Appalling FPS in P3D V3

[Flying Kiwi 4]

I purchased the Academic version of P3D V3 a couple of days ago. But to date the frame rates have been absolutely appalling, hovering regularly around 6-7 and never getting higher than 11.4! I have never experienced frame rates this poor in FSX Steam Edition (at least, not all the time, though they can get quite bad in a graphic-heavy airport) or in X-Plane 10 Global (I only have a "vanilla" version of that though, with no add-ons as I don't use it much). Of course, I have tried turning my sliders down, but that has not made a blind bit of difference. I also adjusted my frame rate target from 20 to 30, but that didn't change a thing. Even when I wander around in Avatar mode (which has to be less complex than using an aircraft), the FPS remains at this extremely low rate and refuses to climb any higher than 11.4. I can't understand why this is happening when I get acceptable frame rates in FSX SE and X-Plane (latter is also on Steam).

 

Here are my specs:

 

Computer - Hewlett-Packard Pavilion with Windows 10 Home and touchscreen

Hard drive capacity - 2 TB (I have recently tipped over the 1 TB mark with all my FSX add-ons and have about 900 GB left)

Processor - AMD A8 6500 APU with Radeon HD Graphics (3.50 GHz)

Installed memory - 8 GB of RAM, 7.2 GB usable

System type - 64-bit OS, x64-based processor

Graphics card - AMD Radeon 8570D with 4224 MB (4.2 GB I guess) of total available graphics memory

 

Not a super powerful machine (I got it in late 2013), but is able to handle such games as Euro Truck Simulator 2, American Truck Simulator, OMSI 2, Train Simulator 2016 and of course FSX:SE and X-Plane 10 Global without any problems (or at least, only the occasional stutter).

 

I have tried to find solutions by Googling, but there is such a vast array of different answers and theories that I have been left completely bewildered and confused. One thing I haven't tried is changing my P3D config file, but I wouldn't have the first idea where to start with that (I am reasonably computer-literate, and know just enough to make basic edits to aircraft config files, but I'm no coding expert).

 

So is there some sort of reasonably simple solution that doesn't involve anything too drastic or complicated, or is P3D V3 just too sophisticated for my current hardware? TIA for any assistance you can render.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

With P3D, just after you plunk down upon the tarmac somewhere, you need to let the shaders do their work.  You should start to see your FPS rise up within three minutes or so.  Sometimes, just after seeing my G.A. at the airport location of my choice, I also might see 6-12 FPS...but a few minutes later...without moving the plane an inch...I have climbed to 27-33 FPS.  There are a lot of background processes going on with P3D in its initializing  phase...(the few moments, or minutes after obtaining an airport location)...so see what happens after letting the sim sit idle for 2-3 minutes.  That must might do the trick.

 

Ses

[Flying Kiwi 4]

I've just sat a plane (one of Virtualcol's "frame rate-friendly" aircraft) at an airport for about 25 minutes, doing absolutely nothing, and my FPS managed to shoot all the way up to ... 15.7. Average was around 11-12 this time. Not horrendously bad, but still far from ideal.

 

My current settings (after tweaking):

 

Resolution: 1920x180x32 (I have not changed this)

FXAA (whatever that is): On

MSAA (whatever that is): 2 Samples

Texture Filtering: Anisotropic 4x

Texture Resolution: Medium 1024x1024 (but even Low 512x512 has made no difference to my frame rates)

Tessellation: Enabled

VSync: Off

Target Frame Rate: 30

Wide-View Aspect Ratio: Unchecked

Mip-map VC Panels: Checked

2D Panel Transparency: 0%

Level of detail radius: Medium

Tessellation Factor: Medium

Mesh resolution: 19m

Texture resolution: 1m

Land detail textures: Checked

Water Detail: Medium

Reflections: Cloud and User Vehicle checked, everything else unchecked

Scenery complexity: Normal

Autogen vegetation density: Sparse

Autogen building density: Sparse

Special effects detail: Low

Special effects distance: Low

HDR lighting: Checked

Brightness: 1.10

Bloom: 1.00

Saturation: 0.80

Dynamic reflections: Off

Landing-lights illuminate ground: Checked

Lens flare: Checked

Shadow Quality: Medium

Enable Terrain to Receive Shadows: Checked

Terrain Shadow Cast Distance: 0m

Cloud Shadow Cast Distance: 0m

Object Shadow Cast Distance: 6,000m

Cast and Receive checked for Internal Vehicle and External Vehicle, unchecked for everything else.

Cloud draw distance: 80 mi

Cloud coverage distance: Medium

Volumetric Fog: Checked

Clouds: Detailed

Thermal visualization: None

Rate at which weather changes over time: Medium

Air traffic density: 25%

GA traffic density: 25%

Airport Vehicle density: Minimum

Land and Sea Traffic: 15% for everything

 

So as you can see, I don't have any settings maxed out, and most are either low or medium. Even with 0% traffic (which seemed to be the default), frame rates have so far been awful.

 

I've just defragged my hard drive (it was 14% fragmented), which may have helped fractionally with the frame rates. At a loss to know why they continue to be so bad though. I've only had this for two days though - does it need more settling down time or something? Otherwise, what else can I tweak to improve performance?

[gboz 157]

....... or is P3D V3 just too sophisticated for my current hardware? TIA for any assistance you can render.

 

Sorry, yes, it probably is.

 

Things to try:

Make sure you have Dynamic Reflections turned off.

Try it with Tessellation turned off. (needs P3D restart)

Turn off all reflections and then shadows.

All AI traffic off.

Bathymetry off.

etc, etc...

 

Edit: Just read your cfg post.

Try HDR off and Volumetric Fog off as well.

 

gb.

[Ian S 214]

Further to the above, try Target FPS - unlimited as well.

[Peter Webber 339]

Your PC is a laptop? I have an MSI gaming laptop with an integrated Intel (onboard) graphics card and discrete (Nvidia) graphics card. Ensure that your discrete card is being used in P3D. I get under 10 fps with my intregrated Intel card, and 20-30 fps with my dedicated Nvidia card. Not sure whether this applies to your set-up. If you only have integrated then that will the problem. You can check in the P3D settings which card is being used.

[AnkH 2,262]

Sorry to say, but those FPS numbers along with your settings seem to be absolutely reasonable to me. Besides the fact that turning off tesselation, HDR and dynamic reflections will already offer you some additinal FPS, I am pretty sure that your APU can not handle MSAA at all, so turn this off as well.

[Michael Moe 495]

Its all about hardware, you need to upgrade. Sorry :wink:

 

I have 52-59fps in Flytampa EKCH at gate A20 with the NGX (PMDG),REX,ASN,UTX,FTX Global.

 

 

 

Michael Moe

[AnkH 2,262]

Very, very helpful post, Michael... First, you give no resolution. Second, you do not say anything about the settings. Third, you do not even list, what hardware you use, so that the TE could compare...

[Flying Kiwi 4]

Thank you all very much for your help. I have turned off tesselation, MSAA, HDR, volumetric fog, reflections, shadows and set frame rates to Unlimited, among one or two other things. That has definitely improved the FPS, although it's still not brilliant. Actually, when doing a test with FSX SE tonight, I discovered the frame rates in that aren't too wonderful either, hovering around the high teens. However, the FSX frame rates don't dip into single figures the way they do in P3D. But the performance difference between the two is not so drastically different after all.

 

If I use the minimal 2D panel with six basic instruments and nothing else, P3D's frame rate rockets up to 25-30 FPS, but that doesn't make for very exciting flight simming.

 

What would be a better sort of setup to achieve more reasonable frame rates in P3D and FSX? 16 GB of RAM instead of 8? Bigger hard drive? Or is the graphics card the main problem? How much memory would be ideal? 4 GB inadequate? I think it's an "integrated" one. My PC is desktop, by the way. The hard drive is inside the large flat-screen monitor, as is the graphics card.

 

Again, thanks most kindly for the assistance. Much appreciated.

[AnkH 2,262]

Basically the problem of your system is the fact, that you use an APU, means: an CPU with an integrated graphics card. In addition to this, the problem is that for P3D, AMD processors are anyway not the ideal product, AMD graphics cards are not ideal and a combination of both, like in your APU, is even less ideal. On top of all, for computers such as your HP Pavillon, any upgrades regarding graphics card are usually a pain in the &@($*, because either the space, the PSU, the remaining PCI-Express Slot or alltogether are missing. Pre-Built computers from HP are not intended to be upgraded like this. So, without knowing exactly how the computer is equiped regarding mainboard and PSU, the cheapest approach to improve your FPS could be: buying a GTX-750Ti, as this is the only reasonable nVidia GPU not needing an additional power connector.

 

EDIT: OH GOSH, I now just read that you obviously not only have a pre-built computer but in fact an all-in-one machine, do you? So, then, I am sorry to tell you that you can do NOTHING to improve your computer for the use of FSX/P3D, as such all-in-one computers do not allow to upgrade the graphics card at all...

[Michael Moe 495]

Very, very helpful post, Michael... First, you give no resolution. Second, you do not say anything about the settings. Third, you do not even list, what hardware you use, so that the TE could compare...

 

 

Sorry  , a little rushed to the PO ,  but as stated you all ready have found out you need to update your hardware to achieve P3Dv3 outstanding new standards vs FSX

 

All the best and again a little rushed

 

Michael Moe

 

i7-4770K@4,6

GTX970 SLI (X2)

SSD500GB Samsung

W10

16GB - DDR 2400MHZ RAM

[magnetite 38]

I learned the lesson of buying pre-built systems with my first computer. Never again.

[AnkH 2,262]

Well, the problem here is not only that he uses a pre-built machine, but even worse, an all-in-one computer (with everything stuffed behind the screen into the monitor case). While you can change the HDD or the RAM on certain all-in-one computers (but not even this for others), you are certainly lost regarding a GPU exchange. This is a pity, as for per-built computers you have at least a little chance to improve things by replacing one or the other hardware components...

[magnetite 38]

Sorry, I use the term pre-built as it was built by someone else (any type, be it HP, or all-in-one), and not put together by yourself.

 

Save your money, and buy a new computer. Doesn't have to be bleeding edge, but give it some room for upgrades.

 

If you take Mike's system, chop out the SLI, and add your current hard drive, it would be a good starting point. Get a big enough PSU, in case you want to add more things though.