That will induce an FPS hit with dense clouds unless you are running SLI setup.  Lower cloud textures and reducing P3D cloud density setting will also help.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Rob, I have 3 Titans X sc in SLI, having  4 or 8xSGS still brings my system to its knees.  As you described in your Tweak the  fact the P3D uses DX11is a curse, in my FSX-SE I have @ 8xSSG, no issues with AA or FPS, unfortunately, is a trade we have to consider. 

I have Rex soft clouds with AS16 and see almost no performance problems flying through clouds, which I do a great deal at low altitudes. 

Interesting - I switched to a 4K monitor and turned off sgss - no hit at all and AA is beautiful.

 

 

Vic

I have Rex soft clouds with AS16 and see almost no performance problems flying through clouds, which I do a great deal at low altitudes.

 

The question then is if you use Inspector for SGSS. I don't and I also don't have problems in clouds. You will only get performance problems in clouds with specific AA settings.

 

 

Rob, I have 3 Titans X sc in SLI, having  4 or 8xSGS still brings my system to its knees.

 

Odd, I only have 2 Titans X's in SLI performance mode and 4X SGSS AA at 4K res with overcast and very high graphics settings produces about 27-30 FPS but there are definitely many "long frames" (stutters) as I'm below my 30 FPS threshold (Vsycn at 30Hz).  

 

8X SGSS AA in 4K will bring FPS very low 15-19.  The power draw from my system when using 4X SGSS AA (both GPU's run at 80-90%) at 4K res in dense clouds will trigger my APC UPS to kick in and compensate for excessive amp/voltage draw thru my standard 15A 120v house outlet ... I kid you not.  And the heat extraction causes my Flight sim pit room temps to increase by almost 10 F just from SGSS AA usage.

 

But same test with just one Titan X and 4X SGSS AA and I see about 20-23 FPS in same scenario, so SLI is helping.

 

But I find SLI 8XMSAA and 4K to very acceptable for AA and with virtually no performance hit thru dense clouds at all and a lot less power draw and heat.  In my P3D guide I included various test scenarios with and without SLI and with and without SGSS AA.  SLI is definitely a benefit in my setup, but others have reported they see no benefit and/or even worse performance with SLI - I don't have an answer why some see a benefit while others don't?

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

 

compensate for excessive amp/voltage draw thru my standard 15A 120v house outlet ...

 

Wow.  Are you actually drawing 15A (1800W if PF=1)?  I think code actually allows up to 20A at the outlet but there are usually multiple outlets and lights on the same breaker so sorry for the divergence. Back on that topic:  Just a 1 ohm resistance in the circuit will drop about 15 V at 15 A (for a non-reactive load V=I*R) so yeah you are getting into the range where 12 gauge wiring is desirable vs standard 14 gauge. Does your APC unit provide a clean sine wave or is it the typical stepped waveform using PWM?

OT but I thought that whole pure sine wave vs stepped was a made up issue.

I've been seeing very poor frame rates in P3D/AS16/ASCA at 1920x1200, 4XFSAA when in dense clouds, especially when faced with the overcast conditions. My 4970K/970 OC is struggling in the low teens to 20s in these conditions.

 

Tweaking general P3D terrain/complexity settings doesn't really offer much improvement. I'm at 1024/DXT clounds, with REX TD4 runways/water etc. Here the CPU is not fully loaded and it's the GPU pegged at 100%. 

 

Reducing the AS16 cloud layers to 3 or 4 helps but doesn't really shift things much.

 

Obviously the big killer is SGSS but quite honestly I hate how the external model and especially the cockpit dials look without it. I need it turned on.

 

The biggest improvement was to shift the cloud density in P3d from Max down to High. This has caused a significant improvement in frame rates, lifting me into the high 20s and 30s in heavy cloud conditions.

 

AS16 however now complains when I start up that it cannot do overcast conditions without clouds set to maximum density. But you know what? I'm happier with this setting - I was getting tired of almost constantly flying in overcast conditions where I couldn't see a thing, seemingly in direct contradiction to the METARS. 

 

My feeling is that the overcast conditions are way overdone and overused, and so for now I'm happier without them.

 

 

Does your APC unit provide a clean sine wave or is it the typical stepped waveform using PWM?

 

1500 Watt unit with true sine wave, APC fans kick-on when I enter dense clouds ... my SimPit room has a 15Amp breaker ... I do run a 2nd PC on the same circuit but that's only pulling about 300-350 Watt.

 

 

 

OT but I thought that whole pure sine wave vs stepped was a made up issue.

 

The answer depends on the PSU in the PC and quality of filters it uses.  A good quality PSU should be able to deal with a cheap stepped wave UPS.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Agree, modern power supplies use switching technology and regulation that is superior to the early days with big power transformers and capacitors.

 

My DirecTV receiver/DVR unit does not have a very robust power supply, it needs rebooting anytime there is a wrinkle in the power that not even the microwave oven detects.  I've gone with the pure sine wave unit for that application.  I think Motorola makes those receivers, at least that's the level of quality LOL.

 

I've been around UPS power all my life both as a military communication engineer and later in petrochemical control systems among other things. They sure have improved.  Any investment of a couple thousand dollars in a computer and dozens of hours in configuring same should have a UPS.

 

 

Any investment of a couple thousand dollars in a computer and dozens of hours in configuring same should have a UPS.

 

Agree, most of my sensitive electronic equipment thru-out my house will have a good UPS it's plugged into, even though our house is solar, we're still connected to the grid so when power drops with brownouts all my UPS start chirping away and fans go on.  I think the devices are very important for keeping one's equipment reliable ... not to mention you get time to power down safely.

 

 

 

The biggest improvement was to shift the cloud density in P3d from Max down to High.

 

Your cloud draw distance will also have a big impact to FPS, try dropping that down to 80mi.

 

Cheers, Rob.

Your cloud draw distance will also have a big impact to FPS, try dropping that down to 80mi.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Interesting, would you recommend going back up to Max density, to restore AS16 overcast rendering, with distance reduced from 90mi to 80mi to counter the SGSS load?

 

Or leave things at High density and tweak down the distance another notch for another fps boost?

 

I think I'll do some tests...  :smile:

 

(At High density I've got enough fps back to go back to 5 layers in AS16 and I'm no longer flying around in endless overcast cloud conditions).

 

 

Rob, I have 3 Titans X sc in SLI, having 4 or 8xSGS still brings my system to its knees.

 

Doesn't sound like there is much hope for the rest of us then. 

 

gb.

 

 

Odd, I only have 2 Titans X's in SLI performance mode and 4X SGSS AA at 4K res with overcast and very high graphics settings produces about 27-30 FPS but there are definitely many "long frames" (stutters) as I'm below my 30 FPS threshold (Vsycn at 30Hz).

 

Rob has anyone at LM talked about getting Nvidia's MFAA working with P3D.

MFAA seems to have some good press with a decent boost in quality with little performance hit.

 

gb.

Doesn't sound like there is much hope for the rest of us then. 

 

gb.

 

 

 

 

Not necessarily, Rob is running at 4k, and I @ 7992 x 1600 res. I also have all  orbx vector  and LOD in ultra setting.  

 

 

Rob has anyone at LM talked about getting Nvidia's MFAA working with P3D.

 

Not sure what you mean?  

 

I've tested with MFAA and it does work in P3D V3.x (don't need NI, just enable thru NCP).  Here are images with 4XMSAA alone and 4XMSAA + MFAA ... images are zoomed in so you can see the difference in AA (be sure to view images at 100% native size otherwise you'll not see the difference and have skewed results):

 

 

 

Cheers, Rob.