Yesterday I few in the PMDG 747 from FlightBeam KIAD to FSDT Chicago and enabled several photo sceneries for the trip for some immersion.  Had MSE Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Illinois enabled.  Plus all of my Drzewiecki Design (DD) scenery was enabled for Seattle, NY and Miami (it has photo scenery in it so it would load during the flight too.  Had ASP4 and Ultimate Traffic Live enabled.  Flight extremely smooth with the following FPS (based on FSUIPC5 utility):
 

5089672 System time = 23/04/2019 18:21:54, Simulator time = 17:45:02 (22:45Z)
  5089672 *** FSUIPC log file being closed
Minimum frame rate was 26.6 fps, Maximum was 80.5 fps
Average frame rate for running time of 4843 secs = 52.9 fps
Maximum AI traffic for session was 268 aircraft

I do not know where the 26 FPS occurred but assume it was at KIAD while taxiing.  I have pretty much maxed P3D settings except I do not use autogen.  I thought I would post to let others know the possibilities.  System specs in my signature.  One of the biggest issues with photo scenery is loading time at the beginning of the flight and guess that it took about 3-4 minutes to load at Gate 16, KIAD.

 

It looks like autogen just flat out kills performance. Man...it's like a dinosaur in terms of how it's called and rendered.

I wonder if increasing the visibility range of autogen but leaving it at the lowest settings is a good trade off?

Edited April 24, 20197 yr by ahsmatt7

Had my autogen turned off as it really is not needed with MSE.  FlightBeam and FSDT did a good job in and around the airports with objects to help increase the immersion when landing.

Honestly, I do not really get the sense behind this topic. Of course, without autogen, FPS are high. And of course, the better the photoscenery, the less you will miss autogen, especially when flying at 35'000ft or above. But to me, P3D without autogen looks like FS9 especially during approach and when flying slow and low. And even if many airports nowadays offer some surroundings with buildings, it still looks like they are sticking out of the scenery when approaching an airport and no autogen surrounding it. Not an option for me, I will never buy any photoscenery without autogen...

Well the problem when flying around America for me, desert and rocky areas even with open LC look bad. 

I did a flight from KPHX to KSAN the large areas once out of the city’s really need PR. I installed all the areas around there a few years ago and the view of the huge open dessert etc was breath taking. But like Chris says once you get down low in an approach Auto gen is needed.

But am still thinking of buying some again like for huge open land classes,

KLAS is a very good area that is transformed by PR.

Compromises as always. 

The best I did once was managed to delete the area around KPHX airport and city leaving the PR for were it’s best but somehow lost all my work.

Nothing comes close to PR for looking amazing over the right areas were there is no need for AG 

The issue in v4.5 is a large amount of scenery objects such as Orbx OpenLC or a Orbx region. If you do not have that... P3D should run OK

Yesterday I did a flight from Amsterdam to Nice ( PR scenery + custom AG ) and it looked great.

I arrived when dust began and saw no framerate drop.

 

 

6 hours ago, AnkH said:

nd even if many airports nowadays offer some surroundings with buildings, it still looks like they are sticking out of the scenery when approaching an airport and no autogen surrounding it. Not an option for me, I will never buy any photoscenery without autogen...

This is definitely not true for almost all commercial airports installed from FSDT and FlightBeam.  FlightBeam has many trees  surrounding Dulles International (KIAD).  Autogen looks so fake to me and it really offers no immersion as the buildings are wrongly placed and are not realistic looking.  Getting products like DD's Seattle, Miami, NYC, WashingtonX and corresponding MSE is truly the way to go.  I will never turn on Autogen and enjoy my flight simulation experiences.

MSE Grand Canyon is an example where you can fly down inside the canyon and enjoy the scenery.

I agree that default autogen looks rubbish, but the autogen in (for example) ORBx TrueEarth South looks really nice when I am on final approach to various UK airports. This is why I am so impatient for ORBx TrueEarth Central!

5 hours ago, Nyxx said:

Well the problem when flying around America for me, desert and rocky areas even with open LC look bad. 

I did a flight from KPHX to KSAN the large areas once out of the city’s really need PR. I installed all the areas around there a few years ago and the view of the huge open dessert etc was breath taking. But like Chris says once you get down low in an approach Auto gen is needed.

But am still thinking of buying some again like for huge open land classes,

KLAS is a very good area that is transformed by PR.

Compromises as always. 

The best I did once was managed to delete the area around KPHX airport and city leaving the PR for were it’s best but somehow lost all my work.

Nothing comes close to PR for looking amazing over the right areas were there is no need for AG 

Agree that the American West is transformed with photoscenery. Can't believe it took so long for me to do it. 

If there were a way to have Orbx regions products for the major cities and MSE for everything else, that would be the optimal solution. And for areas Orbx regions don't cover, have some kind of exclude for urban areas so you could still have autogen there. Or better yet, somehow be able to layer autogen on top of MSE. I'm guessing this isn't very easy otherwise MSE would have done it already. 

I guess what I've described is essentially what Orbx is doing with their TE products. I wonder if MSE will ever incorporate autogen since they already have a huge library of photoscenery to work off of. 

Edited April 25, 20197 yr by bbain1187

1 hour ago, Jim Young said:

Autogen looks so fake to me and it really offers no immersion as the buildings are wrongly placed and are not realistic looking.  Getting products like DD's Seattle, Miami, NYC, WashingtonX and corresponding MSE is truly the way to go. 

Your personal opinion, fair enough. I can however not understand how someone can say photoscenery without autogen looks better than any scenery with autogen. Compare MSE pictures/screenshots from South England and those from ORBX TE South England and at least for me, no question which product looks more immersive... Or take the novel TE Washington: in your MSE product, the hills and valleys are just blank ground textures that only look good from 3000ft or more above. Bush flying without autogen? Impossible. Waterplane landings on a photoground scenery where rivers and lakes are just photos? Impossible. Different Seasons? How does your MSE product look like in spring or in autumn, when trees mostly have coloured leaves? Or in Winter? Always the same...

But that was basically not the point. The thing is that you call your thread "great FPS" and the reason is obvious: no autogen. As I said, nobody will have FPS issues when turning autogen completely off...

I'm a big fan of Megascenery V3 and have about 450 gigs worth. Totally transforming, immersive - for me. Plus now their downloading and installation procedure is painless and easy - a big improvement.

Dave

2 hours ago, AnkH said:

But that was basically not the point. The thing is that you call your thread "great FPS" and the reason is obvious: no autogen. As I said, nobody will have FPS issues when turning autogen completely off...

There are more than a few users here suggesting others upgrade to 4.5 when LM has clearly stated that there’s a performance issue serious enough to warrant a rare hot fix. It’s bad advice for a huge number of people here. Just wait. 

5 hours ago, Chapstick said:

There are more than a few users here suggesting others upgrade to 4.5 when LM has clearly stated that there’s a performance issue serious enough to warrant a rare hot fix. It’s bad advice for a huge number of people here. Just wait. 

I thought the performance issue was NOT with P3DV4 by itself but with products like Orbx/FTX.  P3DV4.5 works great with compatible many addons but some add-ons are not compatible and P3D wants to fix that.  For me, if I have performance issue with a certain add-on, I would disable it until a fix was released.  It is clearly apparent though the LM techs did something with their code to make compatibility with some Orbx products.  I wholeheartedly endorse anyone and everyone to upgrade to the latest version.  Since I have not installed any Orbx/FTX product for v4.5, I see no issues whatsoever.  So yes.  I'm one of the guilty who proudly endorses upgrading to the latest and greatest.

 

 

 

 

3

3 minutes ago, Jim Young said:

I thought the performance issue was NOT with P3DV4 by itself but with products like Orbx/FTX.  P3DV4.5 works great with compatible many addons but some add-ons are not compatible and P3D wants to fix that.  For me, if I have performance issue with a certain add-on, I would disable it until a fix was released.  It is clearly apparent though the LM techs did something with their code to make compatibility with some Orbx products.  I wholeheartedly endorse anyone and everyone to upgrade to the latest version.  Since I have not installed any Orbx/FTX product for v4.5, I see no issues whatsoever.  So yes.  I'm one of the guilty who proudly endorses upgrading to the latest and greatest.

Rob Ainscough found a 30% drop in FPS with a default install. 50% with Orbx. Any way you slice it, this is not the "greatest" version LM has released.

Source: https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6312&t=133165&start=60