Fenix and performance

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

5 hours ago, CrashEd said:

That fact that the 737 can run butter smooth on most machines at any payware airport is evidence that it is far better optimised.

Or it could be that the Fenix is far more complex. It's certainly much more demanding on system resources, CPU in particular, than the PMDG. But that doesn't automatically lead to the conclution that the PMDG is better optimized. Only the developers would know. 

Also, I think they've done quite a bit in order to optimize the Fenix, with the choice of livery textures, cockpit textures, cockpit display quality, the ability to run the displays from CPU/GPU/iGPU, and multithreading abilities of display rendering. I'm of the impression that no matter how much it's optimized, you would still need a beefier system (i.e. raw CPU processing power) than with the PMDG. It seems that a lot of people with two generations or older CPUs are struggling. 

And I have to agree with @Fiorentoni re: payware airports. I daresay that no current airplane, whether default or payware, can run butter smooth at iniBuild's EGLL with settings maxed out and live traffic / AIG. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

5 hours ago, CrashEd said:

The PMDG was written for MSFS from the ground-up

Hold on a second. Is that true? My understanding is that they've re-used code from P3D and certainly not rewritten the code for MSFS. If they had, I'm sure they wouldn't be in the situation they are in, with the lack of e.g. EFB and proper Simbrief integration. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[Fiorentoni 4,225]

11 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Hold on a second. Is that true? My understanding is that they've re-used code from P3D and certainly not rewritten the code for it for MSFS. If they had, I'm sure they wouldn't be in the situation they are in, with the lack of e.g. EFB and proper Simbrief integration. 

I think he was trying to say it was written strictly within the limits of MSFS (to make it compatible to the XBOX).

[Bobsk8 12,728]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Or it could be that the Fenix is far more complex. It's certainly much more demanding on system resources, CPU in particular, than the PMDG. But that doesn't automatically lead to the conclution that the PMDG is better optimized. Only the developers would know. 

Also, I think they've done quite a bit in order to optimize the Fenix, with the choice of livery textures, cockpit textures, cockpit display quality, the ability to run the displays from CPU/GPU/iGPU, and multithreading abilities of display rendering. I'm of the impression that no matter how much it's optimized, you would still need a beefier system (i.e. raw CPU processing power) than with the PMDG. It seems that a lot of people with two generations or older CPUs are struggling. 

And I have to agree with @Fiorentoni re: payware airports. I daresay that no current airplane, whether default or payware, can run butter smooth at iniBuild's EGLL with settings maxed out and live traffic / AIG. 

The A 320 has seven computers to handle all the FBW functions. This is not happening in the 737...

[VBHB 298]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Hold on a second. Is that true? My understanding is that they've re-used code from P3D and certainly not rewritten the code for MSFS. If they had, I'm sure they wouldn't be in the situation they are in, with the lack of e.g. EFB and proper Simbrief integration. 

True and they've paid the price for it also with their bad autopilot.

[CrashEd 8]

3 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Hold on a second. Is that true? My understanding is that they've re-used code from P3D and certainly not rewritten the code for MSFS. If they had, I'm sure they wouldn't be in the situation they are in, with the lack of e.g. EFB and proper Simbrief integration. 

Yes it is. And I quote fromMr Randazzo:

"This is not a "port" of an existing product, which is why we changed the product naming a few months back. We had started out referring to it as "NG3" but NG3 was originally envisioned as a port of our Prepar3D version into MSFS and it became obvious to us in September of 2020 that porting the product would give you an inferior user experience. Microsoft Flight Simulator, when it finally arrived, offered such a magnificent visual environment that it seemed we would be missing an opportunity to do something truly wonderful if we simply dragged the 737 "as is" into the new environment and handed it off to you." 

Why is the 737 any less complicated? Granted there is no automation to model, but it has custom LNAV, VNAV, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic systems and FMS to model. It’s about as complex as it gets in MSFS to date. And it’s all don’t without the need for an external program (running someone else’s code)

Don’t get me wrong, I love both aircraft. I just find it amusing when everyone thinks the Fenix is some kind of wonder aircraft that no pc can run due to its “complexity”. 

[Greggy_D 936]

And Mr. RSR is full of word not allowed. 

[Bobsk8 12,728]

14 minutes ago, CrashEd said:

 

Why is the 737 any less complicated? Granted there is no automation to model, but it has custom LNAV, VNAV, electrical, hydraulic and pneumatic systems and FMS to model. It’s about as complex as it gets in MSFS to date. And it’s all don’t without the need for an external program (running someone else’s code)

 

Who cares if it "runs someone elses code".  The Majestic Q400 also did that , and it is one of the best sim aircraft ever. The things that the 737 have, that you mentioned, the A 320 has also, plus much more that the 737 doesn't have. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Bobsk8

[AnkH 2,266]

What I still do not really get is this display thing: the Fenix app tells me that GPU is not recommended on a single GPU system, yet my 8700K is already struggling with the sim alone. So what should I do? I have plenty of headroom on my 6900XT, so I guess it would still be better to run the displays on the GPU, although the app tells me that it is not recommended, right?

[CrashEd 8]

29 minutes ago, Bobsk8 said:

The things that the 737 have, that you mentioned, the A 320 has also, plus much more that the 737 doesn't have. 

Haha, and you just proved my point. 
Go on then, list them. What…? an EFB Lol. It sits there doing nothing most of the time and probable takes zero cpu cycles whilst doing it. 
 

And the whole point of this discussion is about it running someone else’s code. If you’re running 3rd part code you have no control over it and therefore cannot optimise it!! It’s code written to run across multiple networked PCs. Not on one cpu thread with the sim. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by CrashEd

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

4 minutes ago, AnkH said:

What I still do not really get is this display thing: the Fenix app tells me that GPU is not recommended on a single GPU system, yet my 8700K is already struggling with the sim alone. So what should I do? I have plenty of headroom on my 6900XT, so I guess it would still be better to run the displays on the GPU, although the app tells me that it is not recommended, right?

My understanding is that most GPUs should handle display rendering. Not sure why they have the warning though, maybe someone else can enlighten us. I think most people get CPU-limited by the Fenix, me included. I'm considering a CPU upgrade when the next generation arrives. 

If you have headroom on your GPU, go for it. 

Edited June 3, 2022 by Cpt_Piett

[Bobsk8 12,728]

3 minutes ago, CrashEd said:

Haha, and you just proved my point. 
Go on then, list them. What and EFB Lol. It sits there doing nothing most of the time and probable takes zero cpu cycles whilst doing it. 

The fly by wire tech, which in the real aircraft takes a total of 7 computers to run. The 737 doesn't have any of that. Hey, how is the 737 EFB working for you... LOL Oh that's right, they promised that the 737 EFB will be "soon"...  

Edited June 3, 2022 by Bobsk8

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

25 minutes ago, CrashEd said:

Don’t get me wrong, I love both aircraft. I just find it amusing when everyone thinks the Fenix is some kind of wonder aircraft that no pc can run due to its “complexity”. 

Many people can run the Fenix just fine, but it certainly puts a heavy load on the CPU.  

[Cpt_Piett 4,649]

By the way I'm thinking of writing up a little guide with useful MSFS performance tips and tricks in a separate thread. I don't know how much people are tweaking their settings (I could probably spend less time tweaking lol). But if someone would find it useful I might do it on my next medium-haul flight. I'm planning for Cologne-Skiathos as we speak 🙂

[Tom Wright 438]

I've flown about 6 hours worth of sectors in the 737 over the last couple of days, after about the same time spent in the A320.

I don't feel like the 737 is missing anything over the A320. Even the lack of EFB doesn't really bother me, you can still very easily plan everything in SimBrief and import it into the FMC, including all the PERF figures. Sure, its less complex, but its less complex in the real world!

Both aircraft coexist happily in my sim, and I'm finding actually that I'm using them relatively equally. It's nice to break the process and have a change after a few flights.