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Gregg_Seipp

P3D Dynamic Lighting impressions?

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My impression, so far, is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze...especially with my GTX970.  I gave it a try at the new Miami and my two thoughts were:

  • Well, I see a little difference...airplanes naturally lit up by the lights at the stands.
  • Bad performance (again, GTX970).  My frames went from mid 20s to 6. 

I think that dynamic lighting is sorely needed in the sim but not at the cost of ruining performance which, it seems, dynamic ramp lights do.  What do you guys think?

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Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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I love DL ... unfortunately it's performance impact will vary considerably based on the developer of the scenery/airport and how they setup/define their lights.  With DL enabled I operate 2XMSAA and FXAA at 4K and performance is excellent (very very minor FPS hit and not enough to drop below my 30 FPS threshold) as are the visuals (less of a need for AA at higher resolutions like 4K upwards).

A 1080Ti will make a huge difference over 970 when it comes to DL, but again it'll boil down to you AA choice.  Sounds like you might be ready for nVidia Titan V (Volta) ... let us know how it goes if you get one :)

For those airports that aren't well optimized with DL, I keep DL enabled in P3D Graphics options, but just disable the airport's specific DL ... that way I can still enjoy the DL from the aircraft and AI aircraft but not take the FPS hit from unoptimized DL capable airports.

Sorry, no more flat triangles for my night flying ground adventures.

Cheers, Rob.

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7 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

With DL enabled I operate 2XMSAA and FXAA at 4K and performance is excellent

Doing that, I was able to get my framerate back up to 20 at KMIA.  Not as bad.  Can't say I'm ready to upgrade that card just yet.


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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5 hours ago, Gregg_Seipp said:

My impression, so far, is that the juice isn't worth the squeeze...especially with my GTX970.  I gave it a try at the new Miami and my two thoughts were:

  • Well, I see a little difference...airplanes naturally lit up by the lights at the stands.
  • Bad performance (again, GTX970).  My frames went from mid 20s to 6. 

I think that dynamic lighting is sorely needed in the sim but not at the cost of ruining performance which, it seems, dynamic ramp lights do.  What do you guys think?

20 to 6 is a huge drop.

At Latin VFR's KMIA v4 (latest version) my fps only drop from 28 to 20. The problem with DL is that panning is no longer smooth with the gtx 970 at 4xSSAA.

4.jpg
5.jpg


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

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1 minute ago, DJJose said:

At Latin VFR's KMIA v4 (latest version) my fps only drop from 28 to 20. The problem with DL is that panning is no longer smooth with the gtx 970 at 4xSSAA.

Panning, you're right and that highlights the real problem...framerate only means so much.  I will probably have to turn down other nighttime settings to get better results.


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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I can't run 4XSSAA with DL enabled at 4K res ... drops below my 30 FPS threshold and will introduce stutters.

I don't have LatinVFR KMIA ... do they offer a configuration panel to turn On/Off DL at specific parts of the airport like other vendors?  If they install any FX files for DL, you might want tweak with those and reduce radius and/or direction ... that should improve performance (point them down and smaller radius).

Cheers, Rob.

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4 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

I can't run 4XSSAA with DL enabled at 4K res ... drops below my 30 FPS threshold and will introduce stutters.

I don't have LatinVFR KMIA ... do they offer a configuration panel to turn On/Off DL at specific parts of the airport like other vendors?  If they install any FX files for DL, you might want tweak with those and reduce radius and/or direction ... that should improve performance (point them down and smaller radius).

Cheers, Rob.

The KMIA configuration panel does allow you to turn DL On or Off. THX


A pilot is always learning and I LOVE to learn.

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5 hours ago, Rob Ainscough said:

For those airports that aren't well optimized with DL, I keep DL enabled in P3D Graphics options, but just disable the airport's specific DL ... that way I can still enjoy the DL from the aircraft and AI aircraft but not take the FPS hit from unoptimized DL capable airports.

I’m the same here, I’ve been disabling just the airport DL and normally use 8 or 4 MSAA without any noticeable impact on FPS with my Titan X (pascal) and 4K TV.

Therefore I can enjoy just the DL from my aircraft and the AI planes only.

What has surprised me a bit and very annoying, when I use native VR my performance is great everywhere until I’m landing. As the landing lights show up on the ground around 100ft from touchdown I get massive stutters and the mighty Titan falls to its knees.

To fix this I need to use 2x MSAA and turn off just about all the landing lights except one set. (eg leave inboards on only PMDG 747) This still gives me enough DL to see the runway.

This proves how massive the drain on my system is when switching to VR vs a 4K tv. 

I guess I’ll be lining up for a new Volta card just to see if it helps, and by the time it arrives in the mail the Pimax 8k Headset will arrive in the mail too and I’ll be back to square one again.

S.O.B

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59 minutes ago, Rob Ainscough said:

 If they install any FX files for DL, you might want tweak with those and reduce radius and/or direction

Interesting point Rob,

I’m not at my Computer at the moment to check but I’m wondering if PMDG have a FX file that I can tone down their DL landing lights.

In VR (by not so much on the 4K TV) I’m finding that the landing light effect looks a little too bright on the runway when touching down, if that could be turned down a bit this could be the answer. 

Im assuming not as life is never that easy. ☹️

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2 hours ago, Iceman2 said:

I’m not at my Computer at the moment to check but I’m wondering if PMDG have a FX file that I can tone down their DL landing lights.

Yes it uses FX files, the issue with PMDG is that they use multiple FX files for multiple lights (TurnOff, Taxi, Retractable Landing lights, fixed Landing Lights, strobe, etc) and when you turn these on all at the same time it cause a big impact hit as PD3 has to calculate the addition of all these lights toguether, etc.

Lately I use this procedure and is working great for me:

1) Turn off taxi lights.

2) Turn on fixed Landing Lights.

3) Leave retractable landing lights off.

4) Turn on Strobe Lights.

This way there is less DL going on and as describe by Rob the performance hit is much less, if you reduce the radius of the DL lights you will find the problem might persists as the issue with this model is that it contains too much DL coming from too many sources so sadly reducing the radius would not improve the situation very much.

Regards,

Simbol

 

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14 minutes ago, simbol said:

Lately I use this procedure and is working great for me:

1) Turn off taxi lights.

2) Turn on fixed Landing Lights.

3) Leave retractable landing lights off.

4) Turn on Strobe Lights.

Dear lord.  Can I ask what video card you have?


Gregg Seipp

"A good landing is when you can walk away from the airplane.  A great landing is when you can reuse it."
i7-8700 32GB Ram, GTX-1070 8 Gig RAM

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2 hours ago, simbol said:

Lately I use this procedure and is working great for me:

1) Turn off taxi lights.

2) Turn on fixed Landing Lights.

3) Leave retractable landing lights off.

4) Turn on Strobe Lights.

If PMDG had provided an option to use non-DL lights, I figure you would not need this do this contortion.  I would not care much about DL, which to me are eyes candy, especially if it does not perform.

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Vu Pham

i7-10700K 5.2 GHz OC, 64 GB RAM, GTX4070Ti, SSD for Sim, SSD for system. MSFS2020

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4 hours ago, Anxu00 said:

If PMDG had provided an option to use non-DL lights, I figure you would not need this do this contortion.  I would not care much about DL, which to me are eyes candy, especially if it does not perform.

I second that. PMDG skipped a feature (legacy lights) although P3D’s new feature (DL) is just not ready yet. 

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Regards,

Chris

--

13900K, Gigabyte Geforce RTX 4090, 32GB DDR5 RAM, Asus Rog Swift PG348Q G-SYNC 1440p monitor, Varjo Aero/Pico 4 VR

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7 hours ago, Gregg_Seipp said:

Dear lord.  Can I ask what video card you have?

980ti and I7 6600K OC 4.6Ghz.

It works fine, I do the above to avoid having to pan out to increase the FPS back to 60, which is another way around for people having issues with DL and the PMDG.

Simbol 

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Well I think DL looks really really good. I don't want to miss it at my airports. It looks much more natural than without it.
I recently upgraded my GPU to a 1080TI and the performance is not that bad. Still not able to hold 30fps at big airports but it is somehow "flyable."

I tried x plane 11 at night... well performance vise it's definetly ahead of P3D and the looks is simply amazing... 
Man if there was a way to make one sim out of P3D and XP11. :D

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