Frame rates with payware heavies

[Guest jshyluk]

@ V-4:The way the three-dimensional models are put together in FS9 and FSX requires different techniques, kind of like some aircraft might be happy with one kind of fuel but won't work with another. To take the analogy further, FS9 requires low-octane models, but FSX only runs on high-octane models. You can load FSX with the low-octane stuff, but if you put too much in, it gunks up the engine.The important things are the geometry of the models. With models, you have polygons, which are the most basic shapes, vertexes, which are more or less alignment hard-points, and you have bones, which provide anchors for animations to pivot around. That's it, very basically.In FS9, the limitation was polygons. Polygons are kind of old-school now. You used to have limits as to how many polys you could have on screen at once. Nowadays, that limit is approaching infinity. It's like saying, before all you could fly were Tiger Moths, but now you can fly GlobeMasters. In FSX the limit is based on vertexes (real plural: "vertices"). if you fill up the vertex "hard-points", your processor will bog down. The good news is that a disciplined artist can get rid of vertexes and still have a model that looks exactly the same. The bad news is that this kind of modelling is time-consuming and very technical. It's easier to plop down a house or an elephant that has a million vertices because it's fast to do. The trouble is that if you have a thousand models on screen at once, you multiply the verticies accordingly: in my (facetious) example, that would be a billion vertexes. Somebody has to go in and clean up the models, and that's not fun. Swabbing an aircraft carrier deck looking for FOD would be fifty times more fun. SP2 gives a performance bonus to modellers that use low-vertex techniques. That's why you can boost the autogen in some situations. If the model is created using standard, high-end technique, then SP2 is happy, and will crank out extra models. If the models are all slightly different, they all have non-standard numbers of vertexes or some such, then SP2 gets cranky. Old-style add-ons for FS9 are expecially notorious for this kind of thing. We just didn't know any better back then. Now, FSX is calling those old-style modelling practises to account. Oh, yeah, I forgot about bones. Well, FSX doesn't like a lot of bones, either. Fortunately, you don't need very many for a good model, but if you have an artist who is fresh out of school, or is used to doing crazy anime fantasy animation, they might get sloppy with their bone count. I hope this makes things clearer, and I hope I haven't goofed in my explaination.Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM

[virtualstuff 750]

>In FSX the limit is based on vertexes (real plural:>"vertices"). if you fill up the vertex "hard-points", your>processor will bog down. The good news is that a disciplined>artist can get rid of vertexes and still have a model that>looks exactly the same. The bad news is that this kind of>modelling is time-consuming and very technical. Jeff just curious what is the very time consuming technical way?As for the vertices it's great because we can have a lot more faces(Polygons)in the model know...Thanks,http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/awf1/sign.jpg

[BIGSKY 316]

Can the vertices mod be applied to autogen in the sim?

[Guest V4DIV-CVN-70]

Jeff,I was being sorta funny , BUT you did make it very understandable.> Swabbing an aircraft carrier deck>looking for FOD would be fifty times more fun. Uh, Been there, Done That. Aint Fun!

[Guest thx1137]

I am using MyTraffix X so there are quite a few aircraft that look decent in those framerates. Ther only reason I don't like flying at 15 FPS is because TrackIR isn't so smooth when looking sideways (yes, I am picky). As for stutters, I dunno what really causes them but I have had them at 60FPS (and blurries) so I don't think it is FPS related. The only time I get blurries and stuttering is when I use an external view to check a landing, it doesn't matter if I am getting 15FPS or 60FPS so for me it has nothing to do with FPS. Since I rarely use external views that is very infrequent Anyway for those of us that just want to fly, todays high end machines are fine, if you arn't happy unless your cities look a lot like they do in real life then maybe FS11... I am in both camps personally. Come on ORBX, ya killin me here! :-)Steven.

[bob.bernstein 0]

ty Bill...it helps me integrate the learning to try and teach it.best,Bob

[Guest DC-9]

I would save your money. The new AMD Phenom has some hang-ups. I was considering buying one, but am staying away from it for now. To me, FSX is a lost cause, and the released has bombed. FS9 runs smooth without any hick-ups. I think MS should have just forgone using the old scenery engine and platform and began developing a new platform after FS9 when that engine reached the end of it's useful life. I myself am not going to be feeding any money into FSX, it's addons, or a new system for it; it's throwing good money after bad IMHO, it's just not worth it at this point, if at all. You're right about the latest cutting edge CPU's and hardware not being able to run it decently; I've yet to see someone running the heavies with it and getting acceptable performance. Even developers are cautious of FSX; you surely don't see many addons coming out these days, and if they do, they're real system hogs.

[Guest jshyluk]

I figured that your question wasn't totally serious, but on the other hand nobody here should underestimate my compulsive need to seem clever while online. I don't miss many opportunities to show off. Here's some more (yay!):Cleaning out extra vertices is an important job for a modeller, but it isn't glamorous. Modelling programs like to build models using triangles. Triangles are flat and straight. To make curves, you need many, many tiny triangles to approximate the curve. Basically, you are looking at differential calculus, but that's beyond the scope of my cleverness.I can give you a concrete example of having too many vertices. You need a piece of paper and a pencil and maybe a ruler.Draw a square. Every point that has two straight lines coming out of it is a vertex. The square has four vertices.Recall that computers like drawing with triangles. A square is not a triangle. But you can make a square out of triangles. Take your ruler, and draw a big X inside the square by drawing two diagonal lines from corner to corner. Now you've got 4 triangles, each triangle with 3 vertices for a total of, what? 12 vertices. Same shape, more vertices. You can split each triangle in half. Take your ruler and draw a big + inside the square, so that the center of the + is in the center of the X and so that the vertical and horizontal lines reach the edges of the square. Now you have a square made of 8 triangles. 8 polys with 3 vertices apiece = 24 vertices total. We started with 4 vertices, now we have 24. It's very, very easy to keep adding vertices. It's harder to get rid of them. If we clean out the wrong ones, the shape will fall apart. In my day, it was pretty tough to get rid of extra vertices, but it could be done by deleting polys and running smoother algorythms. Today, there's probably more automation. Still, if you are an artist, and you are completely trusting your career to what your computer is doing, then I say you are playing the fool. Even automated systems make mistakes: GIGO. The computer doesn't care what your model of a Tiger Moth looks like, so what if it has 5 wings and a 30-foot spike emerging from the passenger seat? Sooner or later, cleaning up vertices requires human interaction at the meanest, lowest, most monkey-like level possible. If monkeys aren't available to do the work, interns will do, except that often monkeys are treated better.Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM