resolved Large drop in performance

[Rimshot]

Hi all,

 

Ok, very frustrated here... I already posted over at Avsim about this because I figured it wasn't Orbx related, but I suspect it might be, so I'll post here as well. I put a link to the Avsim thread below. I hope that is ok. Yesterday I did a complete fresh install of Prepar3D v3.1. After the installation I ran the sim to adjust all my settings. Frames were as expected. I locked them at 30 and that's where they were. After closing the sim I started reinstalling all my Orbx software and my A2A aircraft. When that was finished I started the sim again with FTX Central set to North America, I installed the objectflow update when prompted, rebooted the sim and started a flight at Friday Harbor. All's well. 30 fps like a charm. Time to go to bed now. I planned to do a low and slow flight around Friday Harbor today.

But oh horror. When I fired up my sim just now to load a flight at KFHR the framerate had dropped again to around 10-12 fps! I don't get this!! This time a reboot of my computer did not work. Also switching between Global and North America in FTX Cental did not work, So I am back to square one and pretty irritated to be honest, which is ofcourse not a great feeling during christmas. Ah well, it's a first world problem, I know, but I do want to get this fixed. Suggestions are welcome!

 

Merry christmas folks!

 

http://www.avsim.com/topic/480499-large-drop-in-performance/

[Nick Cooper]

Reading your topic at the Avsim forum, it appears you have already solved your own problem?

[Rimshot]

Yes Nick that's correct. But further in that topic I posted that the problem has returned in all its glory after a fresh install of P3D v3.1 and now the solution I thought worked doesn't work anymore... I need some help with this.

[Nick Cooper]

Is your complaint that P3D has a drop in performance, as suggested at the Avsim forum or that

there is a problem with the FTX scenery?

Or perhaps both?

The problems some customers are having in the Friday Harbor area are being addressed already.

Some customers are also seeing a drop in frame rate in parts of the Southern California area also

but that too is much more detailed than what was there before.

[Rimshot]

Nick thanks for getting back to me. The problem is exactly as I have hopefully described clearly in my original posts, both here and at Avsim. It is not that certain areas perform worse than others. It is a complete performance loss between to simulator sessions. Yesterday, after a clean install of P3D and my Orbx software, I had frames as expected with my system. Also at Friday Harbor. I had them locked at 30 and that's what I got. So no problem here. But this morning, without having changed anything to my P3D setup or my pc, I only got 10-12 fps. How about that? This is with v3.1.

It also happened before with v3 (that's when I posted at Avsim). Then I discovered that if I switched FTX Central from North America back to default (I didn't have my Global packages installed in v3) the framerate was restored to normal, also with North America enabled again. I've tried this again this morning. (This time I also have all FTX Global packages installed). But when I switched FTX Central to Global and started the default flight in P3D the framerate remained low and as I feared also with North America active again.

I am lost here, but as far as I can understand the issue is somehow Orbx related. All my other games perform well by the way. This issue only exists with the P3D/Orbx combination.

[Luke Stirling]

How are your GPU temperatures? The first thing that springs to mind based on your description is that it could be GPU throttling, as if a fan is dying or there's too much dust to work efficiently. This could account for erratic performance. While switching between sceneries the GPU gets a break and cools down, and sometimes the cooler works well enough when you restart the sim, and other times it hits its thermal threshold very quickly and gives poor performance.

[Rimshot]

Thanks for your suggestion. I have thought about this too. But the large drop happened when I started my pc and the sim this morning. The system had been off all night, so it wasn't overheated. Besides if this was the case wouldn't I  notice performance drops in other games as well? I only have an issue with P3D.

 

But... the problem is resolved again. I tried to see what happened if I disabled objectflow, so I turned it of in the P3D dll.xml file. When I started the sim after that my frames were back to normal again. I then closed the sim and enabled objectflow again. Fortunately the frames didn't drop, so all's good now.

 

Could it be objectflow causes this weird behaviour?

[Luke Stirling]

It's possible it is objectflow. Although even then, it might not be malfunctioning, so much as enabling more scenery items in your locality than your system can handle at that time. It's hard to know based on the available information. I assume you have updated with the latest orbxlibs. If not, that would be a highly advisable step.

 

I would not necessarily discount the issue of cooling on the basis of other games. It really depends a great deal on your setup. For instance, when I run P3D with an add-on plane, Orbx scenery, and all the other add-ons, I put more demands on my system than I do with any other gaming. Because I only have a 60Hz monitor, I can comfortably frame limit most games, and not go near my performance ceiling, whereas while flight simulating there's always something I can do with free cycles to get a little bit more eye candy, and so I hit 100% system utilisation far more readily.

 

Also, if you have cooling issues, they can absolutely occur from a cold start. Processors and memory modules can get very hot, very fast if their cooling system isn't working properly. And it can happen that you might be able to run at 75% with no apparent issues at all, but when you ramp up to 100% utilisation then you can run into problems in a matter of seconds.

 

None of this is to say that hardware is definitely the source of your problems. I honestly have no idea. But rather to point out that if it is the source of your problems, it requires some very rigourous and systematic testing to isolate.

[Rimshot]

Thanks for your elaborate reply. I've made sure my temperatures are ok. There's not a problem there, but I'll sure keep an eye on them. I really think objectflow was the cause. I had frames around10-12 fps. After I disabled objectflow and rebooted my sim frames were back to normal again. That doesn't seem to be a coincidence. I'm curious what the Orbx gurus think of this.

 

Edit; Ok. Shoot me. A few minutes after I posted the above I fired up Prepar3d. Mind you, last night I had a very enjoyable session, with 30 fps, I shut down my sim and computer when it was time to get some sleep. And guess what? The frames have dropped again to 10-12 fps. I give up...

[Rimshot]

Well, it looks like objectflow isn't the culprit after all. I tried to load P3D with objectflow disabled in the dll.xml. This seemingly restored my performance yesterday. When I tried this just now it had no effect. So here I am again with a sim that does not perform as it should...  Why does the performance drop? And what on earth made that it magically returned to normal values yesterday?? I really don't get this 

[Museumkeeper]

Do what I do, bite the bullet and completely reload your computer starting with the operating system. That way if you have something in your setup that is not performing as it should, you will eliminate it.

 

Kind regards and best of luck

 

Ian

[mikee]

5 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Well, it looks like objectflow isn't the culprit after all. I tried to load P3D with objectflow disabled in the dll.xml. This seemingly restored my performance yesterday. When I tried this just now it had no effect. So here I am again with a sim that does not perform as it should...  Why does the performance drop? And what on earth made that it magically returned to normal values yesterday?? I really don't get this 

Hello Bert ! Have you tried to disable  Buiding Shadows ?

I had Frame Rate Problem While flying Around Friday Harbor ( 10 - 15 ) and as soon I Disabled Buildig Shadows ... that helped a lot  My Frames went Up ... 30 ( Have them Locked at 30 Via Nvidia Inspector ) .

Mike

[banjoman1960]

try to delite the shaders,that the sim build them new...........

they are at %APPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D

only delite the shaderfolder start the sim and load a flight..............then close and restart and test...............

if this not help

test to delite the p3d cfg,%LOCALAPPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D        and let the sim build a new one,then close and restart and test

sometimes i found delite the holder simobjekts in that folder helps also when p3dv3 makes trouble..........

also maybee check wat windows(update and other) and other programs does in the background,

good luck

 

cheers ralf

[Rimshot]

1 hour ago, mikee said:

Hello Bert ! Have you tried to disable  Buiding Shadows ?

I had Frame Rate Problem While flying Around Friday Harbor ( 10 - 15 ) and as soon I Disabled Buildig Shadows ... that helped a lot  My Frames went Up ... 30 ( Have them Locked at 30 Via Nvidia Inspector ) .

Mike

 

Thanks Mike. However, it is not that my sim performs bad in a certain area, like KFHR. As you can read in my original post I had smooth performance and 30 fps at KFHR after my initial install of P3D v3.1 and all my Orbx software. When I turned on my computer and started the sim the next day frames had dropped to 10-12 fps.

 

59 minutes ago, banjoman1960 said:

try to delite the shaders,that the sim build them new...........

test to delite the p3d cfg,%LOCALAPPDATA%\Lockheed Martin\Prepar3D        and let the sim build a new one,then close and restart and test

 

Thanks Ralf. I have already tried both, but it didn't restore the framerate.

[Rimshot]

7 hours ago, Ian S said:

Do what I do, bite the bullet and completely reload your computer starting with the operating system. That way if you have something in your setup that is not performing as it should, you will eliminate it.

 

Kind regards and best of luck

 

Ian

 

I'm more and more inclined to do that Ian. There's something definitely not right.

[Rimshot]

But when I do a full reinstall of my operating system and the simulator, how on earth am I going to find what's wrong? I had a perfectly working sim and overnight, without any changes to the sim or system, it performed far worse... I'm worried this will happen again, even after a fresh installation of Windows.

[wsmeier]

Hi Bert,

 

As paralipsis mentioned above, this does sound suspiciously like a hardware issue. These can be quite difficult to troubleshoot, but if you haven't done so already, try reseating all your components: gpu, memory modules, etc. See if that helps.

 

Walter

[sigwx]

Bert,

 

this sounds like the same problem I had one year ago. Occasionally FPS drops below 10fps, and when I checked CPU temperature, it was still significant below 60°C, but later I found CPU Speed was only at 1.600 MHz. I was caused by a defect water pump   

 

Andreas 

[FireRx]

Bert,

Might be time to bench your 970 and make sure it's still up to snuff.  my 770 Gtx gave out somehow and lost performance. I benched it and it's replacement 770, and found a 400 point difference on the GPU's results. The new one I able to maintain my FPS between 20-30 fps.  The only thing I have on Medium is Shadows, since is version 3.1 you can tweak the HDR to give your shadows Depth and that Dynamic Reflections in Lighting helps too.  Thank goodness for EVGA RMA program. 

[Rimshot]

2 hours ago, wsmeier said:

Hi Bert,

 

As paralipsis mentioned above, this does sound suspiciously like a hardware issue. These can be quite difficult to troubleshoot, but if you haven't done so already, try reseating all your components: gpu, memory modules, etc. See if that helps.

 

Walter

 

1 hour ago, sigwx said:

Bert,

 

this sounds like the same problem I had one year ago. Occasionally FPS drops below 10fps, and when I checked CPU temperature, it was still significant below 60°C, but later I found CPU Speed was only at 1.600 MHz. I was caused by a defect water pump   

 

Andreas 

 

1 hour ago, FireRx said:

Bert,

Might be time to bench your 970 and make sure it's still up to snuff.  my 770 Gtx gave out somehow and lost performance. I benched it and it's replacement 770, and found a 400 point difference on the GPU's results. The new one I able to maintain my FPS between 20-30 fps.  The only thing I have on Medium is Shadows, since is version 3.1 you can tweak the HDR to give your shadows Depth and that Dynamic Reflections in Lighting helps too.  Thank goodness for EVGA RMA program. 

 

Thanks for thinking with me guys. My computer is very new. All hardware is working fine as far as I can see. Temps are ok, as well as benchmarks. It is only P3D that behaves erratic. The day I had a great simulator session with performance as expected (30 fps locked) I also played Project Cars at ultra settings, which gives me around 60 fps. The next day P3D has a framerate of only 10-12 fps. If this were related to hardware somehow wouldn't my Project Cars suffer from this as well? Fact is it doesn't, it still gives me 60 fps at ultra settings. I therefore doubt if the problem is hardware related and I sure hope it isn't hardware related...

[Rimshot]

Want to hear something funny? I just started Prepar3D. Frames are 30 fps again, where I have them locked. I didn't do anything  I think I'll start looking for the hidden camera now  Seriously. I hope it is still like this when I fire up my sim tomorrow...

[banjoman1960]

18 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Want to hear something funny? I just started Prepar3D. Frames are 30 fps again, where I have them locked. I didn't do anything  I think I'll start looking for the hidden camera now  Seriously. I hope it is still like this when I fire up my sim tomorrow...

i think there is something in the background that not happen every time...........

[Rimshot]

Yep, if I only knew what... I've launched the sim three times today. The first two times all was well. The third time just now had the low framerate issue again. It is as if the sim only performes at 30%

[Rimshot]

Now that P3D is performing worse I checked all my temps right away. No problem there. I also ran a benchmark again. It gave the same values as when P3D is performing normally. I'm definitely sure it's not hardware related.

[Pavel.K]

Hello, have you tried to disable an antivirus?

[Luke Stirling]

10 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Now that P3D is performing worse I checked all my temps right away. No problem there. I also ran a benchmark again. It gave the same values as when P3D is performing normally. I'm definitely sure it's not hardware related.

What are your temps? For example, my graphics card (GTX 970) throttles at 80C. That's a lot lower throttling temperature compared to past GPUs I've owned. Also, do you have access to all system temperatures (GPU memory modules, motherboard chipset, etc.)?

 

Also, crappy as it is, newness is no proof against hardware problems. This could be as FireRx points out, a fault in the silicon, giving you access to less of your hardware than you would otherwise have access to. It could also be a dodgy soldering connection, or a component seating problem. This erratic performance doing exactly the same thing really does sound like either a hardware failure, or else your computer is infected with malware and you're unwitting part of a bot net.

[Simu67]

Hi,

 

Your have an erratic problem, and don't see what in the soft has changed, some sessions are OK, and the others not. So could be more hardware related.

 

Do you use USB hardware ? I have sometime some Goflight modules that have a strange behaviour, and in this state, I can see it has bad effect to P3d. Shutting down the computer sometime works, sometime is not enough : i have to disconnect everything (eg : don't forget the powered USB hubs, if they have tension, your USB hardware cannot stop, your motherboard keeps tension, but sometime the USB cannot wake up and will disturb the chipset.).

 

Best regards

 

[Rimshot]

16 hours ago, korposp said:

 

16 hours ago, korposp said:

Hello, have you tried to disable an antivirus?

 

Yes, I tried that. It didn't make a difference

 

6 hours ago, paralipsis said:

What are your temps? For example, my graphics card (GTX 970) throttles at 80C. That's a lot lower throttling temperature compared to past GPUs I've owned. Also, do you have access to all system temperatures (GPU memory modules, motherboard chipset, etc.)?

 

Also, crappy as it is, newness is no proof against hardware problems. This could be as FireRx points out, a fault in the silicon, giving you access to less of your hardware than you would otherwise have access to. It could also be a dodgy soldering connection, or a component seating problem. This erratic performance doing exactly the same thing really does sound like either a hardware failure, or else your computer is infected with malware and you're unwitting part of a bot net.

 

I use CPUID HWMonitor to check my temps. My GPU is around 60c after playing P3D, no matter if it performed normal or with the low framerates. Still, wouldn't other games suffer from tjis erratic behaviour as well? I do not have a single performance issue with the rest of my games.

 

1 minute ago, Simu67 said:

Hi,

 

Your have an erratic problem, and don't see what in the soft has changed, some sessions are OK, and the others not. So could be more hardware related.

 

Do you use USB hardware ? I have sometime some Goflight modules that have a strange behaviour, and in this state, I can see it has bad effect to P3d. Shutting down the computer sometime works, sometime is not enough : i have to disconnect everything (eg : don't forget the powered USB hubs, if they have tension, your USB hardware cannot stop, your motherboard keeps tension, but sometime the USB cannot wake up and will disturb the chipset.).

 

Best regards

 

 

I do not use USB hardware. I have a CH Products yoke, comnat stick and Saitek Cessna rudder pedals plugged in straight to the computer.

[Rimshot]

Last night I upgraded my GPU driver to the latest version. After that I loaded P3D a couple of times without any issues. When I loaded it just now frames didn't go above 12 fps again... So the GPU driver is not the cause.

I checked temps and found a value in my CPU data that remains at 100% all the time. When I exit P3D it drops to 90-95% Could this be a clue?

 

[Scott Harmes]

I am running P3D V2.5 and I am finding the performance very erratic also.  When I started on the ramp yesterday at an ORBX airport I checked the frames and they were around 25-30 fps.  When I taxied to the start of the runway I checked again and they had dropped to around 15 fps.  Then I took off and the frames dropped right down to around 10 fps.  It was a highly detailed scenery and this could be expected, as the frames will vary depending on what is in your field of view.

 

I can't get consistent frames anywhere in P3D V2.5 though, even over regional scenery with no extravagant addons nearby my frames won't remain at maximum.

 

Cheers,

[Rimshot]

Well, my issue is that there is a large difference in performance between sessions. I do not experience fps drops within one session. If a P3D session performes as expected I have very consistent fps. I have my frames locked at 30 and with my grapics settings they remain there the whole flight. A total new sim session suddenly gives me an fps of only 10-12, only one third of normal performance! This fps is consistent as well...

[Luke Stirling]

6 hours ago, Rimshot said:

Last night I upgraded my GPU driver to the latest version. After that I loaded P3D a couple of times without any issues. When I loaded it just now frames didn't go above 12 fps again... So the GPU driver is not the cause.

I checked temps and found a value in my CPU data that remains at 100% all the time. When I exit P3D it drops to 90-95% Could this be a clue?

 

That's very odd looking. P3D should utilise all (physical) cores. There, it looks as if it's stuck running all threads on the first core.

 

The good news is that that doesn't look like hardware, but I personally haven't had this happen before, so I have no idea why it would be happening here, at least not intermittently. I know it's possible to force P3D into a single core with a configuration setting, but if this is only sometimes happening, that doesn't seem likely. Just to be sure though I should ask, have you been doing any config tweaking in P3D?

[Rimshot]

No, I haven't. I stopped tweaking a long time ago  By the way, below are the CPU values when P3D is running at 30 FPS. Not very different as you can see:

 

[o0spyder0o]

Looking at your min clock of 800mhz, Mine remains the same 1600mhz (my ram's base clock) no matter what I'm in or doing,only my cpu core changes when in boost, could it be a factor? Try a bios reset and take it in steps from there, could be a tweak/setting playing bad.

 

 

[Luke Stirling]

800MHz idle clocks are normal for the i7-4790K. That's not an anomaly.

[Rimshot]

5 hours ago, paralipsis said:

800MHz idle clocks are normal for the i7-4790K. That's not an anomaly.

 

That's what I thought as well.

[FireRx]

On 12/19/2015 at 10:14 AM, Penzoil3 said:

 

 

On 12/27/2015 at 3:01 PM, Rimshot said:

 

Bert,

 

Your Hardware seems fine, this is something else. 

[veldthui]

10 hours ago, o0spyder0o said:

Looking at your min clock of 800mhz, Mine remains the same 1600mhz (my ram's base clock) no matter what I'm in or doing,only my cpu core changes when in boost, could it be a factor? Try a bios reset and take it in steps from there, could be a tweak/setting playing bad.

 

 

 

Could be a power management thing. I had mine on performance and wondered why my CPU clock speed was not dropping when idle. Changed it to balanced and it did. If you go to the advanced section you can set what the min/max CPU will do (along with a heap of other things).

[banjoman1960]

check wat programms run in the background when this happen,it is not normal that it runs core_0 at 95% at idle.........

this when p3d run,

 

 use the taskmanager to check wat goes on

 

cheers ralf

[veldthui]

Well I had a huge drop in frame rates today and that was followed by a OOM from VAS. Flight was from YSSY to YMML using FTX Global/Vector/Aus SP4. When I started I had about 1GB VAS free and frame rates of 24-30 FPS with a lot of eye candy. On the descent into YMML I heard the ding from FSUIPC for low VAS just as the buildings started popping up. Shortly after that it died. I have YMML installed as well so maybe it was that. I then started at YMML and did a free flight around the city. Again started with 26-30FPS (locked at 30) and took off with 1GB of VAS free. As I flew around the city the VAS started dropping and after 5 minutes there was only about 400MB left. Something is using and not releasing the VAS. Turned off Active Sky but it made no difference and by now the frame rates where down to 8-10fps.