Affininity Mask vs Task Manager

[petehowell57]

Hi everyone

My problem is I have invested quite heavily in the hardware for FSX. I recently purchased a GTX 480. I thought it would provide smooooth flight and fast texture loading as intimated by many of my fellow simmers. Disappointingly this is not altogether the case and I'm still getting some stuttering over Darrington and Concrete Muni for example and rubberising of the landscape ie hills/mountains suddenly take on the correct profile as I pass over them.

I have tried lots of variations of fsx.cfg and positions of the sliders and various nvidia drivers. I am an optimist and I will keep trying things out but please tell , is there REALLY such a thing as a perfectly smooth FSX configuration or do all of you at some time or other experience glitches? 

If 99.99% smooth flight does exist then I will persevere 

Question: I have Affinitymask set to 14 ( have tried 12 and 7) but in the Task Manager (Processes) it shows that all cores are ticked for use with FSX. Is this correct or should I uncheck Core 0 to match up with affinitymask in fsx.cfg. You see I don't really understand the relationship between the two things.

Hope you didn't fall asleep reading this, and any comments would be gratefully received.

Thanks Pete

[Nyxx]

The first thing I do if I feel fsx is not running right is delete the config file, let fsx build a new.

I only use highmed fix, disable info line and pre-load and wide screen true, that's all I add/change in config.

I personally find and always have, fsx runs much smoother and no stutters worth talking about if you lock FPS. atm I have them locked at 24.

Try that as your starting point, GL Peter.

[petehowell57]

Hi

Thanks for the swift reply. Must be because you are in the UK!    I have tried a virgin .cfg file but it always seemed worse to me for some strange reason.  Will try it again.  And yes I used the external limiter for a long time but experienced large fluctuations of fps which coincided with the stutters. I now lock the fps from within FSX and find 20-24 does help.

I take it you still do suffer from some stutters then?  Do they occur only around certain places eg Darrington or is it general?

pete

[Nyxx]

I would not say I have any stutters John.

I tyred running unlimited and BP 0 as many love it, all I got was 100 fps 1 sec 9fps for a split second etc etc, I just felt and saw stuttering all of the place.

I watched a vid done by JV of Concrete flying around in a Robinson, he tyred locked 60 and got stutters but when dropped to 40 all was smooth, I did the same flight just like he did with locked at 40 and it was very smooth.

But it was the Robinson, so I lock at 24 and all is smooth.

Do you  use CCleaner for your reg? its a great free app and unlike all the crap reg clean apps it just does what it should do.

Keep your reg clean.

The one thing I feel has help me get smooth fsx even on my old rig was, install a region/airport then defrag repeat, repeat again and again, never throw everything on then defrag.

Thats all I can think of to help you with out going into all the tweaking etc.

So like JV no tweaks for me.

[TenBlade]

Have you edited your number of autogen trees and buildings in cfg?

Bjorn

[gheeD]

for the blurry trees, setting lod_radius=4.50000 to bigger, say 6.5 for start will increase the area fsx loads terrain texture.

Also, unticking core 0 in task manager might bring up wierd behavior, as affinitymask=14 sets core 0 solely to load (i think) fibers, so taking off fibers completely... O.o I don't even know if i want to test it.

[FLighT]

Just for giggles and kicks, set up a flight that gives you stuttering issues and save it as a test flight. Leave all your computers hardware related settings and FSX CFG alone (I'd virginize the CFG to start and usually your computers hardware should be set up for peak performance with FSX before you even install FSX) . Turn off all A/I aircraft, seacraft, airport vehicles and cars. Fly the saved flight over the same course, altitude and speeds with and without panning and changing views. Then add back one A/I category at a time, remove it before going on to the next category. Then try different combinations and percentages. Then leaving all other serttings as is try the various autogen settings from Dense to No Way in H.... Last figure in the weather component from static to realtime updated and then start the GFG "enhancements". Rinse and repeat. This will take time but should allow you to zero in on the worst culprits. In my case A/I is the biggest problem and aircraft create significantly more stutters of all types (from the micro-stutter skids to macro-stutter whiplash) then even automobiles and trucks. Dawn and Dusk flights seem harder than Mid day or Night flights as tile lighting changes. Don't try to do it in one sitting, you can't, could take a looooong time so try just a little each day and keep a log. Worked for me, I'm not stutter free by any stretch of the imagination but at least I know that if I push  a setting in combination with certain other settings and conditions I increase the potential for stuttering significantly.

On the minus side, there's no magic bullets. On the plus side......

Could testing and tweaking be part of the fun(?)

[petehowell57]

Hi folks

Thanks for all the replies. Just got back from work so will have a play and report back.  Bjorn, yes I have altered the buildings and tree config and it does seem to help. And gheeD I will try increasing the LOD radius.  FLighT - actually I do enjoy tweaking in the same way I enjoyed playing with motorbike engines when I was young I suppose, BUT sometimes it is nice to just FLY (preferably without too many stutters) lol 

Nyxx, I often notice that the sample videos show a little stuttering at times and wasn't sure whether this was the "norm" or a function of the video recording.  I think JV has a dedicated pc for testing ORBX stuff whereas mine has lots of other stuff on like many other people. I don't know whether this may affect things.

Anyway I still love my flight sim and especially ORBX.  I know, I think I'll go flying before dinner!!

Again thanks for the replies

Best wishes

Pete

[TenBlade]

Having FSX together with other programs on the hd will inflict on performance in some way. You should have it on a separate HD, try and run Smart Defrag (free-ware), defrag it, then Optimize it. That puts stuff where the disc spins the fastest.

B

[jjjallen]

When setting up I like to unlock my FPS to get an indication of how the GPU / CPU match up.  For a given system clock say 4.1 - 4.2ghz, overclock your GPU until stutters are noticible and then back down until they smooth out.  GPU memory clock also plays a big part so the process is a big juggling act.  Try to disable extras like air traffic when doing this especially near large cities. 

Usually stutters will be minimal when things are close then you can apply a FPS lock (30)

AM at 14 seems to work well and keeps core 1 from binding up (maxing out) which should also help.

Hope that this helps.

jja