New to XP11 - performance question

[Mountain Man 142]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:06 PM, vortex681 said:

Thanks for the link. I read the manual and followed the advice carefully but I didn't see much difference. The only real performance gain was when I set the Number of World Objects to minimum - I got about 40 FPS but the scenery looked like a bit of a wasteland! Setting them to Low drops it back to about 30 FPS but at least it looks reasonably acceptable.

If you've followed the steps detailed in the manual then you've probably got X-Plane 11 tuned as best as it can be on your system.  It's all about finding the best compromise between performance and visuals.  I've found that I can tolerate as low as 20FPS, so I pick a densely populated area like KSEA, tune for 20- to 25-FPS, and that gives me 30- to 40-FPS in the more rural areas that I usually fly (the "sweet spot" for X-Plane is around 30-FPS).  And with Laminar now turning their attention to performance tuning, things are only going to get better.

[rototom 198]

The Dreamfoil R22 is on sale at the org; if you have XP10.

[Mountain Man 142]

On 4/5/2017 at 1:06 PM, vortex681 said:

I would have expected the vanilla version of X-Plane, without anything added to it, to run much better than FSX with a lot of payware add-ons installed.

Why would you expect that?  FSX is a decade old.  Of course it's going to run faster on modern hardware than a state-of-the-art offering like X-Plane 11 which has so much more going on in terms of flight modeling and graphics rendering.  But if all you care about is raw framerates and to hell with any other consideration then stick with FSX.

[vortex681 806]

On 07/04/2017 at 2:07 PM, Mountain Man said:

Why would you expect that?  FSX is a decade old.  Of course it's going to run faster on modern hardware than a state-of-the-art offering like X-Plane 11 which has so much more going on in terms of flight modeling and graphics rendering.  But if all you care about is raw framerates and to hell with any other consideration then stick with FSX.

I think that's all down to what you've added to it. My experience with FSX has been that when newly installed it really zips along but the more add-ons installed, generally speaking, the worse the performance gets (although still nice and smooth for me). I think you'd have a tough time convincing most people that when running something like a PMDG aircraft at a complex add-on airport, FSX should run fast because it's old software on new hardware. I expected X-Plane 11 (64bit and a modern graphics engine) out-of-the-box to be better optimized for modern hardware.

As far as frame rates are concerned, I'm definitely a believer that smoothness is more important than FPS. The only reason that I looked at the FPS in X-Plane was that it seemed a little "flickery" with the "Number of World Objects" set at high, which the manual implies is CPU-dependant  - "If you have a powerful CPU you can set this to high or even maximum without affecting your frame rate too much". I have a good CPU and, as none of the cores was working at anywhere near maximum, I was surprised that this had such an effect on performance. That was why I started this thread in the first place - none of my hardware looked to be working flat out but the performance in X-Plane didn't seem to be anything special. Perhaps I was expecting too much - smooth with a reasonable amount of detail was my target.

[Jimm 437]

1 minute ago, vortex681 said:

I expected X-Plane 11, 64bit and a modern graphics engine, out-of-the-box to be better optimized for modern hardware.

And you would be correct in that assumption, but as it has been written in the blog, due to time constraints and they had to roll out XP11 as it stands now, with further optimization on the way.  Let's not count the chickens before they hatch. 

What you are expecting is not too far out of the realm of reasoning.  I too have a beefy system, but right now, a little compromise yields the best results.  I don't have my settings set at max, just because I have a system that supposedly should handle it.  It's a common misconception that if you have a fast rig, that setting everything to high should work.  This isn't some steam game, where the previous statement would hold true.  I believe it has been discussed a few times in the past that any flight simulator is a complex one, with distributed duties being offloaded to both the cpu and gpu.  In XP, you have the ability to view your cpu and gpu frame limits and that data will tell you where you need to adjust accordingly (see my pinned topic in the X-Plane Tips and Tricks).  You really cannot assume anything for performance right now until LR gets their patch patch out to everyone.  In a way, we're still in Beta, though not officially anymore.  There is much more in store for XP users, so give it a chance, experiment a little and try to have fun.

[Paraffin 2,197]

25 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

I expected X-Plane 11 (64bit and a modern graphics engine) out-of-the-box to be better optimized for modern hardware.

It is optimized for modern hardware.

With respect, I think what you're still missing, is that X-Plane is using modern hardware to run many more processes and depth in the simulation than you're seeing in the underlying FSX flight and scenery modeling. Things like high LOD at the horizon, high resolution landclass textures and OSM-based autogen, physics-based rendering, particle effects (only used in the mobile version, but it's in the sim and will be used for contrails and other effects), modeling of individual light sources, and so on. All of that takes CPU/GPU/RAM power.

Look at it this way. When a flight sim developer is presented with ever-increasing amounts of CPU/GPU power and RAM on the average user's computer, they can do one of two things:

1) They can retain the same features, modeling, and graphics effects of previous versions while using the faster hardware to get a much faster frame rate. Or...

2) They can build in new features that take more CPU/GPU/RAM grunt, while retaining a flyable frame rate of the previous version. 

That second one is Laminar's approach. They didn't just clean up XP10 and optimize it so we'd get faster frame rates and call it XP11. They added many new things that require more resources. The frame rate stays about the same (actually I'm getting about 5-10 fps higher, but this is very dependent on what graphics card you're using, and monitor resolution).

There will be continuing optimization during the XP11 run, but don't expect miracles. Especially if we get a more complex weather model during this version run, or we get Austin's concept of procedural-based seasonal changes instead of texture overlays. There is no free lunch. Fancy new features need the hardware to support it.

[Mountain Man 142]

On 04/08/2017 at 1:43 PM, vortex681 said:

I expected X-Plane 11 (64bit and a modern graphics engine) out-of-the-box to be better optimized for modern hardware.

It is, but again, you're comparing it to decade old software. Let's put it this way: X-Plane 11, at release, runs far better on a modest system than FSX did at the time of its release. And I'm betting that FSX even with add-ons doesn't do a quarter of what X-Plane 11 does in terms of flight simulation and graphics rendering.

[vortex681 806]

6 hours ago, Mountain Man said:

And I'm betting that FSX even with add-ons doesn't do a quarter of what X-Plane 11 does in terms of flight simulation and graphics rendering.

At the risk of being flamed (again!), I just can't see how you can possibly say that, particularly about the flight simulation aspect. There are add-ons in FSX which are generally acknowledged to be just about the state-of-the-art both for systems simulation and flight modelling - PMDG and A2A both spring to mind here. Both of these are acknowledged in the interesting X-Plane 11 review by Mario Donick (http://flyingxplane.apps-1and1.net/review-x-plane-11-0/) which seems pretty objective and unbiased. To quote from his Aircraft section: "Tube Airliners: Basically just two can compete with PMDG quality here (although still not reaching their level)" and "General Aviation: For GA, you might miss A2A". For me, flight simulation is almost as much about the environment in which you fly as it is about the aircraft. In his review, he also points out that the X-Plane ATC and AI currently don't even compare with what's available by default in FSX. Of course, you may disagree. The default weather in X-Plane 11 definitely looks better than the default FSX weather but just doesn't compare when you add something like Active Sky into the mix. I know that these are all add-ons but your quote talked about FSX with add-ons.

I have to admit that there's a lot to like in X-Plane 11 and, as I've said earlier, if I was starting from scratch it's probably the direction I'd go in. But the reality is that I'm not starting from scratch and I'm just not convinced that there's currently enough to tempt me away from FSX (with add-ons!). However, I think that I will keep it on my system for more testing and in the anticipation that some killer features may become available.

[Mountain Man 142]

3 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

I just can't see how you can possibly say that, particularly about the flight simulation aspect.

X-Plane 11 performs real-time physics calculations.  FSX uses lookup tables.  I'm not saying that one is necessarily better than the other, but real-time math is clearly more resource intensive.

[Jimm 437]

31 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

I have to admit that there's a lot to like in X-Plane 11 and, as I've said earlier, if I was starting from scratch it's probably the direction I'd go in. But the reality is that I'm not starting from scratch and I'm just not convinced that there's currently enough to tempt me away from FSX (with add-ons!). However, I think that I will keep it on my system for more testing and in the anticipation that some killer features may become available.

With all due respect, you seem to have your mind made up at this point, so what is the point of arguing, if not to justify, in an outspoken way, that you are making the right decision to stick with what you have and try (rather desperately) to rationalize that X-Plane 11 is just not up to the level of expectations you really wanted.  if you are happy with what you have, then what was the point of even trying out X-Plane 11?  This "versus" debate is getting old, and it's disappointing that we can't have civilized and intelligent conversation, without injecting innuendos to the negative about how one sim is better than the other.  

Should we not be embracing new technologies and methods in the field of flight simulation? I believe that Austin and his team have made significant progress and great strides to introducing further realism into their own simulator.  Maybe I'm thick, but I never for once, felt that Austin was trying to compete, but rather create a simulator the way he believes is accurate, realistic and unique.

XP11 is far from being polished, but it takes the community's combined efforts to reporting issues, making helpful suggestions and discussing future development so that XP can become the simulator that everyone can be happy with.

[rototom 198]

It doesn't have to be one or the other. For me, what sim I use depends on what I feel like doing at the moment. I love having so many options.

[vortex681 806]

19 hours ago, Jimm said:

With all due respect, you seem to have your mind made up at this point, so what is the point of arguing, if not to justify, in an outspoken way, that you are making the right decision to stick with what you have and try (rather desperately) to rationalize that X-Plane 11 is just not up to the level of expectations you really wanted.  if you are happy with what you have, then what was the point of even trying out X-Plane 11?  This "versus" debate is getting old, and it's disappointing that we can't have civilized and intelligent conversation, without injecting innuendos to the negative about how one sim is better than the other.

Can't understand why you think I'm being outspoken or "rather desperate"! I wanted to try X-Plane 11 because I was genuinely looking for something better and more accurate with new features that would tempt me away from FSX. I started this topic to try and find the reason why X-Plane didn't seem to perform as well on my system as I thought it would. I am all for civilized and intelligent conversation and many of the replies here have been just that (and very helpful too). It's just a shame that other replies seem to have resorted to claiming that either I don't know what I'm talking about when I make observations or that I'm somehow "injecting innuendos to the negative", as you put it, when I'm simply quoting from a well-received review by a seasoned X-Plane user.

Sadly, some of the negative comments here have probably put me off X-Plane more than my actual experiences with it. It's not every day that you get accused, in a single post, of being outspoken, desperate, unable to participate in civilized and intelligent conversation and that what you say is full of innuendos!

[Jimm 437]

2 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

Can't understand why you think I'm being outspoken or "rather desperate"! I wanted to try X-Plane 11 because I was genuinely looking for something better, more accurate with new features that would tempt me away from FSX. I started this topic to try and find the reason why X-Plane didn't seem to perform as well on my system as I thought it would. I am all for civilized and intelligent conversation and many of the replies here have been just that (and very helpful too). It's just a shame that other replies seem to have resorted to claiming that either I don't know what I'm talking about when I make observations or that I'm somehow "injecting innuendos to the negative", as you put it, when I'm simply quoting from a well-received review by a seasoned X-Plane user.

Sadly, some of the negative comments here have probably put me off X-Plane more than my actual experiences with it. It's not every day that you get accused, in a single post, of being outspoken, desperate, unable to participate in civilized and intelligent conversation and that what you say is full of innuendos!

I guess perspective has a lot to do with interpretation.  From where I'm sitting, your replies gave off the sense that you weren't happy with X-Plane, and you kept bringing up FSX, as if it was still the best.  My apologies if your feelings were hurt.

As it is being "smoothed over" these days, a lot of people claim that you can be happy running a bunch of simulators, and while that may work for them, not everyone can share in that sentiment either.  Some folks, like myself, like to have just one sim to run, and that's due to cost.  I have to draw the line somewhere and considering I've spent thousands of dollars over the years, chasing the dream of one day having a stable simulator.  I finally found it, kicking myself for spending what i did to get to this point, but cutting the cord to the other sims has been a wise decision on my part.  I checked out the greener grass on the other side, and I'm glad I did.  This is a hobby for me, but all the time I spent trying to get a single sim to run the way I wanted caused a lot of stress and frustration.  Hopefully, you see my point here...I gave up the others in favor of a different one, even though I would have to "start over".  I never deleted the content and the core installs, for the other sims...buyers remorse, so to speak.

I sort of understand where you were going with your original questions.  I have a 5 year old car that I love, but it's aging, and with age, comes risk so I'm looking for an newer model of the same car.  It's hard to find, but for what I have read, it seems like it's better though a test drive would help.  There is only so much you can judge on the outside, you can read the specs sheet, and come to a somewhat informed decision.  As I said, I love my car, but so far, the newer model doesn't show enough to justify trading in my old one.  I can weigh out the differences and even get opinions and first hand experiences from others who own the newer model.  I can read the reviews, but those are usually sponsored in some form or another, but again, it would actually take the commitment to own it to know for sure.  I'm positive that I would see and feel the benefits of the newer model, but then that leads to car payments, a little higher insurance...see where I'm going here?

You obviously posed the original question here because you were on the fence about diving into a new simulator.  We have tried to inform you the best we can right now.  Since I must have struck a nerve, you didn't bother to quote the last part of my post, which provided a little more food for thought.  Sorry I wasn't any help to you.

[vortex681 806]

55 minutes ago, Jimm said:

My apologies if your feelings were hurt.

Fortunately, I have a thick skin, so no problems there - my hackles were raised rather than my feelings hurt. I talked about FSX regularly because that's what I'm familiar with and I was using it as a yardstick to assess X-Plane.

55 minutes ago, Jimm said:

Some folks, like myself, like to have just one sim to run, and that's due to cost.  I have to draw the line somewhere and considering I've spent thousands of dollars over the years, chasing the dream of one day having a stable simulator.

That's what many of my comments have been about - I'm retired and I've already invested a lot of money in FSX. As a result, I would have been prepared to start again with X-Plane if it offered something that, in my opinion, was noticeably better in enough areas compared to what I already have. To give you an example, I'm also interested in racing sims and was happy with what I had. When Project Cars first came out I thought I'd give it a try (you can get your money back on Steam, so nothing to lose) and my initial reaction was WOW! It definitely wasn't perfect but it was impressive enough without any add-ons for me to uninstall what I'd spent a long time tweaking and adding to. I was hoping for something similar with X-Plane but, for me at least, that didn't happen.

Thanks to all of you who've given me good advice and suggestions but, after many hours of testing X-Plane, I've decided to stay with FSX.

[rototom 198]

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

Fortunately, I have a thick skin, so no problems there - my hackles were raised rather than my feelings hurt. I talked about FSX regularly because that's what I'm familiar with and I was using it as a yardstick to assess X-Plane.

Great idea to assess X-plane. I think some of the comments (at least mine) may have been driven by the impression that you're comparing FSX's best addons to an X-plane demo. The conclusion can be made without any testing. FSX is pretty strong when you paint it with addons. I'm pretty sure that anyone that dives in to the X-plane library of payware (and even freeware) will find some nice goodies. If you can run both, that's the best scenario. If not, then go with what is working for you. I would still keep and eye on X-plane progress, because right now, it's moving faster then any other platform.