fsx-ms FSX Performance issues in Windows10 Pro

[veemaniq 1]

Hi fellow simmers and FSX gurus,

 

I recently upgraded to Windows 10 Pro from Windows 8.1 Pro. The upgrade went smoothly, except for few glitches relating to regenerating XML.dll and FSX.cfg files (thanks to the inputs I got here and other forums). FSX is up and running with all my add-ons (ORBX, REX, Aircrafts, EZDOK, etc.). I only had to reinstall nvidiainspector and fsrecorder. So happy with the smooth upgrade process.

 

However, I notice that the FSX performance (in terms of FPS) degrades with time in each session of FSX. For example, I start out with 18-20 FPS at KSEA and after 5-8 minutes or so the FPS drops to as low as 1-3 FPS when I am flying the PA23 Alebo Aztec F250 by Carenado. When flying the default Beech Baron 58, I start out with 20-22 FPS and that drops to 8-10 FPS over time. The performance continues to be lower even when I move into low autogen areas. When I restart FSX it again starts with relatively higher FPS and starts declining with time.

 

I started monitoring my CPU, GPU and memory usage and it seems like FSX is not using all available resources even in highly resource demanding areas such as KSEA or KTPA add-on FlyTampa Tampa Rebooted; like my max CPU usage stays at 49% (i7-4770k overclocked to 4.3 ghz), max GPU usage at 47% (EVGA GeForce GTX 780 3GB GDDR5), max memory usage 33% (Corsair Vengeance Pro 16GB (2x8GB) DDR3 2133 MHz, occupying slots 1 & 3).

 

Additionally, in the FSX startup window, the 'Home' and 'Learning Center' tabs are blank. All other tabs, including the 'Free Flight' tab, thankfully works.

 

If anyone faced similar issues and found a fix, please share. I have pasted below some sections of my FSX.cfg which used to run fine in Windows 8.1 Pro.

 

Thanks in advance and as always, greatly appreciate your inputs.

 

Happy Flying!

veemaniq

 

****************************************************************************

FSX.cfg:

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=84

[bUFFERPOOLS]
Poolsize=0

[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1
SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED_10=1693458432
SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1693458432
D3D10=1
TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096
NUM_LIGHTS=8
AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=1
AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1
COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1
LANDING_LIGHTS=1
AC_SELF_SHADOW=1
EFFECTS_QUALITY=2
GROUND_SHADOWS=0
TEXTURE_QUALITY=3
IMAGE_QUALITY=0
See_Self=1
Text_Scroll=0
MultiSamplesPerPixel=8
MultiSampleQuality=8

[sCENERY]
LENSFLARE=1
DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1
IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5

[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=6.500000
MESH_COMPLEXITY=100
MESH_RESOLUTION=25
TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=29
AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4
DETAIL_TEXTURE=1
WATER_EFFECTS=7

[sTARTUP]
DEMO=0
SHOW_OPENING_SCREEN=1
STARTUP_DEMO=
LoadWindow=1
 

[magnetite 38]

FSX doesn't use all available resources, because it constantly has to be calculating and loading up huge amounts of scenery even while you fly. Unlike a game which loads everything it needs at the loading screen, in a small enclosed map, it doesn't really load anything or do complex calculations to simulate the visible portion of the planet.

 

It seems you have your autogen settings fairly high. Phil Taylor from ACES said that autogen performance is dictated by the PCIe bus and your GPU having sufficient texture bandwidth. Cards with more shaders and TMUs would help.

[Jim Young 2,356]

Get rid of the AffinityMask and Bufferpool tweaks.  Tweaks bad!  You do not need to delete the entries, just comment them out so they do not load.  You comment them out by place two slashes before the entries:

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]
//AffinityMask=84

[bUFFERPOOLS]
//Poolsize=0

 

 

 

MultiSamplesPerPixel=8
MultiSampleQuality=8

 

Also comment out these two entries.  Go fly!

 

Jim

[charliearon 3,023]

For a quick test i would lower 2 settings in your [TERRAIN]  change LOD_RADIUS=6.500000 to 4.500000

 

(Default) and WATER_EFFECTS=7 to a lower number like 4 or 5.  Flying up in the Seattle area,

 

probably with ORBX PNW, there's lots of water all around.  See if these 2 changes help with the frames.

[cobalt 798]

  My question, to all who have "upgraded" to Windows 10 from Win 7 or 8 is, exactly why did you do this? What advantages did you expect to gain by doing it? This is what I don't get.

[johnman 7]

Ok veemaniq ,

 

I did the Upgrade from Win 7 64 bit, FPS went WAY South, Went Online and got all the Correct Drivers, Win 10 Wants to use the Default VGA Driver. Got some Improvement, But was still down around 10 or 12 FPS. Reverted back to Win 7 64 bit, FPS back up to 25 to 30 FPS !! , I think that If I would have done a Clean Install instead of an Upgrade, things would have Been OK. Gonna Stick with the Winner !! - Johnman B)

[Alan Rhodes 2]

I don't think that anyone here as yet answered his original question. That is why is changing to windows 10 made his performance change so much? It can't be because of his settings. Thereappears to be more problems than that.

 

Those tweaks to the config file may help but why should he have to do that if it was working ok in windows 7? 

 

I haven't a clue what is happening, but what I do know is that when I upgraded from windows 7 then 8 and 8.1 to 10 there has been absolutely no performance drop in FSX or any add ons. with the exception of the joystick dropout in windows 8 which is now cured in 10.

 

 As for using windows 10 for other things, everything seems much smoother and better all round, you also have the knowledge that Microsoft won't drop support and keep updating whereas they will do to 7.

[charliearon 3,023]

I don't think that anyone here as yet answered his original question. That is why is changing to windows 10 made his performance change so much? It can't be because of his settings. Thereappears to be more problems than that.

How recent was the change to Win 10?  Did he add stuff or make changes once the OP system was upgraded?  Were

 

any graphics updates needed?  Settings may need to be adjusted to compensate for the System upgrade.

[Alan Rhodes 2]

His main problem is because FSX appears to almost stop after a few minutes also parts of his start up screen are blanked can't see any tweaking or adjusting settings is going to cure this. Could it be a faulty reinstall of something?  As I have said there has been no noticeable difference between the 3 operating systems in my experience and I haven't even reinstalled everything.

[Sesquashtoo 2,846]

FPS dropping over time?   You have CPU threads crashing/conflicting.

 

Remove all or any custom .cfg entries...start from scratch, and see how that goes...

[Boeing or not going 578]

Get rid of the AffinityMask and Bufferpool tweaks.  Tweaks bad!  You do not need to delete the entries, just comment them out so they do not load.  You comment them out by place two slashes before the entries:

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

//AffinityMask=84

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

//Poolsize=0

 

 

 

 

Also comment out these two entries.  Go fly!

 

Jim

AffinityMask is important still the other tweaks though are not.

 

First thing I noticed when upgrading to Win10 is Windows Defender slows things down. Put all FSX/P3d processes on the exclusion list or just disable Windows Defender completely.

[veemaniq 1]

Thanks everyone for your responses and questions. Sorry for the delay in getting back. I'll try to answer your questions.......

I upgraded to Win10 on July 29th to take advantage of the free upgrade and check it out since I have 30 days to revert back to Win8.1. Not too worried about Microsoft 'spying' as I use this computer for FSX and gaming

So far I have been pleased with the new OS. Even in FSX my performance issue is pertaining to the significant drop in FPS otherwise I think Win10 for me is far more stable when it comes to smooth working of various add-ons, controls etc.
I also notice a much better scenery quality less of flickering fences and building....even though I felt I had already resolved those with various tweaks including the use of Steve's DX10 Fixer, nvidiainspecter etc....they now appear relatively sharper. I also feel that I see a marked difference in terrain & shader quality as well....not sure if these are configured better in Win10, I'll let experts weigh in on that.

Thus except for the FPS issue that I have mentioned I am happy with Win10. Having said that I am wondering if there is a issue with resource allocation or rather full use of all available resources in Win10 for a sim like FSX, which obviously is from a different era in technology. Also it is very much possible that this issue is specific to my build. I understand that FSX, calculates and fills scenery on a as required basis (as pointed out correctly by 'magnetite') but this was also the case in Win8.1, thus that should not be a factor.

In terms of toning down of various parameters in cfg file, reducing TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD,  LOD_RADIUS, blocking AffinityMask, Poolsize, MultiSamplesPerPixel etc., I have already done these adjustments and experimented. One thing I would like to add is that the drop in FPS is most pronounced when I am flying the only payware I have, that is, Piper - PA23 Alebo Aztec F250 by Carenado. In other stock aircrafts it is not as bad, thus the decline in performance does not appear to be linear.

One final point, while in Win8.1, I was getting 22 FPS in KSEA region and some drop in FPS to maybe 17, when I approached downtown scenery while flying Carenado Piper, with other stock aircraft the same figures were 27 and 23 respectively.

I'll continue to investigate this further and keep experimenting, if I learn something I'll promptly post here. So stay tuned!

 

Again, thanks for your inputs and questions and feel free to ask any other questions you may have or suggestions you would like me to try.

 

Cheers!

veemaniq
 

Btw, I forgot to mention that I have provided Windows Defender exclusions to all *.exe files that I use for FSX.

[Boeing or not going 578]

Thanks everyone for your responses and questions. Sorry for the delay in getting back. I'll try to answer your questions.......

 

I upgraded to Win10 on July 29th to take advantage of the free upgrade and check it out since I have 30 days to revert back to Win8.1. Not too worried about Microsoft 'spying' as I use this computer for FSX and gaming

 

So far I have been pleased with the new OS. Even in FSX my performance issue is pertaining to the significant drop in FPS otherwise I think Win10 for me is far more stable when it comes to smooth working of various add-ons, controls etc.

I also notice a much better scenery quality less of flickering fences and building....even though I felt I had already resolved those with various tweaks including the use of Steve's DX10 Fixer, nvidiainspecter etc....they now appear relatively sharper. I also feel that I see a marked difference in terrain & shader quality as well....not sure if these are configured better in Win10, I'll let experts weigh in on that.

 

Thus except for the FPS issue that I have mentioned I am happy with Win10. Having said that I am wondering if there is a issue with resource allocation or rather full use of all available resources in Win10 for a sim like FSX, which obviously is from a different era in technology. Also it is very much possible that this issue is specific to my build. I understand that FSX, calculates and fills scenery on a as required basis (as pointed out correctly by 'magnetite') but this was also the case in Win8.1, thus that should not be a factor.

 

In terms of toning down of various parameters in cfg file, reducing TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD,  LOD_RADIUS, blocking AffinityMask, Poolsize, MultiSamplesPerPixel etc., I have already done these adjustments and experimented. One thing I would like to add is that the drop in FPS is most pronounced when I am flying the only payware I have, that is, Piper - PA23 Alebo Aztec F250 by Carenado. In other stock aircrafts it is not as bad, thus the decline in performance does not appear to be linear.

 

One final point, while in Win8.1, I was getting 22 FPS in KSEA region and some drop in FPS to maybe 17, when I approached downtown scenery while flying Carenado Piper, with other stock aircraft the same figures were 27 and 23 respectively.

 

I'll continue to investigate this further and keep experimenting, if I learn something I'll promptly post here. So stay tuned!

 

Again, thanks for your inputs and questions and feel free to ask any other questions you may have or suggestions you would like me to try.

 

Cheers!

veemaniq

 

Btw, I forgot to mention that I have provided Windows Defender exclusions to all *.exe files that I use for FSX.

Sometimes that is not enough, try turning Windows Defender off completely and see if that fixes it.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

AffinityMask is important still the other tweaks though are not.

 

Only if it is employed properly.  The first things you look at when you have a freeze or crash are high settings and tweaks because it most likely did not occur when you had default settings. 

[cgbart 7]

Veemaniq,

 

Give spybot's anti-beacon utility a try and let us know. Enable all options. It stops a lot if not all of the constant reporting and chatter over the network from your Win10.