Prepar3D v4.5 Hotfix 2 Stutters and low fps

[Andres Ortega 0]

Hi everyone! I have P3D v4.5 hotfix 2 with some addons:

ORBX Global

OPENLC

Rex Sky Force 3D

Rex Environment Force

PMDG 737ngxu / 747 / 777

Aiports

FSLabs 32X.

My PC specs: CPU I7 6700(non k), GPU GTX 1660 Super OC, RAM 16gb

My p3d.cfg is not edited and i dont use any Nvidia Inspector setting.

I Fly around 20/24 fps with the NGXU or the FSLABS and i dont understand why... In xplane 11 with the zibo (4k textures) with the sliders in high and x4SSAA i get +30 fps with a good cpu/gpu usage.

I have tried so many things... tweak the cfg, use RTSS, Nvidia Inspector, clean shaders, reinstall P3D, but its imposible for me get a stable FPS and smooth experience in P3D wich is a sim that i really like.

Here is my P3D settings: 

https://imgur.com/A9logok

https://imgur.com/EfXEz1q

https://imgur.com/jLtA8Tx

https://imgur.com/MY1pIwk

https://imgur.com/fhWBcED

And here a sim ScreenShot

https://imgur.com/rE641Mc

[chapstick 2,757]

That FPS sounds about right, tbh. Try turning off cloud shadows. 

[F737MAX 5,604]

You are using two of the most popular, but resource intensive payware aeroplanes for P3D.
Already that means you have less CPU headroom to have the 'eye-candy' displayed.


Move your cloud density slider from max. Even one notch to the left might help, though I use medium.

Put your shadow draw distance slider to medium. If that doesn't help, try turning off cloud shadows, sim object shadows or both.

You may have to move your autogen building density slider to normal.

Antivirus excluded from scanning / actively protecting your P3D folder structure?

Windows background tasks and other external add-ons for P3D kept off from using Core 0?
That caught me out once. I forgot to set an affinity for an add-on and it made my P3D perform worse than when I was using my old CPU.
 

Edited January 12, 2020 by F737NG

[Rogen 1,087]

F737NG has some good points to check for, otherwise complex planes, 3D objects and Traffic...

Are three things that tend to kill P3D's frame rates and hopefully three things LM have on their radar to improve (like they did for trees and vegetation).

And yeah from my own reading and findings the general gist is that XPlane does do those things better then P3D (grrr).

I think that most of the crew who have good frame rates with P3D and such complex tubeliner aircraft also have highly overclocked CPUs as P3D still has a lot of dependacy on CPU usage, especially for one core. Nitrogen cooling???

Dovetail's FSW (now defunct) made changes to push gauges onto the GPU thus removing a point of CPU use. P3D I don't think have done that (unless anyone knows more) but they have moved a lot of things over to the GPU, things mostly reflected in the sliders.

Actually you'll probably find you would be able to increase most of those P3D settings in your pics apart from "Scenery Complexity" and "AutoGen and Scenery Draw Distance" (I see traffic is zero).

A few key points.

• Use a tool to monitor your GPU use.
• Use RTSS with 1/2 vsync option for 30 Hz vsyncing (unless you have a 30 Hz capable monitor, in which case use a 30 Hz screen mode).
• Increase those sliders (apart from the above mentioned) using the GPU monitor to see how heavily the GPU is in use. You want to aim for high GPU use but not 100% because as soon as you hit 100% the frame rates will drop a lot. I tune based on around 85 to 95% max GPU use.

As an example of improvement in P3D, LM reworked the trees and vegetation so much that you can typically put the AutoGen Vegetation Density all the way to the right without affecting fps.

When I first started using P3D v4 I was disappointed with the fps, especailly when the sliders appeared to have relatively little impact on actual fps.

Then I discovered 30 Hz vsync and monitoring of the GPU and have since managed to ramp up the slider values almost to max in most cases due to the way a 30 Hz vsync changes the load on the P3D. The one thing I cannot do is enable vegetation shadow casting as it kills my current GPU.

There are also quite a few good prepar3d.cfg tweeks that improve the look and feel, search for Rob_Ainscough's posts and you should find them.

I hope the above is of use.

Cheers

Addendum: An item I found that did return my rig ~5 fps was configuring the FSUIPC5.ini as below.

[WideServer]
WideFSenabled=No

Edited January 12, 2020 by Rogen

[Mace 1,926]

i think you're doing ok considering your non-K cpu and the two aircraft you mention.  Your 6700 (non-K) is holding you back with those two advanced aircraft, but, there are things mentioned above should help.

Key thing would be refreshing at 30hz (or if your monitor can't do that, use RTSS as Rogen mentions) with vsync ON, then turning Autogen buildings to "normal" (AG buildings is still very cpu-intensive).  I'd suggest saving a settings profile or two. 

[Christopher Low 5,353]

I am not sure why anyone would compare the framerate between P3Dv4 and Xplane 11. They are two completely different simulators

[fluffyflops 1,858]

2 hours ago, Christopher Low said:

I am not sure why anyone would compare the framerate between P3Dv4 and Xplane 11. They are two completely different simulators

For once we agree on something. 

 

[Andres Ortega 0]

6 hours ago, Rogen said:

F737NG has some good points to check for, otherwise complex planes, 3D objects and Traffic...

Are three things that tend to kill P3D's frame rates and hopefully three things LM have on their radar to improve (like they did for trees and vegetation).

And yeah from my own reading and findings the general gist is that XPlane does do those things better then P3D (grrr).

I think that most of the crew who have good frame rates with P3D and such complex tubeliner aircraft also have highly overclocked CPUs as P3D still has a lot of dependacy on CPU usage, especially for one core. Nitrogen cooling???

Dovetail's FSW (now defunct) made changes to push gauges onto the GPU thus removing a point of CPU use. P3D I don't think have done that (unless anyone knows more) but they have moved a lot of things over to the GPU, things mostly reflected in the sliders.

Actually you'll probably find you would be able to increase most of those P3D settings in your pics apart from "Scenery Complexity" and "AutoGen and Scenery Draw Distance" (I see traffic is zero).

A few key points.

• Use a tool to monitor your GPU use.
• Use RTSS with 1/2 vsync option for 30 Hz vsyncing (unless you have a 30 Hz capable monitor, in which case use a 30 Hz screen mode).
• Increase those sliders (apart from the above mentioned) using the GPU monitor to see how heavily the GPU is in use. You want to aim for high GPU use but not 100% because as soon as you hit 100% the frame rates will drop a lot. I tune based on around 85 to 95% max GPU use.

As an example of improvement in P3D, LM reworked the trees and vegetation so much that you can typically put the AutoGen Vegetation Density all the way to the right without affecting fps.

When I first started using P3D v4 I was disappointed with the fps, especailly when the sliders appeared to have relatively little impact on actual fps.

Then I discovered 30 Hz vsync and monitoring of the GPU and have since managed to ramp up the slider values almost to max in most cases due to the way a 30 Hz vsync changes the load on the P3D. The one thing I cannot do is enable vegetation shadow casting as it kills my current GPU.

There are also quite a few good prepar3d.cfg tweeks that improve the look and feel, search for Rob_Ainscough's posts and you should find them.

I hope the above is of use.

Cheers

Addendum: An item I found that did return my rig ~5 fps was configuring the FSUIPC5.ini as below.

[WideServer]
WideFSenabled=No

 

7 hours ago, F737NG said:

You are using two of the most popular, but resource intensive payware aeroplanes for P3D.
Already that means you have less CPU headroom to have the 'eye-candy' displayed.


Move your cloud density slider from max. Even one notch to the left might help, though I use medium.

Put your shadow draw distance slider to medium. If that doesn't help, try turning off cloud shadows, sim object shadows or both.

You may have to move your autogen building density slider to normal.

Antivirus excluded from scanning / actively protecting your P3D folder structure?

Windows background tasks and other external add-ons for P3D kept off from using Core 0?
That caught me out once. I forgot to set an affinity for an add-on and it made my P3D perform worse than when I was using my old CPU.
 

Thx for your reply. I tested all you say my gpu usage is 40% and my cpu usage is +80/90%.

I use the RTSS like you say and when i am in 30 fps i have a incredible smooth experience but i only get that fps when im looking to the water in LEBL, In the air i get 20/25 fps again and the smoothness dessapear. I have tried to move the sliders to maximum but i get better visual experience, same gpu use, and same fps... imposible to understand for me 🥴.

I tried all this with the Leo MD8X and the 737 NGX and my fps is 30 all the moment.

I also tried Proces Lasso but i dont see any diference 

I see the Rob_Ainscough's posts and tweaks. My Sim looks fantastic but my fps is the same with low graphics settings and high/med settings...

[Mace 1,926]

5 hours ago, Andres Ortega said:

 

Thx for your reply. I tested all you say my gpu usage is 40% and my cpu usage is +80/90%.

I use the RTSS like you say and when i am in 30 fps i have a incredible smooth experience but i only get that fps when im looking to the water in LEBL, In the air i get 20/25 fps again and the smoothness dessapear. I have tried to move the sliders to maximum but i get better visual experience, same gpu use, and same fps... imposible to understand for me 🥴.

You are cpu bound is what that tells me.

 

5 hours ago, Andres Ortega said:

I see the Rob_Ainscough's posts and tweaks. My Sim looks fantastic but my fps is the same with low graphics settings and high/med settings...

That's because you are cpu bound.  Your cpu limits you to at most 4.0 ghz, and you are running two cpu-intensive add-on aircraft.

I'd reduce both Special Effects sliders to zero, and Autogen Buildings to sparse, and see what that gets you.   You are asking a lot of a 6700 cpu to maintain 30 fps with advanced aircraft around big airports like LEBL.