Strange fps behavior FSX SP2 DX10

[Guest chocy]

Hey guysWell I am apparently new because I have been dorment for a while.Anyway I have been picking up FS again and it's great!!I have been following David's post about smoothing out FPS which was great help to make it better for my own issuesanyway so far it is a lot better now but I just can't seem to resolve this one problemI get pretty good frame rate around 20+fps in non busy airport and around 10 in busy ones without too much micro stutter and it is pretty great(any where including above the water) for a little while but after about half an hour into the flight my fsx begins to stutter like crazy above water @ 30000feet + it begins to fluxuate from 3fps to 30fps creating massive micro stutter. Funny part is by the time I decend to below 10000, the stutter again is not so bad and above ground it is smooth again.i have tried eveyrhing including TBW change etc.any help would be appriciated (especially David Roch ;)My gearE6750 @ 3.2Ghz Gigabyte P35 DS3P @(400 FSB)4 X 1GB Patriot low latency (4-4-4-12)eVGA 8800GT 512MB (OCed 720MHz core 1800Mhz Shader 1998Mhz Mem)500GB Samsung Dell 2405fpw 24" wide 1920X1200Vista x64fsx.cfg doesn't have anything like David mentioned in his postTBW = 70nothing added (fresh fsx.cfg)other settings are pretty much same as David's last post.

[David Roch 1,982]

Hi Chocy,Thanks for the credit you give me but I am not sure I can be very helpful on this one!But let's try to understand the problem. 1) does this happens only above water? (if yes, try with lower water settings)2) only in DX10 preview?3) have you tried lowering the visibility (menu World>Weather>Customize)?In order to isolate the problem to be sure it's not a hardware issue, I also suggest that:- you save your eVGA o/c and roll back to normal settings and see what happens.- you save your BIOS settings and roll back to default (including RAM latency) and see what happens. (your CPU o/c @ 3.2 Ghz is very safe but who knows...?)- you try with the previous WHQL Nvidia driver (163.69).Regards,David

[Guest chocy]

Thanks for the adviseI have tried a few things1. Yes it only happens when I am viewing large portion of water at high altitude (it is smooth up to 15000 feet on take off and below 5000feet on landing)for example on spot view if I am flying along the shore it would be fluid looking toward the land but all stuttery looking at the water.this applies to the cockpit view also (hense the real problem)But this isn't always the case. If I take off from a less busy area, the it some times will let me fly the entire way smoothly even flying above FL300. The water is set at mid 2.X and have tried low 2.x without much change in FPS. But it is smooth at high 1.X2. Yes this seem to happen only in DX 10 mode. In DX 9 mode, I actually get lower FPS near the airports (but without too much micro stutter) compared to flying DX10 but I get much higer FPS high altitude even above the pond (30+ FPS mid 2.X)3. Yes I have lowered the visibility and even tried the simple cloud and this has much less impact than the water itself.--I have rolled back the OC on both my comp. and the vis. but it doesn't seem to change anything. Plus my current setup has passed torture tests with flying color. (Prime95, ATi tool Artifact scan) at my current setting.I would love to try the 163.69 but it seems that version does not support my brand new 8800GT. I am leaning toward the driver problem at this point. I just can't seem to explain it. It seems that once my vram is full it begins to stutter (at least feels that way)Oh when I make the FSX in window mode and make it small (800 X600)ish, it doesn't have any stutter then. Anyway David. I know you don't have all the answers, but thanks for trying to help. If you have any more idea what I could do, it would be very appriciated.Thanks

[PhilTaylor 45]

This would indicate you are memory or pixel bound. Water 2.x adds a 2nd pass to generate the reflection, and as you go from .lo to .mid to .hi the objects used to generate the reflection increase.So when you have a lot of pixels being water and having this processing occuring across them, you see the behavior. A hint that this is true is the reduction of the viewport size, which reduces the number of pixels that get this processing.Yes, once VRAM is full and swapping occurs stutters can happen. Reduce your settings when this happens.Perhaps the memory bandwidth, texture fill, or number of stream processors on the GT vs GTX is causing this behavior since they are all lower.

[HUSSAR 272]

Isn't FSX built like most other programs where the ground textures are set atop the water and no matter where you are FPS is affected as your computer is processing everything even though the water is not visible?Or have things changed in FSX?Thanks,

[David Roch 1,982]

You are most welcome.I really wish we could find a solution.The 8800GT cards are very good boards and with your powerfull PC you shouldn't have this kind of problems.Some more ideas...- I assume you already did that but have you installed all Vista/Nvidia compatibility updates? (you can find them here:http://www.nvidia.com/object/windows_vista_hotfixes.html)- Also, try to limit the fps to 22 or even 20. It really helps getting rid of stutters in DX10 preview.- I have read that driver 169.12 gives the best results for new GT cards.(Beta driver though but seems very stable) Maybe worth trying them if you didn't already .Best regards,

[jcboliveira 1]

I don't have the problem, at least during the tests that I made.Just tested with a default weather, over the pacific near KSEA, 38000ft, 45min flight.My fsx.cfg[GRAPHICS]TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024NUM_LIGHTS=8AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=1AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1LANDING_LIGHTS=1AC_SELF_SHADOW=0EFFECTS_QUALITY=2GROUND_SHADOWS=0[sCENERY]LENSFLARE=1DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=3[DISPLAY]BLOOM_EFFECTS=1SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=30UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=20[PANELS]QUICKTIPS=1PANEL_OPACITY=100[TERRAIN]LOD_RADIUS=3.500000MESH_COMPLEXITY=70MESH_RESOLUTION=20TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=25AUTOGEN_DENSITY=2DETAIL_TEXTURE=1WATER_EFFECTS=5[WEATHER]CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3DETAILED_CLOUDS=1CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=6THERMAL_VISUALS=0DownloadWindsAloft=0DisableTurbulence=0[TrafficManager]AirlineDensity=20GADensity=14FreewayDensity=0ShipsAndFerriesDensity=30LeisureBoatsDensity=30IFROnly=0AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=2My nhancerhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/181329.zipAll Vista hotfixes installed, 169.12 beta driversJos