Performance through the floor!

[Syonco 13]

I've had this issue since forever. Never was able to find a fix. Using a 1440p monitor as my main screen and a 1080p one for different apps. 

[Rocky_53 1,579]

2 hours ago, branks737 said:

I have a similar issue where I undock panels in the pmdg737 and my frames drop by half. That's with one 4k monitor only. Even when I get a window pop up from a third party add on it drops my frames by half, however the frame rate returns to normal after a few seconds. If I then click back on the undocked window or pop up, my frames drop to half again. I don't recall this ever happening in fsx or P3dv3. 

Yup, that's exactly the problem! So it seems there is a major bug in V4.

[onurair 24]

It seem's you guys have all more than one display connected to the same GPU. So maybe there is really a bug in P3D4 relating to undocking windows and low fps.

In general to low fps with weak GPU's and 4k displays:
I had also low fps after I upgraded to a 4k display. Espacially during approach when a lot of autogen and the airport was visible. I tried various settings and tweaks but was never able to hold 30fps throughout the flight. (30hz) My GTX 970 is the culprit. It is impossible to get acceptable performance at native 4k.... Then I had an idea and tried custom resolutions. So if we take 90% of 4k (3840x2160) we get 3456x1944. Once I set this resolution in the sim, my performace and smoothness was like never before. And you almost can't see any difference in texture quality compared to native 4k. Even with dynamic lighting on I had 20fps which was around 10 with native 4k.

I also overclocked my GPU and installed game booster that optimized some background processes. However I'm not sure, how much it improved my performance.
I guess it was the custom resolution which gave me the smoothness and fps back which I had with my full hd display before. 
It definetly is worth a try.
 

[Rocky_53 1,579]

3 minutes ago, onurair said:

It seem's you guys have all more than one display connected to the same GPU. So maybe there is really a bug in P3D4 relating to undocking windows and low fps.

In general to low fps with weak GPU's and 4k displays:
I had also low fps after I upgraded to a 4k display. Espacially during approach when a lot of autogen and the airport was visible. I tried various settings and tweaks but was never able to hold 30fps throughout the flight. (30hz) My GTX 970 is the culprit. It is impossible to get acceptable performance at native 4k.... Than I had an idea and tried custom resolutions. So if we take 90% of 4k (3840x2160) we get 3456x1944. Once I set this resolution in the sim, my performace and smoothness was like never before. And you almost can't see any difference in texture quality compared to native 4k. Even with dynamic lighting on I had 20fps which was around 10 with native 4k.

I also overclocked my GPU and installed game booster that optimized some background processes. However I'm not sure, how much it improved my performance.
I guess it was the custom resolution which gave me the smoothness and fps back which I had with my full hd display before. 
It definetly is worth a try.
 

Thanks. Sure, with respect, that is not the issue. The problem appears immediately a particular action is undertaken, in this case the opening of a panel within P3D. It doesn't matter whether the second monitor is used or not.

[onurair 24]

5 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Thanks. Sure, with respect, that is not the issue. The problem appears immediately a particular action is undertaken, in this case the opening of a panel within P3D. It doesn't matter whether the second monitor is used or not.

Oh I see you have a 1080Ti so you should definetly be on the safe side with native 4k :D

[Rocky_53 1,579]

Just now, onurair said:

Oh I see you have a 1080Ti so you should definetly be on the safe side with native 4k :D

Sure, I've been amazed at what a beast the 1080ti is. Even in heavy weather and demanding sceneries and aircraft, I can still easily pull 30+fps. But when I pull up ATC, Active Sky window, an A2A GPS or NGX CDU, the frames go to 14/15fps! With stutters.

[branks737 29]

9 minutes ago, Rockliffe said:

Sure, I've been amazed at what a beast the 1080ti is. Even in heavy weather and demanding sceneries and aircraft, I can still easily pull 30+fps. But when I pull up ATC, Active Sky window, an A2A GPS or NGX CDU, the frames go to 14/15fps! With stutters.

Correct. I have the same symptoms. I only have one 4k monitor running and a gtx 1080, not as powerful as the 1080ti but powerful enough to handle 4k and keep a constant 30fps. Like you when I undock or pull down the active sky window or pro ATC in-flight menu, I get the temporary stutters and big FPS drop. So it's not a hardware problem.

[vgbaron 3,612]

Try lowering all your settings to "normal" - easier to delete the cfg file - then try the same test. Do the fps drop by half?

If no, you have your answer - if yes then several other possibilities including P3D rendering issue.

 

Vic

[branks737 29]

3 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Try lowering all your settings to "normal" - easier to delete the cfg file - then try the same test. Do the fps drop by half?

If no, you have your answer - if yes then several other possibilities including P3D rendering issue.

 

Vic

Lowering the settings and deleting the cfg files did not help me. Thanks

[Rocky_53 1,579]

3 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Try lowering all your settings to "normal" - easier to delete the cfg file - then try the same test. Do the fps drop by half?

If no, you have your answer - if yes then several other possibilities including P3D rendering issue.

 

Vic

Hi Vic, thanks for the suggestion, but if this was the issue then it would happen throughout, and not an immediate 50% drop in frames when one particular action is instigated 

[vgbaron 3,612]

Not necessarily Howard - the drop "could" be the result of the system stressing to render additional screens. Lowering the settings would possibly reveal this. If the problem goes away, it was the settings.

I know I'm getting really old and forgetful but IIRC it hs been this way since early FSX. If you UNDOCK the window, fps will just about halve. Leave it docked, all is good. Move it to second monitor undocked - same drop.

IMHO, this is the same problem still carried forward to P3D .

Vic

[SteveW 1,792]

Yes - the horrible undocked panel half fps NVidia problem strikes again. Default all the NVidia control panel profiles in the 3d settings panel. Doesn't always cure it though, sometimes need another driver version.

[Rocky_53 1,579]

14 hours ago, vgbaron said:

Not necessarily Howard - the drop "could" be the result of the system stressing to render additional screens. Lowering the settings would possibly reveal this. If the problem goes away, it was the settings.

I know I'm getting really old and forgetful but IIRC it hs been this way since early FSX. If you UNDOCK the window, fps will just about halve. Leave it docked, all is good. Move it to second monitor undocked - same drop.

IMHO, this is the same problem still carried forward to P3D .

Vic

 

14 hours ago, SteveW said:

Yes - the horrible undocked panel half fps NVidia problem strikes again. Default all the NVidia control panel profiles in the 3d settings panel. Doesn't always cure it though, sometimes need another driver version.

Thanks fellas. I'm on holiday at the moment, but will soon return to run some further tests and follow some suggestions.

[branks737 29]

On 10/5/2017 at 8:54 AM, SteveW said:

Yes - the horrible undocked panel half fps NVidia problem strikes again. Default all the NVidia control panel profiles in the 3d settings panel. Doesn't always cure it though, sometimes need another driver version.

Thanks for the trouble shooting tips steve, but it didn't work for me. I applied default settings to NVidia control panel profiles. I also tried reverting back to some previous driver versions (I had the latest) but the problem persists. 

I ran CPUID HWMonitor to see which hardware device the window popups and/or undocking of panels was influencing. To my surprise it was the CPU and not GPU. In fact GPU did not budge, it remained at 40% usage. However CPU#2 was affected. On Ide it was at 45% usage. Then each time I undocked a panel it would fluctuate from 85%, 98% to 100%. I am running AM=85, so I'll do some tests without AM and I'll try the CPU without OC.

[SteveW 1,792]

You did "Restore/Apply" on all the profiles fully?

First - I should have said it is important that if you had a greyed-out "Restore" because it's not been edited then you should make any change, apply that so as to enable the greyed out button due to having been edited and then do the  "Restore/Apply".

Seems not to make sense but I can see that it does. Also remember that anything can happen to an unedited profile too. Changing drivers and not doing that can and does result in the problems you described.

Even so, still might not work:

If you have multiple screens, try reducing to only the main screen and repeat the above. Then see if you can undock the panel without dramatic loss of fps.

 

Regarding AMs it will work the same irrespective of core or LP count. The issue is regarding the way the undocked panel alters the desktop vsync and distributes work unevenly, giving rise to your condition of not fully utilising the CPU/GPU. It could be a Windows desktop issue and require resetting in some way regarding desktop vsync (not to be mistaken for P3D VSync).