I need your help! FSX Topo Issue

[Guest]

Calling all experts. I recently purchased FTX and have had problems with poor FPS. I think this is system related as I also have similar issues with the RedBaron New Zealand Roads & Rivers.I noticed a lot of people have said there is very little difference in frame rates between FTX and default FSX.Before install I could fly over Sydney with exactly quite high settings at a very nice 25-35fps. Averaging around 30fps most of the time. When I swtiched to FTX I get a miserable 12-16fps. Literally half what I used to get. Yes there is quite a lot of buildings in FTX but I didn't expect such a massive hit. Even in rural areas it isn't great.I have a feeling it has something to do with topographical data. I also have a New Zealand Topo (Roads & Rivers) that places roads, river, lakes, and pylons all in their exact location. When using this I get a MASSIVE fps hit.To give an example regarding the NZ Topo. With Road Traffic set to 0% I get 16-20fps on a takeoff run from NZAA with the Ultralite. If I disable to the Topo I get 35-38fps. There is something strange going on here. Topo doesn't add any scenery it just places roads, rivers, pylons, etc.. in the correct place. The only thing it may have added would be traffic, but I disabled that.I would expect this relates to the FTX problem.My system specs:Quad Core Q6600 @ 3.01GHz4GB DDR2-800 RAM8800GT 512MBWindows Vista 64 Home PremiumDoes anyone have ANY ideas? I'm stumped and I really need this fixed otherwise I have to fly default FSX everywhere :(Thanks.

[Alvega 2,124]

The same happens to me with FTX, it cuts my frames almost in half (60 default, 35 FTX). I posted about that on FTX forum with comparison screenshots. I can live with that because it's a great addon. But you are right, it's a bit strange.

[Guest]

>Topo doesn't add any scenery>it just places roads, rivers, pylons, etc.. in the correct>place. The only thing it may have added would be traffic, but>I disabled that.Doesn't add any scenery...? Well, I think you are mistaken there. I wouldn't say it 'just' placed etc. It adds a LOT of objects into the FSX world! Where do you think those roads are coming from? And all those rivers are masks or something like that. I'm no expert but you can't say it does not add anything! All those roads are vectors and they all add up to a massive amount of data. Hence the drop in fps. UTX also gives a drop in fps for the same reason. You can't fill the world with exact roads and get no drop in fps.I have to say that in my case FTX didn't really drop the fps. Average is 20 above dense area's up to 50 above fields and farms. I did edit the amount of autogen trees (max 2500 instead of the default 4500) but even then trees are literally everywhere. But with FSX default I'd also get very low fps above forests: I just didn't think about editing the trees only before I got FTX. I can fly anywhere now with Autogen at Very dense and fps (average) always stays above 20. And as said, up to even 50! Which is even a lot higher than before I had FTX.

[Mace 1,909]

Did you defrag with a quality defragger after installing FTX, etc.? That can make a huge difference.Regarding NZ Topo, that is adding a lot of items for FS to render. You mention that roads, rivers, etc. are not scenery. Roads, rivers, pylons, etc. ARE indeed scenery, and take cpu time to display.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Guest Gary85]

Thanks for people's replies. I did a full defrag but only with the Windows defrag. Made a slight difference. It smoothed it out a bit but didn't raise perfromance.Quit getting at me about the topo! There is clearly something wrong. Uninstalling SP2 fixed the problem, but I need SP2 for other things so its catch 22. I don't consider roads and rivers to be a big fps hit. Afterall it didn't degrade my performance one iota in FS9.Can you tell me what you get on a takeoff from YSSY 34L in a CRJ700? And get the cockpit zoomed all the way out. I also get roughly 20fps over the city itself but only JUST. And I have to have autogen at dense with MAX_BUILDINGS in cfg set to just 600!! ANd all land vehicles set to 0%. Trees aren't a great problem for me in anyother area of FSX (like the Amazon Rainforest) so whats going on?There has to be something more going on. People are either lying about their great performance (unlikely) or something more sinister is going on. To have a massive 60-70% drop in performance is just unacceptable. I'm not the only one. At least 3 other people in the FTX forum have experienced the same thing. I can only imagine its system related.

[scott967 62]

IIUC the terrian elements have to go through two compuational paths:1. The texture coverage is computed, and the appropriate texture bitmap is layered onto the base landclass/waterclass texture tile. The result is a composite texture tile which the is used to cover the mesh.2. The texture coverage is computed, where it affects the mesh. The mesh is then modified as required to create a composite mesh.This is quite a bit different from what has to be done with 3d objects. Determining the exact performance requirement seems pretty difficult. It might be worth playing around with the mesh sliders, to see what impact that has.scott s..

[Guest Gary85]

Thanks Scott. I will try.