Autogen disappearing... caused by unlimited frames?

[Michael Moe 495]

1 hour ago, kand said:

I think that is due to the FFTF default value, when you run unlimited its ignored but when you lock your frame rate internally the FFTF is calculated which means the program forces itself to spend more time rendering at the expense of FPS.

You can alleviate this effect by adding a nominal FFTF value in you cfg file, I used to use 0.17 because anything lower would result in bad blurries, as usual YMMV!

 

Sorry  just to understand,

For instance If i would Lock at 25FPS the FFTF should have more time to load textures (0.33 by default) as i dont need FPS ?

FFTF is 0.01 when running unlimited FPS?

 Sadly when i lock 25FPS i have stutter even though the FPS is at 25FPS all the time

Thanks

Michael moe

[Virtual Flight Realm 29]

Fast sync is the new alternative to vsync. This option is availble for owners of Nvidia GPU gtx 900 and +. If you are one these happy owners, you should give a try, but with fps unlimited and vsync option off in Prepar3D. Try and report ;)

[ricka47 611]

What I don't understand is that, if I lock, my rates drop at some airports more than if I stay unlocked.  For, instance at KORD, unlocked and sitting on a runway, I may have around 35 FPS.  If I lock at 31, I drop to 26 or so.  You would think that I would at least get the locked rate of 31 since I can get more than that unlocked.

I was always led to believe that unlocking forces the sim to attempt to get those higher rates at the expense of other things that it should be doing.   So, at some basic airports, I'm getting over 100 FPS - but at what cost in scenery loading, traffic generation, weather depiction, etc?

[MrFuzzy 2,118]

The same for me. I don't know why, probably the internal fps limiter is buggy since long time, because also with v2 and v3 people used nVidia inspector to lock frames.

If you want to try an alternative fps limiter, use MSI Afterburner with Riva Tuner (and keep unlimited fps ingame of course).

Personally, after many experiments I managed to get rid of autogen and black texture anomalies (never had blurries) with the following settings:

- Fast Sync in nVidia 3D settings

- unlimited fps and Vsync off in Prepar3D settings

- TEXTUREMAXLOAD=30 and TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=160 in Prepar3D.cfg

[vgbaron 3,606]

Each system is different and each persons eyesight and visual requirements are different. Nevertheless the physics of the sim remain - you are seeking a balance. Tune YOUR system to the lowest fps where you can maintain SMOOTH performance across the type of flying that you do. That WILL give you the optimum situation for visuals and performance. Running unlimited works fine in many cases but the CPU is always trying to push higher - sooner or later it will struggle and that gets passed down the line.

For those that run unlimited, look very closely at the FPS counter, I also believe that FSUIPC has the ability to graph fps and watch the yoyo. If you're going from 100 to 45 to 75 to 35 to 100 to 60 .......etc - you are building in issues right there.

Again, each system is different, find the balance for your system and just enjoy the flight.

ANKH - I agree with you re first person shooters but P3D is not even close to that scenario and typically, setting up a P3D/FSX as if it were usually results in issues. FPS titles usually have a very small but intense and detailed world to deal with - flight sims are much larger in scope.

Also FTFF valid ranges are 0.10 to 0.99 - anything outside these ranges is ignored and the closest number is used. There is no difference between 0.01 and 0.1

Vic

[Mikelab6 89]

I don't understand how you guys are able to have smooth panning in VC at fixed 22 or 30 FPS. Ar you talking about smooth flight or smooth panning ?

With my 60 Hz monitor, all below 60 FPS is not smooth at all (the flight is, not the view panning). I have to stay above 60 FPS to have smooth panning on a 60 Hz refresh rate monitor. If you are using 30 hz refresh rate monitor I understand.

My questions for all of you saying having a smooth experience at locked FPS below 60

1. Do you have smooth flight and smooth view panning ?

2.Are you using a 60 Hz monitor ?

Thanks !

Mike

[Claude Troncy 4]

Bonsoir,

Some explanation, I get from Beau Hollis (P3D) on their forum.

http://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=120133&p=139737&hilit=fiber+frame#p139737

Cheers

Claude

[kand 205]

6 hours ago, Michael Moe said:

Sorry  just to understand,

For instance If i would Lock at 25FPS the FFTF should have more time to load textures (0.33 by default) as i dont need FPS ?

FFTF is 0.01 when running unlimited FPS?

 Sadly when i lock 25FPS i have stutter even though the FPS is at 25FPS all the time

Thanks

Michael moe

Yes, the theory is when you run unlimited, the FFTF is discarded although that may appear to be incorrect because of other experiments where an FFTF of 0 means the sim fails to render autogen! 

When you lock within P3d, either the default 0.33 FFTF is used (hence the frame rate drop) or if you have set the FFTF to its lowest setting 0.10 you will see FPS comparable to running at unlimited up to whatever you locked at.

I was playing around with it this morning as I have been getting blurries so wanted to give more time to the fibres 

[vgbaron 3,606]

Mike -I use a 40" 4K monitor as main with a 28" for secondary programs. I use TIR and have it smooth flying and panning with or without TIR.  I'd say better than 90-95% of the time it's perfect - every now and then I'll get a glitch, a stutter, a pause or a popping something but it's rare enough not to be bothering and not worth the effort to track it down.

And FWIW, there are some days when I boot the system and it's really a stutter fest. I just shut it down, count to 10 and start up again and all is well.

Main thing IMHO is not to get hung up on a number - adjust and tune to YOUR desired visuals and performance. Get it as smooth as you can in both flight and panning and get the fps as low as you can  and still maintain in your specific flight profiles.

Vic

[Nyxx 6,993]

1 hour ago, vgbaron said:

 FTFF valid ranges are 0.10 to 0.99 - anything outside these ranges is ignored and the closest number is used. There is no difference between 0.01 and 0.1

Vic

You sure Vic?

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION (default is 0.33 or 30% of the frame time).
MIN_FIBER_TIME_SEC (Default is 0.001 or 1ms)
MAX_FIBER_TIME_SEC (Default is 0.1 or 100ms)

[SteveW 1,792]

Problem is the fps lock on the slider in Display Settings is not a frame rate limiter.

Locked fps includes the DX look-ahead buffer - in effect the thing keeps rendering look-ahead frames irrespective of refresh rate or frame limits. This is hard on the system.

To limit rendering use unlimited on the slider and VSync=On will Limit the fps to the refresh rate of the monitor profile, or set fps limit in NPI.

[ricka47 611]

28 minutes ago, SteveW said:

Problem is the fps lock on the slider in Display Settings is not a frame rate limiter.

Locked fps includes the DX look-ahead buffer - in effect the thing keeps rendering look-ahead frames irrespective of refresh rate or frame limits. This is hard on the system.

To limit rendering use unlimited on the slider and VSync=On will Limit the fps to the refresh rate of the monitor profile, or set fps limit in NPI.

If we do this, do we enable triple buffering and also not use the "fast sync" in the Nvida Control panel?

[Michael Moe 495]

Can we use FFTF 0.33 by force with unlimited FPS. VSYNC ON and monitor refresh  at 25HZ or is the Sim coded to 0.01(0.10) here?

I only need 25FPS for smooth flight and panning. Thought i might can decrease texture loading times. 

Second. 

AM=14 gives only 3 cores for SIM. Does this impact FPS VS All 4 with HT=off? 

Thanks Michael Moe 

 

[SteveW 1,792]

When using the fps slider setting values below Unlimited, frame lock, this creates next frames each based on a guaranteed same period between them, VSync and Triple Buffer settings are ignored. Each frame, physics and terrain location, is calculated for the exact same time period between frames. For example, at locked 20fps we have each frame guaranteed to be calculated for 1/20s = 50ms ahead of the last. Up to 3 frames (default) are built looking ahead, 50, 100, 150, 200ms. If each next frame is available on-time the buffer is depleted by one frame, and that frame calculated specifically for that time, appears at the right time in the sim. If the system drags a little at any stage there are frames in hand which will be depleted rapidly and take several frame to replenish - assuming the drag on the system has relented. And so the successful use of the locked frame rate relies on a very powerful system, one that can run at 60fps to provide a 20 lock can replenish the buffer in time for it to remain useful.

AMs affect the fps capability in odd ways but all things done right can yield a few percent more fps. Three cores works fine with all the sims, four cores not providing much more throughput than three with FSX and P3D, although P3D v4 makes more use of four.

HT off vs HT on: HT off saves a lot of head scratching and AM=14 leaves a gaping hole of a CPU core to attract activity other than the sim. HT on generally is helped when using AMs to distribute processes of the sim onto the next real core rather than just the next Logical Processor of the same core. These sims split out across LPs so if we concentrate on allowing it to split out across cores rather than LPs we can move work onto the next whole core.

It is important to understand that (taking the four core as an example) with HT enabled and AM=85=01,01,01,01 we are in fact only presenting to the sim what looks exactly like four core HT off, which is AM=15=1111=No AM. But looking at the AM 85 we can see we have zeros and these attract activity since these look like any other cores. The bottom line is with HT enabled we have problems to overcome with the way addons and other processes work and it is this that scuppers HT=On performance.

[RALF9636 1,951]

2 hours ago, Mikelab6 said:

I don't understand how you guys are able to have smooth panning in VC at fixed 22 or 30 FPS. Ar you talking about smooth flight or smooth panning ?

With my 60 Hz monitor, all below 60 FPS is not smooth at all (the flight is, not the view panning). I have to stay above 60 FPS to have smooth panning on a 60 Hz refresh rate monitor. If you are using 30 hz refresh rate monitor I understand.

My questions for all of you saying having a smooth experience at locked FPS below 60

1. Do you have smooth flight and smooth view panning ?

2.Are you using a 60 Hz monitor ?

Thanks !

Mike

This discussion is coming up every now and then.

There are people saying they have a smooth experience at frame rates as low as 20 fps or even lower. Other people are saying they need 30 fps or more or they can even see a difference between 30 fps and 60 fps.

 

Unfortunately the most essential aspect most of the time is missed.

No matter how high the fps are, everything that appears on a screen always is a sequence of single frames. The perception of a smooth movement in the end is an optical illusion created by the eyes and the brain. The most important part of the „system“ in this regard is the user's brain.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frame_rate

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motion_perception

At what frame rate the brain is capable of creating the illusion of a smooth movement is highly individual and depends not only on biological prerequisites but also on training, habituation and focus.

It is just like the famous picture where you can see a young or an old woman depending on what your brain is focussed on.

http://psylux.psych.tu-dresden.de/i1/kaw/diverses Material/www.illusionworks.com/html/perceptual_ambiguity.html

Some people see the young woman, others see the old woman. After some training most people are able to „switch“ between them.

 

With single frames or smooth motion it is the same. If the brain concentrates on seeing single frames it will most probably see single frames. And the more the brain tries and trains to recognize single frames the more it will be able to do so. The frame rate at which single frames are perceived gets higher and higher. In the end the brain might even be able to see a difference between 30 and 60 fps. While this might be an impressive ability of the eyes-brain-system – it ruins the sim experience.

But the brain can also be trained and habituated in the other direction. If the brain focuses on perceiving a smooth motion it will probably see a smooth motion. The more the brain tries and trains to perceive a smooth motion the lower the frames can get for the brain to manage to do so. In the end the brain might be able to perceive a smooth motion even under 20 fps. Those are happy simmers.

 

Of course the less movement of the scene the easier it will be for the brain to perceive a smooth movement. Without any movement at all even 1 fps is „smooth“. Looking at a tennis match (with a fast moving ball) 60 fps might not be enough. That is why „stutters“ are most easily perceived when flying low, fast and turning sharply - or when panning around. So when flying a B747 most probably a lower fps rate will do than when doing aerobatics.

And apparently the brain can hardly perceive a smooth motion if the frame rate is unsteady. The brain needs a steady frame rate to create the optical illusion of a smooth movement. That is why it is essential to have the sim run at a steady frame rate (by limiting the fps in the sim or by using VSync and the the refresh rate of the monitor).

 

What frame rate is the lower limit for the brain to be able to create the illusion of a smooth movement will probably be individually different and depending on training and habituation. Since movies have been shot at 24 fps for decades without people complaing about stutters that might be a good hint that the average brain is able to create the illusion of a smooth motion at 24 fps.

 

After all a recommendation for those who now need 30 fps or more (and still see stutters or would like to increase their graphic settings) might be:

- Set the sim rate to something between 20 and 25 fps.

- Adjust the sim settings so that this frame rate is achieved steadily.

- Stop looking at the sim rate.

- Stop looking for stutters.

- Try to see a smooth movement and enjoy flying.

The brain will adapt to that frame rate over time. Not within minutes or hours. It takes weeks or even months.

After a few months of habituation most people would probably be able to enjoy a smooth sim at around 20 fps (except for inevitable lags when complex new scenery / textures get loaded).