Jump to content
Sign in to follow this  
FWAviation

FPS and/or artifacts issues - asking for your advice

Recommended Posts

Hello everybody! Recently, I have noticeable problems with FPS and stuttering in my FSX. So far, I used a FSX.CFG tweaked with the old Jesús Bojote tweaking tool that has gone offline meanwhile. I know that that tool has become quite unpopular, but for me, it seemed to produce very acceptable (if not even optimal) results with my hardware configuration: Flyable FPS (mostly around 20) and fluid movements.

 

But in the past few weeks, I noticed considerable FPS problems at airport add-ons like the old Aerosoft Malé (Maldives) Airport but even on the newer (and more professionally designed) 29Palms Skiathos Airport. Those were add-ons that ran pretty fluidly when I first installed them, but now something seems to corrupt their performance. I already suspected the additional add-ons I installed in the meantime. But I ran a test where I de-activated most of my add-ons in the scenery library, and still the performance at Malé and Skiathos didn't get better.

 

So that's why I followed the famous tweaking guide by Word Not Allowed. I get very good FPS results and the old fluid movements when I set bufferpools to 0 in the FSX.CFG, but then I get the almost inevitable artifacts (even when I set water quality to High 2.X, just like Word Not Allowed recommends). So I tried other tweaks from people who ran into artifacts as well - including setting the bufferpool size to 1000, 4000, 390000000 and other values that allegedly worked wonders for other users. But then I ran into FPS problems again or I still got artifacts. I also tried various settings in the NVIDIA Inspector (including those of Word Not Allowed), but then found out that my original settings (recommended by German user AndroFSX on YouTube) still work best for me. I also tried AffinityMask=14, but it seemed to produce worse results than AffinityMask=84 which I chose because hyperthreading is active on my laptop.

 

So to make a long story short: Does anyone know what else I can do in order to get the best results out of my hardware configuration in FSX? That means: Decent FPS without having stutters and artifacts?

 

My hardware configuration is:

 

Laptop: Acer Aspire E5-771G-71PT

CPU: Intel Core i7-5500U 2.4 GHz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce 840M 2GB (1029Mhz or 1124Mhz Core w/boost / 900 Mhz GDDR3)

Memory: 8192 MB, DDR3, Dual-Channel, two slots (both occupied)

(Further data here)

 

I use FSX with SP2. If necessary, I can also post my FSX.CFG, of course.

 

I know that my laptop does not have the best configuration for running FSX, but as I said, Jesús Bojote's tweak produced very acceptable results for me in the past nevertheless. So I hope that there are a few people among you who use a "mid-sized" computer for running FSX as well or have experiences or advice with/for such a kind of system nevertheless. Thank you in advance!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Artifacts are usually a sign you have your sliders turned up too high for the kind of computer you have. FSX tends to get more artifacts under DX9 than if running in DX10 in my experience.

 

Some things I've noticed when running in DX9 mode.

 

GPU overload=white flashes.

PCIe bus overload=triangles or spikes when panning or flying around.

 

This notebook you have runs on PCIe 2.0 x4 (w/12 lanes), and when running DX9, both can happen. I'd try running in DX10 mode with Steve's free shader fixes or payware addon.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Artifacts are usually a sign you have your sliders turned up too high for the kind of computer you have. FSX tends to get more artifacts under DX9 than if running in DX10 in my experience.

 

Some things I've noticed when running in DX9 mode.

 

GPU overload=white flashes.

PCIe bus overload=triangles or spikes when panning or flying around.

 

This notebook you have runs on PCIe 2.0 x4 (w/12 lanes), and when running DX9, both can happen. I'd try running in DX10 mode with Steve's free shader fixes or payware addon.

Thanks a lot for the hint and for your research, Jeff! The thing is that I already tested DX10 mode (without any fixes, only in order to test the overall performance) and while I got a substantial increase in FPS, I had terrible stuttering respectively delays while taxiing down the runway in Skiathos. Apart from that, not only some scenery textures looked bad, but also the cockpit display textures of the Aerosoft A320 looked choppy/blurry. Can all those errors be fixed with Steve's free fixes and/or payware addon? And can you recommend any particular free fixes, since Steve's blog is a bit confusing? It would be nice to try the free fixes first before I buy the payware add-on.

 

If all that shouldn't help and I should rather turn my sliders down: Are there any sliders in particular that I should tackle? I have set autogen at "Dense" and scenery complexity at "Very dense", for example. My terrain sliders (mesh etc.) are all set to the very right, the water slider is at "Low 2.x" (after I discovered that "High 2.x" doesn't really reduce the artifacts). AI airline traffic is set at 100%, street traffic at 50 %, ship traffic at 25 % and boat traffic at 10 %. GA and airport vehicle traffic is at 0 %. If necessary, I could provide screenshots of all my settings in FSX.

 

Sorry for bombarding you with questions, but your hints are really interesting.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi FW,

 

first, move those AI aircraft and traffic settings way down. 20% give or take, will give you plenty ofAi air traffic. high AI settings are a well known drain on CPU resources.

 

As someone else posted, you are pushing your system beyond its limits. Dial back some of those scenery settings. If you have good underlying software, I.e. ORBX, you will like the experience.

 

Between in your FSX.cfg, do,you have

 

HI_MEM_FIX=1. I am not at my home computer, but I believe the setting goes under [GRAPHICS]. If I have made any mistakes on this, someone will chime in on the exact wording and placement.

 

Sherm

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Jeff! The thing is that I already tested DX10 mode

 

 

if  you havnt  got  steve  dx10 fixer   than  just  using  the dx10  wont  be  the answer


I7-800k,Corsair h1101 cooler ,Asus Strix Gaming Intel Z370 S11 motherboard, Corsair 32gb ramDD4,    2  ssd 500gb 970 drive, gtx 1080ti Card,  RM850 power supply

 

Peter kelberg

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Hi FW,

 

first, move those AI aircraft and traffic settings way down. 20% give or take, will give you plenty ofAi air traffic. high AI settings are a well known drain on CPU resources.

 

As someone else posted, you are pushing your system beyond its limits. Dial back some of those scenery settings. If you have good underlying software, I.e. ORBX, you will like the experience.

 

Between in your FSX.cfg, do,you have

 

HI_MEM_FIX=1. I am not at my home computer, but I believe the setting goes under [GRAPHICS]. If I have made any mistakes on this, someone will chime in on the exact wording and placement.

 

Sherm

Thanks for the advice, Sherm! Yes, I do have HighMemFix=1 in my FSX.cfg - I followed Word Not Allowed's tweaking guide where that line is also included.

 

20 % AI traffic sounds awfully little, if you ask me. Couldn't it be that on smaller airports where iin real life only one or two airplanes are on the tarmac at a time, there would be hardly any AI traffic at all anymore? And also on large airports, the traffic drop would be considerable, I suppose.

 

The thing is that for many months, I got very decent FPS despite having AI traffic set at 100 %. So I guess that my recent FPS problems were not caused by AI traffic, especially not on Skiathos Airport, where I usually have no AI planes at all on the tarmac - or, at the most, one plane. It could be, though, that now that I set bufferpools to 0, the artifacts can be caused by AI traffic putting an additional strain on the GPU, right?

 

And regarding the scenery settings: Which settings do you mean in particular? The autogen/scenery complexity settings in FSX - or the individual scenery settings (3D grass, people on the tarmac etc.) provided with many add-on sceneries?

if  you havnt  got  steve  dx10 fixer   than  just  using  the dx10  wont  be  the answer

Hi Pete, yes, of course. As I said, I only wanted to make a test of the general impact of DX10 on my FPS, so I used it without the fixer. My question also was whether the errors I detected (as mentioned above: severe stuttering on Skiathos' runway and bad textures in the Aerosoft A320 cockpit) would all be fixed by Steve's payware tool or his free shader fixes.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

You are overloading your system.

 

Start by reducing the load until performance is acceptable, then carefully build it back up.

 

Dial traffic to zero, including road traffic. Dial back autogen and scenery complexity.. these addon airports can be killers.. it is all a trade off.

 

Think of it as adding suitcases in a car trunk. Too many and you cannot fit it in, no matter how many ways you try..


Bert

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thanks! I just did a test by turning down all autogen, scenery complexity and traffic to zero and setting water quality to "High 2.X" (the recommended setting for Bufferpools=0). Of course, all this resulted in very good FPS without any artifacts - but FSX world looked dull and strange, without a lot of buildings and without any trees etc.. As soon as I turned scenery complexity back up, the FPS went down, but still reached decent values. As soon as I turned autogen up from zero to "sparse", I suddenly got artifacts again. And artifacts are my main problem currently. I also noticed that when I switch all traffic sliders back to their old settings (100% AI aircraft traffic, 50 % road traffic and so on...) while having high scenery complexity and autogen density, the FPS don't even drop considerably, maybe only by an average of 2 FPS. Quite an astonishing discovery. And even with scenery complexity at its old setting of "Very dense" and with autogen back at "Dense", I get decent, flyable FPS with only a few occasional microstutters.

 

So the main problem remains that I continue to get artifacts with Bufferpools=0 as soon as I set only the slightest amount of autogen. So I guess that I now have only two choices in order to remove those artifacts:

 

  1. Replace "Bufferpool=0" with some other bufferpool setting in my FSX.cfg, and then fiddle around with the autogen and scenery complexity sliders until I maybe am able to maintain decent FPS at all my airports
  2. Try DX10 with Steve's free or payware fixes (just like magnetite recommended)

 

Unless someone knows a third alternative which no one here mentioned yet. ;)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Suggest leaving out the bufferpools setting altogether.. and also consider leaving road traffic at zero.

 

Until you get a more powerful system..


Bert

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Water under DX9 hurts performance, so turning it down to Low 2x will help. May not look as nice, but that is a tradeoff.

 

Same goes for things like bloom lighting, is a performance hog in DX9.

 

Anisotropic filtering will help keep your textures sharp and clear, as long as you keep your sliders in check. You'll still have blurry textures if you fly too fast (having an SSD will lessen this effect).

 

Bottom line is you will have you make some sacrifices with your sliders and your visual quality of FSX with your particular system. There isn't any way around it, short of upgrading.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Suggest leaving out the bufferpools setting altogether.. and also consider leaving road traffic at zero.

 

Until you get a more powerful system..

Well, my system is only one year old - and I bought my notebook shortly before I decided to pick up flightsimming again, after a pause of several years. So, sadly, I didn't buy it with the FSX already in mind - and I won't buy a new computer any time soon. ;) And regarding road traffic: See above or see below. ;) Traffic is actually no real FPS killer on my system, apparently.

Water under DX9 hurts performance, so turning it down to Low 2x will help. May not look as nice, but that is a tradeoff.

 

Same goes for things like bloom lighting, is a performance hog in DX9.

 

Anisotropic filtering will help keep your textures sharp and clear, as long as you keep your sliders in check. You'll still have blurry textures if you fly too fast (having an SSD will lessen this effect).

 

Bottom line is you will have you make some sacrifices with your sliders and your visual quality of FSX with your particular system. There isn't any way around it, short of upgrading.

Surprisingly (just like with AI traffic), I don't even have a noticeable performance drop when choosing High 2x as water quality.

 

Bloom lighting is deactivated in my FSX anyway - just in line with Word Not Allowed's tweaking guide. Anisotropic flitering is activated already as well. And despite not operating FSX on a SSD, I never had a noticeable problem with blurry textures.

 

Can you give me any hints about particular DX10 fixes I should use? And can you say whether such problems like poor Aerosoft A320 cockpit textures and heavy stuttering while taxiing down Skiathos' runway could be eliminated if I use free fixes or Steve's payware fixer?

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Between in your FSX.cfg, do,you have

 

HI_MEM_FIX=1. I am not at my home computer, but I believe the setting goes under [GRAPHICS]. If I have made any mistakes on this, someone will chime in on the exact wording and placement.

 

Sherm

Good advice Sherm, but make sure to tell people it's Highmemfix=1 not Hi_mem_fix=1 as that one won't work.


Avsim Board of Directors | Avsim Forums Moderator

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Good advice Sherm, but make sure to tell people it's Highmemfix=1 not Hi_mem_fix=1 as that one won't work.

Thanks, as I wrote, since I did not recall the exact syntax I was sure someone would step up to comment. You did, and thanks

 

Sherm

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Can you give me any hints about particular DX10 fixes I should use? And can you say whether such problems like poor Aerosoft A320 cockpit textures and heavy stuttering while taxiing down Skiathos' runway could be eliminated if I use free fixes or Steve's payware fixer?

 

These are the free shaders. I don't own any Aerosoft planes, so I can't comment. The heavy stuttering might be caused by your autogen settings being too high. I used to get stuttering when approaching airports in DX9, but not so much under DX10.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Thank you, magnetite, and thank you to all others for your advice! I'll keep you posted what I can do with DX10, but I won't tackle this issue before next week due to other tasks. In any case, thank you for your input!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
Sign in to follow this  

  • Tom Allensworth,
    Founder of AVSIM Online


  • Flight Simulation's Premier Resource!

    AVSIM is a free service to the flight simulation community. AVSIM is staffed completely by volunteers and all funds donated to AVSIM go directly back to supporting the community. Your donation here helps to pay our bandwidth costs, emergency funding, and other general costs that crop up from time to time. Thank you for your support!

    Click here for more information and to see all donations year to date.
×
×
  • Create New...