hello guys, I am using P3D V4.5, it looks nice and I have very interesting planes to fly, however my problem is that the game runs like word not allowed on my system. I get 25-30fps in a PMDG 777-200ER in Saint Maarten, in which it's just a small island in a ocean. If I approach a place like Miami it dips to 15FPS in the cockpit and not much better on the outside.

I use REX Sky Force, Chaseplane, PMDG planes (also aerosoft just flight) and some sceneries like FlyTampa but not everywhere, I still use AFCAD files on all airports I fly so it's not outdated in VATSIM. 

Here's my system specs:GTX1080 FE (8GB), 16GB DDR4 RAM, Ryzen 7 3800XT (3.8ghz base, overclocked to 4.2ghz on optimal mode in BIOS, up to 4.7 ghz 8 cores 16 threads)

now my system isn't a NASA PC, but I would say it is somewhat period correct when P3D V4.5 came out, and I've played around with task manager for affinity assignment thread stuff but didn't make a difference.

I play on a widescreen 2560x1080 monitor and it's just 1 with HDR. My settings are mixed, all textures are in highest while autogen complexity is set to medium/normal. Dynamic lights are off.

Turned settings to absolute zero and gained maybe 8-9fps max. This isn't worth the tradeoff as the game looks like FS98.

I feel like I can easily get more out of my system. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thank you.

@silverr240, the weak link in your system is the 1080 card. If you’re able to replace it with a 2 or 3 generation card that will help.

All you can do is lower your settings until you get acceptable performance bearing in mind PMDG aircraft do impose a fps hit. Lower your texture settings. Your card cannot cope.

really? I mean GTX 1080 isn't that strong these days but there's a lot of people still using it in P3D. Would switching to V5 do any help (since it supports dx12 and so does my card)

39 minutes ago, silverr240 said:

I mean GTX 1080 isn't that strong these days but there's a lot of people still using it in P3D.

The 1080 came out in 2016. In computing terms that a long time. Nvidia have released the 2000, 3000, 4000 and very soon the 5000 series. Speaks volumes.

With high texture settings you’re asking your system to do things it’s incapable of.

42 minutes ago, silverr240 said:

Would switching to V5 do any help (since it supports dx12 and so does my card)

v5 has more sophisticated CPU handling and performs better than v4 but does require many logical processors. If yours has 12 or more it could be okay but again, you will need to upgrade your graphics card to take advantage of the better lighting.

9 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

The 1080 came out in 2016. In computing terms that a long time. Nvidia have released the 2000, 3000, 4000 and very soon the 5000 series. Speaks volumes.

With high texture settings you’re asking your system to do things it’s incapable of.

v5 has more sophisticated CPU handling and performs better than v4 but does require many logical processors. If yours has 12 or more it could be okay but again, you will need to upgrade your graphics card to take advantage of the better lighting.

I just don’t currently see myself dropping atleast 200$ on a new card since the 1080 is plenty for my other applications. My cpu is ryzen 7 3800XT, which has 8 cores and 16 threads. If I throw it on optimal mode on my BIOS the speed jumps from 3.9ghz to 4.2ghz base, all the way up to 4.7ghz. I will look further into V5.

Here’s the specs for v5.

https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/system-requirements/#prepar3d-v5

3 minutes ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Here’s the specs for v5.

https://www.prepar3d.com/product-overview/system-requirements/#prepar3d-v5

thanks for looking, I have all recommended specs but as you pointed out my 1080 is no 3080 🙂 we’ll see, I don’t play on 4K either just widescreen 1080p

I would fire up NV Inspector and see what the GPU utilization is when frame rates dip. If it's below 85-90%, your problem is not the GPU.

Cheers

Try using Presentmon a tool that tells what`s going in real time. I posted a vid and link in Video Hardware forum.

I wonder if lossless scaling app would benefit our friend? It sure does me and I have a GTX1070 card, running P3DV5 with Active Sky, several layers of ORBX scenery, addon airports with PMDG, FSlabs, Ifly jets. Moderate settings except autogen levels normal and little or no ai traffic. I get smooth fps in the fifty’s with 30 set in the sim.

"Here's my system specs:GTX1080 FE (8GB) . . . " 8 GB of VRAM will be an issue if you are running add-on aircraft and airports. It will run usually but it will look choppy and have a low frame rate. You should have at least 16GB VRAM in my opinion. When I run P3DV4.4 I have seen my VRAM usage in cites (like Miami and New York) spike to 12 GB. With addon airports in Miami I have seen it use 20GB of VRAM! When I had my 10 GB card it would often look like I was only using 7 or 8 GB. This is due to the way the card manages VRAM.

If you are using OBIX that will run up your VRAM usage as well. ORBIX also requires some bus bandwidth for fast transfer of information from drive storage to memory. The game will hang if it is loading scenery too slowly. If you are running OBIX you might uninstall it and see if the frame rates go up and the experience smooths out some.

P3D is a balance game where settings are concerned. You have start up with the base configuration and layer on. You also have to watch how much add-on scenery you attempt to run. Density of buildings and traffic can have a big effect on your Frame Rates. Also the type of Anti-aliasing you use can have an effect on the frame rates. Number of trees and tree add-ons (like ORBIX) can have an effect on FPS as well. I remember landing in Maui and having the sim slow down to 4 FPS and it turned out to be tree density giving me the head ache.

I hope this helps.

At best the OP's workstation would be a legacy high end system, great for 5~7 years ago but in computing nothing stands still, never the less performance should be reasonable.

Sounds very much like overloading to me, as in GFX card overloading and perhaps CPU, monitoring GPS/CPU usage will help in gaining an understanding of what in the sim overloads.

One thing I found of benefit for myself was to disable AMD's threading and clock the CPU to it's max of 4.7 Ghz, with improved cooling via a noctua tower with twin fans.

Also I was limiting the frame rate to 30 fps via a 30 Hz monitor vsync which reduces GPU and CPU loading (but needs a 30 Hz capable monitor), now I limit via the NVidia control panel and use Lossless scaling to successfully vsync to a 60 hz monitor mode @ 2560 x 1440 DS mode.

So a few options for performance improvements...

• Overclock with SMP (threading) disabled (noting cooling will need to be improved).
• Limiting the frame rate via an external application i.e. leave P3D internally as unlimited.
• Trial LosslessScaling, it's the cheapest method of improving frame rates in lew of updating the hardware.
• Update the CPU/GFX card, if the motherboard can run the Ryzen 7 3800XT it should be able to run a Ryzen 7 5800X if a suitable bios update is available and the OS is at least Win10. GFX cards are pretty improved as well (but expensive).

At the cheapest end the limiting of the framerate and use of lossless scaling should improve overall.

Cheers

Edited January 20, 20251 yr by Rogen
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