P3D Graphics Card Settings

[flemon 0]

Hello

 

I've been having problems recently with P3D (you can read my other topics if you wish!) related to textures in P3D. My specs are:

 

I7 CPU @ 4.0GHz (OC to approx. 4c3GHz)

GTX 960 2gb

8gb RAM

 

The add on sceneries I have loaded into P3D are UK2000 EGKK and the freeware Hamilton Island from Ant's Aussie Airports. The former is a nightmare to fly in an out because the shimmering is extremely severe and is extremely distracting. I fly a lot on Vatsim and I don't want Gatwick to be left alone by me as it is the best covered airport in the UK. I have sought help in these forums and we have come to the conclusion that it is either because of the lack of mip maps in these scenery or because of my GPU settings. The Hamilton Island airport is really good apart from a few bits of shimmering where I think anti-aliasing is not properly configured.

 

I've looked for ages for a good guide to the best GPU settings for P3D v3 but all of them are linked to FSX and go into so much detail which I don't think is required for me. I used to use FSX, but on a completely different PC and this new PC just has P3D on it. My graphics card seems to be alright as I can hit 60 fps continuously at payware EGKK with cockpit shadows.

 

I ultimately aim to purchase AS's A320, a good load of payware airports and Active Sky Next. REX and ORBX stuff can probably wait as I am not looking for complete perfection in my sim, I just want realistic Vatsim flying with airports and aircraft that can deliver a good enough quality to my sim.

 

To cut a long story short, could anyone outline what I need on or off or different amounts in the Nvidia Control Panel. I've looked at it a lot but haven't dare to touch it afraid of messing it all up. I've messed around with p3d graphic settings and found out that increasing the texturing filtering form its normal 8x introduces a small amount of stutters to the sim. I moved my texture resolution from its default 1k to 2k and seen no performance hit. FXAA is set to on and MSAA is at 8x.

 

I could get a screenshot of my Nvidia Control Panel if you want but for now I hope that is enough for you extremely clever people to help. I know these forums are the best to go to because of their member's experience.

 

Thanks so much

 

Fraser Barnes

[basementflyguy 156]

At least for me, a good place to start is always with the defaults: moving or renaming the P3D CFG file so you have a backup, and telling NVIDIA Control Panel to return to defaults. Let P3D rebuild the CFG and see what you get.

[OzWhitey 3,353]

Fraser, I've had more than my fair share of shimmering - something I notice mostly when I use a large TV rather than a monitor.

 

I remember some from the UK2000 airports. In general, older scenery designed for FSX or FS9 is more likely to get the shimmers. I just turn everything up/on - AA, Vsync, the rest of the settings on that page - within P3D, and use the latest graphics drivers. I don't try to use anything outside of P3D, unlike in the 'old days'.

 

If an airport shimmers too much, I'd suggest trying something that uses newer libraries - anything recent by Orbx would be a good start - and then see if that fixes it. Will let you know if it's your settings or just the scenery.

 

By the way, I certainly find a lot of the UK2000 stuff usable in P3D, but scenery does vary and I know some of those airports are getting on a bit.

[Dave_YVR 973]

 Shimmering airport sceneries often from older titles is a common effect of the textures not being mipped.

[flemon 0]

Thanks for the replies.

 

I've tried to mipmap Gatwick but it doesn't seem to have worked. It's just annoying that these old airports haven't been updated or remade so that they can cope better with more modern computers. I could just go for Aerosoft Heathrow or would that have problems with mipmapping as well?

 

Fraser