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Just tried again and same here have not been able to view the ORBX forums since 9th of April 1900GMT from the UK. This is all I get... Fatal error: Class IPS\Login\_Steam contains 1 abstract method and must therefore be declared abstract or implement the remaining methods (IPS\Login\_LoginAbstract::canProcess) in /home/orbxcom/public_html/forum/system/Login/Steam.php on line 277

I came across this, looks like REX looked into and they thought the FPS hit was too much but that was before the DX10 fixer. Hmm I wonder if its now more feasible in DX10 mode? http://www.realenvironmentxtreme.com/forums/index.php?/topic/13555-cloud-shadows/

Hello Steve or any other knowledgeable persons, I am wondering how DX10 mode changes the way FSX processes graphics. 1) My Understanding was that in DX10 mode the majority of FSX graphics go direct to the GPU and it takes some of the pressure off the CPU, but the CPU is still doing FSX work. 2) Does FSX with DX10 Fixer benefit form SLI or Crossfire and if yes by how much? Regards, Sebastian

Hi Wulf, thanks for the info. I am glad its not just me. I have been busy with real life and have not had any time test any further. But I think my test seemed to show turing effects slider down a bit in FSX might help the situation. Seb

Itneresting Matthias, that information is helpful. I need to find some time for more testing but I think we are slowly narrowing the cause and a solution. Seb

I think its got to do with the level of Anisotropic filtering. But will not have time for testing for a week or so. I will get back to it later and report back. No Rush at all Steve. Thank you for your time.

Hi Steve, I may have solved my issue, by change settings back and forth testing something suddenly changed. I now get at worst a 10FPS drop so I am getting 30 to 20 FPS. Under very heavy forest fire and smoke views I some times the graphics break down to flashing triangles, but if I drop special effects slider from High to Medium normal graphics are restored. This is the contents of my FSX effects.cfg in "fsx/Effects" folder, is this what you are asking for I hope(this is with my effects set to high). ; These particle spite limits are applied based ; on the "Special Effect Detail" settings slider. [sprite Limit] Medium=5000 High=9999999999 Low=1000 ; These particle emit rate modifiers are applied based ; on the "Special Effect Detail" settings slider. [Emit Rate] Medium=0.700000 High=1.000000 Low=0.300000 ; If an emitter has its LOD flag set and the viewpoint is ; further away than this at the time the effect is started ; then the emitter will be disabled. [Detail] Forced Distance=250 ; The [Emitter Detail Distance] and [Emitter Detail Modifier] ; tables work together. If an emitter is further away than a ; distance specified in the distance table then the rate it ; emits particles at is scaled by the factor specified in the ; modifier table. [Emitter Detail Distance] Medium=5000 Far=10000 Very Far=15000 [Emitter Detail Modifer] Medium=0.700000 Far=0.500000 Very Far=0.000000

This is the contents of my FSX effects.cfg in my FSX/Effects folder, is this what you are asking for? ; These particle spite limits are applied based ; on the "Special Effect Detail" settings slider. [sprite Limit] Medium=5000 High=9999999999 Low=1000 ; These particle emit rate modifiers are applied based ; on the "Special Effect Detail" settings slider. [Emit Rate] Medium=0.700000 High=1.000000 Low=0.300000 ; If an emitter has its LOD flag set and the viewpoint is ; further away than this at the time the effect is started ; then the emitter will be disabled. [Detail] Forced Distance=250 ; The [Emitter Detail Distance] and [Emitter Detail Modifier] ; tables work together. If an emitter is further away than a ; distance specified in the distance table then the rate it ; emits particles at is scaled by the factor specified in the ; modifier table. [Emitter Detail Distance] Medium=5000 Far=10000 Very Far=15000 [Emitter Detail Modifer] Medium=0.700000 Far=0.500000 Very Far=0.000000

Steve here a couple more shots. 1st I turned on engine fire failure and I went from 30FPS to 16 and the lower screen grab I go to 4FPS when I pan the view to get the smoke to fill the screen. I have Rex soft cloud and when I fly through clouds I do not have the issue, its just with smoke and spray.

My monitor is standard HD 24inch 1920 x 1080. I agree Steve its a puzzle, something local to my PC. I doubt my GPU GTX680 has any issue. From what you have said I am starting to think it could be a GPU setting some where or a line in my FSX CFG file. Fsx dx9 and dx10 are equally affected. This is one of the test I made. As soon as the smoke is in view I go from 30 to 6 FPS or lower.

Hi Steve, I tried no AA and there was no FPS drop, tried 2X and 2XSGSSAA there was a slight but acceptable FPS drop from 30 to 25ish. At 8xCSAA and 4xSGAA FPS drops to 3 or 2 and the my screen turns into triangles, the GPU or CPU just cant cope. I used a extreme test, flying a default mooney bravo and forrest fires from Orbx KWYS scenery. the fires produce a large amount of smoke. I am going to try 4x and 4xSGAA.

I will try X4SGSSAA(again), 2XSGSSAA and None AA and see what happens and report back. Thanks for your time with this Steve as its not really a DX10 issue because it happens in DX9. Steve could it be simply that the smoke affect in FSX is very old and not written for modern GPU's.

No Demo but there is a freeware version I tried it but the payware version a million times better. I can not recommend it it enough. REX 4 Direct textures and soft clouds work perfectly with it. You have to set DX10 mode in the REX4 DT options(look in the lower left there are three items) I love the cockpit shadows they make it a lot imersive and the shadows disappear when you fly into cloud. At night you can control the reflections of the starts and moon on water, you can control all reflection on water day and night to make things look a lot more realistic. DX10 fixer does a lot. read through the manual and you will see what I mean. To get the best out of it you need to read the manual a lot. I revisit it all the time and keep improving the look and smoothness all the time. bets of luck.

I have 8x supersampling, I had tried 4x supersampling. I have not tried NO AA setting because even if it works the flightsim would not look good at all. I will have to try to avoid smoke and spray coming in the cockpit. I was trying to find a fix but I doubt there is one.

Hi John, The "8bit textures should always be left off" according to the manual, its a option for testing something or other I read it recently. Seb

Hi Steve, I found a P3D forum that may help, it is talking about the exact same issue of the affect on FPS of spray, smoke and dark engine fire smoke. They even show some screen grabs in the forum that are exactly what I experience. Also an important point is that the FPS drops more in relation to how much of the screen is covered by the smoke or spray. So its worst when it fills the entire screen. http://www.prepar3d.com/forum-5/topic/extremely-low-fps-with-smoke/page/2/ But to answer your request, the Cessna 172 CFG file states: [EFFECTS] wake=fx_wake water=fx_spray dirt=fx_tchdrt concrete=fx_sparks touchdown=fx_tchdwn_s, 1 Spray effect; fx_spray.fx created 12/05/2006 size 5kb I found this two posts most interesting, It would seem that only turning off effects gets rid of the problem but we loose the effects, what do you think. 1) Interesting. Could you all let us know which aircraft and effects are slowing things down? The GPU particle system is capable of rendering several times as many particles as the old system at much higher FPS. That said, it scales better when the effects aren’t filling the screen. For example we created a forest fire stress test where we kept growing a grid of forest fire effects over time. In 1.x the total number of particles was set pretty low so doing this would lead to a scattered broken up scene or to some effects not emitting particles at all. In v2, they could all emit and the system stayed at a decent frame-rate. Granted we did those tests before we had the tessellation and shadows working, so the overall stress on the GPU is likely higher. I think the main issue is that the pixel shader is actually fairly expensive so when you have particles up close filling the screen you get lots of overdraw. If you’re running 1080p that’s close to 2 million pixels on screen so if you have hundreds of nearly full screen particles, it could be a problem. Perhaps the effects causing this issue have a high emission rate and large scale. This might not have been a problem in the v1/FSX where the system would scale all the emitters back in high load situations. We clamp the total particle count too (which is what that slider controls) but its much higher than it was before. We do plan to go back and do more optimization int he particle shaders once we get the major bugs out of the way. That should help speed things up when flying through effects. Beau Hollis Prepar3D Rendering System Lead 2) For reference, I have/had this issue with FSX. In P3DV2.1, if I turn AA completely OFF the fps drop is very minor. Obviously don’t want to fly without AA, but I was wondering if perhaps the particle system can be set to prevent/disable AA? I know when using Steve P’s, DX10 Controller/fixer product with FSX DX10, there was an option to disable MSAA on clouds (handled thru shaders) which makes sense, clouds are high alpha and typically no sharp edges so no need for AA. Same would apply to smoke and particle effects. Just a thought for the LM team. Cheers, Rob.

FSX DVD is what I am using. I have never installed FSX Steam but I do own a copy.

Hi Steve, yes I get the same issue with the cessna and many of the default aircraft but its a lot more noticeable on the addon aircraft, I guess they throw up a lot more smoke and spray. I just did a test in the same scenarios, wet run way ops with strong winds to blow the water spray into the cockpit and engine fire mid air with the default 172 and the A2A 172. The A2A 172 was worse on the wet runway but in the engine fire they where almost the same. The engine fire drops the frame rate a lot more double what the white smoke does. I was posting here as I thought some one in the community or you might have some tips. I never suspected DX10 Fixer as the cause but was hopping it might help. Thank you for such a great addon Steve and any one else who worked with you on the DX10 Fixer. I am suprised I have not found only a few post on the forums about fsx and smoke affects. I cannot be the only person who has experienced this issue. Even P3D V2 has issues with smoke from what I have read.

Steve could I try converting All Effects? would it help with smoke particle i have read about but do not understand. At the moment I run DX10 Fixer Lights/Effects set to "Effects Lights only".

Hi Steve, yes I seem to get the same drop in FPS with the libraries off. I also just tried DX9 and there was no FPS drop apart from some when I got some dark grey smoke from a sibwings addon aircraft which i purposely over heated the engine to test the smoke. Seb

Hello, I have been using DX10 Fixer for 6 months or more and love it. I hope some one here may be able to help me with a sever Frames Per Second drop I get when engine smoke or water spray enters the cockpit, my frames drop from 30FPS to 6 or 3FPS. I have been searching through forums and found some mentions of " smoke particle effects" as being at fault but no sure what this means. I am wondering if there is any DX10 Fixer setting that may help or is there some replacement smoke effects that will fix the issue. I do not think DX10 Fixer is at fault. I have tried lowering the AA in DX10 Fixer from 8X to X4 and made the adjustments to Invidia Inspector and FSX CFG, the frame rates improve a little but still drops from 30 to 8FPS or lower. I have a I5 2500k 4.7GHZ, GTX680 4GB, 8GB Ram, 3 x SSD's. WIN 7 64bit. I update the Nvidia drivers a couple of months ago and the issue ddi not get worse or improve. Cheers, Sebastian

Now this would be a very nice feature. I would pay for this addition. B)

Tom thank you very much for all you have given to this community. You are a legend your legacy will live on.

Hi Guys, Paul J has this little web site that's a must bookmark for DX10 fixer users, it has amongst all the files the stock shaders. Cheers seb

Thank you Tom