RESOLVED New hardware - over-clocked - but performance still not good!

[ggerman]

Mod note: Greg solved this issue by removing a duplicate display entry from his fsx.cfg

Hi everyone,

I recently built an entirely new machine dedicated solely to FSX - no other apps - only FSX and add-ons. It's a very robust machine., however I'm getting worse performance in FSX with it than I got with my older C2Q 9550 machine

The specs for the new machine are as follows:

(I used John's system as a model for this setup)

Intel i7-920 OC'd to 3.8Ghz

Gigabyte EX58-UD5 Mobo (running F7 BIOS)

12GB (6x2GB) OCZ 3G1600LV2G DDR3 RAM

Galaxy nVidia GeForce 285 GTX - 1GB DDR3

Cooler Master V8 RR-UV8-XBU1-GP 120mm Rifle CPU Cooler

4x 300GB WD Velociraptor10000RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s - HDD

2x 1TB WD Caviar Green HDD (purely for storage space)

Thermaltake TR2 1000W Power Supply

Thermaltake ArmorPlus Full Tower ATX

Windows 7 Professional 64-bit

FSX Gold + Acceleration

I have one of the Velociraptor drives dedicated solely to Windows 7 and another dedicated solely to FSX.

I've also installed every single FTX region and addon airport available, in addition to REX and a few add-on aircraft.

I've tweaked my CFG using FSX-Go and have nearly the exact CFG profile as on my  C2Q 9550 system (I have them running side-by-side) Both systems have sliders set in very modest mid-range settings

While some areas of FSX are greatly improved, overall, I'm getting much lower FPS (at least 10-15fps lower) on the new i7 machine. In addition, I find that my textures are loading much slower on the i7 machine with the 285GTX (the old machine uses an nVidia 8800GTX - 512MB GPU and textures loaded smoothly and very fast!)

I find that I have worse performance in complex sceneries on the i7 as well... YMML on the older system is actually smoother than on the new system!

I have very little system overhead - no unnecessary apps, system processes,  no AVP running, etc... I've properly and regularly defragged the system and I am running FSX in full-screen mode (windowed mode is even worse!) I get microstutters and very poor frames in with heavy polygon models and/or  hi-res textures.

I've tried adjusting the target framerate, BufferPools, etc..but nothing seems to help.

The only real dramatic improvement has been in the FSX boot-up. On the old system, FSX took about 2-3 minutes to go from start to getting to the free-flight screen. On the new system, it's about 20-30 sec from start-up to get to the free-flight screen!

I'm really at a loss... I thought this system would offer a marked improvemnt in performance for FSX, but it seems to be just the opposite. My OC is rock-solid and the entire system overall is incredibly stable!

Could there be ANYTHING I might have missed in setting up this new system? I just can't imagine that an older, slower processor with much less RAM and a slower GPU can be so much faster than this new setup.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks a bunch!

- Greg

[Guest J van E]

What BufferPools settings did you use? The only tweak that really does something for me is BufferPools. On my previous machine a BP of 490000000 did the trick (hope I didn't forget a 0... ) but on my current machine (i7 920@3.3 and Windows 7) BufferPools=0 is the absolute best (and I sure didn't forget a 0 there! ). If you get too much artifacts with BP=0 try 500000 (a five with five zero's).

All other tweaks don't do much here... BP is the difference between stutterhell and a smooth ride.

[JoseCFII]

J van is right on. BP=0 unleashes the i7 and FSX. FSX will use more of the card's memory, but not all cards react the same way.  If you are among the lucky one's, you will be shocked at the improvement in performance with BP=0.

[Valcor]

I would think an i7 at 3.8GHz should see noticeable differences in performance compared to your old Q no matter what the CFG settings.

Did you do a 3DMark or something to check out gains?

[alainneedle1]

The Q9550 is a 12MB cache at 2.83GHz to start with as of the i7 920 is a 8MB cache at 2.66 so right there the Q9550 is a winner, the i7 920 will shine because of the DDR3 memory use with it but still CPU against CPU the Q9550 is better, use the Q9550 with DDR3 memory and the i7 920 is in 2nd place.....

New tecno. does not mean it will be better for FSX.......the only new CPU IMHO who will make a differnce in FSX is the I7 980X because it's a six core like the quad core did over the core 2 duo.....did you know FSX can use 256 core.... listen to Phil Taylor here... 

[ggerman]

All other tweaks don't do much here... BP is the difference between stutterhell and a smooth ride.

Unfortunately, BufferPools settings make no difference at all... that was one of the first things I tried adjusting... unfortunately, there are no gains whatsoever from adjusting it. :'(

[Phil Manhart]

That's really strange that your i7-920 isn't proving to beat down FSX, especially overclocked where it is.

I recently went from a Q6600 to an i5-750 (OC'ed to 4.0 Ghz), and I noticed a gigantic improvement!

I'm assuming that you have a fresh install of W7 and FSX on the new hardware?

The only things I can think of looking at:

1. Use CPU-Z to verify your processor isn't being downclocked by something like a "green power" software provided by the motherboard manufacturer or some other tool.

2. Verify you have the latest drivers for EVERYTHING! Video Card, Sound Card/Integrated Sound Board, Intel Chipset Drivers, etc.

3. Use a program like Speedfan to track your cpu and ram use in the background while running FSX to verify your hardware is being used to it's full extent.

If all else fails, delete your fsx.cfg file and let it reload itself (make a backup so you can put back in anything you will lose for addons).

Try a flight without ANY tweaks and see what you get. Then add in the Bufferpools=0, Texture Bandwith Multi=120 and AffinityMask=255 tweaks and see what you get.

Let us know how it goes!

Phil

[alainneedle1]

What is the timing on your rams?

Are they set to the manuf. spec. in the bios? Voltage and timing?

[Phil Manhart]

What is the timing on your rams?

Are they set to the manuf. spec. in the bios? Voltage and timing?

This reminded me of something! Recently I was helping a fellow flightsimmer via email to setup and overclock his system. This helped me diagnose his problem right away!

(One of his main problems was when installing his RAM, he didn't put them in the right slots to enable Dual Channel, effectively halving the transfer rate of data to and from his RAM from the CPU... He also had a program downclocking his system which turned out to be an overclocking program provided by the motherboard manufacturer... go figure!)

Can you please download and install CPU-Z available here: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Then take Snips using the Windows 7 Snipping tool of every Tab in CPU-Z, then post them here for all of us to see.

There are enough of us hardware geeks on the forums to spot anything wrong that CPU-Z will show us!

Phil

[DEDHead]

I had the same problem with my new rig.  Ijust did a complete uninstall/reinstall of FSX onto its own drive and started doing "crazy" tweak settings.  I arrived at the below settings that finally have me running smooth and staying locked at 30fps in everything except my PMDG J41 which on the ground can bring the frames down to low 20's @ KSEA & CYVR.

"Crazy Settings":

• PoolSize = 0
• TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT = 130
• FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION = 0.20

I use ORBX FSX GO so I can "play" with the settings fairly quickly and try different stuff.  I am currently running FSX+Acceleration, REX2.0, US NA Blue, 7S3 & 1S2.  I haven't reloaded UTX, GEX or UT2.  Some of my other primary settings are:

• UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT = 30
• TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD = 4096
• IMAGE_COMPLEXITY = Very Dense
• LOD_RADIUS = 6.5
• TEXTURE_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL = 1000
• TEXTURE_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL = 800

Other settings based on ORBX recommended.

I ran various benchmarks (3DMark Vantage, Heaven, Stream...)  and found OC'd @ 4.0GHz my rig scores off charts past anything at stock speeds for CPU & Memory and OC'd GPU 10ish% better than other GTX275's.  After ruling out hardware, is when I started to experiment with the above "crazy" settings, prior to using them FRAPS would tell me 40fps out of Darrington in the 185F but as soon as I went over the forrest it would turn into a stuttering mess.  On my system trees cause more issues than dense buildings around Portland, Seattle and Vancouver.  Now with these as I said, I'm smooth as silk in everything, even in the J41 with the fps in the low 20's it is still smooth.  Only in 45 degree plus banks is there a hint of stuttering.

As you have found, I don't know if any two modern systems behave the same way with FSX's dated engine.  For sure, the default settings which reflect two generations back of both hardware and operating systems DO NOT apply well to i7 9xx rigs running W7 64bit.  Prior to getting to my current settings, I experienced some "Black Screens of Death" with BP = 0 but have not experienced any so far.  Incidentally, I also rolled my nVidia drivers back to 190.46 and saw a 4-5fps increase over the current 196.34 beta's.

Hope you can find your rig's sweet spot, I am sure it exisits, it's just going to take time to find.

Cheers...Don

[DEDHead]

Forgot, my Autogen is @ Dense or Very Dense, weather is REX real-time, Water @ 2.x Low (still playing with it...may be able to raise) running on 25.5" LCD @ 1920x1200x32 and using nHancer with basically Nick N's nHancer settings, also running ENBSeries HDR plugin.

[drumsonly2002]

Would it be worth getting a i7 980 12 meg cache chip for FSX? Will those cores be used? I do not see much on the net where FSX is used in benches.

[ggerman]

That's really strange that your i7-920 isn't proving to beat down FSX, especially overclocked where it is.

I recently went from a Q6600 to an i5-750 (OC'ed to 4.0 Ghz), and I noticed a gigantic improvement!

I'm assuming that you have a fresh install of W7 and FSX on the new hardware?

The only things I can think of looking at:

1. Use CPU-Z to verify your processor isn't being downclocked by something like a "green power" software provided by the motherboard manufacturer or some other tool.

2. Verify you have the latest drivers for EVERYTHING! Video Card, Sound Card/Integrated Sound Board, Intel Chipset Drivers, etc.

3. Use a program like Speedfan to track your cpu and ram use in the background while running FSX to verify your hardware is being used to it's full extent.

If all else fails, delete your fsx.cfg file and let it reload itself (make a backup so you can put back in anything you will lose for addons).

Try a flight without ANY tweaks and see what you get. Then add in the Bufferpools=0, Texture Bandwith Multi=120 and AffinityMask=255 tweaks and see what you get.

Let us know how it goes!

Phil

Windows 7 and FSX are virgin installs... this is a home-built system... no added "fluff apps" like you'd get with a commercial system.

All of my drivers and software essentials are are completely up-to-date.

I built this box explicitly to run FSX, so it is lean and mean. I don't even keep an active Internet connection on it, except when I need to activate an add-on. I don't want to run the risk of viruses or any other non-essential software running on it. I have 4 other systems at home that I use for web browsing, applications and such... this box is a dedicated simulator only! I have a dedicated FS9 machine as well... though with a slightly less powerful setup.

As for CPU-Z, I use it during the over-clocking process.. and everything seems to be in line.. nothing seems to be dragging down the system. I did my overclocking directly through the BIOS - no Windows-based utilities used for that. All of my benchmarks and scores were completely in line with my overclock.

It's something with FSX.. plain and simple! There's got to be something amiss with FSX... I've tweaked and re-tweaked the FSX.cfg... I've rebuilt the CFG twice just to make sure that I'm starting with a blank "default" slate, so to speak.

The only external apps running when using FSX are TrackIR 5 and the profile for my Saitek X65F... I haven't even configured thingslike ASA on it yet.. that's how new the system is. I've not even installed the bulk of my scenery and aircraft add-ons yet. The only add-on scenery I've installed is all of my FTX add-ons. I have thousands of dollars worth of add-ons that I haven't even installed yet.

[Phil Manhart]

Okay, you definitely know what you are doing then! 

I'm still amazed that you are getting such bad performance (what is your performance anyways? Can you give us some examples?)

Another silly question, have you defragged? Could it be a hard drive performance issue?

I'm sure you've checked and re-checked your settings, but there has got to be an issue somewhere.

After building my new system, sometimes when starting FSX I noticed that performance was dirt, and the only way I fixed it was to disable Intel C-State in the BIOS. Watching Speedfan before disabling it all four cores were running at about 25%, but after disabling it they all run 100%. I'm not sure this will help you out, but it's worth a try!

BTW, did you already disable Turbo Boost in your BIOS too? It interfered with my overclock and clock settings as well.

Phil

[ggerman]

Okay, you definitely know what you are doing then! 

I'm still amazed that you are getting such bad performance (what is your performance anyways? Can you give us some examples?)

Another silly question, have you defragged? Could it be a hard drive performance issue?

I'm sure you've checked and re-checked your settings, but there has got to be an issue somewhere.

After building my new system, sometimes when starting FSX I noticed that performance was dirt, and the only way I fixed it was to disable Intel C-State in the BIOS. Watching Speedfan before disabling it all four cores were running at about 25%, but after disabling it they all run 100%. I'm not sure this will help you out, but it's worth a try!

BTW, did you already disable Turbo Boost in your BIOS too? It interfered with my overclock and clock settings as well.

Phil

Defragging is always one of the first things I do - especially after a large scenery install (like all of my FTX scenery)..

The drives, themselves, are very lean... Drive C:\ has only the OS... Drive D:\  has only FSX... Drive F:\ has everything else and Drive G:\ is a spare... all four of those drives are 300GB 10000RPM Velociraptors.

I also have 2 1TB drives just for storage space (i.e. one has all of my add-on installers for scenery, aircraft, sounds, etc... the other I intend to use for video captures with FRAPS, once I get the performance issues sorted)

I disabled Turbo Boost in the BIOS when I OC'd... I have read differeing reports on that, though.. some leave it on, others turn it off. I chose to turn it off.

Another thing I have seen differing opinions on is hyperthreading.. some say the performance gain is negligible by turning it off, while others choose to go ahead and leave it on and reap the benefits. I chose to sacrifice a few extra Mhz and leave it on.

I'll post some screens from CPU-Z when I get home - that way if anyone sees anything I've missed, they can advise.

I will say, though, that I OC'd this system very methodically... I was not going to attempt 4.0Ghz... I'm using air-cooling, so I didn't want to risk going any higher than 3.8, though I probably could have gotten to 4.0 eventually. I felt that the performance gain from 3.8 would be totally satisfactory for FSX.

The only thing I HAVEN'T done is OC my GPU... I see people who are getting up to 700+ on the same card, but FSX doesn't need as much graphics power as games like Crysis or other shooter games.. and I'd rather not risk the GPU stability.

[ggerman]

UPDATE!! PROBLEM SOLVED!!

Well... believe it or not, it turned out to be something so simple.. so basic... that I want to kick myself in the rump for overlooking it!

It turns out that there was a duplicate DISPLAY entry in my FSX.cfg! I recently switched out my dual Apple 30" displays on both my FSX and FS9 machines and replaced them with dual Sony Bravia 46" 120hz HDTVs. But the entry for the Apple display was still in the FSX.cfg!!! I completely glossed over it looking for some other culprit. It only came to my attention when I was doing a line-by-line analysis of the CFG!

What has me miffed, though is that I know I rebuilt the CFG at least once since switching monitors, so I'm puzzled as to why that duplicate entry was still in there

Anyway... I'm now I'm cruising smoothly at a steady 30-50 fps and no stuttering whatsoever!

Thanks to everyone who offered advice and suggestions!!

Greg

[Valcor]

So glad to hear you resolved that!  I knew (was hoping) something simple must be amiss!

So is Hyper Threading generally not recommend on for most games, or just FSX? 

From what I've read it may give some performance boost but at the cost of a little temperature gain under load.

[Phil Manhart]

Great to hear Greg!

Have fun!

[alainneedle1]

Good to know you OK. what kind of perf. do your from your new rig?

[ggerman]

Good to know you OK. what kind of perf. do your from your new rig?

Since solving the problem, I'm now getting a very smooth 30-50FPS... depending upon the area.

I just tried out the Aerosoft F-16 in Aerosoft's US Cities-San Francisco X (which I couldn't even run on my older system) and I was pleasantly surprised to see a very constant 30fps!

In the FTX regions, I am averaging between 40-50 fps. Melbourne, as expected gave the lowest frames (21), but everything else is well above 40 fps!

I have the framrate set to "Unlimited"...  but I haven't seen it rise much more that 50fps. I'm perfectly happy with that, so I'm going to leave it at Unlimited for a while and see how it does when I load some other sceneries!

[John Venema]

Good news Greg!  You'll be pleased to know YMML V1.5 is entering beta testing today. I have a 4.2Ghz i7 and can get crazy smooth performance there now. And that's before we release our new ORBXLIBS (due soon). Your 3.8Ghz i7 should easily get about 25-30FPS at YMML after the update.

[ggerman]

Good news Greg!  You'll be pleased to know YMML V1.5 is entering beta testing today. I have a 4.2Ghz i7 and can get crazy smooth performance there now. And that's before we release our new ORBXLIBS (due soon). Your 3.8Ghz i7 should easily get about 25-30FPS at YMML after the update.

I am anxiously awaiting it, John! I really love the current version of YMML in spite of the frame hit... Everything else you've done is running as smooth as hot butter now! )

Thanks so much, John!

[Ian Routley]

Great to hear it is sorted.

I gather that if you alter the base cfg in the FSX directroty (rather than the one obscurely hiddden away in Users/Appdata)  that this is the "base" from which FSX rebuilds fsx.cfg.

Might be worth checking that file is ok.

[ojdee]

Hi Greg,

Sounds like you're getting great performance now, congratulations.

Are you running all sliders to the right for those fps? Only reason I ask is that I have a very similar setup and only get into the 40-50 range when I'm in open country - Darrington is about 20. But I do have everything maxed. (I admit I'm a forest junkie ! )

[drumsonly2002]

Wow!  Glad to hear your frustration fest is finished.    What a thread. what a community, what a solution. What an example of stcking to it  " It only came to my attention when I was doing a line-by-line analysis of the CFG!"  Goes to show the the power of the CFG. Greg, you are one determined guy. One little line in the CFG goofing up a multi thousand dollar computer build! A hair pulling, head banger for sure. Be nice to have a sticky called "The Best of "Problem Resolved' Solutions that Worked" Sticky thread. This one is another gem in that department. Who would have guessed that one..my..my. thank You for sharing this white knuckle ride.

[ggerman]

Hi Greg,

Sounds like you're getting great performance now, congratulations.

Are you running all sliders to the right for those fps? Only reason I ask is that I have a very similar setup and only get into the 40-50 range when I'm in open country - Darrington is about 20. But I do have everything maxed. (I admit I'm a forest junkie ! )

Hi Oli,

Actually, I'm running with some sliders to the right and others in the "mid" ranges... scenery and autogen are at "normal"... and traffic (sea, land, air) are in the 35-45% range. All of my other sliders are to the right. I'm flying a lot of military aircraft at the moment, so it's of little use to have scenery and autogen any higher than "normal". If I fly low and slow GA stuff, I'll move the sliders up more. 

[ojdee]

You mean you can fly higher than 5000?

[petehowell57]

yet another post that shows what an annoying (but at the same time, amazing) beast FSX really is! I had a Q6600 O/C to 3.6 GHz with XP pro and got lovely performance. Then upgraded to i7 920 O/C to 4 GHz with Velociraptors (initially in RAID 0) and W7 x 64 and the performance was disappointing in comparison!

Have been very frustrated and almost got to the stage of reinstalling EVERYTHING  but then saw DEDhead's CRAZY profile. Tried it and lo and behold things were suddenly much better. OK not perfect but a lot lot better.

FSX ! Can't live with it but can't live without it ! lol    Almost like being married !

Pete  (oh and thanks to DEDHead)