I fly P3D in Window mode, not full screen.

Off course I'm joking about the Green Flightsimming title but out of curiosity when flying long-hauls and while being away from the PC I have tried minimizing P3D in the taskbar to check the differences.

First of all, I never encountered any problems in add on aircraft software by flying this way in the en route section.

What I want to emphasize here is that what I observed is what I suspected.

When the P3D window is minimized the GPU temperatures, CPU load etc. lower significantly.

Below are the numbers of both minimized and full view cases for comparison in a 30*C room.

When after 8~10 hours of flying en route minimized I bring the window again in full view, P3D displays the scenery below the aircraft very blurred but within 20~40 seconds it renders it again in proper resolution.

So I guess, when P3D is minimized to taskbar/tray the scenery is not fully rendered and this saves resources.

When I fly long flights I prefer to fly this way when away from the PC since all this thermal energy is useless to be "spent".

I also switch off the Monitor.

Am I wrong somewhere in all the above in thinking this is a good practice, why waste this energy in a useless way and also to strain the PC more (in the long term).

With you 100%. I've been doing this ever since moving to FSX where I noticed the occasional increased noise from my antique CPU.

I don't have the Real Temp program, but by touching my computer I notice it is cooler, it doesn't crank up the noisy fans, and even the CPU load as shown in the stock MS Task Manager is greatly reduced.

 

When not looking at the displays, why overwork the CPU for no-one's benefit?

GREEN??? Thinking "green" needs a lot of brain activity, and not such an absolute nonsense while playing a game ("flying" while asleep etc. has nothing in common with simulation of flight). Long haul flights at your PC aren't kind of flying unless you must at least monitor constantly and deal with several intermittent technical issues.

If you like simulation then you'll save flights BEFORE the final approach, so you can repeat these again and again under changing conditions (simpler in X-Plane). That is simulation, and "green" would only be to shut down your PC....

Have fun and happy landings

Fritz

 

Edited August 13, 20196 yr by Pegaso