PMDG and Dynamic Lighting

[downscc 1,327]

1 hour ago, somiller said:

Well I beg to differ...I run 4xSSAA with PMDG and complex 3rd party scenery all day long using fairly high settings, and have good performance (mostly 30+fps). SSAA doesn't cripple most systems! The moment DL are turned on with those settings, 10-15 fps. IT IS NOT SSAA THAT IS THE PROBLEM...if it was, then high settings and SSAA without DL would give low performance. How many times do we have to say the same thing? For my system to run DL, not only do I have to disable SSAA, I also have to reduce other settings somewhat to get the same 30+ fps. DL is the hog!

Try MSAA.... with a decent 4K screen you don't need the extra AA.  Mine runs fine with 4xMSAA.

And on the SSAA:  When P3Dv4 first came out we had at least a dozen posts here from people who couldn't run their system with SSAA turned on.  They have slowed to a trickle now but we still see one every couple of weeks, and these posts have nothing to do with DL.

As for 30+ fps, that is probably a personal preference.  I have found 20 fps works great, and only increased it to 24 fps to reduce the number of missing obstacle light flashes.

You can repeat the same thing as many times as you want, but it doesn't make it any truer or any more false. Facts are facts.  One fact is the PMDG rule in their forums to always post with full names, seems to help with courtesy.

[somiller 694]

29 minutes ago, downscc said:

One fact is the PMDG rule in their forums to always post with full names, seems to help with courtesy.

I can only assume this wasn't aimed at me. If so...look below. And as far as courtesy, once again, I assume that was not aimed at me, as my post could hardly have been more courteous.

The posts about DL haven't slowed to a trickle now, have they?

[somiller 694]

1 hour ago, downscc said:

As for 30+ fps, that is probably a personal preference.  I have found 20 fps works great, and only increased it to 24 fps to reduce the number of missing obstacle light flashes.

I definitely prefer 30+ fps, as I use TrackIR, and when fps is lower it is not very pleasant when panning. What do you mean by missing obstacle light flashes...I'd be curious to know if I experience them?

[Ioan92 63]

9 hours ago, somiller said:

Well I beg to differ...I run 4xSSAA with PMDG and complex 3rd party scenery all day long using fairly high settings, and have good performance (mostly 30+fps). SSAA doesn't cripple most systems! The moment DL are turned on with those settings, 10-15 fps. IT IS NOT SSAA THAT IS THE PROBLEM...if it was, then high settings and SSAA without DL would give low performance. How many times do we have to say the same thing? For my system to run DL, not only do I have to disable SSAA, I also have to reduce other settings somewhat to get the same 30+ fps. DL is the hog!

The problem is that P3D uses forward rendering instead of deferred. X-Plane uses deffered rendering and no lights will kill your fps in that game. This is also why X-Plane 11 has no MSAA.
 

[scandinavian13 5,192]

17 hours ago, Ioan92 said:

This is why I'm saying it isn't a hardware issue.

You're arguing that this isn't a problem caused by hardware. I've told you that I agree with that position: the issue, in the end, is one of optimization, when it comes to DL.

My point this entire time, however, is that with the amount of hardware variability, we cannot produce a comprehensive guide with info for people. Hardware will affect performance. Period. End.

[honanhal 1,420]

In part because I know (based on this thread and others) that combining SSAA and PMDG planes in v4 is a no-go, I've been using DSR and MSAA as a substitute. The problem is that the shimmering is horrific -- especially at any airport with apron light poles. It tends to kill immersion dead on final approach. Is there a way to do anything at all about that without using SSAA?

And, if not, why are legacy lights not under consideration?

Thanks,

James

[Ioan92 63]

1 hour ago, honanhal said:

In part because I know (based on this thread and others) that combining SSAA and PMDG planes in v4 is a no-go, I've been using DSR and MSAA as a substitute. The problem is that the shimmering is horrific -- especially at any airport with apron light poles. It tends to kill immersion dead on final approach. Is there a way to do anything at all about that without using SSAA?

And, if not, why are legacy lights not under consideration?

Thanks,

James

give driver FXAA a try, won't show up on screenshots tho.

[honanhal 1,420]

1 hour ago, Ioan92 said:

give driver FXAA a try, won't show up on screenshots tho.

Is that different from the FXAA option in the P3D UI?

[Ioan92 63]

Just now, honanhal said:

Is that different from the FXAA option in the P3D UI?

yes it should be crisper

[serviceceiling 135]

Since this very isue has been bothering me after I finally switched to v4.1, here are my two cents on this topic: Not everyone is able to afford a 4k monitor in order to be able to use MSAA an get a halfway decent visual picture and sharp displays. I have been using flightsim on a laptop since day 1 and have upgraded to a state of the art gaming one at the beginning of the year, which runs P3D v4.1 like butter...except when I turn on dynamic lighting. It really boggles my mind how a developer can force such a fps-demanding and currently pretty broken feature on everyone and ruin most people's experience, while at the same time bragging how well optimised their latest aircraft are in various other aspects when it comes to fps. Fact is, that I don't fly PMDG aircraft at night anymore because there's point to land or taxi without any landing lights. Downgrading my graphics to MSAA isn't an option either, since that would make my screens jagged and the overall appearance of the sim far worse. How hard can it be to include the same legacy lighting system that worked so beautifully in FSX/P3Dv3.4 as an option for those who don't feel like halfing their FPS just to have some more fancy lighting? This really seems counterintuitive to me...

[honanhal 1,420]

On 11/8/2017 at 11:12 AM, Ioan92 said:

yes it should be crisper

Cheers -- this was a great suggestion and I'm now happily using FXAA set through NVIDIA Inspector.

James

[somiller 694]

On 11/8/2017 at 11:11 AM, honanhal said:

Is that different from the FXAA option in the P3D UI?

I tried it and at night with MSAA I saw ZERO difference...not a solution.

[Stefan888 11]

20 hours ago, serviceceiling said:

Since this very isue has been bothering me after I finally switched to v4.1, here are my two cents on this topic: Not everyone is able to afford a 4k monitor in order to be able to use MSAA an get a halfway decent visual picture and sharp displays. I have been using flightsim on a laptop since day 1 and have upgraded to a state of the art gaming one at the beginning of the year, which runs P3D v4.1 like butter...except when I turn on dynamic lighting. It really boggles my mind how a developer can force such a fps-demanding and currently pretty broken feature on everyone and ruin most people's experience, while at the same time bragging how well optimised their latest aircraft are in various other aspects when it comes to fps. Fact is, that I don't fly PMDG aircraft at night anymore because there's point to land or taxi without any landing lights. Downgrading my graphics to MSAA isn't an option either, since that would make my screens jagged and the overall appearance of the sim far worse. How hard can it be to include the same legacy lighting system that worked so beautifully in FSX/P3Dv3.4 as an option for those who don't feel like halfing their FPS just to have some more fancy lighting? This really seems counterintuitive to me...

I agree with you its not so hard to include legacy lights especially when community is requsting so. I belive if this topic stays alive for several months PMDG will include legacy lights.At the end we as customers didnt even request that change.
Currently there are two options:

1)Downgrade your FS settings

2)Switch back to v3.4

I hope that PMDG will resolve that problem in the near fututure.

Spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

 

[Anxu00 176]

On 11/7/2017 at 6:51 PM, downscc said:

They have slowed to a trickle now but we still see one every couple of weeks, and these posts have nothing to do with DL.

Perhaps because their call to make using DL an option fell on deaf ears?  I just recently moved to 4.1 and I would agree that making legacy lights available is certainly possible for people who want it.  AA with P3D is always a problem.  I would say that DL problem is a LM problem and not PMDG, but not giving an option not listening to your customers who want a good experience at night.  I am unclear whether PMDG position is that it's technically impossible or just that they want to always be on the cutting edge, even that it bleeds people.

[downscc 1,327]

2 hours ago, Anxu00 said:

I am unclear whether PMDG position is that it's technically impossible

PMDG has said that it is technically impractical, not impossible.  I find it refreshing that we have returned to the norm of complaining about system bottlenecks and trying to find ways for our hardware to keep up with the software.  Gone are the days of the hard and fast 4 Gb VAS constraint that was the number one technical issue.  Sure, there are those that prefer the software to be degraded for the sake of not demanding too much from hardware, but they are a minority.

The impracticality is because dynamic lighting is not simply changing light textures but is an effect that is baked into the model.  It sounds to me like PMDG is not going to entertain maintaining two different models and the complexity that would require.