Thought I'd try making the switch to Prepar3D Pro since the FSL A320 Pro will be a Prepar3D exclusive, and I'm appalled by the performance I'm seeing given the same exact settings...

 

I'm gonna go ahead and assume I've done something terribly wrong in the set up process. Can anyone think of what that might be? Linked below are in-game screenshots I've taken at KBFI, in-game sliders matched as closely as possible (with the exception of hardware tessellation), fair weather, system time, and the default Maule aircraft. No mods installed on either sim. P3D averages 65 FPS, FSX:SE averages 120 FPS.

 

http://imgur.com/a/gfkIv

As pointed out by some other people, Prepar3d sliders are not the same as in FSX-SE, also FSX-SE is more cpu bound while prepar uses both the cpu and gpu heavily and you got way more features available..
you can probaly only compare fsx-se to Prepar3d v1.4, also what are your specs?

Without your hardware specs and your settings - it gonna be difficult to help. And as P3D settings (and possibilities) are quite different from FSX ones it is not possible to make a real 1:1 comparision.

Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H-BK

i7 4790k @ 4.6 GHz w/H100i cooling

Reference GTX 970

16 GB DDR3 Memory @1600

Installed on Samsung 840 EVO SSDs in RAID0.

EVGA 1000W Supernova PSU

On Windows 10 Pro x64

 

Just to make sure I'm understanding you guys, I should have lower than 38 m mesh complexity in FSX in order to see something similar to 38 m of mesh complexity in P3D?

 

What possibilities and features are being processed in the sim that are cutting performance virtually in half?

 

Also, isn't increased performance one of P3D's proposed features?

 

 

 

Microsoft© DirectX 11 rendering engine takes full advantage of modern day graphics cards

• Increased performance, increased realism, and offers the full control over what is displayed

Turn off tesselation and hdr lightning in P3D as well as basically all shadow options and bathymetry, otherwise a comparison is impossible. But even then, as stated by others above, it is not entirely comparable, but it should be close. Of course, you can also not compare a tweaked FSX:SE with a non-tweaked P3D, for example if you use low FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION values in FSX:SE but none in P3D, you will most probably also see a difference in FPS.

Turn off tesselation and hdr lightning in P3D as well as basically all shadow options and bathymetry, otherwise a comparison is impossible. But even then, as stated by others above, it is not entirely comparable, but it should be close. Of course, you can also not compare a tweaked FSX:SE with a non-tweaked P3D, for example if you use low FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION values in FSX:SE but none in P3D, you will most probably also see a difference in FPS.

 

I haven't made tweaks to either version. They're both in their default states with the exception of adjusted sliders. HDR lighting is already off in P3D since it's not an FSX feature. Bathymetry is off by default. Hardware tessellation being off yeilds the same results in FPS even with a restart of the sim.

And the shadows? Did you make sure that those settings are also the same? Any tweaks in nVidia Inspector or in the nVidia Control Panel? As said, you can only compare those two sims if you take extra care that both use settings as comparable as possible. One other thing: if you use for example the highest LOD ratio value within FSX:SE, this will be 4.5 while in P3D you are up to 6.5, to properly compare you would need to manually turn down P3D to 4.5 again. Autogen densitiy is also higher in P3D using the same settings as in FSX and so on. It is really difficult to do a proper comparison, unless you open both cfgs and adjust the values manually in the p3d.cfg to those you had in FSX...

Any tweaks in nVidia Inspector or in the nVidia Control Panel?

Let me be clear and preface everything from here on out that I have not altered the sims or the hardware controlling them, aside from tweaking in-sim settings to get them close to each other.

 

 

And the shadows?

I went ahead and turned off all shadows in Prepar3D. I noticed about a 5 FPS increase, about 50 FPS away from our target of getting it to run as smoothly as FSX:SE. Not that I'm okay with running the sim without shadows turned on.

 

 

One other thing: if you use for example the highest LOD ratio value within FSX:SE, this will be 4.5 while in P3D you are up to 6.5, to properly compare you would need to manually turn down P3D to 4.5 again.

This changed things by maybe 1 or 2 FPS.

 

I then went through both FSX.cfg and Prepar3D.cfg side by side. In Prepar3D.cfg I verified the LOD value was 4.5. I verified all values with the same names were identical, especially settings under [sCENERY], [TERRAIN], and [GRAPHICS]. I even completely stripped the SIM of ALL autogen by adjusting the sliders below Scenery Complexity to "None" and I'm holding steady at 77 FPS, still over 40 FPS away from what I achieve in Steam Edition.

 

Sorry, I was under the impression there was a setting within Prepar3D not present in FSX that was known to cause severe performance decreases. If this is considered normal due to all of the amazing features and possibilities of Prepar3D, and I'm going to have to reduce my sim to a level that's visually nowhere near FSX's level, then I don't think it's for me.

P3d is not going to give you results like you had with FSX SE, why are you trying to achieve these massive fps instead of focusing on smooth fps with no OOM`s and great looking graphic`s, turning all your sliders and features off defeats the purpose of changing over in the first place, you do not need all the fsx tweaks in P3d, AM is the only tweak i find useful and running in 4k DSR with no NI, but every system is different of course.

 

if you leave behind all your FSX expectations and enjoy P3d for what it is i`m sure you will have a blast.... good luck

 

my 2 cents

Why are you aiming for 60+ FPS? I think most of P3D (and FSX ?) users are happy with 20-30 fps as long as it is smooth in visual performance and you can get your wanted settings and your addons working properly.

If I were to load up ORBX scenery, and fly over it in the NGX with traffic, weather, and REX textures using FSX:SE I'd drop from 100+ FPS down to 30-40 FPS. That's doable.

 

Considering my performance in P3D is half that, I'd be dropping down as low as 15 FPS. Lower in bigger cities. No, I'm not happy with that. And no, that's not massive FPS. I'm not about to start shooting slide-show approaches in a $200 sim that behaves virtually identical to FSX but runs at half the speed. Obviously something has to be wrong with my set up somewhere. I'm sure there's tons of people out there running the sim on high settings without issues. This would be an extremely common complaint if every i7/900 series GPU owner started feeling like they were in 2007 again.

"If I were to load up ORBX scenery, and fly over it in the NGX with traffic, weather, and REX textures using FSX:SE I'd drop from 100+ FPS down to 30-40 FPS. Considering my performance in P3D is half that, I'd be dropping down as low as 15 FPS. Lower in bigger cities."

 

I am not sure if your 1:1 calculation(assumption) will meet reality. To much variables in play...

 

I can only speak for myself: With all FTX titles except some airports, UTX, FSDT, FB,  FT and some AS mega airports, MyTraffic6, ASN, REX SC, PMDG, Dash 400, A2A 172, I enjoy smooth experience (20-25 fps) in most situations. For sure, flying PMDGs T7 over FTX NCA or SCA to KSFO or KLAX needs significant reduced settings or switch off FTX regions (via SimStarter) to reach 18-20 fps. But it is still acceptable in my opinion.

 

My system: i73820 @ 4.85, GTX 780, W10, P3Dv3.2

Can you post your actual P3D settings?

Can you post your actual P3D settings?

 

If you mean my settings you can find it here: http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=119706

 

I am using mainly those profiles depending on scenery/addons demand. Only, as described above, I have to reduce settings further (or switch off FTX) when over NCA/SCA KLAX/KSFO with T7 or  NGX.

Oh sorry, I referred to ColeThePilot's settings...  Should have mentioned that.