Hi everyone,

today i was flying EGLL - KMIA in the pmdg 777 and it was my first time using AS16 and ASCA. i was getting around 25fps at aerosoft heathrow and it was overcast. But as soon as i got near the clouds i was getting 5 - 10fps for the rest of the flight. I must admit it was very cloudy the whole flight but wasn't expecting to get that low frame rate. my specs are:

i5 6600k 3.2-3.9 ghz

8gb ram

radeon rx460 4gb.

 

i'm only using 4 cloud layers with maximum coverage ( i tried high but no differnece) and 90 miles distance. (i also tried 60 miles but no difference)

does anyone know how to improve this?

thanks,

Dylan

Hi Dylan,

 

First, please check the AS16 user's guide chapter on Performance Considerations and review all that.  There are quite a few suggestions there which can help.

 

On the ASCA side, you may try a reduced texture resolution or a different theme mode.  For example, Global Automatic should be less intensive than Full Dynamics, and standard themes are the least intensive.

Are you using any graphics settings tweaks, etc?  You may want to experiment with that.  Radeon's typically get low scores vs. nVidia when it comes to anti-aliasing of variable-transparency textures (cloud sprites) and lower graphics card settings here can help.  Performance considerations are focused around the weather depiction itself, which is independent of weather add-on, but of course the weather add-on can inject complex weather.  A good test is to save the flight, shut down AS16 and ASCA (and all add-ons), reload the saved flight/weather (or load the saved Active Sky weather theme in via the sim weather dialogs) to get the complex weather scene loaded, then work in that environment to achieve desired performance/quality balance.

 

Feel free to open a ticket at http://support.hifitechinc.com if you'd like some direct assistance with this.

hello Damian,

I've turned down my graphics card settings but there's not as many options for radeon as there is for Nvidia so it doesn't do much. I'll do some more testing like you said but I think it's just down to a particularly stormy day over the Atlantic.  

after doing some testing I've found out that it's actually the clouds casting shadows is the culprit, if I switch it off my frames go back up to 50fps! I guess i can just switch it back on once i reach land.