P3D and my initial thoughts

[Capt Pugwash 6]

Hi Howard, some of these chaps are right, you need a beefier graphics card, to run stuff like ORBX, UK2000, NGX & a weather program in tandem as we like to do...

I opted for the GTX1070 and it certainly made a difference to the stutters...just be aware that the latest drivers from nvidia are causing some stutter and other issues currently that appear to affect P3D...But as always you can use an older driver...good look and have a great Crimbo...PS: get a new graphics card under that tree!

[kakusso 12]

Reduce dynamic reflections to the minimum or to off and you will see an immediate difference.

[Rocky_53 1,579]

Thanks to all the replies fellas, I have to admit at being prepared (oops sorry) to upgrade my GPU, as I effectively want to rebuild the sim around a large 4k monitor. So I guess that will have to be the case, even if I stick with FSX-SE.

 

Howard, when you say 'use a second monitor' do you mean as an extra space to put things? i.e. GPS, Weather reports etc. Or do you mean as an extension of the panel/cockpit type of thing?

 

It irritated me for a while that I couldn't just drag the GPS pop-up across, but now I have got used to undocking and dragging.

 

As for the looks of P3D I confess it was a long process, interspersed with uninstalling P3D, before I got it to where I like it. Now I rarely use FSX.

Don't try too hard mate. Remember, softly, softly catchee monkey. :smile: Set it back to default and change a bit at a time.

 

P.S. I still don't like the aircraft selection window. I like to peruse the thumbnails ans say "Mmm, I'll take that one"

Hi Ron, hope you're doing well mate. Sure, I use the second monitor as an extension to the aircraft. So it houses things like the GPS, aircraft instruments, weather, VoxATC and FS2Crew panels and I run fullscreen. If I can't use a second monitor in that way, I'm unsure if I am prepared (oops sorry) to sacrifice all I have for P3d.

Hi Howard, some of these chaps are right, you need a beefier graphics card, to run stuff like ORBX, UK2000, NGX & a weather program in tandem as we like to do...
I opted for the GTX1070 and it certainly made a difference to the stutters...just be aware that the latest drivers from nvidia are causing some stutter and other issues currently that appear to affect P3D...But as always you can use an older driver...good look and have a great Crimbo...PS: get a new graphics card under that tree!

 

Hi Shaun, hope you're doing well. Sure, it's the GTX1070 which I have my eyes on. Thanks for the advice and you too have a great Christmas

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

 

 

P.S. I still don't like the aircraft selection window. I like to peruse the thumbnails ans say "Mmm, I'll take that one"

 

Big +1 there. 

 

 

Sure, I use the second monitor as an extension to the aircraft. So it houses things like the GPS, aircraft instruments, weather, VoxATC and FS2Crew panels and I run fullscreen. If I can't use a second monitor in that way, I'm unsure if I am prepared (oops sorry) to sacrifice all I have for P3d.

 

Some things you might try:

• Try windowed mode.  Not sure why but I get a lot better frames.
• If you're using nVidea Inspector, try turning it off and see what you get. P3D doesn't need many of the things in NI.  SGSS really hurts performance.  I got a 4K monitor and turned NI off completely.
• Go to YouTube and search for "matt davies p3d tweak".  He has 2 videos where he goes through his tweaks and why.  Short and concise.

[Rocky_53 1,579]

 

Big +1 there. 

 

 

 

Some things you might try:

• Try windowed mode.  Not sure why but I get a lot better frames.
• If you're using nVidea Inspector, try turning it off and see what you get. P3D doesn't need many of the things in NI.  SGSS really hurts performance.  I got a 4K monitor and turned NI off completely.
• Go to YouTube and search for "matt davies p3d tweak".  He has 2 videos where he goes through his tweaks and why.  Short and concise.

 

 

Hmm, OK Gregg. Thanks for the advice. I'll check out Matt's video.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

 

Your 770 GPU is obsolescent.  I knew when I had one that it wouldn't cut it with P3D.  I purchased a Titan X two years ago and am as happy with P3D as anyone could be.

 

That GTX 770 would be just fine if he was running @ 1920x1080 on a single monitor. I have the 2GB version, and I run P3D v3.3.5 quite happily at almost maximum detail settings (although admittedly with clear skies most of the time, because I also have 4x SGSS AA enabled).

[simmerhead 885]

Not sure what can be the cause of your issues. Before getting a GTX 970 I used P3D v2.5  without performance problems with a GTX 580. I had to turn down tessellation to stay within the limited VRAM of the GTX 580, but otherwise I had an OK experience flying VFR in many of the ORBX NA regions.

 

While P3D is still abysmal in terms of fps (With high quality addons and AI Traffic I get around 25-35 fps in urban areas, even less at complex airports) it should not be as bad as you're experiencing. Something seems to be wrong on the hardware side of things. Are you GPU drivers up to date, or do you need to roll back to older drivers? Not all NVidia drivers perform well with certains combos of P3D and GPU.

 

Please share your P3D config screens so we can see what might be the cause of things. And if you're using P3D v3 - Don't touch the p3d.cfg file - leave it alone unless you're going to fly over photoscenery.

[Gregg_Seipp 568]

I always got crap performance, even from FSX, when undocking windows.  Reflections look terrible and I shut them off big time.  I do have a couple of tweaks I use in the config but I got the sim stable and the way I wanted it to look before I started monkeying with that...Affinity Mask and FFTF which helped performance.  Your rig looks like it would be fine.

[Boomer 1,619]

Getting stutters too with the latest nVidia drivers...hopefully nVidia is aware and working it.

[Rocky_53 1,579]

Really appreciate all the support fellas. I am bemused though. I'm going to do some more testing later today.

[Bobsk8 12,700]

Getting stutters too with the latest nVidia drivers...hopefully nVidia is aware and working it.

 

I never, ever use the latest drivers unless the driver I am using doesn't work correctly. Right now I am using 347.88 and it works perfectly, good FPS and zero stutters. 

[simmerhead 885]

NVidia coudn't care less about flight sims.

 

I ALWAYS install the latest driver. If it doesn't work, I roll back to the one beofre. No reason not to try new drivers - they can often enhance the experience as well, especially in P3D which has moved a lot of the work over to the GPU.

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I agree with Bob. There really is no reason to upgrade to the latest graphics drivers unless you are experiencing problems.

[Boomer 1,619]

I never, ever use the latest drivers unless the driver I am using doesn't work correctly. Right now I am using 347.88 and it works perfectly, good FPS and zero stutters. 

 

Yep, when I have time I will retrograde.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

Not saying you are wrong, but I would be looking at system memory as being the likely culprit before suspecting anything else.

 

I know I'm not wrong.  It has happened to me on several occasions when I use the ASUS utility or JJ's step-by-step instructions for overclocking on YouTube.  We do not have to touch the CPU voltages.  It's pretty automatic and it works most of the time but occasionally it will cause a crash.  I have replicated the bad overclocking CTD's 100% of the time by going back to the optimal defaults (no crash) then going back to the overclocking.  System memory is a possiblity as well as graphics drivers.  The key is it is not P3D but your computer system, your drivers, your RAM, etc.  I'm like Spock from Star Trek and look at things logically.  It just eats me alive when someone says their settings are low or at the default and they are still getting crashes/freezes.  It is not realistic as this does not happen to everyone else who runs the P3D app.  If it did, then Lockheed, we have a problem!  There are so many computer systems with so many different setups, with so many different user expertises.  It is all a receipe for disaster.  P3D, FSX, X-Plane are not the only apps that crash in the gaming world and when you look at other games crashing too, it is usually the fault of the user whose system is not properly set up. 

 

Another receipe for disaster in P3D is the fact that many users are manually installing add-ons that were not developed for P3D (or the developer still has not updated their product).  When someone has a crash, we usually have no idea what add-ons are installed.  Some add-ons simply do not work unless you know exactly how to manually install the add-on, especially if there are entries required in the dll.xml or exe.xml. 

 

So, there are a lot of possibilities and we need to look outside the P3D application and look at how our system was setup and/or overclocked and stop automatically saying it was P3D or FSX that caused the crash.

 

V/R,

Jim