Drop in frame rates

[shaunm]

Hi Everyone

  I have recently just purchased NA Blue PNW + all the surronding airports but find it totally un-flyable around the Seattle area. I did find some information about the same problem other members are having but found it difficult to try and understand the work around. Myself I have found that if I revert back to the FSX default scenery I have no problem, it is only when I reselect the PNW area via the control panel I have this problem of really bad frame rates and on one occasion last night I had a CTD, out side of that area there is no problem, does anyone know of a simple fix.

                          Thanks Shaun

Windows 7 64 bit

i7 920

12 gig of memory

WD Velociraptor 600 Gbyte

ASUS GT470

Dell 24" screen

[John York]

Hi Shaun

Well, from your specs it doesn't seem as if you're short on processing power although that will rather depend on what Your I7 920 is clocked at.  I heard some of the factory models came out actually underclocked so it may be worthwhile checking.  The default is 2.8GHz and with proper cooling you should be able to get it up to 4. If you haven't done it before, do it in easy stages of 0.2's checking temperatures at each stage.  Although the I7's are designed to take higher temps, don't let them go above 90.  Oh, and you can't rely on the I7 fan to keep it cool enough to go above the default.

Other than that, the only thing I can think of is that you have everything maxed out on the settings and while it may be the case that default works alright with that, it's unlike any Orbx program will.  You'll get better performance with no difference to the scenery if you take on board the settings recommended in the PNW manual.  In addition, use the trees and buildings (1500/1000) tweak to cut the autogen down to size and also only make that setting 'Dense'.  It's quite good enough.

Other things which may improve performance might be to try nHancer and a good de-frag.  I'm assuming you've disabled HT etc., in the DOS because that can have an affect on performance and put in Affinity Mask =14 under [Job Scheduler] in the FSX cfg.  That will spread the load to all four cores.  Well, as I understand it Core 'O' will run all your computer basic programs and the other three will spread the rest of the load between them.

I've probably been teaching Grandmother to suck eggs but I hope it helps.

John

[FreeBird]

I had that problem at first. I changed my auto gen to dense, limited my frame rate to 25 and adjusted my bufferpools to poolsize=2000000. now I don't get any stuttering around the Seattle Area. Every system is deferent but this is what works for me. Also the affinity mask=14 did wonders on performance as John Y describes above.

Josh

[Patrick Scharnowski]

Shaun, would you please provide your order number as per these instructions? Thank you.

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=1415.0

You'll get better performance with no difference to the scenery

That's not exactly true. There is always a compromise to be made when you reduce the settings. It may not be noticable right away, but it is there.

[shaunm]

Hi

  Thanks for writing back, order numbers now added my apologies. The information I was talking about I found on a previous post which is relating to two bgl files sharing the same GUID. I am writing from the office so when I get home I will try reducing my settings and adding some other tweaks but i was just curious to try and work out the work around discussed on the mentioned post.

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=24318.0;prev_next=next#new

                                                    Regards Shaun

53763 NA Blue USA/Canada Pacific Northwest

68529 NA WA56 Israel's Farm

68372 NA 3W5 Concrete Municipal Airport

54501 NA 1S2 Darrington Municipal Airport

[cvearl]

Did you install NA PNW.002 patch after you installed PNW? Making sure that North America was enabled in the FTX Central when you ran the patch? Once that patch is applied you have to apply the libraries which are now texture flow enhanced and so on... "ORBX Libraries 100630" same link.

http://fullterrain.com/support.html

For the record, I run a virgin FSX.CFG with only a WideviewAspect=true and the forcefullscreenvsync=1 or whatever that one is.

Other than the PNW scenery, I have REX 2.0 in the reality Theme mode. I don't use thier weather engine though.

My FSX settings overall are as per the ORBX manual. My resolution is 1680x1050 and I run with AA and AF enabled. I go with framerates locked at 30. I know for me some locked levels are smoother than others and in some cases unlimited is smoother. locked at 30 seems for me to be the best overall.

When I know I am going to fly by Seattle, I drop to Normal on the autogen. Outside of Seattle I go to Dense. Scenery complexity is always left at Very Dense. Flying by Seattle in Fair Weather I can expect a semi smooth experience. Somewhere around 16 - 24 fps. I can be outside the plane and pan around and that is about what I expect. Of course the more clouds and weather I add, the lower that framerate becomes.

The worst spot in PNW for me performance wise is the free airport Vashon Island. Sometimes panning my view there gets me into the low teens.

My system is a Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.0 GHz stock with 4GB PC2-6400 RAM stock and a 4870 512MB video card. Win7 64.

Charles.

[mos]

I have exactly the same problem as "shaunm", and even with CPU clocked to 3.8 GHz, and ATI 5850, clocked to hell, and made all the FSX cfg. tweaks, mentioned.

Near and around Seattle it's almost un-fly-able in PNW, with 9-12 fps, outside Seattle I get around 35 to 72, (default FSX scenery around Seattle with UTX / GEX, around 40 fps).(and yes I have unchecked what have not to do with PNW))

It is odd, but I'm glad that I'm not alone with this problem, (guess why).  :'(

mos

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Hi all

There is a number of things that can cause the "issue" of dropping fps, most of those are related to stuff that has nothing to do with fsX but more with what is running in the background on your systems, Programs, AV scanners, Themes you name it and it eats resources

have a look here http://www.blackviper.com and set your Theme to Classic you'll be amazed how much faster your system will run

Set your AV proggy so that it leaves your fsX install alone, so it won't be scanning it while you are using it

[mos]

"Wolter van der Spoel "

"There is a number of things that can cause the "issue" .................>>>>>>"

Very wise        :'(  (Before  posting )

mos

PS: This stuff have (something) to do with PNW (read above, once more, please). 

(Or maybe we just don't have a "cloud" about anything)?). 

[shaunm]

Hi

  Well i sat last night and did all the tweaking and changing just to satisfy any one who thinks it is the sim but it's not. Like mos i have frame rates up in the 30/40's. i even downloaded EGLL with full loaded traffic with no problems, as soon as i fly into seattle airspace my frames dropped to arrond 10 fps. As it was mentioned on the link i posted previously, it would appear to be corrupted files of some sort.

                                                                      Cheers Shaun

[brianos007]

Hi Shau

you run your I7920 at stock speed??

It will make a great difference in performance.

Have a look at this site.

If you are unfamiliar with overclokking this will work

http://www.clunk.org.uk/forums/overclocking/22106-core-i7-overclocking-guide-beginners.html

Framerate will go up.

But you have to tweak a little in your settings when flying over big citys like seattle.

See the manual from orbx and follow there settings.

Grtz

[FreeBird]

I have tried flying around Seattle mostly the downtown area and am only getting 13.5 fps no clouds,  and 11 fps with clouds.  I tried night and was only getting 8 fps. I haven't experienced any stuttering and as soon as I leave that part of Seattle my fps goes way up.  I did experience a total meltdown yesterday where my system started to stutter and my fps dropped to 6. I don't know what happened but everything now seams to have been smoothed  out. I usally run about 30 fps.  I would like to overclock but my mobo wont let me as they have locked it down, so I will just  have to live with what I got for now.

Josh

[sbflyer]

I have to cut autogen buildings to 500 per cell using the autogen cfg tweak to get reasonable performance

in the Seattle area, with autogen set to Dense or Very Dense.

This allows me to maintain 25 FPS locked, except in the vicinity of KSEA.  Something about

KSEA, maybe the default terminal building left in FTX is coded inefficiently, and drops FPS

to 18 or 19.

[cvearl]

Repeating a little here but wanted to know for sure...

I did a series of test flights around Seattle. Flew from Vashon to Seattle. Did a wide 360 around downtown. Turned right and headed South toward the big airport.

Again - A-gen set to Dense. Scene complexity at Very Dense. Normal A-Gen helps a little.

Around Seattle downtown itself? High Teens and mid Twenties.

Where it started to crap out is a few minutes South of Seattle heading toward the large airport. Then I was 12 - 16 fps and choppy fps. This is regardless of traffic turned right off or not. Turn around and head back North and framerates climbed again to the low 20's and almost 30. Even with Seattle in view! If I went to external and looked from the front of the plane south towards the airport, my frames tank.

I believe the issue to be the large airport (forgot the ICAO).

I too am one of those "almost all other areas give me 30 locked" guys and my system is less than what you all have.

Charles.

[brianos007]

Did you guys install the beta patch from orbx.

Its still a beta version but it worked for me and a lot of others

If you read the test reports.

Here is the link for the download

http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=24557.0

Grtz

[John York]

'I would like to overclock but my mobo wont let me as they have locked it down, so I will just  have to live with what I got for now.'

What's a 'mobo' Josh?

John

[brianos007]

Mobo=Motherboard

[mos]

Hi "brianos007 "

"Did you guys install the beta patch from orbx. Its still a beta version but it worked for me and a lot of others "

YES !

If you take a closer look, you will see that I have installed the "beta patch" (PNW.003.AGN.Beta),

and yes:

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1000

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=500

and yes:

CPU clocked to 3.8 GHz, and ATI 5850, clocked to hell

and yes:

Near and around Seattle it's (still) almost un-fly-able in PNW, with 9-12 fps

and yes:

outside Seattle is no problem with  35 to 72 fps (everywhere)

and yes:

(and yes I have unchecked what have not to do with PNW)).

as mentioned and posted before, there is some poison in the PNW Seattle area. (and I can see that I'm not alone with this st-ranges) ??))

mos 

PS: a little frustration seems to come up, when "writhing" same thing once more 

[brianos007]

Hi Mos

I think this is normal around seattle.

I also get framedrops a but not so massive as yours

[brianos007]

Mos..

Frustration is build in to FSX 

Its like a addon named FSX.

Grtz

[John York]

I've stopped looking at frame rates long ago.  As long as it retains smoothness, I'm not bothered but if I do get the very occasonal stutter, I put it down to turbulence!

And you're not wrong there Brian.

John

[FreeBird]

The Beta patch worked for me too. Now my fps have doubled in and around Seattle and that is with autogen set to extrermely dence.

Josh

[mos]

"The Beta patch worked for me too"

With or whiteout, Beta patch,  PNW Seattle, is still almost unflyable, for some customers (I think it was what the topic was about).

It's still odd to have up to 70+ fps outside "PNW" Seattle, and in a very good day up to 10-12 in and near "PNW" Seattle 

mos

PS: as mentioned before (in another string here), Default FSX Seattle = 25 to 40 fps, and that with much more cargo/tanker ships in the harbor, and of-course with GEX/UTX/FS Global, checked and and .....

[shaunm]

Hi

  Well installed the patch last night and all would apear to be better but still not as good as other big cities, so what is it with Seattle that causes this.

                        Cheers Shaun

[Mistro]

I only have the NA Blue Demo and the Vashion Island add-ons and I can also confirm that there is a FPS issue with Seattle and FTX. I know this because I used to use the big airport as the base to test fly any heavies I downloaded (did this for many months, Seattle was my official test flight airport). Now I avoid that airport like the plague ever since I got the demo. After installing the demo I attempted to take off from Seattle and suffered a CTD as I was crossing the river. Vashion Island is slightly choppy for me but flyable. But yeah...there's something going on with Seattle and FTX.

My system is not high end by today's standards. I'm running:

Intel Core Quad CPU

Q6600 @ 2.40Ghz 2.39Ghz.

3.25Gb of RAM

Nvidia GeForce 9800 GT 512mb.

Windows XP pro with SP2

And with this system I used to fly around Seattle just fine without turning down my settings too much. Most sliders at dense etc.

[Kwiss]

Just a thought have got 'cockpit tool tips' turned on? As this causes a substantial amout of frame loss, in some cases on my system as much as 8-10 frames!

[mos]

Just a thought have got 'cockpit tool tips' turned on? As this causes a substantial amout of frame loss, in some cases on my system as much as 8-10 frames!

I don't now what you are running but it must be a very low end system ehh 

[Kwiss]

Many a fine tune played on an old instrument lol Apparently Aerosoft have done away with 'tool tips' as it caused to much of a frame drop on the AirBus 

[bernief]

Hi all.

I have tried the [JobScheduler] tweak and it works fine. However I checked in the Task Manager and I have a total of 8 cores so I am only using half the number of available cores. Does anyone know what the number would be for 8 cores.

Cheers

Bernie

[JoseCFII]

There are two things I consider before flying in the Seattle area:

1- To fly or not to fly, that's the question.

2- Lower AG to dense.

Most of the time I choose option #2.