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Guest Nick_N

"Holy FPS, Batman!"

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That's why I asked Phil if he knew what settings they used to post that article because we all know that DX9 shows reflections of both clouds and scenery in the water. We all also know that 80fps with low settings means very little. Most benchmarks I've seen with FSX in the mix have had to reduce the sliders on FSX to keep it competitive with the other games like Crysis, etc. The system they used is mid-high end (by today's standard - the Q6600 has been around for more than a year) and should cost you no more than $3,000US. Sure you can build that system for less but then you would not be able to overclock so aggressively with the lower end parts. A 33% overclock requires a high quality Mo-bo, memory, power supply and cooling at the minimum.I'm going to fire up FSX in a few minutes and try to imitate that scenario and see what type of performance I get. With over 20,000 3DMarks (vs their top end systems' 14,000) I'm very interested. Another thing I don't see in those shots is AUTOGEN. We shall see.Mike T.

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With my current settings, which are quite high (higher than Ultra high) with the exception of the water which is set to 2Xlow (Ultra High in 2Xhigh) I can get 60+fps in the Sitka mission. (And that's with AA set to 8Xs and AF=8x, I did up my res to 1920x1080x32 for this test) My settings are in this video. When water is at max I only get in the 40's, that and the comments made about the relections, lead me to think Tom's Hardware ran this test at a lower water setting.Edit: I need to make a correction I get 60's at the lower resolution 1280x720x32, and 50 at 1920x1080x32. With Max water I get 25 in either. (Don't know where I tested that 40 number from, just retested it, and can't get anything close to it with water maxed.)

http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188805.jpg

Thanks

Tom

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Well I suppose I can take a few minutes to tell of my recent excitement. I had been struggling with FSX in my past system, and as much as a I WANTED to use it...I ended up just settling to play FS9 exclusively. I have been pretty good at optimizing XP, and still couldn't get decent performance in fsx with an addon planes other than RealAir. I had an AMD FX-60 OC'd to 2.8Ghz, 2G DDR800 RAM (OCZ), an ATI x1950 Pro AGP (yes - AGP) GPU and 2 SCSI 15K Cheetahs and a 10K Raptor. But one of my cheetah's finally died (the one with the OS!) and I decided to take the oppty to do a complete system revamp. So , "ONLY" $1200 later I now have an Intel e8500 CPU, an ASUS Formula Rampage MB (finally just bit the bullet to get a great one), 4Gb G.Skillz DDR21066, an EVGA 8800GTS 512 KO, and a new WD 640G (320G/platter) drive! Everything else was re-usable...XP SP3 on the 10K Raptor and FS and Games on the 640G WD. First let me say that i am SO glad I put down big bucks on a solid motherboard. My last rig wouldn't let me OC much even tho I had good components OTHER than my Asus A8V MB. So on air cooling (Zalman 9700) alone I bumped my e8500 from 3.16 to 4.16Ghz EASILY! No crashes, BSOD, lock-ups, or errors in tests! I know I can push it more but I'm not ready to take the time necessary to do so safely. Easily OC'd my 800GTS to 750Mhz mem, 1000Mhz core and again - no errors in tests of any kind. So I spent the most of a week loading all software, going through tweaks/tunes (thanks Nick_N) to the letter. I DID load both fs9 and fsx (sp2) just for comparison. For fsx I have FEX, GEX, UTX, FSG 9.6m mesh, and a bunch of addon planes. I can now say, without a DOUBT, that FSX is here to stay! I WOULD take FS9 off except for I still have a few addons that haven't been converted, like the DF 727 or the Aeroworx B200, but honestly I may never fly those again...not unless they come back to FSX! I have NO clue what my max frate rate is...don't care. I set it at 26...smooth as silk (if you ever REALLY tweaked FS9 to be smooth as silk you probably used the TextureMaxLoad (not Texture_Max_Load) tweak and didn't lock FR above 22-26 anyway. Now the game autoconfigures most everything to Ultra-High. I have Autogen on Dense, Scenery on Extremely Dense, water at 2.0 low, Traffic on Ultra High, use 16x AF and 8xS AA, Real time weather (also Ultra High) and it is DROP DEAD GORGEOUS! In fact, I haven't even tried to squeeze more Autogen or AI Traffic out yet...I'm just so blown away that I don't really care to. I only increased my Buffer Pools to 15M, and disabled Preload...no other tweaks. So take it for what it's worth...no I haven't run a carefully constructed comparison test. Don't need to. I'm a believer. I hate that I had to drop the $$$ to get this performance, but I suppose that's the nature of the beast. Hope it helps anyone sitting on the fence. Thanks for listening to my ramblings! Back to fly...

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I just did a series of tests. FSX Antialiasing, FSX AF (Bilinear), Traffic 100%, all scenery sliders right, FPS unlocked.Dutch Harbor Alaska, weather Fair, Settings Ultra, Default C172: 209.1 FPS.Fairbanks Alaska (water view), weather Fair, Settings Ultra, Default C172:182.1 FPSDutch Harbor Alaska (mountain view, weather Fair, Settings Ultra, Default C172: 155.5London City Airport, weather Fair, Settings Ultra, Default C172:33.1 FPSSeattle-Tacoma Airport, weather Fair, Settings Ultra, Default C172:9 - 15.9 FPS depending on what objects are on screen.Now, what this shows is what FSX has always shown. If you are a Bush Pilot for this test, I believe that you will probably short out your keyboard with all the drool that will drop from your mouth. If you are a heavy pilot you will probably also short out your keyboard (as you slam it into the wall).None the less, this DOES indeed validate what was shown in the benchmark tests, and depending on what you use FSX for, you will be extremely happy...or not. Also, it should be noted at using default FSX antialiasing and AF makes FSX look pretty terrible as compared to the same being done on the video card. The difference in video quality is exacted at the cost of severe framerate loss if you want to fly around with your FSX looking like the best screenshots you see.To me this shows that high-end systems are indeed able to run FSX at the highest settings in many situations, and indeed not in others. It is probably safe to say that in another 24 months, high-end systems will probably catch up to FSX and it will be possible to run it as you can FS9 now. http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188811.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188812.jpg

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Be careful about locking frames, unlike FS9, some have reported, including myself, that doing so will reduce your performance, don't know if it's a bug or by design. This didn't happen in FS9. You won't see the problem unless your in an area, where your actual FPS is at or near your target frame rate. If you have the problem, your FPS could be from 5 to 10 frames less than if you set unlimited. You can test this by setting your frames to unlimited. Record your FPS, FRAPS is best for this, since that gives you more of an average FPS than the FS frame counter. Then lock the frames at or near that frame rate. If you see lower FPS, then your system has the problem also, and you may want to consider running unlimited. I do, and don't see any negative effects. No blurries or stuttering. Not everyone reports this, so it may be system config specific.


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Tom

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Are you saying, you can get that with all sliders maxed including water? I can get about 110fps sustained around Dutch harbor with those settings except water at 2xlow, but max I can only get about 70.Also when you say ultra are you referring to the Ultra High preset option? If so, that option doesn't set all sliders right.


Thanks

Tom

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I used Ultra and THEN moved the scenery details further right. I also use 38m mesh, 1m scenery detail.What you see at 208.2 FPS is reflective of those settings. I used those same settins for all tests.

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Yes I found it interesting that Tom's didn't have the 8800GTX cards in the compare. Possibly they consider them as "exiting the market" parts, therefore not worth doing.Use a 6600GT/6800GT? I guess that was done to show how a very old gpu fares with a newer cpu. But most of use know how that works already.RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.16 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT


Rhett

7800X3D ♣ 32 GB G.Skill TridentZ  Gigabyte 4090  Crucial P5 Plus 2TB 

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I've always thought that to be by design.They're trying to control overhead that way.It seems to matter less the more cores you have. RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.16 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT


Rhett

7800X3D ♣ 32 GB G.Skill TridentZ  Gigabyte 4090  Crucial P5 Plus 2TB 

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Ah! Very impressive! When you say scenery details, does that include traffic, (Air and ground)? Because if not, I have some very strange results. You say you get 9-15 in Seattle, with max scenery, water 2XMax, res at 1920x1080. I get 20FPS in Seattle with max scenery and autogen, airline traffic (Large WOAI DB) at 100% No Ga or ground traffic though That will bring me down to about 12FPS if they went to 100%! MY AA is at 8Xs, and AF is 8X. With your system having a much higher, core speed, FSB, and Memory speed, there has to be something else that is causing a bottleneck! That is if you are not including ground trafic!! http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188813.jpg


Thanks

Tom

My Youtube Videos!

http://www.youtube.com/user/tf51d

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I am using 40% on all ground traffic (cars, boats, etc) 100% airline and 100% GA traffic with the default AI aircraft which will suck the life out of the sim. Since, I only use FSX as a test bench to verify my system tweaks in conjunction to 3DMark so I have not invested the time to replace the AI (yet). I like to use 16xAA, 16xAF and Adaptive AA. The screenshot shows the difference below between frame rates using the default FSX AA and AF and then using the video card AA and AF at 16x. There is a large difference also when you add in a thick cloud layer vs a fair weather theme. Here I am getting 12.9FPS with all sliders on full except 1m scenery and 38m mesh @ 16xAA, 16xAF and AAA. I will do the same tests in FSX DX10 and see what happens.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188814.jpg

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Guest Nick_N

be a bit more realistic about the traffic in large urban areas especially if you are running UTX ... Cars 12-15 max Boats/Ships/Liesure 25-30%I do run default AI AL/GA at 59%http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188824.jpgEven under heavy overcast in urban with 2 airports in range and the major roads from UTX and certain view angles (ASX running too) I have to contend with a bit of frame loss but its never choppy..http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/188825.jpgThe point of the charts was to show the pairs.. the proc and the VC and how they may relate.Intel has a hindrance and I even see that with DDR3... the memory buss is in fact bottlenecked by the FSB at the Northbridge. So even though I can push large scenery on solid frames running DDR3 1800-2000 the 'overall' boost I get is limited when compared to the true abilty and only a fraction of the available resource until Nehalem hits the market resolving that bottleneck issue and unleashing the full potential of the DDR3 bandwidth. I lose a good 25-35%+ of that bandwidth to the restriction on the northbirdge. Each time I increase memory speed I only get part of the ability so I compensate with low latency at the same time.

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One thing if you are using Default AI, is if you don't change the exit statements in the default aircraft, so that the jetways don't engage at startup, you will have a reduction in performance for the first few minutes, as all the jetways within 120 miles engage for all your equiped AI aircraft. This is particularly noticeable in major cities, such as Seattle. If you haven't done so already, and if you can live without them, you may want to edit them back to the old FS9 format. When I had UT I modified all my AI to FSX exit format, and my sim was a slide show for the first 3 or 4 minutes when I started up. That wouldn't be bad I could wait to have active jetways on all my AI, except the same thing happens as I file into or over other regions. That was a show stopper. There is not as much default AI so it's not as bad, but it is still noticeable.Nick are those numbers with water 2Xmax? I can get those numbers with heavy clouds but only with water 2Xlow.


Thanks

Tom

My Youtube Videos!

http://www.youtube.com/user/tf51d

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That's very encouraging. I had a go in a BA flight simulator last year. Obviously a completely different experience from FSX - but one of the things that made it really immersive and realistic, was the completely smooth display. I don't know how many FPS it used but based on experience of FSX and FS9 I'd say probably somewhere in the 40s or even 50s. I've no idea whether that was just a delusion, but that's how it felt. When I got home I set up FSX to sacrifice quality for speed - and a got a bit of the same thing. Coming in to land at 50 or 60 fps in FSX is a completely different experience from 10, 20 or even (dare I say) 30 fps. Try it and see, if you haven't already (even if, like me, you end up going back to a different compromise between speed & quality).Tim

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