XP10 Performance issue, i7-6700K vs. my SurfaceBook tablet

[be77solo 125]

Greetings all,

 

After giving the XP11 Beta a try (and buying it to support future development) it inspired me to try out the final version of XP10 while waiting.  I have actively used P3D this past year so wasn't up to date on where XP10 ended up.

 

So, fresh install of XP10, got it up and running all stock on my desktop machine (i7-6700K @ 4.6ghz water-cooled /16GB Ram /AMD Devil water-cooled 390X 8GB VRAM), and was pleased with updates but disappointed in performance overall.  I also installed it on my portable travel/work machine, a Microsoft Surface Book laptop/tablet hybrid (magnitudes slower than my desktop ha).  It's the mobile 15W i7/ 16GB RAM/ Nvidia 940M 1GB VRAM version.

 

My results were unexpected to say the least, with the Surface Book being quite a bit faster than my gaming desktop which is great at everything else I've tried since building it this Spring.  Every other game it's the exact opposite, with much higher settings and FPS on my desktop of course, and I'm just happy if the Surface loads and runs them decent at much lower settings when I travel.  So, now trying to figure out why my desktop is running both the XP10 final version and the XP11 beta so poorly.  Here, for example are my results in XP10 comparing the two devices side by side:

 

I used the presets in XP10 and restarted sim between each setting change.  Stock C172 at Seattle, all stock scenery etc, fresh install on both machines, minimal background programs on either, both fresh restart of windows 10.  I used 1920x1200 as a baseline resolution for each, as they have two very different screens.  This was upon loading, panning around the aircraft both inside and out, and then setting view back to the same spot. 

 

Minimum Preset: Desktop: f-act 67.76/sec, f-sim 59.25/sec, frame 0.015, cpu 0.011, gpu 0.006

                            Surface: f-act 101.90/sec, f-sim 105.4/sec, frame 0.010, cpu 0.013, gpu 0.010

 

Low Preset: Desktop: f-act 54.56/sec, f-sim 65.80/sec, frame 0.018, cpu 0.015, gpu 0.009

                    Surface: f-act 71.31/sec, f-sim 68.90/sec, frame 0.014, cpu 0.014, gpu 0.014

 

Medium Preset: Desktop: f-act 32.38/sec, f-sim 32.97/sec, frame 0.031, cpu 0.027, gpu 0.021

                          Surface: f-act 40.70/sec, f-sim 42.45/sec, frame 0.025, cpu 0.022, gpu 0.023

 

This remains the same when flying around in other planes and scenery.  I typically can't get more than 25-28 fps when flying the Carenado B58 with REP for example on my desktop, regardless of settings which was my first clue I have an issue.  Would love any insight from those more familiar with X-Plane in general.  The XP11 beta runs comparably worse as well compared to the FPS others are reporting.  Best I can tell, my desktop is running just fine, all benchmarks are right where they should be, temps etc are fine and I monitor regularly.  Prepar3d 3.4 runs fantastic with all the Orbx scenery using 3440x1440 resolution.  Battlefield 1, Titanfall 2, insert any other game here too perform as expected.

 

And, because a pic is way more fun than all those numbers ha:

 

[sizziano 172]

Are you on the latest AMD drivers. AMD isn't known for their stellar OGL support. Still those numbers seem off. ARe you sure everything is ramping up to it's rated speed while in XP? CPU and GPU?

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

Same here 25 to 30 fps in XP11 but butter smooth weird - its lie the fps counter is not working properly or something 

[be77solo 125]

Are you on the latest AMD drivers. AMD isn't known for their stellar OGL support. Still those numbers seem off. ARe you sure everything is ramping up to it's rated speed while in XP? CPU and GPU?

 

Driver wise using the latest 16.12.1, and everything else is running great.  Even reran a bunch of benchmarks to make sure.

 

CPU runs 4600mhz, GPU at 1100 MHz, both where they should be according to HWInfo64.

Same here 25 to 30 fps in XP11 but butter smooth weird - its lie the fps counter is not working properly or something 

 

This is XP10 though, and the sim is noticeably slow when panning etc.

 

The fact my 3 lbs tablet is running XP10 better was my big clue lol.

[Richard Sennett 2,499]

This is XP10 though, and the sim is noticeably slow when panning etc.

 

The fact my 3 lbs tablet is running XP10 better was my big clue lol.

 

Yes that does not sound right - no experience with amd

[be77solo 125]

Tried another setup between my two computers.  I deleted the X-Plane Screen Res.prf on both devices and went through the intro 747 flight in both, circling Seattle. 

 

Two observations: First, I'm quite impressed with how enjoyable XP10 runs on my SurfaceBook, shocked actually ha.  Second, there is something SERIOUSLY holding back my desktop for whatever reason, as in this intro flight I get similar to worse performance than a hybrid tablet running a 1GB lower end mobile GPU and low voltage dual core CPU.  If this was my only experience with XP10, I'd have deleted it immediately for terrible optimization on such powerful hardware.  So, curious what others are seeing.

 

I've used XP10 on other computers over the years, but this is the first time installing in on this desktop.  I struggle to believe that AMD OpenGL performance is the only culprit (and after researching a bit more this afternoon, AMD supposedly isn't much slower and sometimes faster in OpenGL), as nothing else has run into this issue, but no idea what else to think at this point.  The new Doom for example was OpenGL, I bought it at launch, and it ran great. There must be something not set right somewhere? 

 

Or, maybe I'm just crazy ha.

[laserit 93]

Are you frames steady or are they jumping around?

[be77solo 125]

Are you frames steady or are they jumping around?

 

They are steady.  Not locked like with V-Sync steady (which is off by the way on both machines), but within the normal ups and downs of any sim I've played.  IE, if I'm looking straight down or up it'll be a bit different than when I have the full scene in view, but no crazy swings, no.

[Longranger 148]

.  I struggle to believe that AMD OpenGL performance is the only culprit (and after researching a bit more this afternoon, AMD supposedly isn't much slower and sometimes faster in OpenGL), as nothing else has run into this issue, but no idea what else to think at this point.

That´s a known issue. On some computers with an AMD graphics card it runs significantly worse, than on others. But at the moment they haven´t found the difference, thac causes this problem.

[laserit 93]

Would be interesting to see what doing a simple graphic card swap would do with the situation. 

 

I have zero experience with AMD gpu's and their driver settings. Does AMD have a control panel similar to Nvidia? and is there some AA or other setting in the control panel that could be the culprit?

[be77solo 125]

That´s a known issue. On some computers with an AMD graphics card it runs significantly worse, than on others. But at the moment they haven´t found the difference, thac causes this problem.

 

Is this documented or discussed in detail somewhere that you have read?  I've searched all over the place, and maybe just haven't found the right pages, but can't find anything that explains this. 

 

I can buy a new graphics card, but if this is a known problem I'd sure like to read about it somewhere from the developers.  X-Plane (both 10 and 11) is the only software I've run into that has this issue.

 

I went with the AMD 390X 8GB when I built my machine earlier this year because it was noticeably faster than a Nvidia 970, right around a 980, for a good bit less.  With Pascal on the horizon, I didn't want to spend big bucks on a years old GPU ha.

Would be interesting to see what doing a simple graphic card swap would do with the situation. 

 

I have zero experience with AMD gpu's and their driver settings. Does AMD have a control panel similar to Nvidia? and is there some AA or other setting in the control panel that could be the culprit?

 

They do have a control panel, and I have it all setup to use application settings, so it's not throwing in any extreme wrenches.

 

I've used both AMD and Nvidia over the years, been happy with both.  This one has me stumped.

[Longranger 148]

Is this documented or discussed in detail somewhere that you have read?  I've searched all over the place, and maybe just haven't found the right pages, but can't find anything that explains this.

Not really in detail. It was mentioned and confirmed in

http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/11/physically-based-rendering-is-always-on/

 

and there was some talk about in

 

http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/12/some-bugs-were-working-on-for-public-beta-2/

 

but nothing significant.

 

But it would be a lie if I would say: It´s a surprise. They were necer known for their exceptionell software support, especially their OpenGL drivers. And since they concentrated more and more on Mantle and Vulcan...

[be77solo 125]

Not really in detail. It was mentioned and confirmed in

http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/11/physically-based-rendering-is-always-on/

 

and there was some talk about in

 

http://developer.x-plane.com/2016/12/some-bugs-were-working-on-for-public-beta-2/

 

but nothing significant.

 

But it would be a lie if I would say: It´s a surprise. They were necer known for their exceptionell software support, especially their OpenGL drivers. And since they concentrated more and more on Mantle and Vulcan...

 

Interesting, thanks for passing along.  I read through both and did see the couple of comments at the bottom where Ben mentioned an unknown performance problem with AMD cards in the XP11 Betas.  This is on XP11 however, is this too the same for XP10 where I'm having my problems?  I'll try and figure out how to reach out to Ben.

 

Seems if AMD cards weren't compatible with XP10 it would be much more known.  I run P3D, FSX:SE, DCS World, IL-2 Sturmovik COD/BOS, and just about every normal game out there (don't tell the wife but Steam library is up to 704, not to mention Origin, GOG etc).  None others have issues.

 

It's quite the bug when essentially a hybrid tablet with low voltage mobile cpu/gpu that gets ~2000 in 3DMark11 outperforms a custom built desktop that gets ~20,000 in 3DMark11...

[tonywob 4,768]

It certainly seems the case that AMD cards don't perform as well as their similar specced NVidia cards on X-Plane. This seems to be the case for at least the XP10 run. About 3 years ago, I had two computers, one had a more powerful and newer AMD card with 2GB of RAM, and the other was an NVidia 650m with half the RAM. Even though the AMD computer was better specced, the NVidia system would get the better performance. There of course could have been many other factors involved, but it's one reason I will now only use NVidia card  as they have the better performance with OpenGL applications (Plus better support in applications like Blender).

[Desaix 235]

Would be very helpful to borrow an Nvidia card to make the comparison. With that CPU and RAM I'd expect triple FPS than what you showed in XP10.

 

And man, 704 steam entries...wow, I must point that out to my wife when she run mad for the new yoke