MSFS 2020 Auto FPS App

[FalconAF 213]

2 minutes ago, GSalden said:

LOL  It was meant cynical.

Just a few pages ago it was said that this thread went very well with good contributions and no “fighting” about things.

 

 

OK, my bad on the interpretation of it. A "Hazard of Written Communications".

[Harrier77 66]

2 hours ago, Reset XPDR said:

I have updated the AutoFPS readme in preparation for the imminent release of 0.4.2

I like the readme, it seems very clear.

[Cpt_Piett 4,919]

I’ve read through the readme and in general I think it’s very well written. By that I mean that it’s sufficiently succinct and not overly technical. In fact I was afraid it'd be much longer! I'm glad it's not. 

As you know I’ve followed the development phase of AutoFPS from the start, so I’m relatively familiar with most terms. As such I might be somewhat biased compared to people who are new to the app.

I did find a few items that for me seemed a bit unclear, or could possibly be rewritten slightly.

Installation / Update / Uninstall

"Basically: Just run the Installer to do all three of these."

Does this refer to the above mentioned software? If so, I could only see two. Previous section: 

Quote

The Installer will install the following Software:

• .NET 7 Desktop Runtime (x64)
• MobiFlight Event/WASM Module

"The utility may be blocked by Windows Security or your AV-Scanner, try if unblocking and/or setting an Exception helps (for the whole Folder)"

I’d suggest rewriting the last part of the sentence to: "if so try to unblock or set an exception"

Usage / Configuration

Target FPS - The most important setting in this app

"If you use an FPS cap, or Vsync for the same purpose, you will need to set your target FPS to be a few FPS lower than that cap."  

Not 10% like you previously suggested IIRC?

Flight type - IFR

"Exactly like the old TLOD Min on ground/landing option whereby your TLOD will be locked to either a pre-determined (non-expert) or user-selectable (expert) TLOD Min."

Perhaps not necessary to refer to the old term as most new users will not be familiar with the development phase.

MSFS Settings

I think you mean expert settings.

"FPS Sensitivity - Determines how sensitive the app will be to variance from your target FPS before it will adjust MSFS settings to achieve the target FPS and what nominal magnitude those changes will be. The lower the setting, the more reactive the app will be, the more MSFS settings changes will occur and the changes will be smaller. Vice versa for higher settings. When expert settings are disabled, the default value of 5 should provide the most balanced experience"

Perhaps not necessary to reiterate non-expert settings here as you already listed them in the previous section. This goes for all the different expert settings that you elaborate on. People who have come this far in the readme will probably already have read the above section (General - Use Expert Options)

TLOD Min with optional +

"When + is checked or is enabled by default in non-expert mode, your TLOD Min will increase by 50 if system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS to provide addition graphics quality with this additional performance."

I found the last part of this sentence a bit awkward to read, although I understand what you’re saying. I’ll go make myself a coffee and perhaps return with a suggested alternative. I’ll also come back to edit this post to make it a bit tidier.

Sorry for the red colour - I feel a bit like an unreasonably strict primary school teacher now 🙂

Edited March 15 by Cpt_Piett

[Adamski_NZ 972]

4 minutes ago, Cpt_Piett said:

When + is checked or is enabled by default in non-expert mode, your TLOD Min will increase by 50 if system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS to provide addition graphics quality with this additional performance.

I found this paragraph a bit awkward to read, although I understand what you’re saying. I’ll go make myself a coffee and perhaps return with a suggested alternative. I’ll also come back to edit this post to make it a bit tidier.

How about <?>:

When + is checked (or is enabled by default in non-expert mode) and if your system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS, then your TLOD Min will increase by 50 - giving you additional graphics quality.

[Cpt_Piett 4,919]

7 minutes ago, Adamski_NZ said:

When + is checked (or is enabled by default in non-expert mode) and if your system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS, then your TLOD Min will increase by 50 - giving you additional graphics quality.

Much better!

[Corsten 77]

What im seeing with all of these lod apps, terrain/tree pop ups are too visible, specially in VR. So i will test this weekend dynamiclod only with OLOD enabled. I hope it will get some fps for me. 

 

There was tlod values explained in msfs forum, the steps. Like 126 was level 6, 151 was level 7 etc. So there is wide cap between changes. Cant find the table anymore.

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I’ve read through the readme and in general I think it’s very well written. By that I mean that it’s sufficiently succinct and not overly technical. In fact I was afraid it'd be much longer! I'm glad it's not. 

As you know I’ve followed the development phase of AutoFPS from the start, so I’m relatively familiar with most terms. As such I might be somewhat biased compared to people who are new to the app.

I did find a few items that for me seemed a bit unclear, or could possibly be rewritten slightly.

Installation / Update / Uninstall

"Basically: Just run the Installer to do all three of these."

Does this refer to the above mentioned software? If so, I could only see two. Previous section: 

"The utility may be blocked by Windows Security or your AV-Scanner, try if unblocking and/or setting an Exception helps (for the whole Folder)"

I’d suggest rewriting the last part of the sentence to: "if so try to unblock or set an exception"

Usage / Configuration

Target FPS - The most important setting in this app

"If you use an FPS cap, or Vsync for the same purpose, you will need to set your target FPS to be a few FPS lower than that cap."  

Not 10% like you previously suggested IIRC?

Flight type - IFR

"Exactly like the old TLOD Min on ground/landing option whereby your TLOD will be locked to either a pre-determined (non-expert) or user-selectable (expert) TLOD Min."

Perhaps not necessary to refer to the old term as most new users will not be familiar with the development phase.

MSFS Settings

I think you mean expert settings.

"FPS Sensitivity - Determines how sensitive the app will be to variance from your target FPS before it will adjust MSFS settings to achieve the target FPS and what nominal magnitude those changes will be. The lower the setting, the more reactive the app will be, the more MSFS settings changes will occur and the changes will be smaller. Vice versa for higher settings. When expert settings are disabled, the default value of 5 should provide the most balanced experience"

Perhaps not necessary to reiterate non-expert settings here as you already listed them in the previous section. This goes for all the different expert settings that you elaborate on. People who have come this far in the readme will probably already have read the above section (General - Use Expert Options)

TLOD Min with optional +

"When + is checked or is enabled by default in non-expert mode, your TLOD Min will increase by 50 if system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS to provide addition graphics quality with this additional performance."

I found the last part of this sentence a bit awkward to read, although I understand what you’re saying. I’ll go make myself a coffee and perhaps return with a suggested alternative. I’ll also come back to edit this post to make it a bit tidier.

Sorry for the red colour - I feel a bit like an unreasonably strict primary school teacher now 🙂

Thanks for reviewing the readme in such detail. I'm doing a group flight ATM, but will look at your suggested changes and will amend as appropriate.

Edited March 15 by Reset XPDR

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

1 hour ago, Cpt_Piett said:

I’ve read through the readme and in general I think it’s very well written. By that I mean that it’s sufficiently succinct and not overly technical. In fact I was afraid it'd be much longer! I'm glad it's not. 

As you know I’ve followed the development phase of AutoFPS from the start, so I’m relatively familiar with most terms. As such I might be somewhat biased compared to people who are new to the app.

I did find a few items that for me seemed a bit unclear, or could possibly be rewritten slightly.

Installation / Update / Uninstall

"Basically: Just run the Installer to do all three of these."

Does this refer to the above mentioned software? If so, I could only see two. Previous section: 

"The utility may be blocked by Windows Security or your AV-Scanner, try if unblocking and/or setting an Exception helps (for the whole Folder)"

I’d suggest rewriting the last part of the sentence to: "if so try to unblock or set an exception"

Usage / Configuration

Target FPS - The most important setting in this app

"If you use an FPS cap, or Vsync for the same purpose, you will need to set your target FPS to be a few FPS lower than that cap."  

Not 10% like you previously suggested IIRC?

Flight type - IFR

"Exactly like the old TLOD Min on ground/landing option whereby your TLOD will be locked to either a pre-determined (non-expert) or user-selectable (expert) TLOD Min."

Perhaps not necessary to refer to the old term as most new users will not be familiar with the development phase.

MSFS Settings

I think you mean expert settings.

"FPS Sensitivity - Determines how sensitive the app will be to variance from your target FPS before it will adjust MSFS settings to achieve the target FPS and what nominal magnitude those changes will be. The lower the setting, the more reactive the app will be, the more MSFS settings changes will occur and the changes will be smaller. Vice versa for higher settings. When expert settings are disabled, the default value of 5 should provide the most balanced experience"

Perhaps not necessary to reiterate non-expert settings here as you already listed them in the previous section. This goes for all the different expert settings that you elaborate on. People who have come this far in the readme will probably already have read the above section (General - Use Expert Options)

TLOD Min with optional +

"When + is checked or is enabled by default in non-expert mode, your TLOD Min will increase by 50 if system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS to provide addition graphics quality with this additional performance."

I found the last part of this sentence a bit awkward to read, although I understand what you’re saying. I’ll go make myself a coffee and perhaps return with a suggested alternative. I’ll also come back to edit this post to make it a bit tidier.

Sorry for the red colour - I feel a bit like an unreasonably strict primary school teacher now 🙂

All changes implemented. Very good find for all of them. I was going cross-eyed reading it for the millionth time 🤪😄

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

1 hour ago, Adamski_NZ said:

How about <?>:

When + is checked (or is enabled by default in non-expert mode) and if your system is achieving 15% or greater FPS than your target FPS, then your TLOD Min will increase by 50 - giving you additional graphics quality.

I used this, minus the mention of non-expert mode to be consistent with the changes @Cpt_Piettsuggested about not mentioning non-expert stuff in the expert section.

I think it is reading pretty good now. Thanks @Adamski_NZ!

[Corsten 77]

1 hour ago, Corsten said:

What im seeing with all of these lod apps, terrain/tree pop ups are too visible, specially in VR. So i will test this weekend dynamiclod only with OLOD enabled. I hope it will get some fps for me. 

 

There was tlod values explained in msfs forum, the steps. Like 126 was level 6, 151 was level 7 etc. So there is wide cap between changes. Cant find the table anymore.

Now i did find the post and the graphs from msfs forum. I dont know, is those still working values, but interesting still. Original test were made 2021 and that topic doesent exits anymore. Maevy this would help users to use LOD levels?

 

Terrain LOD Level
TLOD ≤ 95 Level 1
TLOD = 100 Level 2
TLOD = 105 Level 3
TLOD = 150 Level 4
TLOD = 205 Level 5
TLOD = 270 Level 6
TLOD = 345 Level 7

Conclusion
The Terrain Level of Detail seems to be almost indistinguishable when the values are in the same level at short/medium (long in some cases) distances.
This means, TLOD 150 is visually the same as TLOD 200. Including all the TLOD values in between. At long distances between the lowest and highest value of the same level there could be a little bit more of… you guess it, trees (luckily they are everywhere).

Meaning that if we set or TLOD to 200 thinking that we will gain an incredible visual fidelity over TLOD 150 we would have just lost performance with not very much of a visual gain. Precisely a 4.9% in performance lost. Maybe it could mean nothing to some, but when it comes to the MSFS every fps% counts and for others this could be decisive in other to have a good and fluid visual experience.

Terrain LOD Perf. Lost
Lv.3 105 - 145 4.9%
Lv.4 150 - 200 9.5%
Lv.5 205 - 265 11.8%
Lv.6 270 - 340 8.4%
Lv.7 345 - 400 5.5%
As you can see, some are really drastic and are not worthy to waste resources for a “wrong” setting.

How is all this information relevant in what TLOD setting to choose?

Well, if you are at TLOD 95, just give it two more notches and and try to increase your TLOD to 105. The visual difference is quite appreciable and you would only lose 1.1% in performance. If you are at TLOD 100 it would be even less performance lost for a real visual change. If you are set to TLOD 200, go for TLOD 205 to jump to Level 5. In the worst case scenario you would chose TLOD 265 to have the same visual impact that TLOD 205 but would have lost 11.8% in performance.

 

 

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

2 hours ago, Cpt_Piett said:

"If you use an FPS cap, or Vsync for the same purpose, you will need to set your target FPS to be a few FPS lower than that cap."  

Not 10% like you previously suggested IIRC?

Flight type - IFR

"Exactly like the old TLOD Min on ground/landing option whereby your TLOD will be locked to either a pre-determined (non-expert) or user-selectable (expert) TLOD Min."

Perhaps not necessary to refer to the old term as most new users will not be familiar with the development phase.

Re these specific suggestions, the 10% lower suggestion is no longer valid since I got rid of FPS tolerance with the new TLOD change formula. Even a target FPS of just 1 FPS lower than an FPS cap should allow TLOD changes, hence the revised wording here.

Re the old option, I do still want to keep that in there because the initial 0.4.0 and the current 0.4.1 versions both use that terminology so suddenly changing to new terminology without reference to the old that most non-test world users are familiar with would, as we say in Australia, just not be cricket. 😄As such, I am going to keep it in there but reword it slightly as follows:

Exactly like the TLOD Min on ground/landing option from app versions prior to 0.4.2 whereby your TLOD will be locked to either a pre-determined (non-expert) or user-selectable (expert) TLOD Min.

Edited March 15 by Reset XPDR

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

Another late breaking change I will put in the release version relates to Auto Target FPS. I have found with a couple of flights recently that the 95% of average FPS for the target works well for IFR but doesn't given enough head room for the extra performance you should be getting when flying VFR and I have found with the latter that the calculated FPS is a little too high.

As such, I have changed the Auto Target FPS calculation to take a further 5% off for VFR flights, so your ground auto target FPS will be 90% of your current average. In a couple of VFR flights I have done with it like this, I have found the calculated target FPS is much more appropriate and it fairly easily puts you in to TLOD Min + to make use of the extra performance you get in such flights. I don't think it is worth putting out another test build for this as most of you don't use Auto Target FPS and I think I can test it thoroughly enough on my system as it is a fairly limited change.

The readme has been updated to explain the IFR and VFR difference for the Auto Target FPS calculation.

[grandfred29 181]

Hello

In ms setting i use unlimited fps and under nvidia app fps are limited to 100.

Your software take in count my 100 fps when auto fps is use?

Thanks

[ark4diusz 328]

Hello, I am giving a shot for this app thank you Reset XPDR for the tremendeous work. 

Its difficult to read all thread, so have one question. What target FPS / Auto target FPS should I use in app if I have RTX 4080 (so native frame generation) and G-SYNC ultimate 144 Hz monitor?

Edited March 15 by ark4diusz

[Reset XPDR 1,372]

59 minutes ago, grandfred29 said:

Hello

In ms setting i use unlimited fps and under nvidia app fps are limited to 100.

Your software take in count my 100 fps when auto fps is use?

Thanks

As long as you set your target FPS to 10% below this for the current 0.4.1 release version, or if you wait until 0.4.2 gets released tomorrow when it changes to a couple of FPS below your FPS limit, then yes.