware moving white caps, and a usable in game bloom effect.  Performance wise it is a mix, which can depend on your desired graphics setting. As for FSX alternatives, Jim did not mention that Dovetail Games is working on a revamped FSX which will be released in the not too distant future.  A "pre-release" version, "Flight School", will be released by the end of this month (hopefully).

[Jim Young 2,356]

I forgot to mention the fact the water visuals are improved with DX10 Preview and weather programs can generate white caps.  I will not hold my breath for the other two alternatives although DTG said they would be released soon.

[Soulflight 97]

I recently found out that some of the tweaks that give you more fps in DX9 might actually do the opposite in DX10. The Poolsize=0 for example takes Pool Management away from the CPU to the GPU, thats fine in DX9 and sometimes gives a nice performance bonus. In DX10 however, the GPU has more work to do, like calculating all the shadows and bloom lights.

Poolsize=0 gave me stutters all over when using those pretty VC shadows for example.

 

My System is quite comparable to Drew's and my 560Ti was therefore really thankful towards me for redirecting Bufferpools to the CPU again by using poolsize in FSX.cfg.

 

Requires rebalancing the correct PoolSize and Reject Threshold though.... :\

[Jim Young 2,356]

Tweaks do not work very well in FSX, especially all of the tweaks you mentioned.  It is best that you delete or move your fsx.cfg to a temporary folder and rebuild it and get rid of those evil tweaks.  There are no tweaks that are going to give you better performance, especially the BufferPool tweak.  You have a Sandy Bridge system and that should be powerful enough.  Tweaks are for the old days when CPU's were not very powerful.  I have tried all of the tweaks in existence for FSX/P3D and have found none that work and provide performance gains.  Managing your fsx sliders is the best tweak you can provide your flight simulator.

 

Best regards,

[Soulflight 97]

@ Jim

 

are you sure people should even delete things like Highmemfix or Affinitymask? With Bufferpools you might be right, only difference I have seen so far is to disable or enable them. I was following the DX10 How-to-guide as well als NickN's recommendations found all over the forums.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

are you sure people should even delete things like Highmemfix or Affinitymask?

 

I'm more than positive (the highmemfix is not a tweak but an actual fix to FSX that was supposed to be included in SP2/Acceleration but the Aces Team (the developers) forgot to add it.

 

NickN does not recommend any tweaks but, if you must, he provides some suggestions for the BufferPool tweak.  Both the AffinityMask and the BufferPool tweak require expert knowledge and you just do not slap down a setting that someone else put in their config.  It's not that easy.  If you look in the CTD Forum, you will see many who have had crashes but, after rebuilding their fsx.cfg, the crashes went away.  I admit there are some who say the Affinity Mask tweak make their sim work without stuttering or and with great fps but those are definitely the exception.  I can easily get 50 to 80 fps with P3D or FSX but it does always stay at 50 to 80 fps.  Occasionally the frames will dive to single digit levels and then back up to the high fps.  I have found locking your fps to 25 or 30 fps is the best tweak anyone can recommend. 

 

Tweaks were good back before Sandy Bridge as they did provide some performance gains IF properly employed.  But some had no idea how to tweak their FSX config so they used an old program set up by Bojote that can really mess up modern systems.  This program would supposedly look at your system and then say, these are the tweaks you need for FSX to work the best.  Members would be excited but then, an occasional freeze or unexplained CTD.  They would uninstall/reinstall FSX and suddenly the sim would work great again.  Then, they would try to Bojote tweaks again and get another unexplained crash two to three months later.  They just installed a new scenery.  Lots of eye-candy.  Bojote tweaks does not like new scenery with lots of eye-candy....

 

If you want a good guide w/o tweaks, throw away the DX10 Guide and NickN's Bible and check out the AVSIM FSX Configuration guide.  It provides settings that have perfect AA in DX10 mode.  Yes, the settings are a bit high in both the fsx.cfg and NI settings, but it gives you perfect AA.  Isn't that what you want?  Does any of the tweaks from Bojote and others give you perfect AA?  No.  Especially the DX10 Guide does not as it is old (or it didn't back in the days when Paul J set it up) and NickN's Bible does provide good settings that will give you perfect AA but, like the AVSIM FSX Config Guide, has high settings, especially in the NI settings.   

[Soulflight 97]

I'm more than positive (the highmemfix is not a tweak but an actual fix to FSX that was supposed to be included in SP2/Acceleration but the Aces Team (the developers) forgot to add it.

 

NickN does not recommend any tweaks but, if you must, he provides some suggestions for the BufferPool tweak.  Both the AffinityMask and the BufferPool tweak require expert knowledge and you just do not slap down a setting that someone else put in their config.  It's not that easy.  If you look in the CTD Forum, you will see many who have had crashes but, after rebuilding their fsx.cfg, the crashes went away.  I admit there are some who say the Affinity Mask tweak make their sim work without stuttering or and with great fps but those are definitely the exception.  I can easily get 50 to 80 fps with P3D or FSX but it does always stay at 50 to 80 fps.  Occasionally the frames will dive to single digit levels and then back up to the high fps.  I have found locking your fps to 25 or 30 fps is the best tweak anyone can recommend. 

 

Tweaks were good back before Sandy Bridge as they did provide some performance gains IF properly employed.  But some had no idea how to tweak their FSX config so they used an old program set up by Bojote that can really mess up modern systems.  This program would supposedly look at your system and then say, these are the tweaks you need for FSX to work the best.  Members would be excited but then, an occasional freeze or unexplained CTD.  They would uninstall/reinstall FSX and suddenly the sim would work great again.  Then, they would try to Bojote tweaks again and get another unexplained crash two to three months later.  They just installed a new scenery.  Lots of eye-candy.  Bojote tweaks does not like new scenery with lots of eye-candy....

 

If you want a good guide w/o tweaks, throw away the DX10 Guide and NickN's Bible and check out the AVSIM FSX Configuration guide.  It provides settings that have perfect AA in DX10 mode.  Yes, the settings are a bit high in both the fsx.cfg and NI settings, but it gives you perfect AA.  Isn't that what you want?  Does any of the tweaks from Bojote and others give you perfect AA?  No.  Especially the DX10 Guide does not as it is old (or it didn't back in the days when Paul J set it up) and NickN's Bible does provide good settings that will give you perfect AA but, like the AVSIM FSX Config Guide, has high settings, especially in the NI settings.   

 

 

 

Well, I cant speak for the starter of this thread but I for myself run a 2011 system with an AMD Phenom 2 X4 overclocked to 4,0 Ghz, I still have DDR2 RAM and just a 560Ti Videocard. If I had hardware like yours, I am pretty sure I wouldn't bother tweaking my sim in any way too. Thats because I'd be convinced it would run perfect at high settings with standard config.

 

However, not all simmers are part of the 1%. I don't want to push thousands of dollars/euros into a rig I use for gaming and flight simming, just because I have other hobbies too and thats just a small part of my life. I am happy when I archieve 20 - 30 FPS in my FSX because thats all I can dream of (FPS are locked externally anyways ), and the Poolsize=0 tweak got me there pretty good when using DX9. Also, as we both probably know, smoothness in FSX isn't extactly measured in FPS, and with that tweak the sim just ran better.

I am very proud to say that I do 13-hour flights on the PMDG 777 and the only crashes occur when I forget to turn the pump of my watercooling on. OOM's were more of a problem with that than smoothness.

 

About my AA: for DX9 I used 4xMS along with 4XSGSS forced by NVI and I was happy with that. More would give me real bad performance in overcast conditions, less would look terrible. With DX10 pretty much the same, only difference is that I use the Fixer to set 4x AA. "Perfect AA" is a very subjective term here I guess.

 

With AffinityMask its pretty much the same, when I delete it from my FSX.cfg, ASN prompts me to add it on startup and as far as I know FSX doesn't take advantage of multi-cores otherwise. Correct me if I am wrong...

 

Therefore the statement, that Tweaks are obsolete on a state-of-the-art-system is correct, but many ppl out there are not able or not willing to afford a high-end system. Drew has 8 GB RAM like me, and the same GPU. I highly doubt that without any adjustments in the fsx.cfg people like him, or me, would be able to see anything worth flying FSX instead of FS2004.

[StoneEyes 1]

You can't just turn on DX10 preview and expect it to work better.  You need to check the DX10 box and then quit the sim. Then you need to save your current configuration file and let FSX build a new one.  Otherwise, you have FSX trying to use

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In order to use DX10 , you need to check the preview box and then quit FSX.  Then you need to backup your configuration file and let FSX build another one when you restart.  Otherwise, you have FSX trying to use both DX9 and DX10 to do the same thing.  It works, but not well. 

 

Once you have it working, get Steve DX10 Fixer and start fixing some of the anomalies and a new sim.

 

Good luck 

[magnetite 38]

I would start with a fresh FSX install and CFG, with no addons installed, and gradually build things up. Then you can determine whether it's DX10 that is the problem, or whether it's something else.

[Soulflight 97]

More test results from me: those forced VC shadows seem to be a bit much to handle for the 560ti, deactivating them gives me back my old framerates with pmdg planes.

[vortex681 806]

@ Jim

 

are you sure people should even delete things like Highmemfix or Affinitymask?

 

 

I'm more than positive (the highmemfix is not a tweak but an actual fix to FSX that was supposed to be included in SP2/Acceleration but the Aces Team (the developers) forgot to add it.

 

Unless I'm reading his post incorrectly, I have to disagree with Jim about highmemfix. My understanding is that highmemfix=1 is essential for the very reasons Jim mentions. If it wasn't important, why would DTG have it set by default in FSX-SE?