New to XP11 - performance question

[vortex681 806]

I'm an experienced FSX user but new to X-Plane and I've installed the XP11 demo. I have a pretty good system (see signature below) which runs FSX well with a lot of commercial add-ons. I have a question about performance in XP11 as it doesn't see that impressive. I'm running X-Plane exactly as installed with no plugins and using the default Cessna 172. These are my graphics settings:

Visual effects - High (HDR)
Texture Quality - High
Antialiasing - FXAA
Number of World Objects - Medium
Reflection Detail - Maximum (tried different levels with no significant change in FPS)
Draw Parked Aircraft - ticked
Allow windshield effects - ticked
Lateral field of view - 70 degrees
Use vsync - ticked
User interface size - 100%

On the runway at KSEA in the Cessna 172, looking straight ahead with the weather set to clear, I get about 28 FPS (from the x-plane internal data). When I check my RAM, I'm using about 7 - 8GB out of 16GB. Looking at CPU utilisation (hyperthreading on) the average is about 25-30% with core 4 (counting from core 0 as the first core) using about 65% and core 6 using about 45% - so plenty of headroom. GPU usage is around 40% (monitored using Afterburner).

As nothing seems to be working hard, why is my FPS not higher? Is there some setting that I'm missing?

[MarioDonick 752]

Read this:

you also did not state anything about your CPU, RAM, VRAM, etc. so it's hard to help you.

 

 

[CarlosF 1,234]

You have a 970 which has 4g, make sure your settings do not tax video ram more the the 4g, otherwise this will hurt you fps.

also, turn threaded optimization off. see link:

 

 

 

[Mountain Man 142]

Step 1: Read the manual

http://x-plane.com/manuals/desktop/11/index.html#configuringtherenderingoptions

[Murmur 3,941]

What resolution are you using? Single monitor? Do your FPS increase if you decrease resolution?

 

[Paraffin 2,197]

Yep, need to know screen resolution. Also, try turning off "Draw shadows on scenery" in the Graphics setting tab if it's currently on. That's a frame killer.

I don't know if this advice still applies, but try turning off threaded optimization in the Nvidia control panel. Info here:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/500955-important-turn-threaded-optimization-off-in-nvidia-control-panel/

[ryanbatc 12,799]

All good tips.  I also have a gtx 970 and my vram is maxed all the time.  Remember we also have that stupid half GB that's slower (I didn't get my lawsuit money could never get to the site it was so busy).  I'd say 28 is pretty good!

[Airfighter 150]

If uncheck vsync?

[virtualstuff 751]

16 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

All good tips.  I also have a gtx 970 and my vram is maxed all the time.  Remember we also have that stupid half GB that's slower (I didn't get my lawsuit money could never get to the site it was so busy).  I'd say 28 is pretty good!

Yes always hated that card finally replaced it with a GTX 1070 difference night and day :) in both sims :-)

[vortex681 806]

Thanks for all of the responses. To address them all separately:

On 04/04/2017 at 3:42 PM, MarioDonick said:

you also did not state anything about your CPU, RAM, VRAM, etc. so it's hard to help you.

My specs are in my signature block below. Thanks for the link but I'd already read the "Undersatnding X-Plane 11 Peformance" topic. There are a few points from the topic which don't seem to match my experience. I have plenty of CPU headroom but increasing Number of World Objects (CPU-intensive) makes my FPS drop significantly but only increases my CPU usage slightly (still well below 100% on any core). The Reflection detail (GPU-intensive) I can set fully right with no noticeable drop in FPS.

On 04/04/2017 at 3:53 PM, CarlosF said:

You have a 970 which has 4g, make sure your settings do not tax video ram more the the 4g, otherwise this will hurt you fps.

also, turn threaded optimization off.

You were correct, I was using all of the VRAM (checked with GPU-Z). However, I've made some adjustments and now I'm staying below maximum. I've also turned off threaded optimization. After both these changes the FPS have only risen very slightly to around 30.

On 04/04/2017 at 4:27 PM, Mountain Man said:

Step 1: Read the manual

http://x-plane.com/manuals/desktop/11/index.html#configuringtherenderingoptions

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.

On 04/04/2017 at 5:05 PM, Murmur said:

What resolution are you using? Single monitor? Do your FPS increase if you decrease resolution?

Single monitor, 2560x1440. I'm not prepared to reduce the resolution just to get better frame rates (especially as I don't need to in FSX).

On 04/04/2017 at 5:22 PM, Paraffin said:

Also, try turning off "Draw shadows on scenery" in the Graphics setting tab if it's currently on. That's a frame killer.

I turned off Draw Shadows and it only gave me a few more frames (2 or 3 maximum).

18 hours ago, ryanbatcund said:

 I'd say 28 is pretty good!

If 28-30 FPS is all I can get in X-Plane, I really can't see the point in buying it. My heavily modded version of FSX looks better (Orbx, REX, DX10 Fixer + cloud shadows and ASN) and performs better at the same resolution.

Airfighter - I tried unchecking vsync with no noticeable change.

 

I've now given X-Plane 11 many hours of tweaking and testing and I have to say that, despite the promise of 64-bit and a modern graphics engine, it still doesn't seem to perform any better for me than FSX. 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.

I was looking forward to the better flight models that X-Plane supposedly has but they seem no better to me than the likes of A2A and RealAir (please come back!) in FSX. One odd thing I found was that in all of the GA aircraft I tried, I only ever needed to make any rudder inputs during take-off and landing. In flight, it always seemed to stay in balance on its own, even in steep turns (the autopilot was definitely off). In particular, I was itching to try a helicopter in X-Plane which everybody seems so impressed by but, frankly, I can only guess that people who think that way have never flown a real helicopter (trust me, I'm a real-world expert). The Dodo Sim 206 in FSX is much closer to real life (but still some way away). I'll admit that I really liked the haze effect with increasing distance and the runways which follow contours but the rest of the graphics don't appear to be anything special

You could argue that I'm comparing a vanilla X-Plane with a heavily moddified version of FSX but in many ways that's just my point. I would have to add a lot to X-Plane just to get it close to where FSX is for me now. I don't want to sound like an FSX ###### - I really wanted to like X-Plane and I've tried to be as objective as possible with my thoughts about it. I could happily have lived with the performance in X-Plane if I'd been otherwise impressed with the simulator but, sadly, that just wasn't the case. Maybe I'll try it again after a few updates.

[Gavenger 18]

But how much better is the vanilla X-Plane from a vanilla FSX?  How many frames are you getting in your modded FSX.  Since that info was not listed above I do not know what your are trying to compare it to.  If you are trying to get to 60FPS, I think you are trying to realize a framerate that, although the gold standard with different types of games, is unnecessary for a flight simulator.

Your running with newer, higher-end hardware than I am.  So my graphics settings are probably set quite a bit lower than yours, but when my sim shows F-act: 28-30FPS, its smooth and without stuttering.  If the sim is smooth and without stutters, does it matter what the F-Act says?

[MarioDonick 752]

18 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

You could argue that I'm comparing a vanilla X-Plane with a heavily moddified version of FSX but in many ways that's just my point. I would have to add a lot to X-Plane just to get it close to where FSX is for me now. I don't want to sound like an FSX ###### - I really wanted to like X-Plane and I've tried to be as objective as possible with my thoughts about it. I could happily have lived with the performance in X-Plane if I'd been otherwise impressed with the simulator but, sadly, that just wasn't the case. Maybe I'll try it again after a few updates.

 

Well, yes. When you already state this by yourself, WHY did you really expect that a default sim could ever compete with a heavily modded sim? Where did this expectation come from??

[Paraffin 2,197]

45 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

Single monitor, 2560x1440. I'm not prepared to reduce the resolution just to get better frame rates (especially as I don't need to in FSX).

Okay, that resolution is probably a large contributor to the difference in frame rates I'm getting (average mid 40's fps) on similar hardware but a lower-res 1920x1200 monitor. You're pushing almost twice as many pixels, as well as not having an ideal amount of VRAM at only 4GB.

In this case, I think it's not so much X-Plane's fault as the video card you're using at that screen resolution. You'd do better with a higher-end video card. 

The "I don't need to in FSX" argument assumes you're comparing apples to apples, and that isn't the case. You might not be aware of some of things X-plane does that requires more horsepower. Take LOD for example. One of the things I love about X-Plane is that I can zoom out into the far horizon and still see tons of detail. That's important for picking out tiny airfields with the kind of bush flying I do. Ground textures can be much higher (especially if you use the free HD and UHD scenery mesh), and there is no pop-in for scenery. The new physics based rendering and lighting model in X-Plane is also resource intensive. At night, the lights on your plane and on the ground are actual individual light sources, not baked-in textures like they are in FSX. 

All of that takes graphics horsepower, and if you're running a fairly high screen resolution you need a strong enough card to support it. FSX isn't asking for as much from the video card.

[Jimm 437]

57 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

Thanks for all of the responses. To address them all separately:

My specs are in my signature block below. Thanks for the link but I'd already read the "Undersatnding X-Plane 11 Peformance" topic. There are a few points from the topic which don't seem to match my experience. I have plenty of CPU headroom but increasing Number of World Objects (CPU-intensive) makes my FPS drop significantly but only increases my CPU usage slightly (still well below 100% on any core). The Reflection detail (GPU-intensive) I can set fully right with no noticeable drop in FPS.

You were correct, I was using all of the VRAM (checked with GPU-Z). However, I've made some adjustments and now I'm staying below maximum. I've also turned off threaded optimization. After both these changes the FPS have only risen very slightly to around 30.

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.

Single monitor, 2560x1440. I'm not prepared to reduce the resolution just to get better frame rates (especially as I don't need to in FSX).

I turned off Draw Shadows and it only gave me a few more frames (2 or 3 maximum).

If 28-30 FPS is all I can get in X-Plane, I really can't see the point in buying it. My heavily modded version of FSX looks better (Orbx, REX, DX10 Fixer + cloud shadows and ASN) and performs better at the same resolution.

Airfighter - I tried unchecking vsync with no noticeable change.

 

I've now given X-Plane 11 many hours of tweaking and testing and I have to say that, despite the promise of 64-bit and a modern graphics engine, it still doesn't seem to perform any better for me than FSX. 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.

I was looking forward to the better flight models that X-Plane supposedly has but they seem no better to me than the likes of A2A and RealAir (please come back!) in FSX. One odd thing I found was that in all of the GA aircraft I tried, I only ever needed to make any rudder inputs during take-off and landing. In flight, it always seemed to stay in balance on its own, even in steep turns (the autopilot was definitely off). In particular, I was itching to try a helicopter in X-Plane which everybody seems so impressed by but, frankly, I can only guess that people who think that way have never flown a real helicopter (trust me, I'm a real-world expert). The Dodo Sim 206 in FSX is much closer to real life (but still some way away). I'll admit that I really liked the haze effect with increasing distance and the runways which follow contours but the rest of the graphics don't appear to be anything special

You could argue that I'm comparing a vanilla X-Plane with a heavily moddified version of FSX but in many ways that's just my point. I would have to add a lot to X-Plane just to get it close to where FSX is for me now. I don't want to sound like an FSX ###### - I really wanted to like X-Plane and I've tried to be as objective as possible with my thoughts about it. I could happily have lived with the performance in X-Plane if I'd been otherwise impressed with the simulator but, sadly, that just wasn't the case. Maybe I'll try it again after a few updates.

In a way, you are comparing apples to oranges...OpenGL to DirectX.  FSX uses Direct X, whereas X-Plane uses OpenGL, so the processing is different.  So you're having issues with frames...you and many other people, myself included.  In fact, my frames decreased (40-50s down to 30s) from PB17 to RTM (and you can see my specs are pretty beefy), so how can you explain that, because I cannot, unless you consider the fact that they are still working on performance.  I am playing the waiting game, concentrating on other things in the meantime, since I'm in no hurry.  Out of the box, X-Plane is a good sim, and much better than FSX.  Your expectations appear to be rather high, and you appear to want to make comparisons with FSX, so if you are adamant that FSX is better, then by all means, stick with it.

If you truly have issues with X-Plane and feel that they need the attention from the LR staff, then file a bug report.  The reporter still works, despite XP being out of Beta.  They do want to know if people are having issues and in case you need the link, here it is: http://dev.x-plane.com/support/bugreport.html . 

[rototom 198]

1 hour ago, vortex681 said:

I was itching to try a helicopter in X-Plane which everybody seems so impressed by but, frankly, I can only guess that people who think that way have never flown a real helicopter (trust me, I'm a real-world expert). The Dodo Sim 206 in FSX is much closer to real life (but still some way away).

Your the first that has made this statement. I don't believe everything I read, but when there is an overwhelming majority saying so, it's probably so. In fact reading most of your post makes me thing your trolling. Your statements hold no weight.

See you in the OOM threads.