Surprise benefit of NO VECTOR

[spilok 1,133]

For years, whenever I changed my Nvidia graphic driver, I automatically opened NVidia Control Panel and set my maximum frame rate to 30.  In the sim, I kept it at Unlimited Frames.  It worked better than anything else I tried, and I had occasional and sometimes pretty heavy stutters.  But I lived with it, and I believed that's just the way it has to be.  THEN, a few weeks back, the topic of uninstalling VECTOR in ORBX was something we should consider if we are in P3dV5.  When I did that I was amazed at the smoothness of the sim...and virtually all stutters disappeared.  I still had Unlimited set in the sim and 30 Frames set in NVidia Control Panel.

So, a few days ago, I upgraded my graphic driver to the very latest one (511.79) and I just FORGOT to go to the NCP to set my frames to 30.  Quite a few flights later over the last few days, I've noticed super-smooth flights even better than ever.  I checked my frames in the upper left of the sim and I'm seeing frames in the 70's, 80's, 90's and higher.  I realized that I didn't limit the frames to 30 when I upgraded my driver. NOW, my sim is the way it was many years ago when I always flew with Unlimited frames in the sim.  It really works that well.  Wow!  I realize now that VECTOR was really limiting the performance of my sim in ways that I hadn't even considered.  I'm happy to leave NCP just the way it is when I upgrade my  graphic drivers from now on.  

This is truly a SURPRISE benefit of not having VECTOR strangling my sim.  Hopefully, you will find this to be true if you are also limiting your frames some way to achieve smoothness in P3d.

Stan

[B777ER 2,484]

Hmm, I may bump mine up to 40 from 30 in the NCP as I too have recently deleted Vector. 

[spilok 1,133]

14 minutes ago, B777ER said:

Hmm, I may bump mine up to 40 from 30 in the NCP as I too have recently deleted Vector. 

Why not set your frames as you like them in the sim, and NOT even change the frames in NCP?  Just saying.

[TurboKen 221]

Yes P3D V5 works very well with NCP set to unlimited and in sim set to unlimited. Where as V4 you had to run limited or the scenery would get blurry setting to unlimited.

I also noticed an immediate increase in smoothness without using Vector, with the improvements in V5 it is not really necessary anyway. But with V4 I believe it was worth the trade off.

[TurboKen 221]

1 hour ago, spilok said:

Why not set your frames as you like them in the sim, and NOT even change the frames in NCP?  Just saying.

LM made a change for V5, you basically have to run unlimited now or you will introduce stutters in sim. 

If you want to limit the FPS without introducing stutters you have to do it in an external limiter like NCP.

[johncott 177]

My two cents worth on the subject and what I did to fix it.

ORBX vector for P3DV5 has one major issue.  Large exclude files.

When P3DV5 first came out there were major issues with the default vector data in the Canadian Arctic and I believe this was one of the reasons ORBX released their vector for P3DV5.

In previous versions ORBX used many small exclude files to delete the default vector items.  With P3DV5, the existing ORBX exclude files also deleted the airport backgrounds.  What did ORBX do? They created nine large files that each cover the whole world for each default vector item they want to exclude. These vector items are parks, railways, roads, shorelines, streams, traffic, utilities, water and water GPS. Since these nine files cover the whole world, they take a long time to load. They create long stutters and also affect loading flight plans in flight planner.

I still like the ORBX vector for the following reasons:

1. Works better with third party elevation mesh where I usually fly in Canada and the Canadian Arctic. I find with the default vector, there are elevate and sunken water bodies with third party elevation mesh.

2. For some reason LM forgot to add water to some major rivers to my area of the world where I do most of my VFR flying.

3. With some tinkering I have frozen water bodies in the winter which I like by using the ice files from a FSX install of ORBX vector and incorporating them in P3DV5.

For these reasons, I just spent many hours doing my own exclude files.  Instead of nine large files that cover the whole world, I created new exclude files that each cover smaller 22.5 by 30-degree sections of the earth for each of the nine items that have to be excluded. 96 areas multiplied by the nine types of excludes equals 864 files. Now P3DV5 doesn't have to load the nine large exclude files, just the ones near where I'm flying.

The loading time is faster, very few stutters and no 2 or 3 second stutters any more. I would create a flight plan in Little Nav Map and open it in the P3DV5 flight planner and it would take 5 or more minutes to load. With the smaller files I've created, it takes about 10 seconds at most. I've only been testing my files for a few days so far and they appear to work ok.

John C.

 

Edited March 11, 2022 by johncott

[sivart2000 96]

3 hours ago, spilok said:

, the topic of uninstalling VECTOR in ORBX was something we should consider if we are in P3dV5

Can you point me to this thread? Is V5 such an improvement that it is no longer needed?

Edited March 11, 2022 by sivart2000
Disregard. Found it.

[BerndB 349]

14 hours ago, spilok said:

Why not set your frames as you like them in the sim, and NOT even change the frames in NCP?  Just saying.

Hey Stan, please forgive me if it sounds like beancounting, but if stutters could even more rduced by set the fps to unlimited, i can't really see the root to OrbX Vector in this part. IMHO your post headline should better say "surprise benefit of unlimiting frames"

Apart from the fact that Vector indeed induce stutters too.

[spilok 1,133]

6 hours ago, BerndB said:

Hey Stan, please forgive me if it sounds like beancounting, but if stutters could even more rduced by set the fps to unlimited, i can't really see the root to OrbX Vector in this part. IMHO your post headline should better say "surprise benefit of unlimiting frames"

Apart from the fact that Vector indeed induce stutters too.

Understand.  However, I've always kept the sim frame rate to unlimited.  The only difference now is I don't have to set a limiting factor (of 30) in NCP with Vector eliminated.