ACTIVE 74S

[GrayRider]

This is another super WOW ORBX product.

For me I'm having bad FPS for some reason within the 74S range,Though when I'm in th KBVS scenery range,my FPS appear to be fine.When I installed 74S I didn't install the latest PNW.004 patch or the latest ORBLIB,because I already had them installed.

My sliders are set the same as they were when flying around the KBVS area,or any of the other airfields. In the 74S CP I have disabled numerous things in it.This did not help. Any ideas of what else I can try to improve the strong frame rate hits I'm getting in the 74S range.It does seem strange that 74S is the only one that I experience bad FPS.My frame rates most of the time are around 18 to 20.In 74S area I'm only getting maybe 10 FPS.if I'm lucky.

Thanks for any feedback or ideas,as to what my be going on etc.

GrayRider

[Wolter van der Spoel]

if you are running your fsX from a normal HDD it would be advisable to run a defrag after install as there are quite a large number of files added to your install

[GlennH]

I get 28-30 around KBVS and drop to 20 around 74S. Did a full name defrag with O&O as well. Not sure what to make of it. Going to play with some of the options in the control panel............

Fantastic scenery though...Im sure we can get the perf sorted out.

[GrayRider]

I agree.It is a super scenery.

When I add any of the ORBX scenery's.I always do a defrag,because all of the ORBX scenery's,are quite large.My FSX is on a normal HDD.At the moment I'm tinkering with the settings in the 74S CP.Most of the tic boxes,are already disabled.

[Griphos]

I don't think it's fragmentation. I've held off getting 74S because I was worried this might be an issue. I have both Jandakot and Cairns, both done by Jarrad, and they are not really flyable for me. I don't know what causes the problem. I'm fine over Cairns or the urban areas. I'm fine over all the other Oz airports (I don't have the YMML or Brisbane or Canberra, but have all the others). By fine, I mean I seem to stay at my 30 FPS limit. I don't fly around with the FPS showing, so I don't know, but it stays smooth everywhere. But when I'm lined up with the runways at either Cairns or Jandakot, or even when I just look at them, my performance drops into the slide show range (low teens). I have no idea about how any of this is made, and I really hesitate to suggest it's something Jarrad is doing (I've written to him about it in the past), but it seems to only happen at his airports, at least for me.

[banjoman1960]

i have around 74s 22-35 fps,at other 45 or more fps............so no prob,but it is right,the frames at 74s going down..............

[fltsimguy]

I was just flying the 74S area. I have my fps limited to 30 and I get12-17 in this area, as I fly out of the area I get 20-30 fsp. So I am borderline slideshowing in this new area, as long as I fly a small GA its OK but not great. I really don't want to mess with setting again as mine are fine with the other apts. I am running with the recommended settings. All check boxes are ticked. I would like to experience higher fps in this area though, not sure what I should adjust but thinking I could back off of the autogen a notch.

[John Dow]

I was just flying the 74S area. I have my fps limited to 30 and I get12-17 in this area, as I fly out of the area I get 20-30 fsp. So I am borderline slideshowing in this new area, as long as I fly a small GA its OK but not great. I really don't want to mess with setting again as mine are fine with the other apts. I am running with the recommended settings. All check boxes are ticked. I would like to experience higher fps in this area though, not sure what I should adjust but thinking I could back off of the autogen a notch.

There's a lot of scenery in the area. There are several control panel options available to reduce the load. Knocking back the autogen one notch will also work.

However, I did a flight from WA56 to 74S last night with autogen and scenery complexity both extrememly dense, and all CP options ticked except the undersides of houses, and I got acceptable smoothness right into 74S. It's quite possible that the fps at the 74S end dipped into the teens at those settings, but I will never know because I don't use the fps counter any more. I was flying the 337 which is quite friendly to frames.

IMHO opinion the fps counter should never have been offered as an option except to developers ) It causes more people more unnecessary angst than any other feature of the sim. Several time in testing airports I have been convinced the fps is in the mid 20s, only to find it varying between 13 and 20, yet the sim looked smooth. I know I'm better off without it.

[Griphos]

With all due respect, I'm a little tired of people blaming performance problems on the FPS counter. I don't use it either. But I do notice when the FPS drops significantly, because I lose smoothness, sometimes significantly. When that happens repeatedly in the same area, I will turn on the counter and check it. Usually, it's in the mid-teens when I do this. So, mid-teens is unacceptable performance for me. Not because I don't like those numbers, but because those are the numbers I find when I don't like the performance and check.

I don't believe the issue is a scenery issue. Lots of Orbx airports have lots of scenery. Seattle, for instance, has tons of scenery, and yet I fly over it with my regular settings without much trouble. Yes, sometimes, I notice performance suffering and loss of smoothness, but it usually smooths back up. What I'm talking about is an issue I believe to be connected to the textures or other aspect of runways or other scenery at the airport itself. Like I said, I don't know what it is and know nothing about scenery design. But there's LOTS of scenery at Cairns, and if I'm not looking at the runways, I have very smooth flights in that area. I've lowered the control panel settings drastically there (and I don't have to do that ANYWHERE else), and I still have the same issue.

I realize that I'm just one person saying this. But I believe the phenomenon is general and repeatable. I'm not an unhappy customer. Shoot, I'm a deliriously happy customer! I only fly FSX because of Orbx, and I own most of what they have produced. I'm just leery of of this package for the reasons I've stated and because of the reports already coming in of what appears to be the same sort of issue I've experienced at Cairns and Jandakot. I think it's an issue worth exploring carefully rather than dismissing as a perspective problem caused by looking at the FPS counter.

With that, I'll shut up and go fly some nice scenery that I'm fortunate to own, most of which does incredibly well on my system (not much different from yours, John), especially given that it's FSX (a famous resource hog) and such amazingly realistic scenery to boot.

[GlennH]

Yeah, 'ignore the FPS counter, is it smooth?' doesn't hold much water with me. I don't turn it on unless I sense a drop in 'smoothness' - When I'm buzzing along at 28-30 FPS locked and I'm suddenly in the high teens range, its very noticeably 'less smooth'!!

I specifically asked Iain about this in his 74S screenshots. He said at full settings, max autogen he was locked at 40FPS and getting at least 28. I must be doing something wrong!

In reference to above post, I also find its at the airport itself. Surrounding scenery seems fine.

[fltsimguy]

Trying to keep this on topic.....what I want to say is that this scenery puts a little extra demand on my system. It is still very flyable and an excellent product. I do notice that I have lost a little smoothness because I am hovering around that magic 15-16 fps in this area. However everywhere else in the orbx world except the big airports in Aussie country I am getting closer to 30 fps and smooth flying.

[John Venema]

The 74S area is harder on most PCs for a reason we have not yet determined. This holds true even with default FSX. There seems to be some inherent issue with that area, which is odd given the amount of water area.

However, that said, I get more than acceptable performance on my approach to RWY18 with my Scenery and Autogen sliders set to Extremely Dense. All CP options ticked. I have no tweaks in fsx.cfg and I don't use any external limiter and I get a rock steady 24FPS on the approach and then some dips very occasionally down to 18, 17, even 14, but it settles down to 19 on the ground. If I ease off on the autogen to Very Dense it's locked at 25FPS.

By contrast cruising over downtown Seattle I am locked at 25FPS at Extremely Dense Autogen with the occasional dip to 24, 22, 21,5 but mostly hovering around 24.5-25

Now my hardware is over two years old and still runs things at a very acceptable rate of knots given the amount of content our scenery is adding to the baseline.

As I always say, the easiest free FPS boost is to pull that autogen density slider back at least to Very Dense, or for middle-low spec PCs to Dense or Normal.

[GrayRider]

I did also have my autogen,set at normal when I did my first flight around the 74S area's.It was alarming that my fps droped to around 10,and my fps stayed that way anywhere in the 74S area's. The highest fps I got was about 12.This is why I started this topic,to see what others my be getting in the 74S area's.I did switch to numerous other GA planes,and default planes,with no success on FPS.

I then took off from 74S and headed back to KORS.My FPS cleared up by the time I got to KORS etc.

GrayRider

[Jarrad Marshall]

G'day guys,

Some thoughts, questions and general insights from my end:

1. Specifically, what control panel settings are you playing with? My recommendations, in order of biggest potential FPS improvement vs visual detraction:

a. Switch off detailed marinas (note: this is switched off by default) in your control panel

b. Switch off Natureflow, static grass & peopleflow - note that other users have also found a decent FPS performance improvement by disabling these items.

c. Switch off Anacortogen

d. Switch off static aircraft

e. Switch off Refinery

2. As has been pointed out by JV, this area is hit by unusual FPS anomaly that we have all spent quite an amount of time trying to decipher.

3. Anacortes represents a very large area of considerably detailed scenery. Don't forget that on top of the airport(s) and custom scenery areas such as Deception Pass, Refinery etc, the airport is situated in the middle of a detailed urban area. This is the first PNW airport to be situated in the midst of a city area, and whilst Anacortes isn't the same as downtown Seattle, this still needs to be put into consideration when deciding on your own slider preferences.

4. The detailing in the 74S modelling is considerable, and certainly amongst the highest poly counts in the FTX world. These models are 100% efficient - consolidated and optimised material libraries, efficient use of textures, no unnecessary polys, optimised using textureflow - however it must be put into perspective that they are extremely, extremely detailed. Deception Pass Bridge, my custom static aircraft, runway lights and signs detailing, natureflow, peopleflow etc, they all add up, and as such that is why we always provide many options on the control panel to enable you to suit your scenery to your rig.

Whilst I am always trying to push the envelope with my own projects, I understand as well as everyone else that it's no fun to have lots of eye candy if I can't enjoy the scenery due to not-ideal performance. With that in mind, I am more than happy to work with anyone having issues to find the best solution.

Cheers,

Jarrad

An interesting but important side note for those that have any AI airline traffic enabled, whether it be default, WOAI, MyTraffic, etc. AI traffic will "load into" your flight at a distance of approx 65nm from your aircraft, much the same as scenery library objects will "load in" at a shorter distance (between 10-20nm). Most of the time, this loading will go unnoticed as it will either only be a small amount of any AI at any one point, or the loading will be done at the start of your flight. However, for international-sized airports with large amounts of traffic sitting on the apron, once you cross that 65nm limit, you will always hit a considerable buffer as these aircraft load into the FSX engine. By unlucky co-incidence, the 65nm radius for Seattle International (KSEA) runs between 74S and Whidbey Island NAS. Therefore, if you have any decent amount of AI airline traffic enabled/installed, you will always be buffeted as you fly either side of that radius line.

[John Dow]

One other thing I forgot to mention (and many will not wish to compromise their setting) is that i have settled on Medium as my Level of Detail radius. Seems to give me the best balance between frame rates and scenery detail. It also lessens the number of G3D.dll instances as well. Every now and then I notice some blurries that are close enough to be annoying, but not enough to worry me. For the information of fsx.cfg tweakers, the medium setting equates to LOD radius setting of 3.50000.

[fltsimguy]

I will try some of these suggestions tomorrow, thanks for the additional information.

[shousa]

I have great smooth performance without blurries with Anacortes (all goodies on 100%)

I use

- Jesus Bojote's website config changes

- Shade (burned in)

- ENBSeries (ForceDisplayRefreshRate=1, DisplayRefreshRateHz=30)

- FSX set to unlimited frames

- Frame limiter set to 30

- this was huge - in Nvidia Inspector rather than 8SQ etc it is "AA_MODE_METHOD_SUPERVCAA_64X_4v12" (ref: http://forum.avsim.n...ts-worth-a-try/)

- My rig in my sig

[GlennH]

I left the control panel at default settings and worked back. Disabling the static grass, shrubs / bushes and peopleflow seems to have helped a lot. I'm not seeing less than 25 FPS now. The strange thing is I can fly over the area itself and have no issues. There just seems to be a drop when looking over at the apron area (east) of the airfield from runway height (which makes no sense as you are basically looking at a hillside)

Anyway, still think the scenery is great!

[GlennH]

G'day guys,

Some thoughts, questions and general insights from my end:

1. Specifically, what control panel settings are you playing with? My recommendations, in order of biggest potential FPS improvement vs visual detraction:

a. Switch off detailed marinas (note: this is switched off by default) in your control panel

b. Switch off Natureflow, static grass & peopleflow - note that other users have also found a decent FPS performance improvement by disabling these items.

c. Switch off Anacortogen

d. Switch off static aircraft

e. Switch off Refinery

2. As has been pointed out by JV, this area is hit by unusual FPS anomaly that we have all spent quite an amount of time trying to decipher.

3. Anacortes represents a very large area of considerably detailed scenery. Don't forget that on top of the airport(s) and custom scenery areas such as Deception Pass, Refinery etc, the airport is situated in the middle of a detailed urban area. This is the first PNW airport to be situated in the midst of a city area, and whilst Anacortes isn't the same as downtown Seattle, this still needs to be put into consideration when deciding on your own slider preferences.

4. The detailing in the 74S modelling is considerable, and certainly amongst the highest poly counts in the FTX world. These models are 100% efficient - consolidated and optimised material libraries, efficient use of textures, no unnecessary polys, optimised using textureflow - however it must be put into perspective that they are extremely, extremely detailed. Deception Pass Bridge, my custom static aircraft, runway lights and signs detailing, natureflow, peopleflow etc, they all add up, and as such that is why we always provide many options on the control panel to enable you to suit your scenery to your rig.

Whilst I am always trying to push the envelope with my own projects, I understand as well as everyone else that it's no fun to have lots of eye candy if I can't enjoy the scenery due to not-ideal performance. With that in mind, I am more than happy to work with anyone having issues to find the best solution.

Cheers,

Jarrad

An interesting but important side note for those that have any AI airline traffic enabled, whether it be default, WOAI, MyTraffic, etc. AI traffic will "load into" your flight at a distance of approx 65nm from your aircraft, much the same as scenery library objects will "load in" at a shorter distance (between 10-20nm). Most of the time, this loading will go unnoticed as it will either only be a small amount of any AI at any one point, or the loading will be done at the start of your flight. However, for international-sized airports with large amounts of traffic sitting on the apron, once you cross that 65nm limit, you will always hit a considerable buffer as these aircraft load into the FSX engine. By unlucky co-incidence, the 65nm radius for Seattle International (KSEA) runs between 74S and Whidbey Island NAS. Therefore, if you have any decent amount of AI airline traffic enabled/installed, you will always be buffeted as you fly either side of that radius line.

Jarrad,

Thanks for the suggestions. Out of interest, what do I lose by disabling 'anacortogen'? The other options are all pretty obvious but this one had me wondering......

[cvearl]

With all due respect, I'm a little tired of people blaming performance problems on the FPS counter. I don't use it either. But I do notice when the FPS drops significantly, because I lose smoothness, sometimes significantly. When that happens repeatedly in the same area, I will turn on the counter and check it. Usually, it's in the mid-teens when I do this. So, mid-teens is unacceptable performance for me. Not because I don't like those numbers, but because those are the numbers I find when I don't like the performance and check.

Ya. +1 to this. I "turn on the fps counter" when I get stutters and less than smooth performance than I normally experience. The FPS counter is indeed a good double check to make sure you are not experiencing something else.

Secondly, I love this airport scenery. One of my favorites. Performance wise, it was somewhat smooth with the default Robinson R22. Had a blast looking around and exploring and framerates are not bad. But then I tried to fly the pattern in the Duke. Low teens to low twenties whenever I looked at the airport itself. It improved by disabling People Flow and vegetation and grass but only so much.

The flight in the Duke NW to ORCAS also produced Low teens about 2 minutes out of 74S. I disabled those features at ORCAS and then that was better as well.

I run FSX on an Intel i7 2600k at 4.2Ghz.

Charles.

[Jarrad Marshall]

There just seems to be a drop when looking over at the apron area (east) of the airfield from runway height (which makes no sense as you are basically looking at a hillside)

Great to hear you are getting the performance you are after. The reason you would be getting that hit when looking east - not only are you looking at the most detailed part of the airport (apron & buildings), but on the other side of that hill you also have the majority of downtown Anacortes, the refinery, and then Skagit in the middle distance.

Out of interest, what do I lose by disabling 'anacortogen'? The other options are all pretty obvious but this one had me wondering......

That one disables the more advanced autogen types (agn churches, gas stations, fast food diners etc), low-res cars outside of the airport area and the lower-resolution (and lower priority) custom buildings - schools, college, wharves, marina sheds and other odd-shaped buildings. In other words, any building that is not a normal, square agn-style house or commercial/industrial building outside of the "feature areas" will be disabled with this option. Give it a shot, see if you like the visual loss vs performance gain, if not switch it back on

Cheers

[cvearl]

I left the control panel at default settings and worked back. Disabling the static grass, shrubs / bushes and peopleflow seems to have helped a lot. I'm not seeing less than 25 FPS now. The strange thing is I can fly over the area itself and have no issues. There just seems to be a drop when looking over at the apron area (east) of the airfield from runway height (which makes no sense as you are basically looking at a hillside)

Anyway, still think the scenery is great!

SETTINGS... Dense Agen and V.Dense Scene Complexity. 4xSSAA, 16xAF. No FSX.CFG tweaks. 4.2Ghz i7 2600K. Normally most places I get 30 fps locked and smooth in fair weather to some cloud.

Last night I spent an hour doing point turns (left turns/counter clockwise) over the airport in the Duke Turbine at 1500 feet AGL about 1 to 2 miles out. All the while looking out the left window at the runway. This was to test different settings to turn off.

Worst case for me was East side of airport looking West to Northwest. Low teens performance from that angle with alot of stutter. Then on a test flight, I wanted to try something 2 online pilot friends of mine complained about. Flying NW to ORCAS. Enroute to ORCAS from roughly the direction of Anacortes, framerates in the low teens. This is with the Duke and, to a lesser extent, the Bonanza on 4 flights I did. Reading back to John V's post about the "anomoly in this region" triggered a memory from long before ORBX and PNW scenery...

Back when I was using Victoria+ scenery for the first time (I also had UTX Canada and no REX yet), looking West North West from Friday Harbour/San Juan Islands area tanked everyone's framerates! Also Flying TO Victoria INTL airport from any direction did this as well. This was in alot of posts in alot of forums for UTX and Victoria+. Holger might remember some of this.

This is in the same vacinity and the similar results. Not sure if there is some clue. Is there a way to disable Victoria Intl Airport? How does that work again?

C.

[GlennH]

Great to hear you are getting the performance you are after. The reason you would be getting that hit when looking east - not only are you looking at the most detailed part of the airport (apron & buildings), but on the other side of that hill you also have the majority of downtown Anacortes, the refinery, and then Skagit in the middle distance.

That one disables the more advanced autogen types (agn churches, gas stations, fast food diners etc), low-res cars outside of the airport area and the lower-resolution (and lower priority) custom buildings - schools, college, wharves, marina sheds and other odd-shaped buildings. In other words, any building that is not a normal, square agn-style house or commercial/industrial building outside of the "feature areas" will be disabled with this option. Give it a shot, see if you like the visual loss vs performance gain, if not switch it back on

Cheers

Jarrad,

Must stress that I love the scenery!.....tried without the 'anacortogen' and it made no difference in terms of perf and the visual were most certainly impacted.

I'm not at my machine at the moment but I cant remember if there is an option in the control panel to disbable the GA AI traffic at 74S? I would be quite happy with your excellent static models for this strip, especially if perf is increased with no AI presesnt.

SETTINGS... Dense Agen and V.Dense Scene Complexity. 4xSSAA, 16xAF. No FSX.CFG tweaks. 4.2Ghz i7 2600K. Normally most places I get 30 fps locked and smooth in fair weather to some cloud.

Last night I spent an hour doing point turns (left turns/counter clockwise) over the airport in the Duke Turbine at 1500 feet AGL about 1 to 2 miles out. All the while looking out the left window at the runway. This was to test different settings to turn off.

Worst case for me was East side of airport looking West to Northwest. Low teens performance from that angle with alot of stutter. Then on a test flight, I wanted to try something 2 online pilot friends of mine complained about. Flying NW to ORCAS. Enroute to ORCAS from roughly the direction of Anacortes, framerates in the low teens. This is with the Duke and, to a lesser extent, the Bonanza on 4 flights I did. Reading back to John V's post about the "anomoly in this region" triggered a memory from long before ORBX and PNW scenery...

Back when I was using Victoria+ scenery for the first time (I also had UTX Canada and no REX yet), looking West North West from Friday Harbour/San Juan Islands area tanked everyone's framerates! Also Flying TO Victoria INTL airport from any direction did this as well. This was in alot of posts in alot of forums for UTX and Victoria+. Holger might remember some of this.

This is in the same vacinity and the similar results. Not sure if there is some clue. Is there a way to disable Victoria Intl Airport? How does that work again?

C.

Was that a typo or are you really using 4x Super Sampling AA?

Did you mean 4xS (combined 1x2 SS + 2xMSAA)?

My perf would be in the can too with true 4xSSAA!!!

[cvearl]

Jarrad,

Must stress that I love the scenery!.....tried without the 'anacortogen' and it made no difference in terms of perf and the visual were most certainly impacted.

I'm not at my machine at the moment but I cant remember if there is an option in the control panel to disbable the GA AI traffic at 74S? I would be quite happy with your excellent static models for this strip, especially if perf is increased with no AI presesnt.

Was that a typo or are you really using 4x Super Sampling AA?

Did you mean 4xS (combined 1x2 SS + 2xMSAA)?

My perf would be in the can too with true 4xSSAA!!!

Nope I have an ATI 6870 1GB and it gives 4xSSAA no problem. ATI does not offer hybrid modes sadly so I can't mix and match different AA types.

There is Mult-Sample, Edge Detect and Super Sample. That's it. All in 2x, 4x and 8x.

8xSSAA is a stutter fest for some reason. 4xSSAA is smooth like butter at most areas like Darrington and Concrete in most weather situations. Flying anywhere but Seattle or other similar sized density areas I get great solid locked 30. I get some framerate issues if there is heavy heavy cloud in some areas though.

ATi 6XXX series handles SSAA well due to it's design apparently. It was not even available in the 4XXX series. If I use MSAA, the paint strips on the outside of planes viewed externally and zoomed out get bad jaggies when on an angle as does the writing and fonts in the VC's or the GPS's in the VC and the numbers and needles on the gauges. I have to use SSAA or I go nuts.

C.

[GlennH]

Nope I have an ATI 6870 1GB and it gives 4xSSAA no problem. ATI does not offer hybrid modes sadly so I can't mix and match different AA types.

There is Mult-Sample, Edge Detect and Super Sample. That's it. All in 2x, 4x and 8x.

8xSSAA is a stutter fest for some reason. 4xSSAA is smooth like butter at most areas like Darrington and Concrete in most weather situations. Flying anywhere but Seattle or other similar sized density areas I get great solid locked 30. I get some framerate issues if there is heavy heavy cloud in some areas though.

ATi 6XXX series handles SSAA well due to it's design apparently. It was not even available in the 4XXX series. If I use MSAA, the paint strips on the outside of planes viewed externally and zoomed out get bad jaggies when on an angle as does the writing and fonts in the VC's or the GPS's in the VC and the numbers and needles on the gauges. I have to use SSAA or I go nuts.

C.

Ah, I see.

I think 4xSSAA would cripple my GTX570.