Turn ON Dynamic Lighting? P3DV4.5

[light_blue_yonder 15]

*This may be the dumbest post on Avsim yet, but this is my true experience.*

So, like most people with a mid-spec PC (see below for specs), I was struggling with FPS at places like ImagineSim Atlanta and FlyTampa Toronto. I figured that since dynamic lighting is FPS intensive, I should keep those sceneries on polygon lighting. In P3D settings though, I had to keep dynamic lighting on for the PMDG NGXu's landing lights to work as designed.

One day, I went to the FlyTampa forums to see how to resolve the lighting polygons appearing and disappearing at certain view angles, and didn't come to a satisfactory conclusion. So for a laugh, I decided to turn on dynamic lighting and see just how close I can get to Microsoft PowerPoint. Except I didn't. At FlyTampa's Toronto, at early dawn in overcast conditions with Tomatoshade (i.e. FPS-intensive time), in the Qualitywings 787 with all the lights on, with all the terminal area in full view, I was getting a stable locked 25FPS. That is a solid 3FPS improvement from using polygon lighting.

Not wanting to believe what I just saw, I moved over to ImagineSim Atlanta, spawned on RWY26R at dawn, in the PMDG NGXu with all lights on, and got the same locked 25FPS, another 3FPS improvement. Next one, FlyTampa Vienna, FSLabs A320. This one was not an improvement, since I had steady 25FPS before, but it didn't drop below 25FPS, again, at dawn.

Now I am utterly baffled. Isn't dynamic lighting suppose to slaughter FPS? What is the explanation behind this apparent magic I'm seeing? In the mean time, I'm certainly not complaining about having better visuals with *more* FPS.

Here are my important settings and specs:

P3D AA settings: 2xSSAA (I find this better than 8xMSAA and doesn't slaughter FPS like 4xSSAA)

CPU: i7-6700K (OC 3.7Ghz, HT off)

GPU: Gigabyte GTX 1060 6GB (stock speed)

RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance LPX 3000Mhz, single channel DDR4

 

[cyyzrwy24 127]

Don't be surprised by anything...I said many times and laughing...sim has mind on his own. Joke on side....I have no solution for FTCYYZ...simply not, no matter what I do I am chocking. With V4.5 and FSL I would be dropping down to 10-12...everywhere else I would be above 25-30. Light on or off. Interestingly enough with V5 I played a lot with different setting, since there are still no major players available... but with Q787 which we know that is not compatible as of yet, but working - I am getting over 30Fps at FTCYYZ....to me that's huge progress...smooth and fluid and I made setting to my liking, HD light on etc...but few days back with PMDG747 I had down to acceptable 23-24 but once I hit the runway I chocked with stutters and FPS i think I was down to 7 Fps, almost completely stall. And after initial disappointment I decided to remove and delete all generated shadders and now I am back with over 25-28 and very happy with look and smoothness.  Question is what would happen with other major player and remain to be seen and tested. I use 4XMSAA and that gives me what I want.

[light_blue_yonder 15]

I haven't bought into V5 (and probably won't before seeing FS2020, if I'm honest). In V4 though, I find PMDG to be quite FPS-friendly, based on my experience with the 777 and 737 NGXu. The one that hits hardest is FSLabs, but even that is only 1-2FPS lower than PMDG.