Hi Y'all,

 

My goal was to get to the bottom of the "you'd be better off moving to DX" thing, which I hear periodically, always from Windows users of coarse.

 

The thing is: we have some problems with OpenGL on OS X and Linux, but on Windows you get a completely modern GL 4.5 driver from all the major GPU vendors. So there isn't really anything we're missing.

 

Where OpenGL holds us back is the same place DX11 holds us back: threading. Vulcan and DX12 both address this; as I've posted before, we're likely to go with Vulcan for the wide platform support.

 

Benm one thing that pops to mind is dual GPU set ups but as I understand it, those wouldn't be much help with XP anyways correct? SLI/CF can work with OGL though right?

 

Dual GPU on a single monitor is, to put it bluntly, kind of a nightmare under all conditions. The problem is very simple: you're trying to make a bigger "compute farm" to render your frames faster but the two halves of the farm don't actually share any common memory. So you have to do a bunch of things, none desirable:

 

1. "Alternate frame" (GPUs take turns drawing). This increases your latency by one frame, and now that VR is a thing, that's considered bad form.

 

2. Sharing the frame. This requires every internally rendered temporary texture (think: shadow maps) to go to both GPUs so that each one can do part of a frame. That's a lot of duplicated work and a lot of coordination and the CPU giving out twice as many instructions to the drivers, so it's not a clear win.

 

My view is that this isn't worth it.  See point four of this post.

 

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019

 

What I think -is- of interest is multi-GPU for multiple monitor. If we only have to drive one monitor, you can go buy a bigger honking GPU and nail 1440p, maybe even 4k (if you want to spend a lot) and if you can't, in 18 months we'll have 2x the perf.

 

But multi-monitor is a lot worse - you can hang 3 4K monitors on your system and no one GPU is going to like that.

 

Here I think one GPU, one monitor is interesting because each GPU can do its own work.

 

This is -not- a situation that X-Plane supports now. I mention it only because it is a scenario where I consider multi-GPU to be a legitimately good idea.

 

I believe that was a decision made many versions ago to allow for cross platform support. You can use X-Plane on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

 

Yep - this is why X-Plane historically has been GL based.  We now have a lot of driver choices.

 

Lol i think that is Mr. Ben himself of LR

 

I did write some code for the rendering engine.

Here's a few of Pearson (CYYZ)  Intl. with a cross over from XP10 of the airport, and the MD-80, I'm about to take off in....all inported from XP10.  The last shot shows the Toronto Downtown Skyline in the distance. Clouds by SMP injection, controlled by NOAA plugin, and sky by Ventura Sky.

 

XP11:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rotation!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here I think one GPU, one monitor is interesting because each GPU can do its own work.

 

There's one thing I don't understand: shouldn't VR be equivalent to two monitors simultaneously rendering two slightly different point of views? In this case two GPUs should be ideal?

Runs like a slide show on my i7-6700K.

While many of the XP10 now XP11 screenshots look superb why does a majority of them look like an alien mothership is hovering right over the users aircraft when it comes to the clouds? Especially the darkened saturated ones that look like a compass drew them at a set distance? It seems like I always find myself saying, "Wow that's awesome"....yep clouds tell me it's XP.

While many of the XP10 now XP11 screenshots look superb why does a majority of them look like an alien mothership is hovering right over the users aircraft when it comes to the clouds? Especially the darkened saturated ones that look like a compass drew them at a set distance? It seems like I always find myself saying, "Wow that's awesome"....yep clouds tell me it's XP.

Well, the clouds in my shots are being generated by SMP, that was designed for XP10.  They need to come out with an SMP,  for XP11.  Also, this is a beta...and there are many features not given user control at the moment, like for instance, you have no U.I. for Gamma Saturation.  No way to down play or adjust the atmospheric haze saturation. These two items MUST be given control of the user via any future XP11 U.I.   You have gamma control (light or darken the general sim) within XP10.  Things like that.   

Runs like a slide show on my i7-6700K.

At any settings? I've got an ancient rig and it's OK

Well, the clouds in my shots are being generated by SMP, that was designed for XP10.  They need to come out with a SMP,  for XP11.  Also, this is a beta...and there are many features not given user control at the moment, like for instance, you have no U.I. for Gamma Saturation.  No way to down play or adjust the atmospheric haze saturation. These two items MUST be given control of the user via any future XP11 U.I.   You have gamma control (light or darken the general sim) within XP10.  Things like that.   

Alright Mitch, I'll keep an eye on XP11. I can probably deal without the seasons but I need a comprehensive weather and AI package before I bite.  I realize many will say, "why hold off, XP11 and P3d can coexist  just fine" and that's correct as I did it early on with XP10. My issue isn't with money it's with time as I found myself only able to keep up with/support one platform. Hope XP11 is a big success for LR will check back in after a few months and see how things have evolved, for the time being I'll lurk.

Runs like a slide show on my i7-6700K.

 

Turn off threaded optimization in NVidia control panel and see if that helps.

If you guys want to try the demo with your complete X-Plane 10 install, consider using symlinks from your X-Plane 11 install directory to your X-Plane 10 directories. Symlinking the Custom Scenery, Resources/plugins, Custom Data and Aircraft folders is a good idea if you want to save disk space, but still use all your X-Plane 10 add-ons in v11. 

Runs like a slide show on my i7-6700K.

 

Do what Ryan suggested and post a screenshot of your settings, you definitely have something wrong.

 

I have a i7 3770k @ 4.4 paired with a GTX 980 and performance is very smooth (locked at half of refresh 30fps) with settings almost all to the right.

Alright Mitch, I'll keep an eye on XP11. I can probably deal without the seasons but I need a comprehensive weather and AI package before I bite.  I realize many will say, "why hold off, XP11 and P3d can coexist  just fine" and that's correct as I did it early on with XP10. My issue isn't with money it's with time as I found myself only able to keep up with/support one platform. Hope XP11 is a big success for LR will check back in after a few months and see how things have evolved, for the time being I'll lurk.

There is still a LOT of work that needs be done, in XP11.  For one thing, they need to give the user, as much control over the sim, the gamma level to lighten up or darken the general sim, the haze intensity (which is way overblown...and actually hides most features of the ground at this time).  Atmospheric haze so badly heavy handed, that the color pallet of the sim has no depth or intensity...totally bland and washed out.

 

No DSF Extend control. No follow contours.  No way to flatten an airport runway or property.  In this beta U.I. it is gutted in user control, compared to XP10.  Way too compounded and high-level simplified.  

 

Ben...Laminar...PLEASE in the final rendition of the U.I.   PLEASE give us back at least, equal to the ability to turn on, or turn off, the features that are in play within control of XP10....------> XP11.  The setup U.I. is too simplified, and therefore crippled.  I hope this is just a quick first draft beta thing.  I sure as h*ll hope this is not much of a final U.I.

 

There are so many good features of this sim, but...there are also, step-backs...and for myself, the User Interface (as seen in this public beta) is one step-back, in a lot of what was controllable by the user in XP10...is no longer available to the user within XP11 Graphics control elements.

 

One thing more.  At night...the actual ground lights (for instance a city under the wing) has a severe lit drop-off..meaning that you can see a clear line of city lights on...and then complete darkness, and no blend slowly out to the horizon. Is not DSF Extention, still part of the sim base? You can clearly see where a tile is lit up...and the one further out from your position is totally non-rendered, and dark.

Hi Y'all,

 

My goal was to get to the bottom of the "you'd be better off moving to DX" thing, which I hear periodically, always from Windows users of coarse.

 

The thing is: we have some problems with OpenGL on OS X and Linux, but on Windows you get a completely modern GL 4.5 driver from all the major GPU vendors. So there isn't really anything we're missing.

 

Where OpenGL holds us back is the same place DX11 holds us back: threading. Vulcan and DX12 both address this; as I've posted before, we're likely to go with Vulcan for the wide platform support.

 

 

 

Dual GPU on a single monitor is, to put it bluntly, kind of a nightmare under all conditions. The problem is very simple: you're trying to make a bigger "compute farm" to render your frames faster but the two halves of the farm don't actually share any common memory. So you have to do a bunch of things, none desirable:

 

1. "Alternate frame" (GPUs take turns drawing). This increases your latency by one frame, and now that VR is a thing, that's considered bad form.

 

2. Sharing the frame. This requires every internally rendered temporary texture (think: shadow maps) to go to both GPUs so that each one can do part of a frame. That's a lot of duplicated work and a lot of coordination and the CPU giving out twice as many instructions to the drivers, so it's not a clear win.

 

My view is that this isn't worth it.  See point four of this post.

 

http://www.gamedev.net/topic/666419-what-are-your-opinions-on-dx12vulkanmantle/#entry5215019

 

What I think -is- of interest is multi-GPU for multiple monitor. If we only have to drive one monitor, you can go buy a bigger honking GPU and nail 1440p, maybe even 4k (if you want to spend a lot) and if you can't, in 18 months we'll have 2x the perf.

 

But multi-monitor is a lot worse - you can hang 3 4K monitors on your system and no one GPU is going to like that.

 

Here I think one GPU, one monitor is interesting because each GPU can do its own work.

 

This is -not- a situation that X-Plane supports now. I mention it only because it is a scenario where I consider multi-GPU to be a legitimately good idea.

 

 

 

Yep - this is why X-Plane historically has been GL based.  We now have a lot of driver choices.

 

 

 

I did write some code for the rendering engine.

Thanks for the clarifications Ben, great to see you participating in our forums, welcome to Avsim!

Turn off threaded optimization in NVidia control panel and see if that helps.

Thanks, tried that but didn't do anything. I'll post some info on my settings as suggested by Ryan. My in game settings are the default settings on installation.

For anyone else with performance issues, this was posted in the Dev Blog:

Flo says:

November 26, 2016 at 10:55 am

I have really bad performance at the beta version and the default airport at high settings. Only 14 FPS.

My PC:

i7 7490k

16 GB Ram

AMD RX 480 8GB

Samsung SSD 850

Windows 10 Pro

I think with this pc there must be much more frames possible at high settings.

Reply

Ben Supnik says:

November 26, 2016 at 12:02 pm

We’re seeing some reports of poor performance and it really seems to be certain machines, e.g. users with the same and less hardware are doing better.

It’s too soon to look at this, but in probably 1-2 weeks we’ll put out the word that we’re ready to look at -specific- performance problems, and at that point if you file a bug, we can look at what’s wrong with your configuration.

Please hold on for now; we’re getting so many emails we can’t look at individual perf problems yet.

I did write some code for the rendering engine.

 

Haha... Always have to love your sense of humor Ben