photoreal question...

[beeker46 0]

I know that settings in FSX-SE, like its predecessors at their respective stages of hardware offerings, is a juggling and balancing act, a crusade of compromise.  So I have two questions, really...

How much extra Oomph of CPU is required to run some of the photo real packages I have seen floating around?  Fly Away Simulations has a few of, mostly, the Western U.S. and while they run in the several dozen GBs of file sizes, how much of a drain is that going to be on 'somewhere near the top' of gaming hardware that I have currently?  My rig is certainly not bleeding edge technology, but its not a slouch, either, and I am getting (with tweaks to NVI) a solid 30 fps except at busy airports where things dip into the low 20s and sometimes a high teens.  I have frame rates locked at 1/2 in NVI, currently, and few other bells and whistles enabled.  That is the first question...

Now, second question.  I had ORBX global installed, but recently uninstalled it thinking it drained too many resources (until I found out where other culprits lurked, and have worked them out), and now I am re-thinking of re-installing ORBX, but I hesitate as I am feeling a little gun shy.  I really like the imagery, but cringe at the thought of it being an imagined resource hog.  It really may not be, but I would like some opinions if my doubts are unfounded and paranoid.

 

What I have is this: Intel Core I7-8700 @ 3.2 GHz  16GB RAM  GeForce GTX 1060 3GB  Windows 10 64-bit  1TB SSD  (in a nutshell)

Edited February 11, 2020 by beeker46

[Clutch Cargo 384]

It's not so much the photoreal scenery is a frame hog but the amount of detailed 3D autogen/objects on top of it that starts eating away at performance... hence sliders to adjust to your system.

I would suggest a little test.  Download my simwestALBQ scenery (it's free).  It is photoreal scenery of around 40 square miles with tons of 3D buildings and vegetation.  But as a test you can turn off all the trees and buildings and just observe the photoreal imagery.  Then try it will all on and check the difference of FPS.  This may give you an indication of how well your system can handle.

Hope that helps.

[klamal 282]

17 hours ago, beeker46 said:

How much extra Oomph of CPU is required to run some of the photo real packages I have seen floating around?  Fly Away Simulations has a few of, mostly, the Western U.S. and while they run in the several dozen GBs of file sizes, how much of a drain is that going to be on 'somewhere near the top' of gaming hardware that I have currently?  My rig is certainly not bleeding edge technology, but its not a slouch, either, and I am getting (with tweaks to NVI) a solid 30 fps except at busy airports where things dip into the low 20s and sometimes a high teens.  I have frame rates locked at 1/2 in NVI, currently, and few other bells and whistles enabled.  That is the first question...

I would say you don't need any extra "Oomph of CPU" for just photoreal scenery.  Actually, usually running just photoreal, you usually get better performance because the CPU is not having to figure out where to put autogen.  If, however, you have photoreal that has autogen with it, that's when you would still have to be careful and want the extra "Oomph".  Looks like your CPU is not able to be overclocked.  Otherwise that would be one relatively easy and free way to help there.  But, again, my first question back is if you're running just photoreal by itself or photoreal that has some sort of autogen with it.

[beeker46 0]

overclocking was never an option for me, too chancy to screw something up.

 

I will give these ideas a run and see where things stand.  I installed ORBX global back on, and there has not been any frame rate hits, it was other things that boggled things up.  I don't tend to take small steps, a fault of mine, but big swings at things, and I took too big of a swing lately.  Now I'm backtracking, lol... 

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

I haven't seen this listed here, so I thought I'd chime in.

The real issue with photo real scenery in FSX is not performance, in fact I'd argue that performance is often slightly better with photo real scenery than it is with complex scenery (like FSDT, Fly Tampa, etc.).

The issue is MEMORY.  If the scenery is enabled (anywhere on the planet), it gets loaded when you launch into the sim, and this of course eats up memory, and since FSX is a 32-bit sim you have to operate within the roughly 3.5GB that is allocated for use with 32-bit programs.  So to use photo real, you should ensure that the scenery is disabled unless you plan to fly in an area covered by the scenery.  In fact, due to the 3.5GB limitation, disabling any scenery outside the area of your flight path should be considered an SOP for that sim - my team and I did this and never suffered from an Out of Memory error with any variant of FSX.

Best wishes!

 

[klamal 282]

6 minutes ago, DaveCT2003 said:

The issue is MEMORY.  If the scenery is enabled (anywhere on the planet), it gets loaded when you launch into the sim, and this of course eats up memory, and since FSX is a 32-bit sim you have to operate within the roughly 3.5GB that is allocated for use with 32-bit programs.  So to use photo real, you should ensure that the scenery is disabled unless you plan to fly in an area covered by the scenery.  In fact, due to the 3.5GB limitation, disabling any scenery outside the area of your flight path should be considered an SOP for that sim - my team and I did this and never suffered from an Out of Memory error with any variant of FSX.

Yes.  Exactly.  For FSX, which is 32-bit.  This is exactly true.  However, the user said he is using FSX-SE, which I believe is 64-bit, right?  So then it really doesn't apply so much.

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

Just now, klamal said:

Yes.  Exactly.  For FSX, which is 32-bit.  This is exactly true.  However, the user said he is using FSX-SE, which I believe is 64-bit, right?  So then it really doesn't apply so much.

No sir.  32-bit.

 

[pgde 571]

2 minutes ago, klamal said:

Yes.  Exactly.  For FSX, which is 32-bit.  This is exactly true.  However, the user said he is using FSX-SE, which I believe is 64-bit, right?  So then it really doesn't apply so much.

Nope. No FSX variant is 64 bit, all are 32 bit.

[klamal 282]

Just now, DaveCT2003 said:

No sir.  32-bit.

 

Ok, my mistake.  I stand corrected.  Then exactly what Dave said...definitely make sure to not just enable a large amount of photoreal scenery.  For example, if you bought all the MSE for the entire US and tried to enable it all at once, you probably wouldn't even be able to launch the sim.

This is due to the fact that ANY photoreal scenery that is enabled in your scenery library will load.  No matter how far away it is from you.

[klamal 282]

4 minutes ago, pgde said:

Nope. No FSX variant is 64 bit, all are 32 bit.

Thanks.  I was thinking of Flight Sim World.  I never owned that but wasn't it an FSX variant that was 64-bit?

[DaveCT2003 1,820]

27 minutes ago, klamal said:

Thanks.  I was thinking of Flight Sim World.  I never owned that but wasn't it an FSX variant that was 64-bit?

 

FSW was an ESP variant, not FSX variant.  ESP is the base sim for FSX, FSW, and P3D.

 

[beeker46 0]

Clutch Cargo, I downloaded the free ABQ scenery, to try it out, but when I got to installing it, the installation program asked for a serial number, and for the life of me, I could not find anything in the readme notes regarding this issue.  Unless it is found elsewhere, I have been unable to find it.

 

Previously, I had stated that I avoid overclocking, well, as of yesterday that is a lie.  I found, in my BIOS, an AI Tweaker, and by changing one entry there, boosted the processor to roughly 4.6 Ghz, instead of the 3.2 it was running.  All other parameters are automatically set, and since doing that, I have noticed a significant improvement in many areas (not just FSX-SE), so something improved is at work inside my fancy case... lol.  I used Intel's XTU (Extreme Tuning Utility) and ran it before and after for about 30 minutes each time.  All remained stable and cool temperature inside.  If that is the best my rig can handle, or is expected to handle, then I an satisfied.  With slight increases in FSX's settings, frame rates remained constant 30, with a few dips into the lower 20s.  So far, so good...

Now, if I could just install that photoreal ABQ scenery for a test...

[Clutch Cargo 384]

Hi beeker46,

Just saw your message.  I would believe an email from where you downloaded it from would have sent the serial# to you either at the time of "purchase" (which is free), or a separate email.  If you still do not have one email me at support@simwest.com and I will set you up.