I was happy to try-out the old 717 version originally written for FSX of these little bird and is a Boeing crossing between the old DC9 and MD8.x series with modern avionics (glass cockpit) and bought it for Prepar3DV4.5 because these little airliner was giving 30-40 fps in my VR HP Reverb rig but there was only 1 minor point in that older FSX build and that was the Real Light Bug. As soon as you switched on any light, it is falling from say 30 fps to 10 fps. The good friend that was giving me the FSX version said that probably there was a fix because TFDi has ported the plane complete to P3Dv4 with loads of bugfixes so I decided to buy the latest 1.1 version.

Long story short, It's a disaster. Mega stutter every 30 sec and the real light issue is much worse. In 2D in 1080P the bird is performing well and is the Real Light issue barely noticeable but in VR, Oh. boy... what a mess.

Do to my search for better VR performance I came up with the new Flyinside version 6.x where the TFDi 717 is a default plane and performing very, very well. That whole sim, especially designed for VR is running easy at 90Hz/90fps so there must be a conflict between P3Dv4 and TFDi (Real Lights) implementation but simply delete the reallight software is not an option because another bird, The Maddog MD8.x 64b version I have,  is also using it and works like a charm.

I have written my VR and 717 experience on there 717  forum a few days ago but nobody views it and nobody from the company is answering and is giving me a bad taste about TFDi so I try to go for a refund. I Bought it directly by them and NOT over SIMMARKET so I'll keep you fellow simmers informed about it.

My rig is not underpowered, I can run in P3D the 737NGX and the Leonardo Maddog MD8.0 and many, many other High Res. complex planes in VR with 30-40fps and (for nowadays P3D/VR/Hardware) good Frame Times in CPU and GPU  (i5-9600K-32Gb-TitanXP) so the ball is in the TFDi park now to fix it.

Happy landings....   

Edited October 18, 20196 yr by simba_nl

I persoanlly haven't bought this plane because of concerns about the CTD problem.  However I've continued to be interested in the airplane.  One thing I'll suggest.  You should revise your subject to include VR.  The VAST majority of people here do not use VR, and are not considering it.  Atleast in 2019.  

Reallight puts a heavy load on GPU's , it can be adjusted or even temporarily deactivated in the menu bar , when the texture size referenced in the panel.cfg is reduced to 1024,1024 across all the assigned vcockpit entries one can improve performance substantially where the machines capacities are challenged..

 

Best CJ

 

 

LM has issued a official VR tuning guide. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. I did get substantially better performance after going through it. Maybe it's the aircraft as you say, but it doesn't hurt to have a look.

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/prepar3d/virtual_reality/virtual_reality_tuning_guide.html

This section in particular seems to have given me quite a lot of extra performance headroom:

1. Disabling the GeForce Experience Share In-game Overlay: (I just uninstalled it - it's unneccessary bloatware anyway)
   • From the GeForce Experience app, click the Settings icon on the top right corner
   • From the General panel, toggle the SHARE setting to off
2. Disable Window10 Game bar
   • Open "Settings" app
   • Select "Gaming"
   • Under "Game Bar" select "off"
3. Disable full screen optimization in app properties for Prepar3D.exe
   • Browse to Prepar3D install directory
   • Right-click Prepar3D.exe and select "Properties"
   • Click the "Compatibility" tab at the top of the properties window
   • Check the "Disable Fullscreen Optimizations" box and hit Apply.

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 18, 20196 yr by andreh

I wonder if Reallight is the reason why I get very low framerates in VC mode with the TFDi Design 717? So this can be deactivated in one of the menu options?

With respect to reducing the texture size to 1024x1024....the problem with this is that half of the textures on the FCP become very blurry when zoomed in. Definitely not what I want with my airliners.

Edited October 18, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

1 hour ago, andreh said:

LM has issued a official VR tuning guide. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. I did get substantially better performance after going through it. Maybe it's the aircraft as you say, but it doesn't hurt to have a look.

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/prepar3d/virtual_reality/virtual_reality_tuning_guide.html

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks, I'd forgotted about that.

2 hours ago, micstatic said:

I persoanlly haven't bought this plane because of concerns about the CTD problem.  However I've continued to be interested in the airplane.  One thing I'll suggest.  You should revise your subject to include VR.  The VAST majority of people here do not use VR, and are not considering it.  Atleast in 2019.  

I haven't had a CTD and for as far I can see, there are no other bug. I made just a complete testflight from EDDM to LOWI complete in auto flight and FMS/FMC is complete functionally.  Just to test, I disabled all the Real Light Functions but in VR the bug is still there. In 2D not a problem at all with switching the landing or taxi lights on.

1 hour ago, Chuck_Jodry-VJPL said:

Reallight puts a heavy load on GPU's , it can be adjusted or even temporarily deactivated in the menu bar , when the texture size referenced in the panel.cfg is reduced to 1024,1024 across all the assigned vcockpit entries one can improve performance substantially where the machines capacities are challenged..

 

Best CJ

 

 

The Leonardo MADDOG 64bits has also Real Light and no problem at all so there must be something else not functional. Just to test, I disabled all the Real Light Functions but in VR the bug is still there. Tried the same (Real Light complete removed) and In 2D not a problem at all with switching the landing or taxi lights on but VR back from 35 fps to 7fps.

1 hour ago, andreh said:

LM has issued a official VR tuning guide. If you haven't read it, I recommend it. I did get substantially better performance after going through it. Maybe it's the aircraft as you say, but it doesn't hurt to have a look.

https://www.prepar3d.com/SDKv4/prepar3d/virtual_reality/virtual_reality_tuning_guide.html

This section in particular seems to have given me quite a lot of extra performance headroom:

1. Disabling the GeForce Experience Share In-game Overlay: (I just uninstalled it - it's unneccessary bloatware anyway)
   • From the GeForce Experience app, click the Settings icon on the top right corner
   • From the General panel, toggle the SHARE setting to off
2. Disable Window10 Game bar
   • Open "Settings" app
   • Select "Gaming"
   • Under "Game Bar" select "off"
3. Disable full screen optimization in app properties for Prepar3D.exe
   • Browse to Prepar3D install directory
   • Right-click Prepar3D.exe and select "Properties"
   • Click the "Compatibility" tab at the top of the properties window
   • Check the "Disable Fullscreen Optimizations" box and hit Apply.

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, I know, thx for the Tip anyway. In my system there is a little advantage by using the extra P3D Pro VR settings in Prepar.cfg for a better and stable FrameTime but the disadvantage of it are strange flashes in the ground textures when using ORBX Base etc. All my P3D is ORBX based so....  The biggest improvement by the way in my case  is using Process Lasso with P3D exclusive running at core 2 and 3

24 minutes ago, Christopher Low said:

I wonder if Reallight is the reason why I get very low framerates in VC mode with the TFDi Design 717? So this can be deactivated in one of the menu options?

With respect to reducing the texture size to 1024x1024....the problem with this is that half of the textures on the FCP become very blurry when zoomed in. Definitely not what I want with my airliners.

You can deactivate now the TrueGlass option for better performance but there is no official option for RealLight but I am wondering now if that is the real problem.  Just to test, I disabled all the Real Light Functions in P3D but in VR the bug is still there. In 2D not a problem at all when switching the landing or taxi lights on. I was in ORBX LOWI to test and in 2D on 1080P I had nearly 60 fps in the cockpit with or without lights on and outside nearly 100.

 

28 minutes ago, simba_nl said:

Yep, I know, thx for the Tip anyway. In my system there is a little advantage by using the extra P3D Pro VR settings in Prepar.cfg for a better and stable FrameTime but the disadvantage of it are strange flashes in the ground textures when using ORBX Base etc. All my P3D is ORBX based so....  The biggest improvement by the way in my case  is using Process Lasso with P3D exclusive running at core 2 and 3

I never tried those. I don't have the pro plus license anyway.

The Maddog no longer has Real Light (they have rewritten their own lighting which is very impressive). 
 

The Maddog gives me the best VR performance over any other big jet (although I haven’t tried the 717). It is noticeably smoother than PMDG etc

How do I disable the RealLight functions in P3D?

EDIT: I think that I am done with this aircraft. Too many little niggles and issues that spoil the fun.

Edited October 18, 20196 yr by Christopher Low

I don't know if there is already someone else running the TFDi 717 (version 1.1x) in combination with the Reverb and Prepar3Dv4.5 but I filed a support ticket by the TFDi guys and they can only test in P3Dv3 (?/!) and can't reproduce my problem in VR in a 64 bits environment. They want to set up a remote session to see what is happening but I'm sorry, If they don't believe it because they can't reproduce it due to the lack of having a proper P3Dv4 license I'll quit with them. They tested under P3Dv3 with a Vive and there it's running fine they say....

Mainly the problem I have is that as soon I put on the Taxi or Landing lights the VR performance is dramatically falling back from 30-35fps to 7 and makes it unplayable. First it seems that there was a RealLight development problem but that is not the case.

I have tested on another machine with a P3Dv4.4 version and also with a older 717 software version and it is still the same so there must be a problem between P3Dv4.x and TFDi in combination with VR. it's a nice plane with lots of details but I have the feeling that I have throw out 50 bucks out of the window because they are not able to test and/or find a solution.

Needless to say that other payware planes like the PMDG 737NGX and the Leonardo Maddog MD82 runs smooth as silk.

Happy landings...