Atrociously bad framerates with a good PC

[FredricG 3]

Hi,

I am writing this post because P3D v5.1 (latest version plus hotfixes) have become totally unplayable for me, especially at night. When parked at the gate, I'm seeing framerates as low as 4fps. On final approach to airports, I get 10-15fps. During the day, I typically see around 15-20fps, with a solid 30 in the cruise, which is the only time the sim is playable. I really don't know what might be causing all this horrible performance, seeing as my PC should be more than capable of playing the sim at my settings. I play on a 4K Toshiba 38" TV, with the refresh rate locked at 30hz through NVIDIA Control Panel. EDIT: All NVIDIA control panel settings besides locking the framerate, and refresh rate are at their default settings.

LINK TO GALLERY:  https://postimg.cc/gallery/t6j6zLD

SPECS: Ryzen 5 3600XT, GTX 1080 Ti, 32GB DDR4-3200 RAM, 256GB M.2 SSD + 1TB Gen 4 NVMe SSD + 1TB HDD, MSI MAG CoreLiquid 240r 240mm AIO cooler, MSI B550-A Pro motherboard, Corsair CX650M 80 Plus Bronze PSU, NZXT H510i case.

Any help would be appreciated. I'm at the end of my rope here.

Edited May 16, 2021 by FredricG

[coastaldriver 915]

FredericG - it is the TV that is the problem. The Toshiba TVs are notoriously slow loading digital data and will stutter and lag and sometimes take several seconds to load this type of content, it just cannot process the data from the PC the same as a dedicated monitor would. 

[Luke 782]

??

HDMI input is digital data. The TV  an certainly handle a 30hz or 60hz input no matter what the source. Is the video card at full speed?

cheers

[FredricG 3]

2 minutes ago, Luke said:

??

HDMI input is digital data. The TV  an certainly handle a 30hz or 60hz input no matter what the source. Is the video card at full speed?

cheers

Yes, It's actually slightly overclocked through MSI afterburner. And like you said, I highly doubt the TV is the problem since an HDMI input is all digital and can handle relatively low refresh rates.

[elcaro 4]

36 minutes ago, FredricG said:

Yes, It's actually slightly overclocked through MSI afterburner. And like you said, I highly doubt the TV is the problem since an HDMI input is all digital and can handle relatively low refresh rates.

Anything changed recently?  Always been like this, or is this new?

[Dave_YVR 968]

More importantly than your TV, what are your P3d settings?

[FredricG 3]

3 minutes ago, Dave_YVR said:

More importantly than your TV, what are your P3d settings?

My P3D settings are included in the link to the gallery in my initial post. If you need the link again, here it is: https://postimg.cc/gallery/t6j6zLD

[FredricG 3]

2 hours ago, elcaro said:

Anything changed recently?  Always been like this, or is this new?

The only thing that has changed recently is that I upgraded my display driver a few days ago. Also, I did make some changes to NVIDIA inspector (not control panel). Let's see if any Inspector settings are in conflict with the simulator.

[blaunarwal 432]

With your GPU I would try following:

I´d set fxaa to off, 4xMSAA, texture filtering to 2x, variable refresh rate, wide-view aspect ratio (if you have a wide-view monitor), mipmap vc panels.

If your VRAM can handle EA, this can improve your fps, but make sure to also tick dynamic texture streaming.

Limit your FPS to 20 or 30 depending what you can reach. To my experience it is still needed to reduce fps to allow better loading of sceneries but even then, there are some stutters from time to time. 

Stuttering can also be the result of P3D searching files, which are there but to my experience are searched at completely wrong places. I use procmon to find out, what Prepar3d.exe is doing during stops. I have started to put the files where P3D wants it or check it the texture.cfg has the correct paths.

Last, your addon scenery often has a configuration tool. Switching a grass from full to medium can be a great change.

Regards

Dan

I forgot if your system is full of dust, it could be throttling due to heat. Check filters and temperatures.

Edited May 17, 2021 by blaunarwal

[elcaro 4]

12 hours ago, FredricG said:

The only thing that has changed recently is that I upgraded my display driver a few days ago. Also, I did make some changes to NVIDIA inspector (not control panel). Let's see if any Inspector settings are in conflict with the simulator.

The confusing aspect is that your P3D performance drops after dark.  I've never encountered that one.  You could certainly experiment with various settings and see how any changes affect the issue, but I'm unaware of any settings that are specific to the time of day, which is why I don't believe your issues is setting-related.  I have no experience with Nvidia Inspector.

I just did a little experimenting.  My system consists of a liquid-cooled Core i9-7920X and GeForce RTX-3090, 32GB RAM, mid to high graphics, and running 3 28" viewgroup monitors.  I use the P3D internal frame rate limiter set to 30

I loaded the stock Cub on the runway at KRND and checked framerates day and night, and frame rate stayed at my locked setting of 30fps - no night time drop.  Tried the same thing in quite dense FSDreamTeam KORD V2 Gate 22, and frame rate was 11 fps day and night - again, no night time drop.  Admittedly, 11 fps is not great, it's custom scenery, my graphics settings are quite high by intent, and the point here is that I see day and night fps close to identical.  I agree with you that something's not right with your system.

As I mentioned, I can't envision any setting change that would improve night time performance only.  If I were faced with such an issue, I'd probably just resort to things like using the option to "Delete Generated Files", checking to be sure things like scenery.cfg aren't corrupt (I have to renumber them fairly often), and if nothing else succeeds, try "Repairing" P3D.  Sorry I'm no more help.

[neilhewitt 493]

It probably isn't this, but if your OS is up to date with updates, there is a very recent KB which, for some people, is causing low framerates in games:

May 11, 2021—KB5003173 (OS Builds 19041.985 and 19042.985) (microsoft.com)

There's a complicated Group Policy to roll this back (basically, it tells Windows not to use the new code), but it'd be easier to uninstall it and see if that made any difference. I expect the next round of fixes will include a fix for this fix.

I just uninstalled it myself to see if it might have an affect on a CTD I'm having that I can't get rid of which just appeared the day I updated the PC with this KB. 

Update: removing the KB seems to have fixed my CTD issue. 

Edited May 17, 2021 by neilhewitt

[Ray Proudfoot 8,930]

@FredricG, you mention you’re using Afterburner. Install Riva Tuner SS and monitor CPU1 and GPU. See if they hit 100%. When they do that means your hardware cannot deliver the settings in P3D. Lower them until you can get 30fps at most airports.

I don’t really know how your AMD compares to an Intel but we have the same GPU and I also run at 3840*2160 @30Hz. My nighttime fps aren’t that low.

You mention Nvidia Inspector. That might be the problem. It’s not really used any more. Just use Nvidia Control Panel.

[Mace 1,902]

21 hours ago, FredricG said:

My P3D settings are included in the link to the gallery in my initial post. If you need the link again, here it is: https://postimg.cc/gallery/t6j6zLD

I too have a 1080ti, and, it cannot handle (well) HD lighting at night with any sort of FXAA.   I'd wager THAT is 75% of your problem.

What I do is have a separate config for night ops which has, among other things HD lighting off, no FXAA and MSAA down to 4x.

The 2080 series cards handle that a LOT better. 

[FredricG 3]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

@FredricG, you mention you’re using Afterburner. Install Riva Tuner SS and monitor CPU1 and GPU. See if they hit 100%. When they do that means your hardware cannot deliver the settings in P3D. Lower them until you can get 30fps at most airports.

I don’t really know how your AMD compares to an Intel but we have the same GPU and I also run at 3840*2160 @30Hz. My nighttime fps aren’t that low.

You mention Nvidia Inspector. That might be the problem. It’s not really used any more. Just use Nvidia Control Panel.

Hi Ray,

Your CPU, an i7-8086K, is marginally (albeit notably) better than my Ryzen 5 3600XT, according to userbechmarks. 

Deleted NVIDIA inspector, confirmed that all NVIDIA control panel settings are at default. That seemed to help my framerates as I am now seeing a consistent 25-30fps at (for example) Flightbeam KDEN at night, with dynamic lighting on, at those same settings. My CPU is running at roughly 25-30% and my GPU is running at 60%, +/- several percent. Not concerned about RAM, as I'm sitting at a consistent 15gb used. The initial problem of framerates has been solved, except for one thing: When I'm on initial approach to an airport, descending through roughly 12000 feet, my framerate drops to around 13-15fps until I reach final approach, probably due to scenery draw distance, which I will lower and test. So it was probably something to do with NVIDIA inspector creating a conflict that caused the frame drops. other than that it has been resolved but now a new problem has arisen -

Antialiasing. I see very noticeable aliasing/shimmering on taxiway and runway lines and edges, as well as on the plane itself. This has been a consistent issue for me. See here for example: https://postimg.cc/XGjVnB9F

[Rogen 1,087]

13 minutes ago, FredricG said:

Antialiasing. I see very noticeable aliasing/shimmering on taxiway and runway lines and edges, as well as on the plane itself.

SSAA provides the best AA option from within P3D, typically 4x or 8x.

Depends on if your GFX card can handle it though.