Any *Must Have* Tweaks with P3D 3.2?

[B777ER 2,484]

So, I' coming from FSX. My old rig died and upgraded to a new computer and chose to go with P3D v 3.2. My new computer which I am still installing scenery, etc... in has the following spec's:  Intel Core i7 6700K Quad Core CPU (4.6GHz Overclock), ASRock Z170 OC Formula, 64GB DDR4 SDRAM 2666MHz, single drive 2TB Samsung 850 Pro SSD and a 6GB Nvidia GTX 980Ti (by the way those guys at Jetline Systems are the best).

 

I keep reading here in the forums and some YT videos about different tweaks, ranging from you don't need any in the cfg too you need at least a couple or more. To be honest it's all over the board with people's various opinions. That is to be expected of course with users having different systems. But what I am trying to get at is, with FSX there was consensus with pretty much everyone that there were a few mandatory tweaks needed in the fsx.cfg (stuff even Aces said they forgot to include in the cfg). Being a noob with P3D I am looking for insight if there are any mandatory ones I need to put in? Stuff like affintymask (which I still to this day don't know how to figure the number you need), highmem fix, the FFFT tweak for frames, etc....

 

Also, what is the consensus on nvidia inspector? Is that still needed? I had it for FSX and had some recommended settings in that which made fsx look very nice. Just wondering if that as well is a must have item and if so what are the ideal settings for that? I also have researched and saw that some don't use it but many seem to do with just a few settings selected?

 

Thank you

[Guest]

You will find various opinions on this board too, of course, but while almost everyone acknowledged the need for (a lot of) tweaks with FSX I do think I can say most people will advice to start without any tweaks at all with P3D. I myself do not use ANY (performance) tweaks. Also because the really mandatory FSX ones are used in P3D by default (like the highmen fix). Some people do use affinity mask (tried it, ditched it) or FFFT (tried it, ditched it) but this is very, very personal and subjective and certainly not looked upon as mandatory. You should only use specific tweaks if you run into specific problems. But again, I think most people agree that it's best to start without any tweaks.

 

nVidia Inspector is needed if you want superior AA (like with FSX, using the same kind of settings: switch Antialiasing to Enhance'  and Transparency Supersampling to 4x SGSS, making sure you math the P3D AA setting with that number) but, as with FSX, it comes at a cost, specially in clouds. It can kill performance. With your rig however, you might give it a try (although it depends on the resolution you are using). I myself don't use it because default P3D AA is good enough for me in the planes I usually fly.

 

I myself really love not having to tweak anything. :wink: I only tweak some configs for display change time, text info, camera views, etc. but not for performance! For performance you should stick with the sim settings. Imho. And IF you really want to tweak, do it yourself, figure out your own settings, because tweaks from others usually only work on their own systems (if they work at all because imho most positive tweak results are placebo ).

[Bobsk8 12,531]

Best Tweak, don't touch anything, just fly and enjoy. 

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

My experience is the same as Jeroen's above. I tried pretty much any sensible tweak that people here suggested and I found that none of them do much at all in the way of improving the P3d flight simming experience in any significant way. However, the recent shader pack does give P3d more realistic shadows and haze and I do recommend that:

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/487786-realismshaderpack-v11/

 

The best approach to getting smooth performance is to tweak down all the P3d image quality settings  to match the capabilities of your hardware.

[SN737 132]

Hi,

I'm just adding TextureMaxLoad=30 to my P3D.cfg file, because I can't stand the slow loading textures, especially the ai traffic (UT2 at 100%). As I use trackIR and for example if I'm on hold short of departing runway and look to my where the terminal (eg. KSFO FSDreamteam) and ai are, it totally ruins immersion IMHO as you will see black textures for may be 2 or 3 seconds until they finally load. This tweak helps a lot to practically load them instantly, don't really know if it brings stutters but I don't care too much, I prioritize the texture load time. Other tweaks I tried didn't do anything drastic so I deleted the p3d.cfg file and added just the one I'm talking about.

I also agree that shaderpack-v11 is a must, it changed my sim.

You'll love p3d I couldn't go back to fsx after first installing v2.5 on my system (now running v3.2).

Good luck

Sergio

[newtie 533]

 

 

The best approach to getting smooth performance is to tweak down all the P3d image quality settings  to match the capabilities of your hardware.

 

...and money.  :smile:

[G-YMML1 582]

Hi,

I'm just adding TextureMaxLoad=30 to my P3D.cfg file,

 

Is this trick still working in P3D?

[SN737 132]

Is this trick still working in P3D?

 

It's sure working for me !!, you'll notice big difference if you load a heavy scenery with lots ai traffic.

In a vanilla P3D, is not with it.

[Guest]

I've tried and tested all kinds of tweaks, including some not public, but when it comes to my primary FS setup I have NO tweaks at all.

 

The only tweak that really isn't a tweak, is being careful what 3rd party products you install and how you configure those 3rd party products ... that's where you're gonna see huge FPS differences and huge VAS difference.

 

So my advice would be to:

 

1. Leave P3D alone/untweaked

2. Know your add-ons and know them well (this is where you'll be able to keep FPS high and lots of free VAS)

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

...and money.

 

Naah, money is only required if you lack the necessary will power to manage your graphics sliders and add-ons.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[newtie 533]

As always, you're absolutely right.

 

I have a fast machine and don't use autogen or trees for that matter coming from using photoscenery only for the longest time. ORBX stuff looks pretty good including all the cool airports.

 

Mark

[irrics 1,517]

@Rob: do you add any AA settings in NVIDIA prefs or inspector?

[Guest]

 

 

AA settings in NVIDIA prefs or inspector

 

Only when testing, NOT for my normal day to day flying.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[SteveW 1,792]

P3D breaks up into as many parts as it finds Logical Processors, and provides the Affinity Mask setting to limit the number of parts and as such this is a system dependent setting.

 

However, *Disable Hyperthreading* is an often used Tweak whereby the required Affinity Mask for the Hyperthreading mode of the CPU has not been correctly established for the system. This gets around the problem of the sim broken up into too many parts since it halves the count. Also this ensures that two sim jobs do not occupy one core by occupation of both logical processors.

 

In the P3D manual it states that the main rendering thread is at its leanest with four parts. When there are more than four parts these excess parts, or jobs, are utilised for loading the scenery. So with four parts we see the best performance of the renderer, but with, for example six parts, that performance is reduced slightly and the scenery loading speed is increased.

 

If the sim is set up and tested under the correct conditions it can be shown that HT enabled and the correct application of core affinity yields the best performance. Increasing the job count, up to a point, increases the scenery loading speed at a cost to outright rendering performance. Differences are small, those claiming wild changes to performance simply have issues with addons or other software running alongside the sim, it's way too easy to blame HT and the AM.

 

Rob correctly pointed out the main reason we see marked differences in performance is determined by the exe addon programs running alongside the sim. These addon exe programs will also make configuration more demanding when Hyperthreading is enabled.

[B777ER 2,484]

All good stuff gents. Many thanks for the inputs. Sounds like I'm going to leave the Prepar3d cfg alone. I think I will get NI and adjust the AA with it. I'm running P3D on a 40" flat panel TV at 1920x1080 and hate seeing any jaggies on the screen.

 

As far as what Rob mentioned above, I am sticking with just the handful of 3rd party dev's that produce exceptional stuff along with aircraft. Oh, I plan on being that realism shader as well, the reviews are very good on it.

 

Thanks again for all the input!

[SteveW 1,792]

If you are going to use any addons that also support FSX you may find they use the simconnect versions from FSX era. Install the three legacy simconnects from the redist\Interface\ folder:

 

example double-click the msi

 

C:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\redist\Interface\FSX-RTM\retail\lib\simconnect.msi

C:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\redist\Interface\FSX-SP1\retail\lib

C:\Program Files (x86)\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D v3\redist\Interface\FSX-SP2-XPACK\retail\lib

 

 

One other thing to do is to set User access to the P3D files since many addons like PMDG require it:

 

Navigate to the P3D program files folder in Explorer, right-click it, choose Properties, choose Security tab, click Edit, select the Users group, check Modify, Apply, OK.