spitfir3 Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 Hey guys, so... yesterday, after thinking about this annoying problem with my videos in WMP and probs other players (where the video has a grey tint over it and there isnt much contrast) and the white out I get when enabling bloom in FSX I decided to look at the nvidia driver page... Downloaded the current ones 175.16 or something... uninstalled old ones, rebooted, installed new ones. blahblah... Got into FSX and enabled FTX... flew around Hobart and I got the annoying effect where I couldnt remember what the performance was like with the other drivers I so ended up thinking about it lots.... etc.. So, i'm annoyed with the performance im getting atm... my spec is: Q6600 - g0 stepping or whatever.. the new less power consumption one. 2 Gig RAM 8800 GTS 320mb X-Fi Extreme Gamer I'm running that on a 19" widescreen @ 1440 X 900. Back to the problem... I added the recommended tweaks and OC'd my GFX card to somethigng like 620/910. Not much change... My settings are pretty much maxed up.. on the scenery tab or w/e it is.. i've got the left side maxed up but on the right, i've got the detail thing to max and autogen on Dense. These settings, I get around 10-12 FPS around hobart and sandfly... (less around the city area). Sureley I could get frames than that? I get this on the Dornier GA plane and the Flying Club Cessna 152. With the Realair SIA Marchetti SF260 I get around 15 fps. Abysmal performance really? I try and lock it around 15-19 fps with not much change... unlimited gets me about 10/5 fps more depending on what plane im using. Oh and these new drivers haven't really fixed anything with the problems I get So, anyone with similar rig got any hints? what's your performance like etc? Cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loosestping Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 The video card has very little impact on FSX performance. FSX is very much a CPU reliant program. Have you enabled multicore support in the FSX config file? (Somewhere on here someone has posted the config line to make better usage of multicore CPU's). So oc'ing your vid card will bring about minimal improvements (in FSX), however oc'ing your CPU (depending on motherboard, this is usually done through BIOS), will bring greater benefits. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfir3 Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 Yeah i've added the multicore tweak.. didn't notice much difference. My CPUs on stock speeds atm.. think i'll get much of a performance boost from OCing it? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solareagle Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 FSX performance scales quite well with CPU speed, so if you get a 30% overclock you get close to a 30% framerate gain. The G0 steppings can often OC to 3.5Ghz, but you could easily do 3.0Ghz on even the stock cooler. Unfortunatly my MBD is the wrong revision for Quad OCing so I can't go higher than 3GHz on my G0 until I swap it. With a Quad I recommend running unlimited due to the way locking chops into your framerate so much, considering a Quad has enough cores to prevent blurries and stutters without locking. I know on my system if I lock it, even to 99, I see huge hit. I could be getting 35fps at unlimited, and when locking it to 99 it immediatly gets cut down to 28fps. So I always go unlimited. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfir3 Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 FSX performance scales quite well with CPU speed, so if you get a 30% overclock you get close to a 30% framerate gain. The G0 steppings can often OC to 3.5Ghz, but you could easily do 3.0Ghz on even the stock cooler. Unfortunatly my MBD is the wrong revision for Quad OCing so I can't go higher than 3GHz on my G0 until I swap it. With a Quad I recommend running unlimited due to the way locking chops into your framerate so much, considering a Quad has enough cores to prevent blurries and stutters without locking. I know on my system if I lock it, even to 99, I see huge hit. I could be getting 35fps at unlimited, and when locking it to 99 it immediatly gets cut down to 28fps. So I always go unlimited. Ah didn't know that Thanks! I'm gonna try and OC it tonight. BTW, got this bug where if I switch from VC to external view AA turns off... anyone get this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solareagle Posted June 14, 2008 Share Posted June 14, 2008 BTW, got this bug where if I switch from VC to external view AA turns off... anyone get this? I have intermittent issues with AA when in windowed mode, so if you're using windowed mode try full screen. You could also try forcing AA via the Nvidia control panel or through nhancer. With an 8800 its best to use supersampling via nhancer to soak up your extra GPU headroom and to rid your self of the annoyong aliasing seen on aircraft textures. You could try 8xS supersampling, which is superior to even 16xAA via the nvidia driver. Regarding performance you said said everything on the left side is maxed, but I would not max your water setting. I would recommend mid 2.x, or at the most high 2.x, as max 2.x will gives a large performance hit. So try mid 2.x and see how that goes... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfir3 Posted June 14, 2008 Author Share Posted June 14, 2008 BTW, got this bug where if I switch from VC to external view AA turns off... anyone get this? I have intermittent issues with AA when in windowed mode, so if you're using windowed mode try full screen. You could also try forcing AA via the Nvidia control panel or through nhancer. With an 8800 its best to use supersampling via nhancer to soak up your extra GPU headroom and to rid your self of the annoyong aliasing seen on aircraft textures. You could try 8xS supersampling, which is superior to even 16xAA via the nvidia driver. Regarding performance you said said everything on the left side is maxed, but I would not max your water setting. I would recommend mid 2.x, or at the most high 2.x, as max 2.x will gives a large performance hit. So try mid 2.x and see how that goes... Yep, I run in full screen. And yep, I use 8XS SS through nhancer. Didn't have this problem before I updated my drivers! I'm going to try and OC my cpu tomorow... hopefulyl I should be getting more what this member's getting: http://orbxsystems.com/forums/index.php?topic=2541.msg18210#msg18210 by the way, you've got the same CPU as me, what FPS do you get and with what autogen settings? cheers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FreddyG Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Having read some reviews about duo, quad, etc. I have come to the conclusion that at this time, quad core is a waste of money. Buy a top Duo Core, overclock it and you are better off. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meerkat Posted June 15, 2008 Share Posted June 15, 2008 Hi Spitfire, there are some possible solutions: - try another driver version. What I have seen on some forums the latest nVidia drivers seem to degrade performance on some systems. I still have the version 169.02 originally delivered with my 8800GT and mostly I'm fien with framerate. - try to lower some unneccessary high settings like texture resolution (no need to have it better than 1 m, at max. 60 cm) and water (2.0 mid or low has much less impact than 2.0 high) - your vid card has "only" 320 MB - it could be that graphics mem gets used up by textures and too high AA setting - try lowering the last - no need for multicore "tweak" as FSX SP2 is aware of all cores and uses them. The multicore setting 15 uses only the 2nd to 4th cores - this could smoothen FSX a bit, but as one core is not used for scenery preparation you might easier see blurries... My 5 cts Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfir3 Posted June 15, 2008 Author Share Posted June 15, 2008 Hi Spitfire, there are some possible solutions: - try another driver version. What I have seen on some forums the latest nVidia drivers seem to degrade performance on some systems. I still have the version 169.02 originally delivered with my 8800GT and mostly I'm fien with framerate. - try to lower some unneccessary high settings like texture resolution (no need to have it better than 1 m, at max. 60 cm) and water (2.0 mid or low has much less impact than 2.0 high) - your vid card has "only" 320 MB - it could be that graphics mem gets used up by textures and too high AA setting - try lowering the last - no need for multicore "tweak" as FSX SP2 is aware of all cores and uses them. The multicore setting 15 uses only the 2nd to 4th cores - this could smoothen FSX a bit, but as one core is not used for scenery preparation you might easier see blurries... My 5 cts Hi, thanks for your advice. I didn't know about the SP2 core usage. I have the affinitymask setting on 14 at the moment - should I remove it? change it? I'll try the other settings you mentioned too. I'm still getting this damned AA prob where it turns off when I switch view ??? is this driver related? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Meerkat Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Just discovered a typo in my last post: the multicore setting "AffinityMask=15" means all cores are used (and can be omitted as this is the FSX default), "AffinityMask=14" means only 2nd to 4th core are used. Thus the 1st core where a lot of system processes are running can not affect FSX by stuttering. Try it and judge for yourself, what setting serves you better. Regards Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
solareagle Posted June 16, 2008 Share Posted June 16, 2008 Having read some reviews about duo, quad, etc. I have come to the conclusion that at this time, quad core is a waste of money. Buy a top Duo Core, overclock it and you are better off. I disagree. In fact I use a quad thats running a full 600Mhz slower than my dual and there is no way I'll go back to the dual, despite the 600Mhz speed advantage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heiko Glatthorn Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 The video card has very little impact on FSX performance. FSX is very much a CPU reliant program. This depends on your CPU speed, screen resolution, CP settings, multi monitor setup, ect. I can assure you that i am very GPU restricted with 1920x1200 and 1280x1024 at 16xQAF/8xQAA. Real world weather with 5 cloud layers (ASX) is throwing my 8800 GTX (650/2000) on its knees. I hope i can proof it soon with a 9900 GTX (or better) . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Loosestping Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 The video card has very little impact on FSX performance. FSX is very much a CPU reliant program. This depends on your CPU speed, screen resolution, CP settings, multi monitor setup, ect. I can assure you that i am very GPU restricted with 1920x1200 and 1280x1024 at 16xQAF/8xQAA. Real world weather with 5 cloud layers (ASX) is throwing my 8800 GTX (650/2000) on its knees. I hope i can proof it soon with a 9900 GTX (or better) . Is it GPU or CPU limitations though? It seems that with all the extra CPU processing (5 layers of clouds)- that that would be contributing. What I really was getting at was that, in the general FSX equation (so to speak) the CPU has a much greater effect on performance than the GPU. Unlike many FPS games, which are GPU limited (the CPU is relatively unloaded, with a lot of DirectX processing on the GPU), FSX really pushes the CPU's limits,with the GPU relatively unloaded (20 frames/sec @1900x1200 isn't much in the way of processing-it usually is just adding filters to the CPU output). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heiko Glatthorn Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 My system is (still after 15 month) quiet powerful. I run a water cooled C2D at 3.6 GHZ and FSB1600 which is able to pull a low 14 sec (13.9 at 3.7 GHZ) with SuperPi 1 M. The 9900 will be the third GPU in this rig - i started with a 1900 XT. The performance improvement from the 1900 to the 8800 was huge ! And i bet it will be again with the 9900. Of course you are right when you say FSX is very CPU hungry, but... the CPU is not always the bottleneck (specially in a well over clocked single card system with high resolutions or even multiple monitors). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maurice_King Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 MoBo Intel DP35P Quad capable CPU Core Duo Q6850 3Ghz RAM 4 Gb GEIL DDRII HD's 4 Drives totaling some 2 Tb Storage Video nVidia 8800GTS 512Mb 650 Mhz GPU driving a Matrox TH2GO Analogue OS XP Pro SP2 with All NET Frameworks editions. Sim FSX + Carenado Mooney in VC Mode across 3 20" Screens Result Average of 18-22 when locked at 25 35-45 Flying in the clear when unlimited Configuration is just as important as the Hardware IHMO Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Geoffman Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 The 9900 will be the third GPU in this rig - i started with a 1900 XT. The performance improvement from the 1900 to the 8800 was huge ! And i bet it will be again with the 9900. Why don't you hold off for a week or two and go for the new GTX280 from Nvidia? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heiko Glatthorn Posted June 17, 2008 Share Posted June 17, 2008 The 9900 will be the third GPU in this rig - i started with a 1900 XT. The performance improvement from the 1900 to the 8800 was huge ! And i bet it will be again with the 9900. Why don't you hold off for a week or two and go for the new GTX280 from Nvidia? Yep, that would be the 9900 . On the other hand, it just got slapped in a FSX benchmark by an 8800 Ultra. I guess the drivers... So maybe i'll give it a few days more and look at the 4870 X2 ? Coz i am an ol' red one usually . edit: there's the disaster http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-gtx-280,1953-15.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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