London City Airport Low Frame Rate

[RadarDave52]

I have recently purchased London City Airport to run with my True Earth Great Britain South/Central/North. To run on X-Plane 11.35.
I have all the current Orbx pay ware airports that are available to go with True Earth GB. Up to now they all work & look great. Well done Orbx.
However whilst London City downloaded and installed fine, when I try to fly to & from here (using the default Cessna Skyhawk), the frame rate drops to unacceptable level. I realise that the airport is close to London so graphics cards will be" under pressure". But, given that this has not been an issue with all the other Orbx airports, I can only assume that there is an optimisation problem with London City?
Can I ask if Orbx are aware of this problem and if there are any fixes in the pipeline?
Or is it just my system?

My set up is, Core i7 8700, 32Gb RAM, GTX1060 (6Meg), Triple Screen x3 - 2560x1440.

Thanks & Regards
David D. (UK).

[oldboy43]

Hi David, I think the problem will be your graphics card. I'm sure GTX1060 (6Meg) is weak for x3 - 2560x1440 resolution. I have a GTX 1080Ti with 11GB of RAM and use a resolution of 2560x1440 for TE GB. FPS moves between 30 and 60 according to the scenery. It does not write anything about the i7 8700 CPU (k?). Is it overclocked? Bite at least 4.8-4.9-5.0 GHz if you have good water cooling. How do you set sliders in X-Plane 11? Everything to the maximum (far right)?

cheers

Karoly

[RadarDave52]

Hi Karoly,

Thanks for the reply.

My settings are fairly high but not all the way to the right, water cooled, CPU not overclocked that I am aware of, runs at about 4.9 GHz, Asus GPU is overclocked.

I fly almost exclusively VFR, so graphics is important. I'm not going to lower my settings just to get this airport working.

My system, at the moment is not as good as some others have, I agree.

However, I have now read that others with better set ups are having issues with London City too.

 

I've not been using Orbx products very long. As I said in my post, I have all the currently available True Earth UK airports, no issues, good frame rates.

So not sure this is all about computing power?

 

Anyway, I will wait to see if the Orbx Team have anything to add. In the mean time, by coincidence, I am awaiting delivery of an RTX2080 Super. 

When it arrives & I have tested, I will update this post.

 

Your input is much appreciated. 

Regards

David

 

 

 

 

 

[W2DR]

Welcome to the forums David. You might want to start with these settings when the new GPU arrives: 

.............Doug

[bornlowflyhigh]

The problem is both your CPU and GPU.  I had an 8700 which is very weak for flight sim. terrible frame rate. I got rid of it and  purchased a 9700K. This made all the difference.  I already had a water cooled  1080ti. I now get a steady 60 rate. However, London city does take along time to load as its a huge amount of data. Once loaded its great.

[The Merowinger]

On ‎8‎/‎7‎/‎2019 at 11:56 AM, W2DR said:

Welcome to the forums David. You might want to start with these settings when the new GPU arrives

 

P3D-settings are not very helpful here...

 

Kai

[Werk]

Dear all,

I also encounter low slide show frame rates in the London UK area while EGLC is installed.

My rig consists of a i9 CPU, Nvidia 1080 with 8 gigs, 32 gigs RAM. That is not too bad.

Anything runs smoothly on this machine even though I have X-Plane on a 5 TB HDD harddisk and not on a SSD (the 1 TB SSD is too small for the trillions of files that Orbx has on sale and which I happily bought), including the Orbx Washington and GB True Earth sceneries which are indeed amazing (a quantum leap from what FSX could do).

Anyway.

All installed Orbx sceneries work just fine for me, only Orbx EGLC does not.

There are even YouTube videos which feature this shortcoming.

This is why I believe that Orbx should reconsider and offer a scaled down version of EGLC which wil run smoothly just like the other sceneries.

Kind regards Werk

 

 

[Werk]

Dear all,

just to mention, my X-Plane settings are visual effects High (HDR), texture quality maximum, anti aliasing 4 xSSAA, world objects maximum - far right (which is necessary to make the most of the Orbx sceneries), reflections medium.

Cheers Werk

[W2DR]

7 hours ago, KaiUweWeiss said:

 

P3D-settings are not very helpful here...

 

Kai

Oops....good catch. I missed the X-Plane part................Doug

[RadarDave52]

Hi All,

 

Firstly thanks for all your helpful suggestions. All much appreciated.

 

Obviously there are some deficiencies with my set up, i7 not i9 etc.

But having now fitted a RTX 2080 Super, things (as you would expect) have improved for London City. 

Also I tried  reduced some setting, with mixed success.

Reducing visibility distance in the weather settings (clear) also helped quite a lot.

I now can have a reasonable experience taking off & landing.

Performance is better going East than West. So it seems to be associated with London Scenery.

I've spent a long time playing with settings, lost too much flying time.

If its not a problem with the current London City Airport, then I am in agreement with Werk.

Maybe a scaled down version would be an answer? 

 

I'm hoping to go to the Cosford Sim Show in October, perhaps I will talk to the guys on the ORBX stand then?

 

Regards Radar Dave52.

[renault]

Minor item RD

 

When you mentioned you have texture quality set to Maximum is it all the way to the right, or 1 selection back from the right hand selection. Both of them are Maximum but the far right

one is Maximum without compression and the one 1 indent back is Maximum with compression.

 

The major difference between the two settings (there are no visible differences between the two ) is in the amount of VRAM that is used. Under certain circumstances the amount of VRAM used can be upwards of 6X as much without compression as with and can exceed the limits of the GPU.

 

When this occurs, XPlane starts dumping visual data from the GPU VRAM , back into memory . Even fast conventional RAM is no match for the 2080's DDR6 VRAM so, when this happens you will see the simulation begin to struggle and fps will plummet.  This situation can still occur if you are running Maximum (with compression) at the setting 1 indent from the far right, but at least you are giving your system more of a chance to cope. 

 

The other issue is reflections. They are a tremendous resource sink and it is best to put this slider all the way to the left.

 

Also if you like the setting "scenery casts shadows" using the data ref editor do a search for "scenery" and you will find that it has a default value of 0. If you change this to 1.0 then scenery will draw shadows without a texture reload. Set it back to 0 and it turns off . 

 

This setting can be a large graphical load, but using this approach allows you to get the aesthetic effect  when desired and turn it off for better fluidity and fps when you don't want it.

 

Cheers & Happy Flying

Renault

[kjon12]

On 8/10/2019 at 12:07 PM, Werk said:

I also encounter low slide show frame rates in the London UK area while EGLC is installed.

Just curious about what you mean by "low slide show frame rates"? Did you mean "low frame rates" instead?

 

I don't have TE GB, but I do have TE Washington and TE Oregon, and a pretty powerful machine (water cooled I9-9900 at 4.9 GHz with 32GB ram, RTX 2080 with 8GB ram), and when I try to run (3) 1920x1080 monitors, my frame rates drop to 19 or even less when I try to add as much detail as I would like to have. To make things tolerable, I either have to scale World Objects back a bunch or drop to only one monitor, neither of which I really want to do. I have Visual Effects High (HDR), Texture quality maximum, anti aliasing 4 xSSAA. I have to admit at this point I am bummed that with the power of the machine I've invested in ($3400), I can't get the full enjoyment out of these True Earth products as I had hoped for.

 

As a relatively new Orbx scenery user, I'm also a little bewildered as to where screenshots like the following are arrived at. Is this a shot taken out of the window of an aircraft? To me it looks like a view a person would get standing on the ground outside an aircraft, or not even near an aircraft. Is there some facility in XP that allows a "person" to walk around the airport, free of an aircraft?

 

Thanks for any comments.

 

Jon

 

 

[Jon Clarke]

 

@RadarDave52The performance issue, for those experiencing lower frame rates, can be significantly improved by lowering the Texture Quality setting to High rather than any Max setting. I now have 27-30 fps at the gates and runways looking towards Canary Wharf.  I note that your situation has changed with the installation of your new high spec GPU but try the setting change I suggest.  I also suggest reducing Reflections to Minimum. My PC specs are in my signature.

[paume]

Hello,

 

I have to agree with the OP EGCL being on the low side regarding fps. I have a fairly powerful computer (see signature below) and sitting at the gate in the Zibo 737 at night time brings my i9-9900+RTX2080Ti to its knees (20-25 fps). I have all the sliders to the max minus 1 notch and reflection set to zero. Bringing textures down doesn't help either. As I pan out I realize there are 10's of thousands of lights across London city that the CPU has to deal with, but this is unflyable under these settings. The same settings I use in ALL other Orbx products, where I get a stable 30 fps using VSync.

[Tvegas]

I also have tried every setting, have to put xp settings to around medium to make EGLC run around 32 fps (that's with default cessna) 

my specs are 8700k water cooled & oc'd, 1080ti 11gb vram, 32 gb ram, SSD drives.

 

I don't use this airport much anymore, too frame rate heavy atm.  

[andiflyit]

Hi, I am still learning how to use Xplane because I normally use P3d and FSX. And my computer is a little weak for Xplane 11,

I also use the GTX 1060 6G card. Recommended is at least a GTX 1070 which is a lot stronger.

 

What I found now is that I get better results and performance without the hdr lighting, looks and runs very well.

And doing so I have good results using only a simple 4x AA setting, no flickering screen at all.    

[Werk]

On 8/24/2019 at 6:01 AM, kjon12 said:

Just curious about what you mean by "low slide show frame rates"? Did you mean "low frame rates" instead?

 

I don't have TE GB, but I do have TE Washington and TE Oregon, and a pretty powerful machine (water cooled I9-9900 at 4.9 GHz with 32GB ram, RTX 2080 with 8GB ram), and when I try to run (3) 1920x1080 monitors, my frame rates drop to 19 or even less when I try to add as much detail as I would like to have. To make things tolerable, I either have to scale World Objects back a bunch or drop to only one monitor, neither of which I really want to do. I have Visual Effects High (HDR), Texture quality maximum, anti aliasing 4 xSSAA. I have to admit at this point I am bummed that with the power of the machine I've invested in ($3400), I can't get the full enjoyment out of these True Earth products as I had hoped for.

 

As a relatively new Orbx scenery user, I'm also a little bewildered as to where screenshots like the following are arrived at. Is this a shot taken out of the window of an aircraft? To me it looks like a view a person would get standing on the ground outside an aircraft, or not even near an aircraft. Is there some facility in XP that allows a "person" to walk around the airport, free of an aircraft?

 

Thanks for any comments.

 

Jon

 

 

 

[Werk]

Hello Jon,

when I wrote 'low slide show frame rates' I did mean low frame rates.

One frame, a pause, another frame.

Like a slide show.

I still hold that Orbx EGLC is unflyable unless a number of X-Plane graphic sliders are moved to the left which I am not prepared to do as all other sceneries work well, with stunning graphics.

Okay truth is that I sometimes (only sometimes) experience stutters (but nothing like the EGLC slide show effect) when flying around Darrington US.

 

I still wonder whether Orbx will provide a more frame rate friendly version of EGLC.

 

Regards Werk

[Gabe777]

Having also tried Leeds Bradford on TreuEarth for XP11, I have worked out what is causing the horrendous hit on the GPU.

 

PBR.......!

 

My 1080 is only loaded with 5GB of VRAM textures, but is hitting 100 percent use when the main apron and terminal area fills at least 50 percent om my screen.

 

CPU is barely 25 percent (i7 7700k at 4.5 Ghz), and less than 9 GB of my 32 GB of RAM.

 

Changing global settings in the sim.... objects, textures or AA... makes ZERO difference. ZERO !

 

At night, looking full on at the main terminal area, my GPU usage is just 50 percent. No problems there.

 

Day tine with all those reflective objects with PBR ? Straight up to 100 percent.

 

Move AWAY, however,  from all the PBR rendering, like the runway start for example, and GPU usage drops back down to 50 percent.

 

Unfortunately, if you give a kid a box of matches............

 

......And PBR look really great in screenshots and sells loads of copies.

 

There you go. Do with that what you will.

 

But just as Dynamic lighting ruined P3D, this PBR -  which is now used on EVERY object in these sceneries - is killing X plane.

 

What a surprise.

 

I for one am getting into the folders with WED and other apps, and I'm gonna kill it dead. At least with dynamic lighting in P3D, you can simply disable it.

 

 

 

[Gabe777]

On 8/10/2019 at 10:20 AM, bornlowflyhigh said:

The problem is both your CPU and GPU.  I had an 8700 which is very weak for flight sim. terrible frame rate. I got rid of it and  purchased a 9700K. This made all the difference.  I already had a water cooled  1080ti. I now get a steady 60 rate. However, London city does take along time to load as its a huge amount of data. Once loaded its great.

 

Your i9 cpu is giving you a 10 to 15 percent increase in fps.

 

In real terms this amounts to 3 or 4 fps on average. Dropping any slider one notch and you will probably gain more than 3 fps.

 

It is utterly absurd to say "a 8700 is no good for flight simming".

 

90 percent of simmers, enjoy simming with a lot less than an i7 or i8 series cpu, in conjunction with a 1080 gpu.

 

Do not be put off flight simming if you are not in the top 10 percent of hardware users.

 

Absurd....!

[Doctor Jeckle]

On 8/4/2019 at 11:19 AM, RadarDave52 said:

I have recently purchased London City Airport to run with my True Earth Great Britain South/Central/North. To run on X-Plane 11.35.
I have all the current Orbx pay ware airports that are available to go with True Earth GB. Up to now they all work & look great. Well done Orbx.
However whilst London City downloaded and installed fine, when I try to fly to & from here (using the default Cessna Skyhawk), the frame rate drops to unacceptable level. I realise that the airport is close to London so graphics cards will be" under pressure". But, given that this has not been an issue with all the other Orbx airports, I can only assume that there is an optimisation problem with London City?
Can I ask if Orbx are aware of this problem and if there are any fixes in the pipeline?
Or is it just my system?

 

My set up is, Core i7 8700, 32Gb RAM, GTX1060 (6Meg), Triple Screen x3 - 2560x1440.

 

Thanks & Regards
David D. (UK).

I have the same issue with Orbx EGLC and I have a i7 9700K, NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, 64GB RAM, all SSD storage and only using a single monitor. 

[idaniel1983]

On 11/8/2020 at 10:38 AM, Doctor Jeckle said:

I have the same issue with Orbx EGLC and I have a i7 9700K, NVIDIA RTX 2080Ti, 64GB RAM, all SSD storage and only using a single monitor. 

Same here - in MSFS with an RTX3080. Can approach low over central London on ultra settings to runway 9 and fps is great (40+).  But as soon as I land and taxi I'm down to low 20's and stutter. Even parked up with the engines off it's no better.