P3D V4.5 settings and Scenery

[Stephen Simpson 7]

Hi folks,

Im losing the will here with P3D.

I seem to have developed blurries all of a sudden.

Deleted CFG file and let it build it's own and inserted the following lines into the file.

[DISPLAY]
TextureMaxLoad=6
[TERRAIN]
SWAP_WAIT_TIMEOUT=30
UseGlobalTerrainView=True
[GRAPHICS]
SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=1
[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=4092 - 6 Cores and 12 Logicals and want to use last 10
[MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.01

System is L7-8700K running at OC of 4.9 32GB ram GTX1080TI.

Also Set my graphics to medium settings.

Have I missed something.

I am also using NexGen VFR UK but appear to have some random things appearing through the scenery onto 3rd party stuff which is higher up the layers.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

Steve.

[chapstick 2,757]

4 minutes ago, Stephen Simpson said:

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.01

 

Try deleting this line so it goes back to default (.33 I think). 0.01 will help your FPS but lead to blurry textures. 

[Bob Scott 7,720]

More than likely, it's your FFTF setting doing this.  It is starving the texture loading process of enough CPU time to do its work.  Try increasing it back to default  (0.33) and see if that solves it.  If so, you can have the best of both worlds using a relatively inexpensive utility called FFTF Dynamic that allows FFTF to be changed as a function of frame rate or altitude.  That way you can preserve CPU power for AI and autogen when down low, and give more time to texture loading as you climb away from the ground and terrain loading workload starts picking up.  I use 0.01 ranging to 0.4 at 5000 ft AGL using the utility.

 

[Stephen Simpson 7]

Thanks for responses and I will investigate.

On another note, I am getting default fuelling stations which are showing through scenery which is higher up the scenery table.

Ta

Steve

[DellyPilot 109]

What I have found is that in 4.5 any setting of JobScheduler will cause blurries (on my CPU anyway). 

I am running FFTF 0.17 and I get no blurries after removing the JobScheduler entry.

[simmerhead 885]

I've had issues with blurry textures from time to time - very frustrating. However, I've never found the cause or a cure - seems to appear at random, and disappear at random as well. After an almost 2 year P3D hiatus I installed the latest version (4.5) just before the winter holiday, updated Windows, new NVidia drivers and was ready to have a good time. Then, blurries. ARGH!

But this time, I suspected PTA has caused some issues, so I made sure I updated PTA, deleted all shaders and cfg tweaks, then ran P3D with no cfg tweaks or shader adjustments, and a computer restart. After that all has been fine. I've reinstalled PTA and am back to glorious graphics once again. 

 

[SteveW 1,792]

22 hours ago, Stephen Simpson said:

Hi folks,

Im losing the will here with P3D.

I seem to have developed blurries all of a sudden.

Deleted CFG file and let it build it's own and inserted the following lines into the file.

[DISPLAY]
TextureMaxLoad=6
[TERRAIN]
SWAP_WAIT_TIMEOUT=30
UseGlobalTerrainView=True
[GRAPHICS]
SHADER_CACHE_VERSION=1
[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=4092 - 6 Cores and 12 Logicals and want to use last 10
[MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.01

System is L7-8700K running at OC of 4.9 32GB ram GTX1080TI.

Also Set my graphics to medium settings.

Have I missed something.

I am also using NexGen VFR UK but appear to have some random things appearing through the scenery onto 3rd party stuff which is higher up the layers.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks.

Steve.

AM 4092 = 11,11,11,11,11,00 is a poor choice of AM and comes up a lot.

See the rightmost 00? That's core zero with no P3D tasks assigned.

See the rightmost 11? That's core one with two tasks assigned one on each Logical processor.

The 11 denotes that P3D place the first two tasks on core one forcing sharing of core one. The first task might use up to 100% of core one, The second task might use up to 40% of core one. This means up to 40% throughput loss on the first task.

The reason to use an AM is to avoid sharing cores in HT mode.

So you might want to modify the AM 4092 slightly: The first task (rightmost one) is the rendering task so we should give it a whole core  with "01". Example 11,11,11,11,01,00 = 4084.

Edited January 6, 2020 by SteveW

[SteveW 1,792]

The FFTF setting denotes how much time per frame the simulator is loading scenery. The rendering of the scene will take up all the time per frame if it can get it. So the simulator reserves some time to link in the scenery loading from the background process.

So with FFTF 0.01 that's a very small time given to loading the files. The background process are all the ones left of the first one in the AM.

incidentally - Those fellows "not using an AM" are in fact using an AM whether they like it or not. No AM on a six core HT enabled = 4095 which is again a poor choice since this shares core zero to the first two tasks just like 4092.

I would start with no tweaks other than AM 340 00,01,01,01,01,00 for six core HT enabled and increase with LPs on the left 11,01,01,01,01,00 for faster loading. Go from small settings to large. Don't attempt to turn down settings from big, turn up settings from small one at a time. Reduce autogen, render distance, shadows and texture sizes to gain fps, also try smallpartrejectradius=3 in [scenery].

[SteveW 1,792]

Most problems I encounter on P3D and FSX are due to poor advice, HT off, No AM, Make a special drive partition, alter UAC, reduce FFTF etc. etc. you name it, you can find it.

Next thing to check is how the simulator is set up for the monitor.

In  P3D Display Settings we see VSync, TB and fps Slider settings.

Vsync=Off + Unlimited on the fps Slider is a test mode that can show the maximum fps possible with the settings. However, when we then set VSync=On the simulator will attempt to output frames at the monitor refresh frequency. If the maximum fps is already more than the monitor frequency we will get overhead in the system. That way we don't need to worry so much about FFTF since the slack gives time to fill in the background. With small FFTF we get higher fps at the expense of background fill-in time.

[SteveW 1,792]

Another compromise to consider is that when we VSync=On or set fps Locked with VSync=On we see micro stutter. With VSync=Off we might lose the micro stutter but incur some shifting in the scene when turning or panning with very high res monitors and low fps. Locked fps on the slider control is hard on the system since it makes look ahead frames. If there's no time in reserve to complete a look ahead the time is wasted. Any wobble in flow rate will consume the look ahead. A complete look ahead sequence can take many frames to compile.

[Noel 4,499]

41 minutes ago, SteveW said:

However, when we then set VSync=On the simulator will attempt to output frames at the monitor refresh frequency. If the maximum fps is already more than the monitor frequency we will get overhead in the system. 

And if you are lucky enough to have a monitor that can be set to 30mHz refresh, and your system can maintain 30 frames, you get the lovely stutter-free video performance .  I have a six core and have used AM 4084 since you turned me on to it thanks again!  

As I slowly prepare for my next build, does anyone here KNOW if P3D will do better with a 9900K w/ HT enabled and the appropriate AM, or will the 9700K be as good ultimately?

Edited January 6, 2020 by Noel

[SteveW 1,792]

Other possibilities of slowness in a system can be caused by AV or Internet security software, and processes like search indexing.

[JasonPC 173]

On 1/6/2020 at 10:16 AM, Noel said:

And if you are lucky enough to have a monitor that can be set to 30mHz refresh, and your system can maintain 30 frames, you get the lovely stutter-free video performance .  I have a six core and have used AM 4084 since you turned me on to it thanks again!  

As I slowly prepare for my next build, does anyone here KNOW if P3D will do better with a 9900K w/ HT enabled and the appropriate AM, or will the 9700K be as good ultimately?

The 9900k and 9700k definitely have more cores than P3D can currently utilize effectively. The most more cores might help with is speed up loading. That’s not to say it’s not good, but you definitely want to focus on clock speed. Framerate only depends on the utilization of the first core which is assigned the rendering task. Six cores should be enough to run all the P3D tasks efficiently without getting blurries. If you have more cores you can assign them to addon tasks like active sky, vpilot, etc. It’s probably best to un-assign those extra cores from P3D completely as you get diminished results. Sometimes even possibly negative results (possibly from the rendering task having to manage more cores).

[Noel 4,499]

HT enabled on my six core is always superior to disabled in my configuration.  So it's easy to consider if 12LPs are better than 6Ps then it's not a big jump to compare 16LPs v 8Ps.  A few more gHz of clock speed is only part of the story so again, if anyone has actually proven to themselves empirically HT enabled w/ an 8 core w/ the right AM v HT disabled I'd love to hear it before I make my purchase commitment.   I suppose it's hard to make an accurate forecast of how MSFS will behave in this scenario.

[Mace 1,926]

18 minutes ago, Noel said:

HT enabled on my six core is always superior to disabled in my configuration.  So it's easy to consider if 12LPs are better than 6Ps then it's not a big jump to compare 16LPs v 8Ps.  A few more gHz of clock speed is only part of the story so again, if anyone has actually proven to themselves empirically HT enabled w/ an 8 core w/ the right AM v HT disabled I'd love to hear it before I make my purchase commitment.   I suppose it's hard to make an accurate forecast of how MSFS will behave in this scenario.

I have found the same (that 6 phys cores isn't enough) thru extensive testing of my rig.   If I were rebuilding now I would not hesitate to get at least an 8 physical core cpu.   Based on what I see in the hardware forum, I'm not sure the HT on or off is quite as important with the 8 physical core cpu's.  It's critically important for us 6-core guys as you know.