A weird P3d performance ANALOGY!

[spilok 1,132]

OK.  Here goes!  I thought about something today while flying in P3dv5.3.  I REALLY can make it work pretty flawlessly when I want to.  I'll tell you how I do it (which most of you probably know), but first...MY ANALOGY:

DONATING BLOOD - I've been donating blood for over 25 years and I feel really good about it.  Not only does it help save someone's life perhaps, but it's just so important to keep the blood bank in our countries well stocked.  Who knows?  Maybe YOU will need blood some day.  My physician told me years ago that getting rid of a pint of blood is like an "oil change" in a car.  It's really good for the car, and it's really good for the body.  The body gets to manufacture NEW blood and that can only help your overall health in many ways.  If you are able to do it, I encourage you to do it.  Painless and good for the Soul!

P3d - Getting rid of the old and tired P3d Cfg works wonders every so often.  I always do it when I change graphic drivers.  I also found out the using DDU is, for me, NOT the way to go.  Whenever I use DDU, P3d does not work well in that occasional blurries seem to occur and other anomalies.  I just do what Nvidia recommends:  I load the new driver and let Nvidia uninstall and reinstall.  THIS ALWAYS works flawlessly and P3d NEVER has a problem...smooth as silk and Zero blurries on coast to coast flights (just did one today from Pennsylvania to Arizona...perfect all the way).

So, when you change drivers, consider letting P3d create a new Cfg file.  It's like a wonderful blood donation...it's like an oil change, and it really does work wonders (for me)!

That's my weird ANALOGY for what it's worth.

Stan

Edited June 22, 2022 by spilok

[David Vega 348]

Good one Stan. 

[coastaldriver 915]

I think this is correct and sound advice! Since I have been using P3DV5 (+)I noticed that over time it gets out of whack or lets say sluggish, misreads things or loses its stability. Because I swap in and out addons frequently I knew this was a possible cause, as were the NVIDIA driver updates but let us not forget the MS is continuously updating and altering the OS Windows on you as well. I noted that P3D is very good at setting itself up based on the data in its various tables and lists, where they are etc etc. Frankly after awhile to use spiloks analogy it is like the oil in a motor vehicle passing through a filter that accumulates goo and removes sludge and particles (fragments of old files). Deleting the config, rebuilding it and just a few minutes resetting the parameters I use for my system for World, Graphics and Lighting always brings P3D up fresh and running just fine again. 

Sound advice spilok! and very good tip!

[chapstick 2,757]

Deleting the cfg only has an effect if you have a bad setting, so just stop putting in bad settings and you won’t need to delete it all the time. Anyway, it’s usually a placebo like most of the “tips” posted here.

[spilok 1,132]

1 hour ago, Chapstick said:

Deleting the cfg only has an effect if you have a bad setting, so just stop putting in bad settings and you won’t need to delete it all the time. Anyway, it’s usually a placebo like most of the “tips” posted here.

TOTALLY disagree, respectfully! You will never convince me of that.

Stan

[Luke 782]

1 minute ago, spilok said:

TOTALLY disagree, respectfully! You will never convince me of that.

You can believe what you want to believe.

What may be interesting is to do a diff between the INI files and see what's changed when there's a noticeable improvement. That takes things out of the realm of cargo cult and into empirical data.

Cheers!

[coastaldriver 915]

I keep backup copies of all my P3D configs. The file size reverts to 21.5 kb when it is a fresh copy. The cfg file gets bigger and bigger over time (it bloats by about 20%) even though i make no changes to the settings I use which are tailored to my GPU, CPU and Monitor. A comparison shows no specific changes to configuration but the way P3D works does. I have had several instances of after an NVIDIA update or me moving stuff about P3D just fails to start at all it will just sit there for hours if you let. Delete the config file, let it build a new one, readust the critical settings and it works perfectly again. 

By the way I have a lot of settings on ultra and high use a lot of high level scenery and some pretty demanding aircraft models - always the same runs smooth as silk, no blurries, no stalling due to GPU overload. 

 

 

[Juliett Alfa Romeo 517]

I use three cfgs: IFR, VFR, IFR for super-heavy scenery/addons.

Minimum 30FPS and VRAM available in all situations.

[Christopher Low 5,332]

I run P3Dv4.5HF2 at Extremely Dense Scenery Complexity and Autogen Density settings, and grit my teeth during the stutters.

[KL Oo 695]

8 hours ago, spilok said:

TOTALLY disagree, respectfully! You will never convince me of that.

Stan

So out of interest, what settings do you believe are being implemented by the 'bad' CFG that are suddenly removed when you create a new one? 

[Rogen 1,087]

4.5HF3 for me.

I do have 5.3 and am in the throws of building a test rig to trial it all out.

I've a highly modified config as a base and separate custom configs for high load situations.

Also run custom shaders for the look I desire.

I certainly never delete the main config itself since it's only a ini file really, that said I do back it up prior to making changes I want to test with, just in case I manage to stuff it all up and need to revert and start again.

But for the most it's a super smooth 30 hz (fps) vsync all the way and in some areas 60 hz (fps) is easily achievable.

The trick is to ensure your hardware is up to the task and that means the more powerful the hardware the better the operation.

Trees as far as the eye can see 🙂

 

 

 

Edited June 23, 2022 by Rogen

[Sparkrite 188]

13 hours ago, spilok said:

is like an "oil change" in a car.  It's really good for the car,

While it may be 'good' for the car, it won't make it run any better ! If there is another fault in the car it's still there no matter how many times you change the oil.

Just like renewing an '.ini ' file wont make P3D run any better, that is unless there was an error in it to begin with.

[coastaldriver 915]

The way I understand what is happening is this. The config merely is a tabular list of commands to the program to run a variety of subscripts in a particular way or at a particular level. The exe for P3D starts and then reads that configuration and then begins to load all these files according to the internal logic and scripting of P3Ds kernel or engine. There are some minor alterations that P3D obviously makes if you changes things (addons and scenery or shaders for example). The issue is not P3D making a mess of things it is Windows 10 and all the programs and applications you have additional to P3D. Every time you use the PC you are engaging in the MS daisy chain logic process which has been its core problem from MS DOS days. They never were able to initiate a hub-spoke kernel system say like UNIX or MAC or LINUX. Then you have the issue of how reliable your CPU is how many threads, core speeds and processing capacity then of course you have the memory devices that store all this code from the motherboard to the hard drives. If you add to or delete stuff you change the memory block allocation and you end up with a degree of data fragmentation.

So P3D starts off with a clear path where it finds the files based on its own logic and then gets going. Then you get a windows update or maybe your browser is updated or your mail program not to mention NVIDIA's drivers so a little ways along in time your sim is now finding it harder to find all the files or the file structure itself is now dispersed because an area near it or part of it has been grabbed to write or store something else. This is why I believe that letting the exe program now and then rebuild the config based on the system status at the time makes sense the indexing is now pristine again! Proof of this mess is that I can get 3 different readings of available storage space on my SSD after a major clean up or program removal session that may not resolve itself until a restart is undertaken. Windows and Google both are storing and moving stuff constantly in the background!

Some may remember Nicks FSX Bible which was a MS Engineers how to to set up your PC to run FSX. It dealt with all these issues. LM P3D is still FSX now a 64 bit system albiet with lots of additional enhancements but a lot of the operating systems issues that Nick identified with MS are still there! No matter how good P3D is and it requires virtually no maintenance or tweaking at all IMHO but Windows oh dear it is still the Windows of old underneath.

Edited June 23, 2022 by coastaldriver

[spilok 1,132]

6 hours ago, coastaldriver said:

I keep backup copies of all my P3D configs. The file size reverts to 21.5 kb when it is a fresh copy. The cfg file gets bigger and bigger over time (it bloats by about 20%) even though i make no changes to the settings I use which are tailored to my GPU, CPU and Monitor. A comparison shows no specific changes to configuration but the way P3D works does. I have had several instances of after an NVIDIA update or me moving stuff about P3D just fails to start at all it will just sit there for hours if you let. Delete the config file, let it build a new one, readust the critical settings and it works perfectly again. 

By the way I have a lot of settings on ultra and high use a lot of high level scenery and some pretty demanding aircraft models - always the same runs smooth as silk, no blurries, no stalling due to GPU overload. 

 

 

Exactly!  The Cfg gets really "bloated" over time and with use.  It MUST be cleansed (IMO).

Edited June 23, 2022 by spilok

[spilok 1,132]

3 hours ago, KL Oo said:

So out of interest, what settings do you believe are being implemented by the 'bad' CFG that are suddenly removed when you create a new one? 

Just check out your config when its brand new, and then when it's been used over many flights.  Do you see any difference?  Does one seem more bloated than the other.  Could that affect speed and performance?