11.05r2 is out

[jabloomf1230 2,445]

These continued hypothetical discussions of "efficiency" and graphics "engines" need to be tempered by the facts that all flight sims are not created (and used) equally. The only things that the five sims have in common (except for some peripheral users) are nVidia video drivers the Windows OS. And those two factors serve as the major constraints to performance.

After watching FSW go through several iterations where features have been added, I have experienced declines in frame rates. The same will be true for AFS2 as it becomes more feature-rich.

Burden any of these sims with a study level user aircraft, complex sceneries, realistic ATC, immersive weather and lots of AI aircraft and one will get the exact same results with regard to performance.

[Murmur 3,941]

12 minutes ago, vortex681 said:

But 4K is far from becoming more popular outside of the flight sim community. If you look at the latest Steam survey (http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/ which gives a good idea of what's happening generally in the gaming world), 4K is used by less than 1% of gamers - 1920x1080 is still by far the most popular, accounting for over 48%. I'd be very surprised if LR's 60FPS target was at anything other than 1920x1080.

Interesting stats. 1% is minuscule indeed, probably my prediction was too optimistic. Although I presume that the percentage is higher among the flight sim community. And then you have to add the multi-monitor users. And then I see the majority of new TVs on sale now are 4K, with good prices compared to the "old" 1080p, so I think the adoption will steadily rise. But yeah I was probably too optimistic.

[N1G 88]

Where are the release notes?

Edit: Never mind found it (-:

[Guest]

2 hours ago, Paraffin said:

I think I remember Ben saying somewhere in a comments thread that it isn't their intention to support 4k monitors (i.e. "support" in terms of maxed sliders and high frame rates). So that 60 fps target may be more in reference to 1080p. Note that Rob above is running a nominal 4k monitor (3840 x 2160).

Are we actually supposed to expect 60 fps at that resolution?

Do you have a link to where Ben provided this information, I don't recall ever seeing LR suggest this?  It would seem a rather strange comment for them to make?  I don't run max sliders (objects not maxed - 1 notch down, shadows off, 4XSSAA) and I'm at 11 FPS in default aircraft with default scenery in the VC in a low population density area.  CPU 0 is maxed out at 100% (cores 1 - 9 at < 5%), GPU about 50% ... I understand XP11 doesn't leverage multi-threading ... perhaps that will change in the XP11.10 release, I hope so (I have many add-ons invested in XP11).

If that is going to be the case (no intention to have good VC performance at 4K res), then I guess I better hope LR bring back the "advanced" graphics settings via the UI so that I don't have to use Lua scripts for temporary changes every time I start XP11 to reduce graphics settings not available via the standard UI.  If you look at the various XP11 forums, it's rather obvious the majority of threads are about performance and how to improve it (and this is not all 4K res users), so I'm guessing LR is aware of the issue with FPS and hence their road map to 11.10 with Vulkan API.

I'm not going to enter into a debate about 4K users and what percentage of the Flight Sim users operate at 4K, Steam is not a valid source of information on hardware for this market and I'm not really aware of any survey's done regarding 4K user base in this market and it honestly doesn't matter ... that's why I doubt LR would suggest 4K is not a user audience they are interested in given the cost of 4K monitors is now below $300 mark and 8K monitors will soon (2018 and 2019) be replacing 4K.  Any technolgoy that makes one's product look better is something one will want to support, be it higher monitor resolution, better GPUs, better CPU, better APIs, or VR.

External views are however often much better on the FPS front where I can get to my preferred 30 FPS goal.  The 1/2 refresh rate via NCP was working in prior builds, but 11.05r2 seems to have broken that or nVidia driver issue?  It's the VC (even in default aircraft) that seems to be the real drag on performance.

I'll admit, from a programmers perspective, I don't really understand why XP11 doesn't list support for 30Hz (not even in the "Custom" option) ... just a refresh rate and the graphics engine should operate independent of it (I'm not aware of OpenGL being tied to a refresh rate).

My original comment wasn't intended to be a debate about 4K, just letting a user know that this build 11.05r2 produced a Green Screen when I attempted to force my desktop settings which are 4K @ 30Hz. Hitting my target FPS of 30 is doable, but it just means turning a lot of what makes XP11 look good, OFF, which is self defeating as I'd like more control on what I want On/Off.  I can also hit 60 FPS, but the visuals are so poor, I may as well be flying FSX.   (keep in mind this is without IXEG loaded, without PMDG DC6, without Carenado loaded, without Aerosoft airports, without xEnviro, and not in an OrthoXP location).

I'm not trying to be negative towards XP11, it can produce some great screenshots (so long as I don't include the FPS counter), but for 4K video I have to dial so much back to get acceptable (30) FPS that other platforms look better and do more.  Telling me/users that I should NOT be using 4K is "not" going to make people want to buy XP11.  I can tolerate compromises, I do with all my other flight sim platforms (I know how to get the most out of my simulators) ... does XP11 PBR and night lighting look better than any other simulator, YES!  Absolutely looks fantastic.  Day time flights (especially mountain regions) look great as well (once one dials back the exaggerated haze/visibility).  But XP11 is so far behind in performance relative to other platforms than telling users (if this is accurate) they shouldn't be running anything above 1080p is just not gonna work, short term or long term.

I'm hoping the use of the Vulkan API, addition of multi-threading for distributed core processing, and the addition of an "Advanced" graphics settings UI to provide more fine tuned control over render complexity will solve the FPS problems around XP11 ... and will come to XP11.10 and onwards.

Cheers, Rob.

[Murmur 3,941]

31 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I don't run max sliders (objects not maxed - 1 notch down, shadows off, 4XSSAA) and I'm at 11 FPS in default aircraft with default scenery in the VC in a low population density area.

Something doesn't seem right about your performance. How many FPS at 1080p resolution?

 

[mpw8679 428]

6 minutes ago, Murmur said:

Something doesn't seem right about your performance. How many FPS at 1080p resolution?

 

My performance at 4k is very close to Robs.  This is with a 7700k at 5.1 ghz and a 1080ti.  

[Paraffin 2,197]

37 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I'm not trying to be negative towards XP11, it can produce some great screenshots (so long as I don't include the FPS counter), but for 4K video I have to dial so much back to get acceptable (30) FPS that other platforms look better and do more.  Telling me/users that I should NOT be using 4K is "not" going to make people want to buy XP11.  I can tolerate compromises, I do with all my other flight sim platforms (I know how to get the most out of my simulators) ... does XP11 PBR and night lighting look better than any other simulator, YES!  Absolutely looks fantastic.  Day time flights (especially mountain regions) look great as well (once one dials back the exaggerated haze/visibility).  But XP11 is so far behind in performance relative to other platforms than telling users (if this is accurate) they shouldn't be running anything above 1080p is just not gonna work, short term or long term.

I'm hoping the use of the Vulkan API, addition of multi-threading for distributed core processing, and the addition of an "Advanced" graphics settings UI to provide more fine tuned control over render complexity will solve the FPS problems around XP11 ... and will come to XP11.10 and onwards.

Cheers, Rob.

Are other platforms actually "doing more" though? X-Plane has greatly extended LOD, high resolution ground textures, and dynamic lighting that far exceeds what even P3Dv4 is attempting. You don't get all that without a performance hit.

And for the record, I don't think anyone is saying you shouldn't use 4k, but you have to be realistic about how far you can push the settings. 4k resolution is a big lift for any sim that isn't running a very stripped-down, low resolution terrain model like Aerofly FS2.

At 1920x1200 I get a very comfortable 40 fps even flying over urban areas with clouds enabled, graphics on High and World Objects set to Max, no object shadows. Sometimes up into the high 50 fps flying over overcast. Note: this is with a very mediocre GTX970 GPU with only 3.5 GB of usable VRAM. I could probably turn ground object shadows on with a GTX1080i and get even faster frame rates.

This screenshot below is typical of the frame rates I get flying over urban areas with clouds (42fps)

I don't see this as "XP11 being so far behind in performance relative to other platforms." This looks pretty good to me, and I think anyone else running a similar resolution is enjoying good frame rates.

And yeah, I know we can't really ask someone who spent money on a 4k monitor to replace it with a lower res monitor, or (realistically) to bump down the resolution. But I do think people need to be realistic about expectations with ultra high-res monitors. 

[Murmur 3,941]

49 minutes ago, mpw8679 said:

My performance at 4k is very close to Robs.  This is with a 7700k at 5.1 ghz and a 1080ti.  

Out of curiosity, is that with clouds? And what fps do you get at 1080p? It would be interesting to understand if the bottleneck is the CPU or the GPU.

 

[HiFlyer 9,343]

6 hours ago, jabloomf1230 said:

Burden any of these sims with a study level user aircraft, complex sceneries, realistic ATC, immersive weather and lots of AI aircraft and one will get the exact same results with regard to performance.

Yet I was ambling along in DCS today with most of that stuff freely in evidence at 2k resolution, and max settings. At nearly 200fps.......

And it was only using about 51% of my gpu......

I myself think that there just might be lots and lots of improvement possible still, in the world of simulation.

I also suspect we really will have to just wait and see.

[Murmur 3,941]

5 minutes ago, HiFlyer said:

Yet I was ambling along in DCS today with most of that stuff freely in evidence at 2k resolution, and max settings. At nearly 200fps.......

What a pity Eagle Dynamics is only interested in military flight sims. IMO they have, overall, the best and most realistic rendering engine. Its rendering engine also has a lot of features that AeroflyFS 2 is missing.

[mpw8679 428]

3 hours ago, Murmur said:

Out of curiosity, is that with clouds? And what fps do you get at 1080p? It would be interesting to understand if the bottleneck is the CPU or the GPU.

 

I really have not done enough testing to give an accurate assessment.  I would say I have 3-4 times the frames when using 1080p vs 4k

[strider1 575]

5 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

Do you have a link to where Ben provided this information, I don't recall ever seeing LR suggest this?  It would seem a rather strange comment for them to make?  I don't run max sliders (objects not maxed - 1 notch down, shadows off, 4XSSAA) and I'm at 11 FPS in default aircraft with default scenery in the VC in a low population density area.  CPU 0 is maxed out at 100% (cores 1 - 9 at < 5%), GPU about 50% ... I understand XP11 doesn't leverage multi-threading ... perhaps that will change in the XP11.10 release, I hope so (I have many add-ons invested in XP11).

If that is going to be the case (no intention to have good VC performance at 4K res), then I guess I better hope LR bring back the "advanced" graphics settings via the UI so that I don't have to use Lua scripts for temporary changes every time I start XP11 to reduce graphics settings not available via the standard UI.  If you look at the various XP11 forums, it's rather obvious the majority of threads are about performance and how to improve it (and this is not all 4K res users), so I'm guessing LR is aware of the issue with FPS and hence their road map to 11.10 with Vulkan API.

I'm not going to enter into a debate about 4K users and what percentage of the Flight Sim users operate at 4K, Steam is not a valid source of information on hardware for this market and I'm not really aware of any survey's done regarding 4K user base in this market and it honestly doesn't matter ... that's why I doubt LR would suggest 4K is not a user audience they are interested in given the cost of 4K monitors is now below $300 mark and 8K monitors will soon (2018 and 2019) be replacing 4K.  Any technolgoy that makes one's product look better is something one will want to support, be it higher monitor resolution, better GPUs, better CPU, better APIs, or VR.

External views are however often much better on the FPS front where I can get to my preferred 30 FPS goal.  The 1/2 refresh rate via NCP was working in prior builds, but 11.05r2 seems to have broken that or nVidia driver issue?  It's the VC (even in default aircraft) that seems to be the real drag on performance.

I'll admit, from a programmers perspective, I don't really understand why XP11 doesn't list support for 30Hz (not even in the "Custom" option) ... just a refresh rate and the graphics engine should operate independent of it (I'm not aware of OpenGL being tied to a refresh rate).

My original comment wasn't intended to be a debate about 4K, just letting a user know that this build 11.05r2 produced a Green Screen when I attempted to force my desktop settings which are 4K @ 30Hz. Hitting my target FPS of 30 is doable, but it just means turning a lot of what makes XP11 look good, OFF, which is self defeating as I'd like more control on what I want On/Off.  I can also hit 60 FPS, but the visuals are so poor, I may as well be flying FSX.   (keep in mind this is without IXEG loaded, without PMDG DC6, without Carenado loaded, without Aerosoft airports, without xEnviro, and not in an OrthoXP location).

I'm not trying to be negative towards XP11, it can produce some great screenshots (so long as I don't include the FPS counter), but for 4K video I have to dial so much back to get acceptable (30) FPS that other platforms look better and do more.  Telling me/users that I should NOT be using 4K is "not" going to make people want to buy XP11.  I can tolerate compromises, I do with all my other flight sim platforms (I know how to get the most out of my simulators) ... does XP11 PBR and night lighting look better than any other simulator, YES!  Absolutely looks fantastic.  Day time flights (especially mountain regions) look great as well (once one dials back the exaggerated haze/visibility).  But XP11 is so far behind in performance relative to other platforms than telling users (if this is accurate) they shouldn't be running anything above 1080p is just not gonna work, short term or long term.

I'm hoping the use of the Vulkan API, addition of multi-threading for distributed core processing, and the addition of an "Advanced" graphics settings UI to provide more fine tuned control over render complexity will solve the FPS problems around XP11 ... and will come to XP11.10 and onwards.

Cheers, Rob.

11fps ! Try turning down Antialiasing to 2xSSAA+FXAA. I am looking at 25-30fps in LA area on a 4K monitor, Objects at max !

[Murmur 3,941]

35 minutes ago, mpw8679 said:

I really have not done enough testing to give an accurate assessment.  I would say I have 3-4 times the frames when using 1080p vs 4k

3-4 times means going from, say 12-14 fps, to 35-45 fps. That seems to indicate that GPU is the bottleneck at 4K. It would be interesting to test what fps you get at 4K with minimal antialiasing (FXAA). Also, clouds could contribute to bottlenecking your GPU at 4K. I think there are some workarounds if this is the case.

[Lenny777 299]

21 hours ago, t4murphy said:

Run your xplane installer and it will offer the update.  Threw me for a loop also since I thought there would be an update prompt on the about screen showing you your version even though it said mine was current version and it wasn't,.

Thanks!

[Guest]

7 hours ago, Paraffin said:

And for the record, I don't think anyone is saying you shouldn't use 4k, but you have to be realistic about how far you can push the settings.

I don't want to get into a debate about X vs. Y ... I'd rather just focus on making XP11 perform better at 4K resolution.   I get acceptable external FPS, but as soon as enter the VC, FPS drops by almost 60% or more ... weather is CAVOK.  The puzzling part is my GPU (TitanXP), with 4XSSAA and PBR at 3840 x 2160, should be the bottleneck, but it's not?   The GPU is hovering around 50% utilization but my CPU is at 100% utilization on Core 0 (next to nothing on the other cores).  

4X SSAA usage in other platforms (at 4K res) and I see my GPU utilization close to 80-100% (as I would expect) in extreme weather conditions (lots of clouds, rain, etc.).  So my only conclusion is that XP11 is doing a lot more software rendering (CPU based) which probably should be shifted over to the GPU side ... I'm hoping XP11.10 use of Vulkan API will significantly shift the work load OFF the CPU and onto the GPU ... that's my hope anyway (and native support for 30Hz monitors).

Has Ben/LR mentioned anything about threading or using more than just a single CPU core?  Almost all other platforms these days are working multiple CPU cores and it shows with their better performance.  I'm patiently waiting for XP11.10 as there clearly is a visual feast hiding in XP11 and I hope it can one day be realized on my system.

Cheers, Rob.