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jmslwl25

New laptop - why hasn't performance improved?

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Hi folks,

I recently got my a new laptop, not at all for FSX use, however I would've thought it could play FSX semi-decently - and thats all I really wanted. However, as I updated my from my 4 year old laptop, I am barely noticing any improvement in FPS despite the newer hardware being much faster. Here's the specs:

Old:

CPU: 3632QM - 2.2GHz/4-Core i7
GPU: Radeon HD 7650m (400tflops) with 2GB
RAM: 8GB 1600MHz
HDD: 5400RPM
OS: Windows 10

New:

CPU: 6700HQ - 2.6Ghz/4-Core i7 (I have checked that no thermal throttling is occurring)
GPU: Radeon Pro 460 (1.8gflops) with 4GB
RAM: 16GB 2400Mhz
HDD: Superfast SSD!
OS: Windows 10 running in bootcamp, latest drivers

What I don't understand is, with the EXACT same settings and installed add-ons, running in in the same resolution, and in the exact situation within the sim, the newer laptop is only achieving 3-5fps more than the old one. This is on FSX-SE. While the CPU, admittedly, isn't much faster, the GPU and everything else of the new laptop (despite being a Mac) is far superior to my old system - and I am noticing this in other games, such as GTA. I never expected this laptop to perform perfectly, as its not for gaming, but I expected a little better than 3fps increase from a much weaker system.

 

I use these addons, but at their lowest settings: Aerosoft Airbus, FTX Global/Vector/EU/Trees/England, REX Airports/Texture Direct, Active Sky next.

Any solutions?

Ta.
 

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unfortunately FSX is very much cpu-limited. so it's not really taking full advantage of the videocard's improvements.

your fps will generally scale with the cpu speed, so the 15% increase in speed there is gonna be about a 15% increase in fps. other more modern games like GTA use the GPU more and so you see more advantage there..

that's partly why overclocking and 4-5GHz cpu setups are very popular for fsx...

cheers-andy crosby

 

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13 minutes ago, spesimen said:

unfortunately FSX is very much cpu-limited. so it's not really taking full advantage of the videocard's improvements.

your fps will generally scale with the cpu speed, so the 15% increase in speed there is gonna be about a 15% increase in fps. other more modern games like GTA use the GPU more and so you see more advantage there..

that's partly why overclocking and 4-5GHz cpu setups are very popular for fsx...

cheers-andy crosby

 

Ah, okay.

Do you reckon upgrading to Prepar3d v3 would improve performance? Or would it just hamper it as it's a more demanding program?

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58 minutes ago, jmslwl25 said:

Do you reckon upgrading to Prepar3d v3 would improve performance? Or would it just hamper it as it's a more demanding program?

although P3D leverages the GPU more than FSX does, it still unfortunately suffers from being cpu-bound as well. i wouldn't expect much of an increase there either, i'm sorry to say. i believe their published requirements say 3ghz or more recommended..

 i can only speculate though since i have not used p3d very extensively ..(it runs worse than fsx on my older system.. although that is probably because i have only 1gigabyte vram on my gpu) ...somebody in the p3d forum might be able to give a better answer about that.. if you're curious maybe try the subscription version and you're only out $10 if it doesn't work out..

 

cheers!

-andy crosby

 

 

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Is it possible your old laptop had turboboost and your new one doesn't?

Your old specs match my current Sony notebook which can run at 2.8 when needed. 


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System details: Gigabyte P57v7 CF2 17.3" laptop. Kaby Lake i7 7700HQ CPU (averaging 3.4mhz). NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 8mb (laptop version), 16 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, SSD - Samsung 970 Evo  500GB M.2 NVMe, 1TB HDD 7200.

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12 hours ago, Dean33 said:

Is it possible your old laptop had turboboost and your new one doesn't?

Your old specs match my current Sony notebook which can run at 2.8 when needed. 

Indeed!! My old was a 17" VAIO E-series, and it did run at ~2.8Ghz too. However, I've checked and this laptop turbo-boosts up to around 3.10Ghz - so I can see where the extra 5fps comes from.

 

12 hours ago, spesimen said:

although P3D leverages the GPU more than FSX does, it still unfortunately suffers from being cpu-bound as well. i wouldn't expect much of an increase there either, i'm sorry to say. i believe their published requirements say 3ghz or more recommended..

 i can only speculate though since i have not used p3d very extensively ..(it runs worse than fsx on my older system.. although that is probably because i have only 1gigabyte vram on my gpu) ...somebody in the p3d forum might be able to give a better answer about that.. if you're curious maybe try the subscription version and you're only out $10 if it doesn't work out..

 

cheers!

-andy Crosby


Cheers for all the help Andy! I'll ask there, or ill try and download p3d since they have a refund policy.

 

I also find it odd that when changing it from 1200x1080 to 2800x1800 there seems to be no change in FPS :/

 

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I've got an MSI GT72 with...I7-6820, nvidia 980m-4gig, 24 gigs ram, P3dV3 running on a dedicated M.2 ssd. Frames are limited to 30 by me but in high density places are still in the teens but oh so smooth and displayed on a 34" Dell 21:9 monitor being run at full resolution (3800x1600 ??). I run lots of orbx, Fly tampa etc and aircraft as complex as pmdg. The 8 gig nvidia 980m did not become available till just after I got this laptop and now there are nvidia 1080-8gig available.....would sure like to have that! That said I am happy with the way this performs. It is so smooth that sometimes i am surprised to see the fps in the lower teens.

 

Looking at your specs my guess that the biggest bottle neck is the 5400 rpm drive. About 15 years ago I was running flight sim on a laptop with a 5400 rpm drive and the drive crapped out. I replaced it with a 7200 rpm and the flight sim performance increase was really surprising. Other than the drive your machine should run fsx/P3d just fine. 

 

Dave

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I doubt any laptop Is gonna run fsx well.


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A couple things on why your performance hasn't improved much.

1) You're running a laptop.

2) One of the reasons why performance in FSX is lower compared to other games is not because it's CPU-limited.

It is mainly due to this equation: draw distance * amount of detail (eg. different types of scenery/autogen objects).

Games like GTA 5 do not have 1000s of different types of buildings or trees to render. GTA 5's world is no where near as big as FSX's (draw distance).

To my knowledge the draw distance in FSX is fixed and can't be changed. The different types of scenery objects can be, but it's not that easy to do.

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Allow me to offer some insight from someone who knows a lot about laptops running FSX, P3D and X-Plane.  First off, put aside the opinions from those who think running any flight sim on a laptop is bad...this is not entirely true.  Currently, I run X-Plane and P3D on my rig (specs are in my signature) and even though my rig is much more powerful than yours, running FSX on your new rig is still possible, BUT with some caveats.  The biggest that I see is your settings, they need to be reasonable, not "all sliders to the right"...it's not going to happen, so put that aside for now.  Seeing as though you have a 6700HQ, you are plagued with lower TDP and wattage, compared to a K version, so no overclocking, no 4ghz, no sliders to the right.

Your GPU, should suffice, but again, easy up on the sliders.  Start with low settings and then gradually ease them up one at a time until you get instability, then back the slider off one notch.  You should still get an enjoyable experience, without sacrificing too much.  Low AI aircraft, low traffic, keep the draw distance to whatever is defaulted.  Leave out light bloom and lens flares initially then see if enabling them later will hurt or not.  Watch those add-ons though, they will drag your system down bigtime.  Introducing external weather will hurt as well, and you may find that you have to back down those settings again.

As it was mentioned above, FSX is still cpu dependent, single core, so you have to see what your single core performance is, which still shouldn't be too shabby.  Also consider that all of what I just stated is with FSX ONLY.  You start adding lots of add-ons and your performance will decrease even more.  It took me about 3 laptops to realize that in order to get decent, somewhat smooth performance and reach at least 30fps, you need to get as close to the 4.0ghz threshold as possible.  I know your core will turbo at 3.5 but I don't believe it'll stay there the entire time you are flying because of the TDP, in which case, the cpu will throttle down.  The RAM and SSD are a huge plus, and if you were saavy with the install, it's sitting on it's own drive.

 

When I was last running FSX:SE on the rig I had, I could maintain 30fps (locked), with ORBX regional scenery and a payware aircraft (nothing study level).  I later introduced weather (ASN) and I found my fps down into the low 20s.  Granted, that rig was running an i7-4700mq and a GTX650m with 16gb of ram.

So with ASN and REX, run lower textures, 2048 would be the best I would go with.  Aerosoft's Airbus should do pretty decent, but expect stutters.  Your handful of ORBX would need some tweaking, starting with turning off all features in Vector.  The more that are enabled, the more load on your system, which will cause blurries and possibly an OOM for any long flights.  If I were you, I would favor the OpenLC EU, over the regions, as they are more detailed, in textures and mesh.

Granted, this is just my two cents, but from my experiences with different rigs over the years and different sims, I can definitely tell you what doesn't work.

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Origin EON-17SLX - Under the hood: Intel Core i7 7700K at 4.2GHz (Base) 4.6GHz (overclock), nVidia GeForce GTX-1080 Pascal w/8gb vram, 32gb (2x16) Crucial 2400mhz RAM, 3840 x 2160 17.3" IPS w/G-SYNC, Samsung 950 EVO 256GB PCIe m.2 SSD (Primary), Samsung 850 EVO 500gb M.2 (Sim Drive), MS Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit

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Have you tweaked your config file?  I've found on modern hardware that it is absolutely necessary to turn off Bufferpools or your FPS will be capped around 48 (using FSXMark).  Even my 5.2GHz 7700k can't do more than 48 FPS with Bufferpools enabled.  And that chip is literally twice as fast as the one you have.  

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That video card is AMD - FSX never ran well imo on AMD


| FAA ZMP |
| PPL ASEL |
| Windows 11 | MSI Z690 Tomahawk | 12700K 4.7GHz | MSI RTX 4080 | 32GB 5600 MHz DDR5 | 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD | 2x 2TB Samsung 970 Evo M.2 | EVGA 850W Gold | Corsair 5000X | HP G2 (VR) / LG 27" 1440p |

 

 

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I've been using laptops since 2002 for flight sim. Got to have the right hardware inside. As to the comment above about laptops not performing well that is simply not accurate. The latest MSI laptops have available the nvidia 1080 - 8 gig available if you've got the budget. My 980m - 4 gigs works just fine and that's pushing a 34" dell curved monitor when home.

Dave

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