Those pretending XP10 is smooth as a baby's butt all the time and has no performance issues are either fibbing a bit or run very low settings.

 

I typically fly where I live & travel; that means the largest urban centers I regularly overfly are Edmonton and Calgary. My framerates can drop as low as 35-40 in those areas (Edmonton has nearly full osm coverage through w2xp - I can even see my detached garage behind my house), otherwise I typically hover around 50-60.  I did a flight the other day from my newly acquired KTNP over to KLAS in the Epic Victory, my results were very similar - frames were mid 50's until I hit the outskirts of Las Vegas, where they crept down to high 30's on approach.

 

My flights are always smooth; it's one of the reasons why I like XP as much as I do.

 

I run w2xp, along with quite high settings across the board.  I also run at 4xSSAA+FXAA, at 1440p.

 

There are a few things, however where performance will suffer if I let it.  Shadows have a noticeable impact at higher levels of AA and as such I generally use 'overlay' or '3D on aircraft', and any appreciable level of AA with dense clouds seems to be a major performance concern.

Well I just tested with all settings extreme and wiped out W2XP which is the cause of the resource hog...

with the above mentioned add-ons and HD mesh v3 running now between 55 and 70 fps...

Still testing....

 

Now some good ATC and AI and airports

 

A slight note on this for those less familiar with X-Plane/W2XP: the non "_osm" versions of W2XP will in my experience come with a significantly higher performance cost due to the exclusions.

The only thing that is really killing performance in XP on my system are the clouds, be it vanilla or skymaxx.

be it vanilla or skymaxx

 

Yes, vanilla clouds do tend to tax quite a bit my video card, but skymaxx, absolutely no problems with HDR at 2X SSAA+FXAA in any weather scenario. The only gripe I have with skymaxx is the 1-2 sec delay when updating weather conditions.

P3DV3.2 performs better on my machine (6 cores 4.3ghz), but it has inconstant fps, while XP10 has lower fps (and much lower fps if I use w2xp with objects on tons) but constant, so XP10 feels more smoother than P3D, despite the fact that it runs at lower fps (overall)... you can notice it especially during the landings.

The only exception is if you really pump the scenery and the settings, the lowest of XP10 makes it unplayable (I managed to have sub-10 fps), while P3D remains (someway) playable.. but it's really a border scenario (playing at 12fps is crap in any case).

Only still very annoying experience to me, specially when I was cruising my PSX with XP visuals at higher altitudes, near tile borders, was seiing the next tile not being loaded, until I got near... and I had the distant tile rendering option enabled!

 

This happened a few times and I was using just default scenery with autogen set to none, no cars, default trees !

I agree with the clouds. I don't have SkyMaxx and am wondering if I'd see any improvement if I did, but the default clouds for me are an absolute killer. I only have AA at FXAA too.

I have Skymaxx V3 and Real Weather Connector. HD on and 2X SSAA FXAA, 1/2 Refresh Rate in NI and is the smoothest sim i have ever seen.

I agree with the clouds. I don't have SkyMaxx and am wondering if I'd see any improvement if I did, but the default clouds for me are an absolute killer. I only have AA at FXAA too.

 

Agreed, default clouds are very taxing indeed! Skymaxx meant to be a lot better for that. Although Skymaxx and RWC weighs in very expensive IMO (like most products on X-Aviation).

I feel inspired to try XP again. Is the demo also the lastest version, or does it lag behind the full release?

 

Unless they are one and the same?

Agreed, default clouds are very taxing indeed! Skymaxx meant to be a lot better for that. Although Skymaxx and RWC weighs in very expensive IMO (like most products on X-Aviation).

 

I might try SkyMaxx as I am really trying to give XP a decent chance this time as the IXEG 733 is fantastic. I know this is not the place to compare FSX/P3D with XP but if that's one thing the former has going for it it's the ability to at least fly in decent overcast conditions without reducing to a Powerpoint presentation!

I have Skymaxx V3 and Real Weather Connector. HD on and 2X SSAA FXAA, 1/2 Refresh Rate in NI and is the smoothest sim i have ever seen.

 

 

Agreed, default clouds are very taxing indeed! Skymaxx meant to be a lot better for that. Although Skymaxx and RWC weighs in very expensive IMO (like most products on X-Aviation).

 

Interesting!

 

Can we say that Skymaxx improves the FPS then?

 

Would this be the first case of a graphic enhancement add-on that ALSO improves performance?

 

I will be getting this addon then!

 

 

Can we say that Skymaxx improves the FPS then?

 

If you have the right video card then yes, I have a 970 and FPS are no problem in any weather condition.

 

 

If you have the right video card then yes, I have a 970 and FPS are no problem in any weather condition.

 

How about a GTX770 2GB ?

How about a GTX770 2GB ?

 

Based on benchmarks I have seen, the 970 yields around 35% more performance then the 770, so I would say yes there may be a noticeable difference.

 

if you plant to upgrade any time soon, I would suggest to wait for the 1070 which will be around $399. I am planning on upgrading to the 1080 once is out.