Question about dynamic lighting performance (note: Mod edited title for accuracy)

[Ioan92 63]

19 hours ago, scandinavian13 said:

It's actually the sim, and its implementation, really. We can obviously have an awful implementation to make it worse, but the rendering in the sim is really where the base level is set. Seeing that they're updating and improving the lighting in the next HF to optimize it, I'd argue that the sim is a big part of it.

Thank you for acknowledging this!

[chapstick 2,757]

Even if using MSAA fixes the issue for most people, we've still taken a big step backwards in V4 in terms of what AA options are viable. I used to be able to use SSAA in V3, and now I can't in V4. That straight up sucks. One step forward, two steps back. 

Alex Pugh

[Ioan92 63]

5 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

Even if using MSAA fixes the issue for most people, we've still taken a big step backwards in V4 in terms of what AA options are viable. I used to be able to use SSAA in V3, and now I can't in V4. That straight up sucks. One step forward, two steps back. 

Alex Pugh

You still can, just pretend your ground lights are inop.

[patrice_bambou 85]

One question:

It looks like X-plane 11 has the same feature (dynamic lighting) and does not seem to have such FPS problems. How is this possible?

[Ioan92 63]

1 minute ago, patrice_bambou said:

One question:

It looks like X-plane 11 has the same feature (dynamic lighting) and does not seem to have such FPS problems. How is this possible?

X-Plane uses a newer and more advanced engine. Its lighting system is also probably using deferred rendering as opposed to forward rendering (which I've been told P4D uses).

[Wothan 173]

3 minutes ago, patrice_bambou said:

One question:

It looks like X-plane 11 has the same feature (dynamic lighting) and does not seem to have such FPS problems. How is this possible?

Two different sims...

X-Plane got it right form the start - LM will most probably fix their way of implementing it soon.

[chapstick 2,757]

13 minutes ago, Wothan said:

Two different sims...

X-Plane got it right form the start - LM will most probably fix their way of implementing it soon.

Have they said this anywhere? I keep looking on their forum but it's the usual "we're always looking at ways to optimize performance" line, which is nice but doesn't sound like a full-throated acknowledgement. 

Alex Pugh 

[Wothan 173]

10 minutes ago, Chapstick said:

Have they said this anywhere? I keep looking on their forum but it's the usual "we're always looking at ways to optimize performance" line, which is nice but doesn't sound like a full-throated acknowledgement. 

Alex Pugh 

Considering the number of reports regarding the DL, I´m sure they will look into it.

FPS drop due to DL is not only a problem with PMDG, but even occurs with the default aircraft, but since FPS generally are higher with these, the drop is not felt to be so serveer.

[Ioan92 63]

47 minutes ago, Wothan said:

Considering the number of reports regarding the DL, I´m sure they will look into it.

FPS drop due to DL is not only a problem with PMDG, but even occurs with the default aircraft, but since FPS generally are higher with these, the drop is not felt to be so serveer.

The drop is just as severe. If you have a higher framerate it's because said plane has very few dynamic lights. I can turn on one landing light in the 747 and I'm not going to lose much if any FPS.

[rsrandazzo 6,353]

Gents,

In reference to the OP's question:  I think it is absurd for anyone to "blame" Lockheed Martin- and we certainly aren't- so I resent the implication that we are.  Dynamic lighting is a new feature in the platform, and like any new feature it will go through a few iterations of changes in order to maximize it's performance in the real world.

The only reason our name comes up in the discussion is that we are in a position to push our modern product line into Prepar3D v4 and thus the majority of users flying airliners in P3D v4 right now are using PMDG products.

From our point of view- the platform is fine and needs additional tweaking based upon feedback from the community.  Many users in the community have "grown up" with VAS being their primary performance concern and thus they aren't used to running a simulation that needs to have "overall performance" as a primary metric.

Welcome back to the 90s and 2000s.

 

[dal330200 216]

On 7/20/2017 at 2:07 PM, rsrandazzo said:

Gents,

In reference to the OP's question:  I think it is absurd for anyone to "blame" Lockheed Martin- and we certainly aren't- so I resent the implication that we are.  Dynamic lighting is a new feature in the platform, and like any new feature it will go through a few iterations of changes in order to maximize it's performance in the real world.

The only reason our name comes up in the discussion is that we are in a position to push our modern product line into Prepar3D v4 and thus the majority of users flying airliners in P3D v4 right now are using PMDG products.

From our point of view- the platform is fine and needs additional tweaking based upon feedback from the community.  Many users in the community have "grown up" with VAS being their primary performance concern and thus they aren't used to running a simulation that needs to have "overall performance" as a primary metric.

Welcome back to the 90s and 2000s.

 

The only reason I mentioned blame is that over in the LM forums, their folks point to developers and in developer forums, they point to LM.  I also agree that time will fix these problems.  For me and dynamic lighting, The only reason I need it is because PMDG birds use it to make the taxi and landing lights illuminate the ground.  Since LM decided in their infinite wisdom, once again, to make the night so bright, I need to tone down the lighting in order to make things look halfway realistic.  However, when I do that, the airports get dark, including the taxiway lights, so I need the taxi/landing lights to function in order to get around.  I know in the big scheme of things it's not that big of a deal, but it is for me.  Imagine coming in to almost any addon airport after a lovely flight and enjoying all of that 64bit goodness, only to have frames come to a crawl to the point where the situation is almost unflyable on final isn't how it should be. 

I hate to say this, but X-plane really hit it out of the park with lighting.  And dynamic scenery loading too.  I know that it's an apples-to-oranges comparison, but you would think that LM could have produced a better product out of the gate.  In any case, if PMDG can't address it at the moment, and LM may be working on a fix that will roll out sometime down the line, then what's this pilot to do in the interim?  Fly in the day, or use v3.  However, this dumb pilot deleted v3 after the ngx came out. 

Maybe it's time to put simming in the hangar for a while.

Just ranting,

John