PMDG and Dynamic Lights

[Tony747-400 44]

8 minutes ago, PMDG777 said:

I've always gotten a major FPS drop while adjusting flood lights brightness. Soon as I stop turning the knob, FPS returns to normal. I don't think a fix was ever found for this.

This problem isn't dynamic lights related as the PMDG internal lights are not dynamic lights, they are the same as in previous sims. Only external lights are dynamic.

Ok thanks for the reply. Being using the 777 since it was first released and been with it now up to P3D V4 but never noticed it. Probably as I haven't really flown much at night due to the Sim's poor lighting. Looking better now with Orbyx scenery.

 

[Terblanche 28]

The other trick that works with the B744 is to spot view and then swing a 360° around the plane. Suddenly the FPS jumps from 5 FPS to mid-high 20s when locked at 30. Somehow this trick doesn't work with the B738 ... 

But let me lament no more ...

... while "I saw the crescent, you saw the whole of the moon" ♪♫ plays in the background!

[Terblanche 28]

HUH????! Why is there a line through the words ...? Censored or irrelevant?

[cannonplug 126]

47 minutes ago, Terblanche said:

Why is there a line through the words ...?

You must have accidentally clicked on the strikethrough button in the editing tools.

[Terblanche 28]

1 hour ago, wsmeier said:

You must have accidentally clicked on the strikethrough button in the editing tools.

Oeps!

[Terblanche 28]

I was wrong ... the 360° spin in SPOT VIEW does work with the B738 and the FPS jumps right back to almost 30 when locked at 30 FPS.

- BUT - here is a very very interesting observation:

1. I've installed P3D3 LIRF (Aerosoft) in a folders outside P3D4 and linked it in the scenery.cfg file and it works 100% with DL on ...
2. Here is the freaky part, the B738's landing lights had a dip but not nearly the same as at LIMC (Aerosoft) that has a P3D4 installer and is (so-called) DL "compatible"

I thought, well if it works for LIRF let's try a few others and then I continued to install 5 other airports from different developers - LOWS, LICA, LIRQ, and LICJ ... also in the folder outside P3D4 and manually added them to scenery.cfg file and guess what, they all work 100% with VERY LITTLE fps drop when DL are enabled. I know it is a complete contradiction to what other people have been reporting but in my case, the moment I put the B738 at an airport that comes with P3D4 installer et al Dynamic Lights and I switch the lights on for the B738 the FPS nose dive right through the tarmac.

Will be interesting to see what happens when EDDF and EGLL (or any of the above mentioned airports) are launched for P3D4 because the EDDF and EGLL P3D3 scenery does not work with P3D4

#justsomemondaytrivia

[Smasher77th 13]

On 8/8/2017 at 4:27 PM, Terblanche said:

During the day, and DL turned off, my settings are 4xSSAA and there is hardly any shimmering. As we all know, DL and SSAA are not friends at all. When you want to fly at night and have taxi and landing lights, then you need DL and for that to happen you need to downscale to MSAA but then everything is nauseously flickering, glittering, shimmering all the way EXCEPT if you have a 4K monitor then the guys reported that there are no shimmering when going down to MSAA. I'll try and take a screenshot tonight to illustrate what I mean.

Maybe try dynamic super resolution and set to 1440p or even 4k.

[Terblanche 28]

9 hours ago, Smasher77th said:

Maybe try dynamic super resolution and set to 1440p or even 4k.

I have DSR set on 2 ... I don't understand the 1440p part and for the moment a 4K monitor is way too expensive in our country. The 1080Ti already costed me an arm, a leg, and one kidney!

[markdf 84]

3 hours ago, Terblanche said:

I have DSR set on 2 ... I don't understand the 1440p part and for the moment a 4K monitor is way too expensive in our country. The 1080Ti already costed me an arm, a leg, and one kidney!

1440p means running at 2560x1440 resolution.  Just remember that if you use SSAA and DSR at the same time, you're effectively asking your graphics  card to apply the same technique twice.  Assuming your normal monitor resolution is 1920x1080, and you apply DSR at 2x, you're already asking it to render at 4k, and then with SSAA you'll then be asking P3D to render at least parts of that image (if it's using adaptive SSAA, otherwise it'll be the whole image again) at an even higher resolution than that depending on how high you're setting SSAA in your settings.

[Terblanche 28]

1 hour ago, markdf said:

ssuming your normal monitor resolution is 1920x1080, and you apply DSR at 2x, you're already asking it to render at 4k

Aaaaah, I didn't know that. I'm running indeed on a 1920x1080 monitor and have done various tests with and without DSR and the difference in FPS is minimum on my rig but the difference in 'shimmering' is most definitely noticeable.What I don't understand of P3D is the whole shimmering issue. My FSX has no, almost zero, shimmering thanks to one or two simple settings in Nvidia Inspector which do not work at all for P3D. As a matter of fact, I'm staying away from Nvidia Inspector regarding P3D because it just makes things worst if you start to provoke NI with P3D settings.

[cannonplug 126]

8 hours ago, Terblanche said:

As a matter of fact, I'm staying away from Nvidia Inspector regarding P3D because it just makes things worst if you start to provoke NI with P3D settings.

I'm getting the exact opposite results in NI. I have 4xMSAA set in the sim. In NI, I have the antialiasing mode set to "enhance the application setting" and transparency supersampling to 4x sparse grid supersampling. This cleans up the edges that MSAA leaves behind and I also see no shimmering, no stutters, and no fps loss with PMDG dynamic lights. All this with a 780Ti on a 1920x1080 monitor. Of course, my sliders are nowhere near the top, but until I can upgrade my GPU, I'm quite content with the performance and visuals I'm seeing right now with my midrange settings.

By the way, I have other settings in NI, but I don't know whether they make a difference: Frame rate limiter to 30.5, vertical sync tear control to "adaptive," texture filtering quality to "high quality," power management mode to "prefer maximum performance," and shadercache to "on."

I know you've been plagued by these issues for a long time, so I imagine you've tried all these settings. I just wanted to offer up a solution that's working for me, just in case it might help you as well. Good luck!

[Smasher77th 13]

15 hours ago, Terblanche said:

I have DSR set on 2 ... I don't understand the 1440p part and for the moment a 4K monitor is way too expensive in our country. The 1080Ti already costed me an arm, a leg, and one kidney!

Instead of choosing just the 2.00x on DSR, check them all (1.20x, 1.50x, 1.78x, 2.00x, 3.00x and 4.00x). That way you have all resolutions. Now set your display resolution to 2560x1440 (even though it's a 1080p native resolution monitor). and see if when you use MSAA you still have the shimmers. You can also try setting your resolution to 4K (this option will only be available if you checked the DSR 4.00x box). That way you can lower the MSAA to 2 or even off completely, and gain more frames. DSR allows you to set your monitor resolution to a resolution higher than the monitor's highest (or native) resolution. I use DSR 4.00x and I'm able to run prepar3d in 4K with 2MSAA or off with no shimmering, and my CPU is i7-975 extreme, but my GPU is GTX1080

[Terblanche 28]

8 hours ago, wsmeier said:

I know you've been plagued by these issues for a long time, so I imagine you've tried all these settings. I just wanted to offer up a solution that's working for me, just in case it might help you as well. Good luck!

This is really useful info ... and I will most definitely experiment more in the days to come.

6 hours ago, Smasher77th said:

I use DSR 4.00x and I'm able to run prepar3d in 4K with 2MSAA or off with no shimmering, and my CPU is i7-975 extreme, but my GPU is GTX1080

This is also very interesting - and seeing that my specs are more or less the same as yours, I will try the above recommendations and see what it comes up with.

One question: With FSX it was advised to switch HT off in the BIOS but it seems with P3D most people have it on ... what do you recommend? 

[markdf 84]

4 hours ago, Terblanche said:

One question: With FSX it was advised to switch HT off in the BIOS but it seems with P3D most people have it on ... what do you recommend? 

A very good question indeed.  Personally mine is off for a more stable overclock, but I too am curious what the general consensus is these days.

[Sina Najibi 0]

Well! After lots of going back and forth, I found the only way to get rid of this dynamic light issue is to downgrade to the P3D V3!! So upset neither PMDG or LM take the responsibility to resolve while I believe PMDG could at least provide an option to use none dynamic feature though. It's just like you buy a car with auto stop (engine off) feature you don't like to use in traffic grids which is really annoying. Thus there's a button to turn this feature OFF. It doesn't make sense if the manufacturer not provide the option saying it's not my problem, it's your city problem which cannot manage the traffic!!!     

Sorry for being that straightforward guys!