v1.27.13.0 New beta build today!

[David Mills 4,734]

Someone please remind me what the graphics problems were on Nvidia cards that demanded the frame-killing DX12 optimization removal? I have an Nvidia card and never noticed anything wrong. But I'm definitely suffering the performance hit now. What was the original problem?

[Cpt_Piett 4,529]

21 minutes ago, Gerwil said:

I would have answered your post if that was the case. The answer to DAD was just a joke

The text you edited out said something about cauch and a little closer to it. I agree, it must be a great simming experience from 91,44 cm 😊 Not a waste of money at all.

Yeah I gathered as much and had a good laugh 🙂 Actually I wasn't planning on using the TV for simming. But after testing it out for a little while it's been hard to return to the monitor. 

Oh yeah, I edited out something like "I should move my couch closer then", after realizing your reply was to DAD and not me 😉

[Cpt_Piett 4,529]

5 minutes ago, David Mills said:

Someone please remind me what the graphics problems were on Nvidia cards that demanded the frame-killing DX12 optimization removal? I have an Nvidia card and never noticed anything wrong. But I'm definitely suffering the performance hit now. What was the original problem?

Since first beta build in DX12 VRAM was exceeded for a large number of users, causing visual glitches and artifacts. The infamous "Elden trees" amongst others. Whatever that means 🤷‍♂️ Users with 3090s didn't experience this and were happy. And are now complaining as the temporary fix - to disable the VRAM memory manager - has caused a performance hit for many. 

[Bdub22 1,608]

Thankfully, all these negative responses to this most current beta build are being documented well across the board. This is the whole reason why we have betas and I'm glad MS/Asobo have implemented these SU Betas. It allows them to get a lot more test points and then have a smoother rollout when it finally happens. 

[Bobsk8 12,546]

2 hours ago, Tuskin38 said:

They've been logging and fixing things that have been reported.

If you are going to quote me, why don't you post what I said in it's entirety before you edit out the first part of of my post  so you can spin it the way you want?    This is what I said prior to your edit.

 

My guess, having been a beta tester for years, is that much of the "testing" done now is worthless as far as reporting back to Asobo, so they can fix things. 

Edited August 6, 2022 by Bobsk8

[March Hare 720]

4 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

Since first beta build in DX12 VRAM was exceeded for a large number of users, causing visual glitches and artifacts.

I don't think the glitches were caused by VRAM being exceeded per se.

First reason being that people were reporting the glitches whose physical VRAM was far from being utilised.

Usually, all that happens when you exceed physical VRAM is you will get a frame rate/frame time hit as it switches to using slower virtual memory and main RAM, which you might not even notice if you were already capping performance at low frame rates. This switching is usually handled by the main operating system, to the best of my knowledge.

As you know, the glitches were assets (trees, etc.,) being displayed in the wrong place at the wrong time, which strongly indicates memory calls being mixed up, stacks not being cleared, etc. -- which is also memory management.

[penta_a 428]

best experience I had was with SU10 beta 2 using DX12, only issue I had was with HDR (secondary thing to me), came beta 3, had to go back to DX11 (DX12 no go), not a single full flight so far (there is some sort of a different problem every flight), well, it's a beta after all and I will wait for the next beta release (if any), never the less, many thanks to MS, ASOBO and all testers for trying to make things better.

Edited August 6, 2022 by penta_a
spelling correction

[MrFuzzy 2,117]

6 hours ago, David Mills said:

Someone please remind me what the graphics problems were on Nvidia cards that demanded the frame-killing DX12 optimization removal? I have an Nvidia card and never noticed anything wrong. But I'm definitely suffering the performance hit now. What was the original problem?

Artifacts experienced by people with less than 16 GB of VRAM caused the removal of VRAM optimizations. VRAM now gets flushed periodically as it fills up instead of keeping assets in.

I too switched back to DX11, it's just faster and smoother at the moment.

Edited August 6, 2022 by MrFuzzy

[SubtotalGuide 133]

Someone said it best on the official forums. This sim is becoming more of a benchmark tool than a simulator. All talk about performance instead of driving forward the simulator and graphical quality aspects. When will people be happy? When the sim can run at 120FPS on a low-end PC with "Ultra" settings?

  

12 hours ago, rjquick said:

Do the beta testers have a unique portal for reporting issues back to Asobo/Microsoft?

It does seem as though some are volunteering as beta testers and either do not understand what a beta tester is or are volunteering just to benefit from 'advanced features' and get disgruntled when something doesn't work right. A beta tester should be reporting problems they find with as much detail as possible and not complaining that there are bugs. It is already understood that some things probably will not be working correctly, that is the entire point of beta testing. There should be a good means by which beta testers can communicate their findings to the developer other than forum posts.

Beta testers are still at the mercy of Community Managers' ability to understand and deem a bug worthy to forward to the developers. Because of this many bugs are never logged during the beta and left to rot. There is no direct line to the developers on the forums, only a line of guards.

Edited August 6, 2022 by SubtotalGuide

[martinboehme 492]

1 hour ago, March Hare said:

Usually, all that happens when you exceed physical VRAM is you will get a frame rate/frame time hit as it switches to using slower virtual memory and main RAM, which you might not even notice if you were already capping performance at low frame rates. This switching is usually handled by the main operating system, to the best of my knowledge.

This is true in DX11 but not DX12 - it's one of the big differences between the two.

In DX12, when you run out of VRAM, you simply can't allocate any more textures. If you want some kind of virtual memory mechanism, you have to implement it yourself. The idea is that you can get "closer to the metal", but it does place an extra burden on the programmer to manage memory that isn't necessary in DX11. 

 

[MrFuzzy 2,117]

10 minutes ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Someone said it best on the official forums. This sim is becoming more of a benchmark tool than a simulator. All talk about performance instead of driving forward the simulator and graphical quality aspects. When will people be happy? When the sim can run at 120FPS on a low-end PC with "Ultra" settings?

Performance is one of the parameters. But when you cripple performance WITHOUT any visual benefits and WITHOUT the possibility to choose whether or not use some features, that's not a good thing for the users.

We have no issues with XBox and mid range GPUs, but hopefully they will understand that the PC world needs scalability. 

[Sky_Pilot071 579]

1 hour ago, March Hare said:

I don't think the glitches were caused by VRAM being exceeded per se.

First reason being that people were reporting the glitches whose physical VRAM was far from being utilised.

Usually, all that happens when you exceed physical VRAM is you will get a frame rate/frame time hit as it switches to using slower virtual memory and main RAM, which you might not even notice if you were already capping performance at low frame rates. This switching is usually handled by the main operating system, to the best of my knowledge.

As you know, the glitches were assets (trees, etc.,) being displayed in the wrong place at the wrong time, which strongly indicates memory calls being mixed up, stacks not being cleared, etc. -- which is also memory management.

Makes me wonder if 32gig of main ram - which I have - is good for DX12.

sp

[abrams_tank 7,393]

41 minutes ago, SubtotalGuide said:

Beta testers are still at the mercy of Community Managers' ability to understand and deem a bug worthy to forward to the developers. Because of this many bugs are never logged during the beta and left to rot. There is no direct line to the developers on the forums, only a line of guards.

In a big company like Asobo though, this is the best way to deal with so many bug reports. If the developers spent all their time in the forums responding to bug reports, they wouldn't have any time left to fix the problem. We want the developers to spend more time fixing bugs, than typing up posts responding to forum posters.  For much smaller games, where the community is much smaller, and the bug reports are much less frequent, I think it's okay for the developers to respond directly to the users of the game. For a large company like Asobo with such a huge community with MSFS, and the huge volume of bug reports, it's just chaos if there isn't a layer between the developers and users, such as the Community Managers.

Having said that, I'm pretty sure Asobo and Jorg, do read through the bug reports in the forum, especially the beta forum.  They may not respond to the topics in the forum, but they likely read the posts in the forum, to figure out how to reproduce a specific bug.

Edited August 6, 2022 by abrams_tank

[abrams_tank 7,393]

54 minutes ago, MrFuzzy said:

Artifacts experienced by people with less than 16 GB of VRAM caused the removal of VRAM optimizations. VRAM now gets flushed periodically as it fills up instead of keeping assets in.

I too switched back to DX11, it's just faster and smoother at the moment.

To be honest, I don't expect everything to run smoothly and be ironed out in DirectX 12 this year. This is my expectation, maybe Asobo will exceed my expectation, but I doubt it. More likely, it will be next year when things run smoothly in DirectX 12. It will probably take Asobo several Sim Updates, to get DirectX 12 working smooth and properly.  Low level memory management is a tricky thing, and it's probably not easy to program.  I will probably stay on DirectX 11, and just wait for Asobo to iron out the issues with DirectX 12, until it runs bug free and smooth. I expect that even with SU 11 in the fall, there may still be some issues with DirectX 12.

[SubtotalGuide 133]

1 hour ago, abrams_tank said:

We want the developers to spend more time fixing bugs, than typing up posts responding to forum posters.

All for naught if the bugs are archived and never passed on, or worse, passed on incorrectly because it was misunderstood. CM's or those managing the reported bug topics must be technical and knowledgeable about the inner workings of the sim, not be drip-fed information on a need-to-know basis. Nothing much will improve from a user's perspective if they insist on keep doing it the current way. In two years time we will still be asking why the ever-growing list of bugs and regressions are not a priority. During Q&As (if they still feel like having them) we will still get blank stares from the devs hearing about an issue reported months ago for the first time. But maybe none of this matters to them in the long run. Only insiders would know.

Edited August 6, 2022 by SubtotalGuide