Limit FPS P3Dv4.3

[Shinx13 1]

Hello,

I would like to know if anyone has used a method(if any) to limit FPS in VC to lets say 30 or 60 and let the fps outside be unlimited. Reason I ask is because I reset my computer and now I am getting over 60fps and its causing stutters. I have Vsync off, but I used to remember others saying that there was an external tool used to limit such fps. Any help would be appreciated!  

[downscc 1,327]

External frame rate limit is not a good idea because P3D currently internally uses the frame rate lock setting to set up timing to improve performance.  It used to be like FSX in that an external lock worked better but that changed a while back.

I started using the frame rate limit several versions ago because it increased the lowest frame rate I'd experience.  Using the lowest, average and highest frame rate numbers I have got it running on my system now such that at 24 fps the lowest is about 22 fps whereas if unlocked the lowest would be in the mid teens.  Over the years P3D has evolved and I've upped the power of my system but I still get the best results with a frame rate lock of 24 set within P3D.  I've played with VSync and buffering but I don't have enough power to take advantage of that.  According to Rob Ainscough, one needs a lowest frame rate value that exceeds 33 fps to take advantage of those settings.  I'm not there with my 8700K and 2x 1080Ti SLI.

Edited October 25, 2018 by downscc

[Shinx13 1]

8 minutes ago, downscc said:

External frame rate limit is not a good idea because P3D currently internally uses the frame rate lock setting to set up timing to improve performance.  It used to be like FSX in that an external lock worked better but that changed a while back.

I started using the frame rate limit several versions ago because it increased the lowest frame rate I'd experience.  Using the lowest, average and highest frame rate numbers I have got it running on my system now such that at 24 fps the lowest is about 22 fps whereas if unlocked the lowest would be in the mid teens.  Over the years P3D has evolved and I've upped the power of my system but I still get the best results with a frame rate lock of 24 set within P3D.  I've played with VSync and buffering but I don't have enough power to take advantage of that.  According to Rob Ainscough, one needs a lowest frame rate value that exceeds 33 fps to take advantage of those settings.  I'm not there with my 8700K and 2x 1080Ti SLI.

Ah I see, so based on what you are saying the limit should be 30? Not sure I quite follow. I do have a 1080 TI and 9700K OC 5ghz. The thing is that I am getting over 60fps and I have a 60ghz monitor and I noticed that in VC it stutters when i move the camera. In the external view I get upwards 100fps but no stutter at all.Thats why I asked if there's a isolated limiter for VC, but not external.

Edited October 25, 2018 by Shinx13

[Mace 1,902]

1 minute ago, Shinx13 said:

Ah I see, so based on what you are saying the limit should be 30? Not sure I quite follow. I do have a 1080 TI and 9700K OC 5ghz.

Typically if you have a 60 mhz or 30 mhz monitor then an in-sim frame limit of 30 works well.

You cannot limit frames for the VC and then have them unlimited for an external view, if that's what you were asking.  At least I know of no way to do that.

[Reuben Getz 12]

Prepar3d v4 is a different animal from it's predecessors in terms of frame rate limiting and vsynch, at least in my own personal experience.  With P3D v3, I would experience stuttering whilst using any kind of frame rate limiter and/or vsynch, and I ended up leaving FPS unlimited with great results and no stutters.  When I switched to P3Dv4, however, I kept FPS unlimited with no stutters but experienced blurry ground texture 'popping' in and out of focus (annoying as heck).  After MUCH trial and error, I finally found a holy grail settings that gave me both a stutter-free experience and sharp ground textures. 

What surprised me with P3Dv4 is that frame rate limiting actually give me a smoother experience all around, along with keeping ground textures sharply in focus 95 percent of the time.  I ended up limiting FPS to 44 via Prepar3D's own internal graphics settings, along with turning vsynch on and using triple buffering.  These settings in P3Dv3 would've guaranteed stuttering, but for whatever reason in P3Dv4 it works out as a perfect setting for my particular hardware setup.  I'm also using an older Nvidia game-ready driver set that requires vsynch to be on in P3Dv4 or I'll experience black flashes.  Again, it all works out in the end. 

The only changes I made to my P3Dv4 .cfg file was to set TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULTI=100 (it defaulted to 30).  This seems to help the ground textures stay sharp when used in concert with frame rate limiting.  

I would therefore advise you to play around with different FPS settings, along with turning vsynch on.  If you still have stutters, turn vsynch off and change to a different FPS setting, etc.  Mix it up and see what you get. 

Finally, I also experienced VC panning stuttering with Chaseplane, even with all of the above settings.  Using Win 10's task manager, I noticed that core 0 of my quad core intel processor was super-maxxed out all the time when running P3Dv4, while the other three cores were barely being utilized.  I now practice 'core balancing' by manually masking off cores 0 and 2 after I load up P3Dv4 by using task manager's checkbox affinity mask setting.  I then immediately enable all cores again via the same task manager utility and viola, P3D v4 is now very nicely spread out among ALL cores at once and VC panning stuttering is gone!   You get a lot of different advice about using affinity mask settings with P3Dv4, but what I'm doing is not really masking, but re-balancing.  Manually masking off the two cores I mentioned and immediately enabling them again for the P3D.exe works like magic for whatever reason.  Go figure.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 25, 2018 by Reuben Getz
more info to give

[downscc 1,327]

1 minute ago, Shinx13 said:

Ah I see, so based on what you are saying the limit should be 30? Not sure I quite follow. I do have a 1080 TI and 9700K OC 5ghz.

Based on a very long and concise post by Rob several months ago, if your lowest average frame rate in conditions that stress the system is above 30 (or if your average frame rate fluctuates widly use the lowest frame rate) then you may benefit from using VSync with a display or monitor that is set to a refresh rate of 30 Hz.  The 30 Hz monitor will work through the VSync to effectively limit P3D to 30 fps.  If your lowest average frame rate is above 33 he recommended adding triple buffering.

My lowest average is 31 fps.... right on the borderline so I tried his advice and ended up sticking to my 24 fps without VSync or buffering.

As for the config file tweaks I do take advantage of several of those too.  However, I agree with Rob fully on this one in that those tweaks are very dependent on the users system and what works for one may not work for another.... and when not cone correctly can cause all kinds of problems.

[Shinx13 1]

3 minutes ago, downscc said:

Based on a very long and concise post by Rob several months ago, if your lowest average frame rate in conditions that stress the system is above 30 (or if your average frame rate fluctuates widly use the lowest frame rate) then you may benefit from using VSync with a display or monitor that is set to a refresh rate of 30 Hz.  The 30 Hz monitor will work through the VSync to effectively limit P3D to 30 fps.  If your lowest average frame rate is above 33 he recommended adding triple buffering.

My lowest average is 31 fps.... right on the borderline so I tried his advice and ended up sticking to my 24 fps without VSync or buffering.

As for the config file tweaks I do take advantage of several of those too.  However, I agree with Rob fully on this one in that those tweaks are very dependent on the users system and what works for one may not work for another.... and when not cone correctly can cause all kinds of problems.

I see, thanks for the detailed explanation! 

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I'm not sure what your hardware is (always important to know), but on the whole I can say that every single system I've worked on (P3DV4 product tech support) using unlimited fps with VSync and Triple Buffer on proved to be the best settings.  Of course this may not apply to older hardware.

Best wishes.

 

 

[Gabe777 132]

The big problem here is that some people have 30 hz monitors.... most have 60 or higher.

Not comparing apples with apples unfortunately.

Anyone tried G Sync with P3D v4 ?

Bet that's another quagmire... !