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Looking for a different solution than what I just did


jfwharton

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For a long time I have been frustrated with P3D and my frames going intermittently to zero during a flight.  I've looked through threads and there are so many suggestions it's mind boggling.  I had used Simstarter NG when I was using FSX to get better frames but even then my frames didn't go down to zero for a few seconds.  So today I purchased Simstarter NG P3D for my P3D v4.5 and v5.2.  I set up a couple of configurations but still had the issue.  I have Orbx Base, Vector, all the Open LC's, all of the NA series, True Earth Florida, along with Australia V2 and North and South New Zealand as well as a bunch of airports.  I tried a configuration where I disabled all scenery outside of North America and still have the issue with frames going to zero during a flight.  I finally tried disabling all Orbx scenery leaving my addon airports (not Orbx) and plugins and finally got a smooth flight even with everything maxed out and checked in the P3D settings for v5.2.  Before I was using the recommended settings for P3D listed in the user guides but decided to see how it performed with no Orbx scenery and everything maxed out.  I was pleasantly surprised.  But I don't want to stop using all of the Orbx scenery I paid so much for.  So where do I go from here?

 

Can I, for instance, disable all scenery outside of the area I want to fly in, say North America as well as all of the default P3D scenery?  Is that possible or would some areas not display correctly.  I would like to be able to fly in general areas, North America, South America, Asia, Oceania, Europe.  I've tried lowering my settings but have come to the conclusion that my issue is related to how much is enabled in my scenery library.  So again looking for a path so I can fly in the areas I mentioned and not have my frames drop intermittently to zero.  Thanks for any suggestions.  I'll be trying some tweaks in Simstarter NG P3D.

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Hi

 

You do not need to uninstall to do these tests, all you need to do is uncheck/deactivate the sceneries in your scenery library or addons list.

IMO, you are not going to find a different solution by doing the same thing, and what you are doing is not going to provide you with any answers.

The whole idea, especially with P3Dv5 is to be able to have everything installed and activated.

I do not know what the solution is for you, but I do believe you need to get out of this current rut of scenery swapping, and try a different train of thought. Maybe start by trying something like just moving the special effects sliders to the far left.

 

What are your PC specs please?

 

Below are the settings I am using and my PC specs in my signature.

 

 

 

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Thanks for your inputs.  I am already using settings much lower that those you posted.  Even at settings lower than you are using I am still getting drops.  Not as bad as when I had everything loaded.  So I will continue to experiment.  So far my best experience has been with all of my Orbx scenery disabled.  I am running an I7 7700 4.2 GHz processor, 32G RAM, GTX 1080 Ti 11G video card running on SSD drives.

Edited by jfwharton
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Thanks

 

Our systems are very different, but I did find with mine, the lower the settings, the worse the performance, it very much likes tons of load to be smooth.

 

I have also noticed over the years that those with the i7 7700 CPU in their systems have these common complaints that you are describing.

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Well if it's an issue with the I7 7700 CPU then my best bet is to leave all of my Orbx scenery disabled.  Thank you for your input.  With  the Orbx scenery disabled I can run with everything maxed out and not have any frame drops.  But I will try reinstalling the Orbx scenery I  removed and adjust my settings to what you provided and see what that gives me.

 

Edited by jfwharton
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Interesting. I have a lesser system than you and mine runs fine in P3D, particularly p3dv5. 

 

What sort of cooler do you have? I invested in a top of the line Noctua CPU cooler and I run my rig at the water cooled setting in the BIOS. Frame rates dropping to zero can sometimes be CPU getting too hot. 

 

To determine scenery issues I have always used a default aircraft. Then run P3D default (Global is always active of course) and the default aircraft, with all sliders maxxed out. You should be seeing at least 70fps in sparse scenery and at least 30fps over cities. If not, your problem is already somewhere in the computer, whether it's hardware or software related is anyone's guess. 

 

If it does run smoothly, still using the default aircraft, activate your regions, landclass, cityscapes etc. You should still be seeing 40+ fps in sparse scenery and 25+ over cities. If not, once again there's a problem that shouldn't be there.  Note though that max settings in the True Earth areas can also bring fps down into the low teens so at this stage some highs instead of ultras may be needed. 

 

BTW if you use the freeware scenery config editor you can activate/deactivate blocks of scenery items with one click. 

 

At this stage you can activate your remaining Orbx sceneries, and if all is working properly there should be no change in performance across 95% or more of the globe. (some areas of the West Coast USA etc do suffer from conflicts that can't be explained but if you do find an area that is stuttering, try somewhere else. 

 

If you get this far with good performance you can elect to either try your add-on aircraft or other add on scenery. As long as you are meticulous in how you introduce each add on or group of addons, you should have no problem in tracking down the source of the fps losses. 

 

Good luck. 

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Thanks for the information.  My system is liquid cooled for the CPU and I have run stress tests on all of the hardware maxing out the CPU, GPU, RAM, VRAM etc and everything check out, no abnormalities with the hardware.  The testing you are suggesting is just not going to happen.  If it doesn't run properly then I will be removing the Orbx scenery and running P3D with the default.

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I will try the suggestions provided but don't want to spend days testing.  The issue I am having in P3D, both in V4.5 and v5.2 does not happen in X Plane 11 or in MSFS 2020. In rural areas I get over 60 fps and in dense areas typically 30 plus but what seems to be happening is either something that I have not been able to yet determine is running in the background causing a bottleneck so to speak.  The frames drop, sometimes to zero, I get stuttering and then the issues clears, frames back to normal and then it repeats.  I have my anti virus settings set to exclude scanning files in the P3D directories, HiFi directories, Addonmanager directories and everything else I can think of.  But when I disable all of my Orbx scenery and run the simulator maxed out I have steady frames and do not see the issue.  So I  will continue to try to identify what is causing the issue on my system.  As I mentioned above, I have run stress tests using OCCT and maxed out my CPU, GPU, VRAM, Memory, power supply each for one hour and there were no issues noted and I did not see any overheating issues.  So I'm just a bit frustrated with this and will most likely just leave the Orbx scenery disabled for now so I can enjoy P3D and gradually turn things back on in an attempt to determine at what point the issue returns.  Thank you again for your suggestions.  I just wish it were easier to identify these sorts of issues.

Edited by jfwharton
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Where would I uncheck global base in the scenery library?  Just want to do some testing.  I have installed firmware updates on my SSD drives and configured the d rive for P3D v5.2 for rapid mode.  Also turned on Game Mode.  Those things seem to have helped a little but still getting frame drops.  For example I do a flight from KDEN to KEGE.  KDEN, BJC, RLG and then do the ILS to runway 25 starting at RLG.  When I do the left turn at RLG I get a slight frame drop but when I approach the ILS course at 13,000 feet I start getting bigger drops and after the right turn onto the localizer as I approach KEGE I sometimes get a drop to 0 for a moment.  Seems to be coinciding with scenery loads.

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3 hours ago, jfwharton said:

Where would I uncheck global base in the scenery library?

 

Global base can not be deactivated as it is a default texture replacement and the sim will not work without it.....but, if it is installed to an external library outside of the root simulator folder, it should show in the Addons list and be able to be unchecked there. 

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Also, O&O Defrag versions 22 and up have defrag options for SSD's, which may improve your situation.

 

 https://docs.oo-software.com/en/oodefrag-22/getting-started-ood22/standard-defragmentation-methods-ood22

 

From the above link,

 

"SOLID Method

Windows – and in the case of SSDs, the controller of the SSD – distributes files into individual file fragments when saved, in each case in the next free and “suitable” memory sections, called Pages. In the remainder of this blog entry, I explain why this behavior slows down not only a classic hard drive but also SSDs and ultimately leads to an unnecessarily early failure of the storage medium. And I’ll explain why defragmenting an SSD is not a no-go, as is still popularly claimed, but on the contrary: the average life of an SSD is extended by defragmentation using the new SOLID method from O&O Defrag 22.

With SOLID, the fragments are first put back together and then a second pass is started which only closes the gaps between. Of course, the easiest and fastest way is always to sort the fragments together and then to reduce the number of fragments. The accesses are then faster and the memory cells used are reduced. But if there are many gaps between the data, they will be filled up with new data in the future which will then be compulsorily fragmented too, as there is not enough space for the entire file. Our goal, however, is to remove the current fragmentation AND to reduce it in the future, so that as few memory cells as possible are loaded and the following defragment runs are even less intrusive than the first one.

So that the system uses the space gained and the free cells after defragmentation optimally, the TRIM command of the SSD is also triggered. The result is an immediate improvement in performance and future conservation of resources."

O&O Defrag.PNG

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OK thank you for that information.  So far I went in and unchecked all addons except for aircraft and all scenery except for the default.  Flew the route KDEN to KEGE and no issues using your settings.  Have started checking things again several at a time to try to identify what is causing the issue.  So this  will take a while.  Thanks again.

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Also keep in mind that as you add items back and all of sudden it starts to misbehave again, does not mean that the last item was the culprit, that only means that at a certain work load something else is causing your issue, because you could add things back in many different combinations and still get the same misbehavior. So trying to zero in on a certain scenery item is actually futile.

 

 

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Your description of the drop to zero fps at certain points is definitely symptomatic of sim overload, a common problem when a few resource hungry sceneries are in the same region and multiple objects come within draw call range at the same time. It only happens at a few locations worldwide but I'll be betting that your flights are in the affected area. 

If you have Vector enabled, in many areas it is enough to tip the sim into overload. So if you are using Vector try disabling it. 

 

But even having one  complex airport loaded into the CPU, then flying into the area where another airport wants to load, can cause overload for a few seconds while the CPU loads textures into the RAM. 

 

Using scenery config editor, it might be worthwhile unticking all the airports in the area you will be flying except for the ones that you will fly out of and in to. And Vector. I sometimes go into the scenery config editor before a flight in the USA and untick all US airports, then tick the two or three airports I will be using, and mostly it helps to reduce these CPU bottlenecks. 

 

Unfortunately, with large areas of photorealism associated with the complex airports being called on to load all at once as soon as the scenery comes into range, it's impossible to ensure that there won't be times when the sim will pause.  It's a function of the old FSX coding, that was never designed to handle the current level of detail in the scenery. 

 

 

 

 

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46 minutes ago, Doug Sawatzky said:

Also keep in mind that as you add items back and all of sudden it starts to misbehave again, does not mean that the last item was the culprit, that only means that at a certain work load something else is causing your issue, because you could add things back in many different combinations and still get the same misbehavior. So trying to zero in on a certain scenery item is actually futile.

 

 

So is what I'm doing a waste of time?  If so I may just as well go back to what I did before, just disable all of my Orbx scenery and then things work OK?  I'm confused.

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Ideally you want to have everything installed and activated as a test scenario. I see this as a performance issue, and deactivating the good stuff should not be an option these days. If it was me, the goal would be to focus on PC environment and tuning to get the best results.

 

When was the last time you did a complete system rebuild, from formatting the hard drives and reinstalling fresh OS and simulator?

 

6 minutes ago, jfwharton said:

So is what I'm doing a waste of time?

 

IMO yes. 

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Well thank you for your response.  If I'm wasting my time then it's time to stop this and move on.  I will remove my Orbx scenery and fly without it and go back to X Plane 11 and FS 2020.  I have had issues with P3D since I first purchased version 4 and then version 5.  Always had stutters even when my system was first built and P3D had a clean install.  I guess P3D is just not worth the effort on my part at this time.  Thank you.

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Why are you even asking that?  My system is 4 years old and I have no intention in upgrading a cpu, motherboard, etc just for this flight simulator.  I just tried P3D v4.5 and I have the issue there but not as bad as with P3D v5.2.  I'll either live with it or trash P3D and entirely and fly FS2020 (which I run without any issues on ULTRA settings) and X Plane 11.  Thank you for your assistance.

Edited by jfwharton
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Your topic is asking for different solutions, and as I have already mentioned, of all I have read about these same issues you are having, the common denominator is the i7-7700 CPU. My intentions are not to offend anyone, but only to help.

 

And apparently, if you happen to have a 300 series motherboard, it would be a cost effective easy cpu only upgrade.

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I don't know if this will help but I don't allow small hiccups in the program to prevent me from enjoying the remaining 99+% of the flight. I call it the suspension of disbelief method. I just look away from the scenery into the instruments or close my eyes for 2-3 seconds and hey presto! when I return to the sim everything is back to normal and the interruption quickly forgotten. 

 

I know it's not for everyone but it works for me and has proven to be a robust and effective method of ignoring the temporary brief problems that pop up every now again in each of the sims. 

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I didn't mean to sound offended and realize you are trying to help.  I have put about $5,000 into this tower and at the present time don't feel like spending another $1,000 or more.  I don't believe in chasing software upgrades, at least not routinely.  Normally I just put up with things until they reach the point where I just have a new system built.  What amazes me is how well FS2020 performs on my system without the hiccups.  I will most likely follow John Dow's advice and look away when the little stutters occur.  But also I will most likely remove the burdensome scenery and go back to the P3D default or at least base and vector.  I had just purchased True Earth Florida for P3D and wish I hadn't.  What seems to be the real culprit is the OS itself.  Every time MS updates the OS it brings it the system one step closer to having to be upgraded or replaced.  What I really should have done a long time ago is disable windows update.  Oh well.

Edited by jfwharton
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So that would mean that I would need to purchase another monitor?  What I'm doing right now it setting up profiles in simstarter ng to limit the scenery in my scenery library for any one flight.  I will see how that goes.  If that doesn't work out it does work out by having only base and vector installed along with all my non-Orbx payware.  I do thank you for your suggestions but they all involve spending a lot of money so for now I'll stick with what I have.  As I mentioned before if it doesn't work out I will just scrap P3D for now, uninstall the simulator and all scenery and aircraft and wait until I upgrade my system and then try P3D again.

 

Edit.  That does give me an idea of setting up DSR for 2x in my nvidia control panel and switching to that when flying p3d and setting p3d to 2x as well.  We will see how that goes.

Edited by jfwharton
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Unfortunately the DSR thing wasn't  working 100 percent.  So back to Sinstarter NG P3D and profiles.  So far I have had to stop using the regional sceneries like Southern and Northern California and any airports that require the regional sceneries.  But I have been able to use profiles for the OpenLC regions.  What is strange is I don't remember having this issue until I upgraded to P3D v5.2.  I have been flying in southern California and the Pacific Northwest and didn't notice the issue or if I did it wasn't as bad.  I may remove 5.2 and go back to 5.1.

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Another thing, try the level of detail radius and the autogen distance sliders at a low to medium setting. Also if you use FSUIPC switch off the auto save feature. BTW I put my cpu/gpu combination in that calculator and my bottleneck is 21% which is higher than yours, so I wouldn't be putting too much store in that program! Personally I suspect even high end up to date i9 systems would have scenery loading pauses in the areas you fly in, because if you look at the CPU and GPU load in normal flying it's mostly no more than 50%! 

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I tried uninstalling 5.2, cleaned out files, installed 5.1, same issue.  Uninstalled 5.1, deleted files in program data, and appdata for v5, installed 5.2.  Same issue.  So something changed somewhere with my system and I have no idea what since I don't fly P3D all the time.  I just tried a flight from KORS to KFHR and the simulator is unusable.  All I know is a few weeks ago when I purchased True Earth Florida and installed it I did not have any issues.  It was smooth.  So I have Simstarter NG P3D set up with profiles but am just going to run P3D with Orbx base and vector and leave everything else unchecked in my scenery library.  I give up!  This will have to wait for a wipe and reload of windows I guess.  No issue with any other games.  Just P3D for some reason.  Anyway, thanks for all the suggestions.  Just with something worked.

Edited by jfwharton
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