FS11 release hint and animated people too!

[BimmerCop 332]

>Hello Jim,>>You are right, of course. From the start, people have>complained of the bad performance. And from the start, the>reply has been that they must turn down their settings. It is>that simple, but many refuse to accept that. >>Instead, they insist on keeping at high precisely those>settings that will stress their hardware, then spend long and>frustrating months trying to "tweak" their computers to get>better performance. Finally, they give up and go back to FS 9,>when they could just have turned their settings down in FS X>to the equivalent of FS 9, such as >>- no bloom, >>- lowest autogen,>>- terrain textures at 5 meters>>- LOD radius to Small>>- water effects to 1x Low>>- no freeway, boat, or airport vehicle traffic,>>- etc.>>Anybody who does this will get the same performance that they>got in FS 9.>>I have a 6-year old computer, single core AMD, 512 MB RAM, and>GeForce 5200! And yet I run FS X and have since the betas,>with no Blurries. Why? I turn down my settings to appropriate>levels, and of course, I do not fly above 120 KIAS. If I had>the hardware of most people here, I could still get no>Blurries flying above 120 knots, simply by turning settings>down.>>So, it is not so simple as to say that the supplementary>scenery elements are to blame for bad performance. In fact, we>all choose our slider settings and then suffer the>consequences.>>Best regards.>>LuisWhat is the difference between FS9 and a toned down FSX as you outlined above? What extra goodies does one get by running FSX in a "plain vanilla" sort of speak fashion, over a FS9 installation?______________Efrain RuizLiveDISPATCHhttp://www.livedispatch.orgCooler Master cosmos SDFI LP UT P35 T2R (3-17-2008 BIOS) | E8400 @ 4GHz (500MHz x 8) | 2 x 2GB OCZ Flex II PC9200EVGA Nvidia GTX280Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Operating System RAID-0) | Two (2) WD3200AAKS 320GB (Flight Simulator RAID-0)Corsair CM PSU-750TX | Asus 20X DVD

[Guest tmilton]

>From the start, people have>complained of the bad performance. And from the start, the>reply has been that they must turn down their settings. It is>that simple, but many refuse to accept that.It's amazing how you're able to run FSX with the low-end machine you have. It shows how one can adjust settings to achieve good performance.I think it's interesting how exclusionists, those who want to concentrate only on the core aspects of the sim, betray their core convictions (no pun intended) when using FSX and turn the settings sliders way up to max autogen, scenery density, and animations, and then turn around and complain about performance. Then they get on the exclusionist bandwagon and demand that ACES stop producing the extra "eye candy" that other simmers love.The exclusionists feel if they suffer by not paying attention to proper slider settings, then everyone else should suffer as well and be deprived of the extra features and "eye candy" that we love.I enjoy the dense autogen and "eye candy" because I have learned to turn other settings down, and I get excellent performance while enjoying the specific aspects of FSX that are important to me. And I only have a mid-range computer.If I could present a suggestion to ACES for the next version of FS, that would be to increase the number of settings. Instead of fewer general settings, include more settings that control more specific functions. For example, let each specific feature have its own control setting instead of bundling a bunch of features into one slider setting.For example take special effects. I think this setting includes animations. I would separate them into different sliders or check boxes, one for animal animations such as birds, another for touch down smoke, etc. This way we can turn down or turn off settings that may not be of importance to us, and will allow us to precisely choose a customizable trimmed set of features that we personally prefer. This will allow us to maximize performance for the feature set that we want. I would also include a clear warning that turning up any setting beyond a certain level would degrade performance and that the user did so at his own risk.Of course overall performance is also very important, and Phil has informed us that this is one part of FS11 that being heavily worked on. So I see no need to have an exclusionist mindset when it is evident that all aspects of the new upcoming sim are being improved.

[jrhoads 6]

>>>I think it's interesting how exclusionists...Tim,You really need to lose the name tags. It is wearing a bit thin and you are starting to show your slip.The main thing you need to remember is to keep this in perspective. MS has not said one word about what they will or will not add in FS11 and despite that everyone has their own own opinion, I don't think anyone but you has resorted to name tags.Is it OK if I call you an "illusionist" if you are calling others exclusionists? Didn't think so.As far as qualifying myself, I think Flight1 and Flight1tech have gone above and beyond adding eye candy add-ons and striving to bring realism to another level beyond default, as well as enhancing the FS users experience no matter what the preference.Lose the tags.Jim Rhoads

[3-2-1-Now 126]

>> That set of B-O-T-E calculations shows that we are being intentional >> about adding features, and not just adding them for additions sake >> or without understanding the deeper implications in terms of >> rendering performance.>> These are steps that did not happen before FSX shipped, so that is a >> major change in the studio

[Qatsimo 7]

Fully agree.If it ain't fixed, don't brake it further! Regards, Gerrit Kranenbarg

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[Qatsimo 7]

On the other hand. I would like to have a FO in the quality of a Mass-Effect female character, that actually pulls up the gear handle if i told her so and then reply's with the same quality lip synchronization: Gear's up.Regards, Gerrit Kranenbarg

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[Guest tmilton]

>You really need to lose the name tags. It is wearing a bit>thin and you are starting to show your slip.LOL, you're the guy who earlier in this thread wanted everyone to stop using the word "immersion", otherwise you threatened to vomit everytime the word was used. Now you want to further hinder my freedom to choose my words.I'll tell you what, how about trying to lose the idea that that you can silence others who use the word "immersion" or any any other words they see fit to express their opinion. If you want to call me an illusionist, feel free, I do not mind. I do not seek to hinder your ability to choose your words as you see fit, so please do not attempt to hinder mine. In the meantime, as long as it is within the reasonable and legal confines of the forum rules, we will continue using "immersion", or whatever term is required to express our opinion. ;-)

[jrhoads 6]

>>You are quite the spinster Timbo. You might have a future in politics.I think you need to step away from the computer a while and catch some fresh air.Have a great weekend. I know I will.Jim

[GHarrall 494]

I'm still shocked that anyone finds the the little animiated 'cubes' zooming up and down the roads in FSX looks anyhting like real traffic.The models and colours are so poor that it looks like a cartoon. Add that the performance effect is so bad then it makes it an easy choice to switch it off.Each to their own of course.......

[Guest tmilton]

>I'm still shocked that anyone finds the the little animiated>'cubes' zooming up and down the roads in FSX looks anyhting>like real traffic. The models and colours are so poor that it looks >like a cartoon. One could have said the same thing about aircraft models in the early versions of FS. FSX is the first version of the sim to have default moving 3D road traffic included. So there is certainly room for improvement in the future.I think we can all agree that the quality will get even better in each successive release of the sim, although I honestly find the experience in the sim of approaching the threshold of a runway that happens to have a highway full of traffic located right in front of it a visually amazing one. It triggers a similar response whenever I've flown over the same situation in real life. And it really brings cities and towns to life when flying over them.So did ACES achieve their goal of trying to simulate car traffic in the sim with this first introduction? I honestly think so, and I think they did quite well. There's always room for improvement, and for that, we will wait for the future releases.For me, I've got my system set up so I experience road traffic while getting very good performance at the same time. That's the beauty of FSX, we can adjust the sliders to our own preferred configuration. :-)

[Noel 4,486]

>sure, FSX is CPU bound, but where? >>our profiling shows that once you hit high-density areas a lot>of time is spent either waiting for >a)the bus transfer of the data or >b)the GPU driver to churn through the API calls.Hi Phil,What bus components adversely affect "bus transfer of data"?Put in practical terms, where is the best place to optimize to improve bus transfer of data between CPU/GPU in modern Intel systems? All the emphasis on trying to optimize performance for FSX in the hardware arena tries to get at this question. Which "wait states" are most relevent: FSB, memory read & write latency, DRAM frequency, etc? I guess it depends on each unique system where the most meaningful bottlenecks (wait states) are, but in your testing, does anything stand out? I've heard alot about memory latency between CPU-North Bridge-DRAM, but I'm not sure where the PCI bus comes into play.Noel

[PhilTaylor 45]

all hardware degrades in performance as you get close to 80% of the theoretical maximum and above. some hardware starts to degradein performance at a lower percent...so its not hw components I am talking about, it is measuring the size of the data we are transferring against theoretical and practical maximums. and trying to be conservative and not thinking you can get every little bit out of the hw. practically speaking that is almost never true except in contrived cases.there is nothing from a component side this implies.sure, some of those can affect how close to theoretical maximum a particular system can get.but that is immaterial for back-of-the-envelope budgeting calculations I am talking to. those are being used to determine what the bounds of a specific feature should be. 50 cells * 4500 instances per cell * 50 bytes per instance of Autogen Trees at 50 bytes per is how much memory, for 1 subsystem? 10.73m. 68m is the limit for 60Hz. So Autogen Trees are over a 10% budget, period. and 50 cells is a low number. in FS typically 100s are in view.there is no hw component that can make up for that sort of overcommit. setting the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELLtweak down below 4500 in addition to dialing the slider down is what is required. same for buildings.

[Noel 4,486]

>all hardware degrades in performance as you get close to 80%>of the theoretical maximum and above. some hardware starts to>degradein performance at a lower percent...>>so its not hw components I am talking about, it is measuring>the size of the data we are transferring against theoretical>and practical maximums. and trying to be conservative and not>thinking you can get every little bit out of the hw.>practically speaking that is almost never true except in>contrived cases.>>there is nothing from a component side this implies.>>sure, some of those can affect how close to theoretical>maximum a particular system can get.>>but that is immaterial for back-of-the-envelope budgeting>calculations I am talking to. those are being used to>determine what the bounds of a specific feature should be. 50>cells * 4500 instances per cell * 50 bytes per instance of>Autogen Trees at 50 bytes per is how much memory, for 1>subsystem? 10.73m. 68m is the limit for 60Hz. So Autogen Trees>are over a 10% budget, period. and 50 cells is a low number.>in FS typically 100s are in view.>>there is no hw component that can make up for that sort of>overcommit. setting the TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL>tweak down below 4500 in addition to dialing the slider down>is what is required. same for buildings.Thank you kindly Phil. I LOVE FSX the more I use it. I have been hooked on flight simulators since Apple II days. It still entertains me so much I fly almost every day. So, thank you for contributing to some very pleasant hours! I had heard about the tweak for lowering object density or whatever it is doing, and have been meaning to add this. My machine runs FSX pretty darn well, but then again I am using only the 441 Conquest II which runs really well. I am able to run BLOOM on for most flights, and when there is too much "overcommit" happening, then off the BLOOM goes and I am still maintaining frames and smoothness at about 38 when frames are locked at 40.One quickie Phil: how possible would it be to be able to toggle BLOOM on and off without stopping the flight as you need to do now? It seems to me, because of how it behaves when I pause the flight and go into DISPLAY to turn bloom on or off, that it should be quite possible to do. I'd love to do this! Any ideas?NoelQX9650 w/ Retail HSF|ASUS P5E3 Premium WiFi|4GB Muskin Ascent 7-6-6-18 1T DDR3-1600|EVGA 8800GT|Seagate SATA 2 x 2|Seagate Cheetah 15K.x|XP Pro SP2|Vista 64--maybe never to be installed

[Guest kingck]

they should use a FSP system in it and anmated ppl like ppl bording your plane and cargo handlers? that would be awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[BoeingGuy 0]

Thanks Phil, one more question.When FSX was released, it was a DirectX 9 game. Then along came Windows Vista, and with it, DirectX 10.When FS11 is released, will it be a full DirectX 10 or 11 game?Or will it come out full DirectX 10, then will a patch be issued for those with DirectX 11 hardware/OS?Also, this question isn't specifically for Phil, but:Will this game need Windows 7 to play? Will Windows 7 have a new version of DirectX with it like Vista?Thanks a bunch.