Hi Guys

As a part time sim and "real" pilot,  I have recently stepped into the Xplane field.  I really enjoy flying the 737 and MD-82.  So I upgraded my video card to a 1060 6G in the hopes of higher frames and more extended scenery presentation.  The frames went up dramatically and I'm very pleased with the upgrade.  But I don't think my scenery presentation changed much if at all.  I went up to Dallas (KDFW) last night from Houston and even at 5000 feet and less than 10 miles from the airport, The lights of the city were slow to load and only seemed to load up to maybe a 10 mile radius max from the plane.  I purposely bought the 6G memory on the video thinking that I would get longer radius display.  I don't think I'm gaining much compared my old GTX 450 card with 1G of memory.  Am I missing a setting that will help this?

 

 

 

Right now with current hardware xplane might be more cpu bound? What cpu and speed are you using? Are you using any kinda HD mesh or is it default xplane scenery? There is a 100 different factors that can affect performance. 

2 hours ago, anitelite said:

But I don't think my scenery presentation changed much if at all.  I went up to Dallas (KDFW) last night from Houston and even at 5000 feet and less than 10 miles from the airport, The lights of the city were slow to load and only seemed to load up to maybe a 10 mile radius max from the plane.  I purposely bought the 6G memory on the video thinking that I would get longer radius display.  I don't think I'm gaining much compared my old GTX 450 card with 1G of memory.  Am I missing a setting that will help this?

Unfortunately it's a limit of XP11 itself for now. To have decent performance, the radius of scenery lights is limited. The developers are aware of that, and they said that they will work on it, but it's a thing for the future. Maybe after the introduction of the more performing Vulkan (1 year or so) they will improve this issue as well.

Meanwhile, you can try this mod for extended lights, that should improve the situation: https://forums.x-plane.org/index.php?/files/file/36942-night-city-textures-extended-lights-lod/

Another workaround, could be to decrease visibility at night until the lights popping up are not visible anymore. Sure not a real solution, but at least it should eliminate the distracting pop-up of lights.

Thanks for the quick responses.  I'm running an i7-4790K running at 4 Ghz with 8G of onboard memory.  Everything so far is default.  No adds, meshes, packages etc.  If its just a programming limitation, then thats fine.  I'll get used to it.  Having the excellent frame rate is very nice. The night environment is SO much better than FSX ( I really like FSX too !!) and immersive, that I was just wanting a wider radius... 

2 hours ago, anitelite said:

 I don't think I'm gaining much compared my old GTX 450 card with 1G of memory. 

Well, you have only gone from a x50 to an x60 card, so not that much of an upgrade there. The memory will make a big difference though. I would not expect miracles, but am glad that you are getting a better framerate. I am surprised that you only got the 1060 with that CPU. I would check the Nvidia settings first up. I would also get more than 8gigs of main RAM.

I'm fine with my "old" gtx 960 4GB, and i5 2500... Can get 40+ with medium settings on HDR... 

Using the Zibo it drops to the 20s, unless I cut on AA and / or # objects...

No shadows! I hate to see my own shadow anyway...

 

10 hours ago, jcomm said:

I'm fine with my "old" gtx 960 4GB, and i5 2500... Can get 40+ with medium settings on HDR... 

Using the Zibo it drops to the 20s, unless I cut on AA and / or # objects...

No shadows! I hate to see my own shadow anyway...

 

I had a GTX 770 4GB Windforce with my i7-4770 and was easily getting 40+.  Actually, I was getting into the high 50s with most things turned up, and with AA in the 2/4 range.  I bought a GTX 1070 8GB and things look a little smoother/sharper and the AA likes the 8 setting and I get the same framerates.  When looking at memory used, it goes up from about 3700 to 5400 or more, so it's doing something, but not all that noticable.  I too see the 20s sometimes in the Zibo mod and some third party aircraft and may be somewhat CPU bound, but the data readings show CPU usage in the upper 100s (.0175) to mid 200s (.0250) and the GPU usage a little less than that, so I'm probably okay.  Like most, I am still anxious to see what Vulcan will do, but when looking at comparisons of other software running side by side, it doesn't look like much difference.  Stuttering is still a problem, especially in some hard turns while using GPS - which tends to suddenly jerk around to the path.  I have sent this information to Jennifer - suggesting that maybe these turns could be "dampened", but I'm not a software engineer, so what do I know. 

19 hours ago, anitelite said:

Thanks for the quick responses.  I'm running an i7-4790K running at 4 Ghz with 8G of onboard memory.  Everything so far is default.  No adds, meshes, packages etc.  If its just a programming limitation, then thats fine.  I'll get used to it.  Having the excellent frame rate is very nice. The night environment is SO much better than FSX ( I really like FSX too !!) and immersive, that I was just wanting a wider radius... 

Ok yeah I guess it's a limitation of xplane then. I have the 4770k over clocked to 4.4 ghz with 16 gb of ram and gtx 1080. I am definitely cpu limited. 

Btw moving from gtx 450 to a 1060 is not just a x50 series to x60 @kneighbour. It's a 4 generation leap which means it's about 3x more powerful and energy efficient. The gtx 1060 is a good choice for 1080p gaming @anitelite