New P3D 5.3+ Affinity Mask Calculator

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

There are some airports where the fps takes a nosedive for a couple of seconds before normality is restored. Those would be useful tests.

One is Simwings Heathrow on approach to either 27 L/R. The drop occurs around 2DME out from the ILS.

Orbx Melbourne is another when approaching any runway. Quite what is going on is a mystery. If these changes can cure problems like this it would be very satisfactory.

[cyyzrwy24 118]

7 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

There are some airports where the fps takes a nosedive

That's what I noticed and that is a change for me though. Only issue before I had with FT CYYZ but on the rest of the airports I never had any issue. Now at CYYZ it is constant FPS and no fluctuation. Actually now FPS drops only while on descend or bellow 5000FT on take off. That could be that loading might have impact on it (FPS).

But all is even somehow. Overall much smoother which is actually a key, not the number itself. As long there are no stutters I don't care what's the number in my top right corner.....

[Republic DC9 234]

8 hours ago, Fiorentoni said:

Replace the approriate lines in the cfg file with the following:

[JobScheduler]
AffinityMask=1048533
P3DCoreAffinityMask=1048533
MainThreadScheduler=0
RenderThreadScheduler=1
FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2

This already helps a lot to reduce stuttering and smoothen the sim at really heavy airports. If you want to go further you'll have to use Process Lasso or batch files to keep your third party software (ActiveSky etc.) restricted to certain cores, but that's a bit more complicated (not much though).

Well, thank you!!!

I also have a 10900K and was already seeing good performance with 5.3 with the default job scheduler entries but with these changes WOW!

I’m not only getting a smooth 60FPS on final approach to Orbx KBUR inside of TE Southern California in my beloved Carenado 690, I’m getting much more fluid results overall...the only long frames/stutters I get at all seem to be a VERY quick hit when it reads a new add on airport from the SSD.

The fluidity is kind of disconcerting in a way, like your eyes feel like you’re actually moving.

10900K. RX 6800 card....32GB RAM, all scenery on SSD.

Thanks Fiorentoni!! 🙂

Steve

[him225 51]

Putting 0,1,2 also gave improvement here. Seems the other two working threads also need to be away from interference of terrain loading cores and rather be shares on single core as the terrain loaders are quite aggressive and fluctuating in their xpu demand. The default value 2 and 4 has them share one core each with the terrain jobs, but LM did not give entry to core distribitution of terrain jobs for complete control leaving users to achieve above indirectly that much reduces the optimum AM possibilities.

[craigeaglefire 195]

Process Lasso with Pro balance setting sorts out the AM automatically,

& that’s where the 9700K has a big advantage,

no HT to worry about…

[RAMMSTEIN1977 2]

Hi guys, I didn't understand what to enter. I have an AMD 5800x CPU .. would be super nice if someone could help

 

[Fiorentoni 4,070]

10 hours ago, Republic DC9 said:

Well, thank you!!!

I also have a 10900K and was already seeing good performance with 5.3 with the default job scheduler entries but with these changes WOW!

I’m not only getting a smooth 60FPS on final approach to Orbx KBUR inside of TE Southern California in my beloved Carenado 690, I’m getting much more fluid results overall...the only long frames/stutters I get at all seem to be a VERY quick hit when it reads a new add on airport from the SSD.

The fluidity is kind of disconcerting in a way, like your eyes feel like you’re actually moving.

10900K. RX 6800 card....32GB RAM, all scenery on SSD.

Thanks Fiorentoni!! 🙂

Steve

Glad it helps you! But you should thank @SteveW and @Rob_Ainscough because I got the idea and the technique from them.

[Fiorentoni 4,070]

20 minutes ago, RAMMSTEIN1977 said:

Hi guys, I didn't understand what to enter. I have an AMD 5800x CPU .. would be super nice if someone could help

 

IF you have HT on, replace the lines in the prepar3d.cfg with the following:

[JobScheduler]
AffinityMask=65493
P3DCoreAffinityMask=65493
MainThreadScheduler=0
RenderThreadScheduler=1
FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2

[RAMMSTEIN1977 2]

31 minutes ago, Fiorentoni said:

IF you have HT on, replace the lines in the prepar3d.cfg with the following:

[JobScheduler]
AffinityMask=65493
P3DCoreAffinityMask=65493
MainThreadScheduler=0
RenderThreadScheduler=1
FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=2

Thank You 🙂

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

Because I use SimStarterNG to start both P3D and associated programs I needed to change the AF for those programs. I left P3D alone and assigned all cores to it.

For the majority of the programs it was easy but ASP3D was the exception. Because it has its own way of being launched from within SimStarterNG I had to manually change the AM setting via Task Manager once it was running. I'll need to investigate how best to manage ASP3D.

Having done that here is the result with an AM of 63 for P3D and a P3D core setting of 30 meaning only cores 1-4 are assigned to P3D. Core 0 is to the OS and 5 to all the associated programs. It hasn't revolutionised performance and I suspect the effects are quite subtle but I'm always grateful for advice from those with greater knowledge than me.

[JobScheduler]
AffinityMask=63
P3DCoreAffinityMask=30
MainThreadScheduler=0
RenderThreadScheduler=2
FrameWorkerThreadScheduler=3

[srcooke 52]

17 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

For the majority of the programs it was easy but ASP3D was the exception. Because it has its own way of being launched from within SimStarterNG I had to manually change the AM setting via Task Manager once it was running. I'll need to investigate how best to manage ASP3D.

You could add ASP3D to the 'run config set' and disable the function in extended settings unless you require the additional SS functions.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

1 minute ago, srcooke said:

You could add ASP3D to the 'run config set' and disable the function in extended settings unless you require the additional SS functions.

I had this discussion a while back and for whatever reason switched to SSNG controlling its launch. I forget if there were any disadvantages to doing it via the Run option. Is that what you do Stephen? Seems the more logical way now we need tighter control over the AM setting for each program.

[srcooke 52]

I use the run option Ray as I do not require the use of various AS configurations. Also required AS to be started after the sim has loaded, however doing this prevents a flightplan been automatically loaded in AS.

[Ray Proudfoot 8,903]

@srcooke, that seems the best approach. I don't have multiple configurations either although I do prefer WX to be available as soon as P3D is loaded. I use Aivlasoft's EFB on another PC and enter the route into that which automatically puts it into P3D from which ASP3D can pick it up.

My approach into LFPG was very smooth. I was looking out for any stutters but didn't notice one. Nor when taxiing either. These new settings do appear to have a positive impact.

[virtualstuff 750]

On 12/31/2021 at 5:16 PM, MammyJammy said:

Hi All,

With the new release of P3D 5.3 and the increase in settings for the [JobScheduler], combined with the myriad of threads out here about setting affinity masks and how to figure it out, I threw together a new calculator for these settings.  I hope it's easier to use in that all you do is enter your core count/logical processors, then basically click to select what you want each core to do.  Think of it like a "paint brush" for your CPU/core configuration.  There's a section that has some info from a thread at prepar3d.com describing the new settings, as well as my own observations based on tinkering with these since the 5.3 release.

As the disclaimer on the tool states, This is advanced configuration of Prepar3D that requires manual editing of the Prepar3D.cfg file. If you do not have experience editing INI-based configuration files or manually entering settings into the Prepar3D.cfg, you are encouraged to turn around and head back the other way. You can screw up your config (deleting it will rebuild a new one) if you don't know what you are doing.

http://izn-flightsim.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/affinity.html

I'll check in on this thread for any feedback or issues, however don't expect me to offer a "use this setting" kind of advice.  Each and every one of us has a different PC, different P3D config, and different add-ons.  YMMV compared to mine or anyone else's.

Doesn't work with Firefox and Edge on Win11 😉

Edited January 2, 2022 by awf