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Cruachan

VULKAN for Prepar3D v5?

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On ‎7‎/‎17‎/‎2018 at 3:26 PM, Cruachan said:

I have no idea what the frame rates were during my flights

Hi Mike, after reading your post I also decided to have a go, not touched it since 2016, I set the frame rates at 120 and using the frame rate counter in GeForce Experience it indicated 120/121 for the flight,  resetting it on 240 but it just reverted back to 120.

with regards the setting for VulKan Beta I wasn't to convinced I was using it because when I re-entered settings it had reverted back to opengl

Edit.. just tried frames selection to 'off' but it shows 120. I think my installation appears to be stuck on default settings.

bob

 

Edited by onebob

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1 hour ago, onebob said:

with regards the setting for VulKan Beta I wasn't to convinced I was using it because when I re-entered settings it had reverted back to opengl

Edit.. just tried frames selection to 'off' but it shows 120. I think my installation appears to be stuck on default settings.

bob

Hi Bob,

Could be related to your NVidia drivers. I’m on their latest official WHQL drivers for Windows 7 64bit (see sig) which, I’m assuming, support Vulkan. I note that there are more recent Beta versions available:

https://developer.nvidia.com/vulkan-driver

Interesting info regarding GeForce Experience and the frame rate counter. How do I enable it?

Edit: Another thought occurred to me: This may be a complete red herring but I’m wondering whether this is simply a case of Windows 10’s security arm blocking unusual or unexpected driver activity? If Rob is following this thread perhaps he can shed some light.

Regards,

Mike

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14 hours ago, Cruachan said:

Interesting info regarding GeForce Experience and the frame rate counter. How do I enable it?

sorry didn't back Mike,  had hospital appointment,

frame counter:-

open up GeForce Experience

--> Settings ( top right) --> General --> IN Game Overlay --> Settings --> Hud Layout --> FPS Counter.

could be  a w10 problem with it not holding the changed settings, one good thing is my Saitek trim wheel works better in AF2 than P3D

bob 

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23 hours ago, WotanUK said:

 it's a good O/S, but more to the point, people cannot stay forever on Windows 7, MS at some point will entirely end support including security updates. 

I've had Windows 7 as OS for P3D since P3D 2.x came out and don't install any security updates.  The key is I dedicate my P3D OS install to P3D only--so I do no internet surfing, installed no MS Office software on it, have disabled Defender, and have no A/V software on it.   Works a treat!

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Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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10 minutes ago, Noel said:

I've had Windows 7 as OS for P3D since P3D 2.x came out and don't install any security updates.  The key is I dedicate my P3D OS install to P3D only--so I do no internet surfing, installed no MS Office software on it, have disabled Defender, and have no A/V software on it.   Works a treat!

I get it, but you are still at risk if your PC has a connection to the Internet (albeit remote risk), for things like real weather, updates for your aircraft or additional software you buy / download.

Ultimately each to there own, if you are willing to forgo further updates and perhaps even the next iteration of P3D that is your call.

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Ian R Tyldesley

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IMHO Windows 7 was/is the jewel in the crown. Shame they won't continue limited support alongside Windows 10 for those (and there are many) who continue to prefer it.

Anyway, that's all by the by.

Bob, Thanks for your help and while I can now display the frame rate counter in AF2, for some reason it still won't appear on a ShadowPlay recording.

Here's one I made earlier. Short and sweet - ShadowPlay creates huge files and my upload speeds to YouTube rarely approach 1Mbps.

This is just a quick flight over New York City at 4.00pm in Aerofly FS2 using the new Vulkan (beta!) API instead of OpenGL. Everything graphically speaking was maxed out. Frame rates were sustained throughout at around 120fps!! You'll have to take my word for that, I'm afraid.

https://youtu.be/ghwi-HU70EM

Regards,

Mike

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1 hour ago, WotanUK said:

I get it, but you are still at risk if your PC has a connection to the Internet (albeit remote risk), for things like real weather, updates for your aircraft or additional software you buy / download.

Ultimately each to there own, if you are willing to forgo further updates and perhaps even the next iteration of P3D that is your call.  

The risk likely verges on nil as my 15+y history of near daily use under this implementation of this practice would suggest.  A significant side benefit is the OS is truly as lean as it can get which has advantages of it own for flight simulation.   Since I keep P3D and all add-ons on the same SSD that contains Win 7 it is a simple matter to make an image or clone which I do every 3-4 months or so, and so far I've only needed to restore once, but that had nothing to do w/ malware.  The next iteration of P3D (I stayed w/ 3.4 which is fine for my now nearly 6 y/o system) will go on a new PC when V5 comes out most likely.  If Vulkan, then it appears I may be able to stay w/ Win 7, we sure hope.  At that point I will follow the same strategy of a squeaky clean and lean OS.  I use another SSD in the same box w/ a second install of Win 7 off the same license, for other PC uses, including a few games, MS Office, internet surfing, etc.   I use Avast and MalwareBytes for that install.  When it's time to download an update for any component of flight simulation I download from this other Win 7 install, scan it, then copy it to my P3D SSD.  Your concerns re 'next iteration of P3D', and further updates, quite obviously does not apply.  Try it, you can't go wrong--anything else is I'm afraid succumbing to 'herd mentality' :o)

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Noel

System:  9900K@5.0gHz@1.23v all cores, MSI MPG Z390M GAMING EDGE AC, Noctua NH-D15S w/ steady supply of 40-60F ambient air intake, Corsair Vengeance 32Gb LPX 3200mHz DDR4, Sabrent NVMe 2Tb x 2, RTX 4090 FE, Corsair RM 850W PSU, Win10 Pro, LG Ultra Curved Gsync Ultimate 3440x1440, TCA Boeing Edition Yoke & TQ, Cessna Trim Wheel, RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync for near zero Frametime Variance achieving ultra-fluid animation at lower frame rates.

Aircraft used in A Pilot's Life V2:  PMDG 738, Aerosoft CRJ700, FBW A320NX, WT 787X

 

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I hardly believe LM would change the whole sim SDK / API from DirectX to Vulkan, for sure they will move to DX12, but moving to DX12 doesn't mean it will gain performance, if the resources (CPU, GPU, Memory etc) won't be well addressed.

A framework just don't do any miracle just by using it, you must optimize it.

DX12 didn't show your full potential so far, some AAA titles using it, you actually find worse performance than DX11, like Battlefield 1, Battlefront I and II, Tomb Raider and many others.

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Hi Everyone,

Truly, it just gets better and better!

Read this article posted on 3 July:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2018/03/vulkan-1-1-adds-multi-gpu-directx-compatibility-as-khronos-looks-to-the-future/

In particular, look at the content of paragraph 6.

There seems little remaining doubt in my mind that Vulkan has achieved parity with DirectX 12 and it’s cross-platform compatibility makes it the more attractive API for present day Developers. It appears to have huge support and that support is growing by the day. They can’t all be wrong!

Regards,

Mike

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5 hours ago, Cruachan said:

There seems little remaining doubt in my mind that Vulkan has achieved parity with DirectX 12 and it’s cross-platform compatibility makes it the more attractive API for present day Developers. It appears to have huge support and that support is growing by the day. They can’t all be wrong! 

"They" are mostly game developers, catering to the mass market.

It is all about effort vs. probable gain. P3D is a Windows application, rooted in .Net, and it will remain that way forever. Cross platform compatibility is a moot point in that case. If there is no massive performance or feature gain when using Vulkan or DX12 over DX11, investing the effort for a transition just means throwing away money. If that transition is even possible would depend on how many non-standard solutions have been bolted into P3D to make it work. In some cases, not even going to DX12 may be an option, you might even lose performance. AFAIK a transition from DX11 to DX12 is already considered problematic. From what I've read, the effort can be massive to make a DX11 title even work on the same level of performance in DX12. If that is true, then a transition to Vulkan would be a nightmare considering the risk of overrun or even failure.

I would hazard a guess that Lockheed is constantly evaluating the available "3D platforms", looking at the possible benefits, how well the API and the transition paths from other tech are documented, at existing use cases, and how transitions went in other projects. Then, if the benefits are expected to be massive, they make an estimate of what it would cost them to run a transition project and how big the risks are, especially for backwards compatibility and probable overruns because of DX11-native/special solutions that can't be just "ported" but must be re-invented. Then they will make a decision. And that decision will not be based on great things to come, gut feelings or hype, but on hard facts and money.

Best regards

Edited by Lorby_SI
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LORBY-SI

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Hi Oliver,

Thanks for joining in. It’s about time we heard from those, like yourself, with the hands on knowledge and experience and are able, and willing, to present a different perspective on this topic.

What you are stating is undoubtedly true. However, I do believe LM may be approaching, if not already reached, a crossroad in the further development of Prepar3D. How often do we hear of users complain about the performance of the sim and who are quick to attribute their woes to an antiquated engine that must also be presenting ever increasing development problems for LM? What they have achieved to date is quite remarkable, but there continued reliance on aging and inefficient coding is also risky. How much more can they accomplish before further development begins to stagnate? In the face of competition, how much longer can they hang on without risking having to shelve the project? I think we can all accept that these eventualities would be in no one’s interest. Commercially the survival of the project may be a moot point, but this is changing with the acceptance that their sim has a much wider appeal and this is owed, in the main, to the involvement of legions of third party Addon Developers.

If this was Microsoft then it is likely, as has happened previously, that those that hold the purse strings would be ruling the day. Microsoft have their own headaches regarding the burgeoning numbers of Vulkan adopters. I don’t know whether it is technically possible, but I wouldn’t mind betting that, right now, they are exploring the possibility of making DirectX 12 available to Windows 7/8.1 users in an attempt to preserve their market share. I won’t be holding my breath on that one, but you never know!

I suspect, like many others do, that in ‘VULKAN we are glimpsing a much brighter and hopeful future. Doubtless technical difficulties will abound during such a transition but, at some point, I feel certain that such difficult decisions must be made to ensure the future viability and success of this simulator. My feeling is that LM are in this for the long haul and wish to push advances towards their logical conclusion. To ignore the possibilities offered by embracing this remarkably innovative API, which has future-proofing written to its core, would be extremely shortsighted and might even be considered as being foolish.

There is really no reason why work on versions 4.x and 5 can not proceed in tandem since it seems unlikely that LM are exposed to the same financial constraints as, say, Microsoft. I suspect that the ongoing development of Prepar3D represents a very small slice of their overall budget and, in any case, the undoubted solid belief in their project is what really matters to all of us.

Regards,

Mike

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52 minutes ago, Cruachan said:

However, I do believe LM may be approaching, if not already reached, a crossroad in the further development of Prepar3D. How often do we hear of users complain about the performance of the sim and who are quick to attribute their woes to an antiquated engine that must also be presenting ever increasing development problems for LM? What they have achieved to date is quite remarkable, but there continued reliance on aging and inefficient coding is also risky. How much more can they accomplish before further development begins to stagnate? In the face of competition, how much longer can they hang on without risking having to shelve the project? I think we can all accept that these eventualities would be in no one’s interest. Commercially the survival of the project may be a moot point, but this is changing with the acceptance that their sim has a much wider appeal and this is owed, in the main, to the involvement of legions of third party Addon Developers.

Viewing this from the simmmers perspective, limiting P3D to a flightsim, you are correct. But these complaints are coming from the hobbyists mostly, who, generally speaking, shouldn't even exist in the P3D realm. A commercial application is built to run as-is, the complaints that you name don't have the same importance there. In its actual intended field of usage, P3D doesn't really have competition, at least not the one that many people have in mind (= X-Plane, AF2, DCS). Just look at the P3D product overview on the Lockheed website - flight simming in the classical sense isn't even mentioned.

The real competition for P3D arises from companies like Zedasoft or XVR, who offer integration solutions using their own simulator environments. 

A commercial user who is investing $100,000 into a custom solution based on P3D -today-, won't take kindly to the prospect that a future version might render his investment obsolete. Backwards compatibility is a major consideration for Lockheed. And no, that does not mean that ORBX scenery or HiFi weather will still work. For a custom solution, buying a dozen P3D licenses is the easy part. Paying a couple of third party contractors to build the application that you want to run on it is the tricky and expensive bit. You can't just do that again.

At the present day there is no proof that either DX12 or Vulkan would benefit P3D in any way. Maybe Lockheed will run a couple of proof-of-concept projects, then we will know.

Quote

There is really no reason why work on versions 4.x and 5 can not proceed in tandem since it seems unlikely that LM are exposed to the same financial constraints as, say, Microsoft. I suspect that the ongoing development of Prepar3D represents a very small slice of their overall budget and, in any case, the undoubted solid belief in their project is what really matters to all of us.

Every project in the professional software industry is on a fixed budget. Breaking these financial constraints is not a small thing, I would say that every project manager is dreading the moment when he has to ask for more money. Just because the P3D development budget probably rivals Lockheeds budget for printer paper does not mean that they will just double it up on a whim. The way that P3D was going, I would think that the project budget isn't that massive, and that they are already doing all that they can. And running two development streams in parallel is not something that you take lightly, it doubles every necessary resource, from specification through organization, implementation to documentation and testing. Could they do it - yes. Will they do it - I doubt that. Very much.

Best regards

Edited by Lorby_SI
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LORBY-SI

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Finally.  Someone (Oliver) posting in this topic from the COMMERCIAL point of view of the product's developer.  P3D is a COMMERCIAL TRAINING product.  Just because LM let's flight sim "hobbyists" use it will NEVER be a reason for LM to "reinvent the wheel" because of some disgruntled home computer users who STILL can't figure out how to get P3D to work on even state-of-the-art home computers.

VULKAN is NOT the new "Magic Bullet" solution to home computer users who don't have the background or knowledge on how to get P3D to run AS DESIGNED for a COMMERCIAL user.  Hobbyists would still screw up their own home computer P3D installations and experience all the complaints we see here every day with whatever graphics engine LM used with P3D.

Bottom Line:  Commercial and military users of P3D already HAVE personnel running THEIR "P3D flight sims" fine.  They have been trained and educated on how to do it without chasing "tweaks" and "fluff fixes" that are not needed to begin with.

Yeah...I know.  It's not popular to make a post like this.  But it's the reality of the situation.  Always has been for 3 decades of "hobbyist" flight simming, and always will be regardless of what new technology is created/used by current P3D developers.

Repeat after me:  "P3D is NOT a GAME.  It is a SIMULATOR.  I am NOT a GAMER.  I am NOT a GAMER.  I am NOT a GAMER...……"

Edited by FalconAF
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Rick Ryan

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By the way, as we are talking about antiquated "engines" here, whatever that means. Vulkan kind of is the successor to Open GL, is it not?

Quote

Silicon Graphics Inc., (SGI) started developing OpenGL in 1991 and released it on June 30, 1992

 

Quote

The first version of DirectX was released in September 1995 as the Windows Games SDK.

They are both "old".

Everything is based on something else today. Software is no longer written "stand-alone", everyone is using frameworks, libraries, runtime environments. It is pointless to start thinking about the age of code. And unless you are the programmer who wrote it, I would be very careful naming a piece of code "inefficient".

Best regards

Edited by Lorby_SI
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LORBY-SI

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Hi Rick, Oliver

You both make very good points and I readily concede that I am not the expert here, which is why I’m grateful for your involvement in this conversation.

It’s all too easy to become caught up in the hyperbole rooted in enthusiasm for a notion which might, for some, turn out to be too expensive in terms of implementation, using currently available resources, and impractical when the end result hardly justified the effort and time involved.

However, I am reading that actual API changes are, in fact, afoot in the digital gaming world so it’s more than just a gut feeling. Also, and despite the often careless usage of the word ‘Game’ as applied to Prepar3D, I am sensing a shift in the stance taken hitherto by LM who are becoming much more accepting of the wider adoption and appeal of their flight simulation project extending far beyond their prioritised commercial and military commitments and, of course, this is very welcome. Nevertheless, and perish the thought, if there was a renewed hardening of this softer attitude and the direction of future development shifted away from engaging the enthusiastic ‘hobbyist’ then, and very quickly, the stagnation scenario could become the reality that pushes students of flight simulation and third party developers towards other platforms.

Regards,

Mike

 

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