RESOLVED KPSP Intermittent FPS Drop

[wolfko]

Ah, excellent! I'll give this a try tonight too!

[wolfko]

Nope, starting with a clean .cfg did not solve the issue for me. And I again gor a runtime error upon exit.

 

Jarrad maybe you can have also a look into my post, where I initially have described this issue, which, at least on my system, is related to ctds, runtime error and a blue screen. Because this OP is buried deeply on page 4 or 5 of this forum, here is the link to it. 

http://www.orbxsystems.com/forum/topic/87291-kpsp-blue-screen-fatal-errors-runtime-errors-in-p3d24/

 

The first stutter always happens on exactly the same spot during the take off roll. If it helps I can post a sreenie in top down view ro show the spot.

 

Many thanks, Wolfgang

[Rob Ainscough]

Interesting ... I'll check into the Building shadows ... from what I recall Orbx "trees" are being seen as "Buildings" in P3D v2.4 ... implications are that turning OFF Vegetation shadows will not actually make a difference because the trees are flagged as buildings ... so turning off building shadows actually turns off shadows for Orbx trees.

 

I typically run my settings with less building autogen and more tree autogen so this could also explain why it's more noticeable to me.

 

I've noticed this issue in several Orbx products ... can anyone else confirm that Orbx trees are indeed acting as buildings when it comes to shadows?

 

This might explain why I'm getting stutters here.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Meta]

I just installed KPSP in P3D and got lots of stuttering.  Turning off building shadows helped somewhat.  Still, even with that, doesn't seem as smooth as KRDD or KMYR.  Anybody find other solutions?

[Jarrad Marshall]

G'day Gregg,

 

If you haven't already, be sure to read my earlier post in this topic - this gives some good ideas to try. Performance comparisons between other airports (such as KMRY and KRDD) are going to factor in many other components not directly related to the airport scenery, but as a rule of thumb, performance & smoothness at KPSP should be roughly between KMRY and KRDD. Shadow settings, AI (switch it off to test, and gradually bring it back up to find a sweet spot), road traffic, other scenery packages in proximity are all components that will have big impacts on performance. If you are getting drastically different smoothness at KPSP compared to the other two airports, there might be something in your setup that is causing this anomaly. 

 

Cheers,

Jarrad

[Meta]

Hi Jarrad,

 

I did a comparison between KRDD and KPSP today with the Turbine Duke (P3D), all traffic sliders off, and building cast shadows off they were about the same.  With the same settings but building cast shadows on, KPSP has much stuttering.  Not sure why.

[Jarrad Marshall]

G'day Gregg,

 

KPSP has a much larger amount of geometry in it's buildings compared to KMRY owing to it's much larger size (and larger sized/more numerous buildings and hangars), though in theory this shouldn't matter too much as the number of material calls (which affect performance in FSX & P3D2 far more than number of polys) are in the same general ballpark for both airports. Now that you've found what is directly having an impact on performance on your setup, I'd recommend either dialling down your P3D2 shadow quality (if you don't already have it at the minimum), or alternatively having a look at your graphics card settings to see what you can tweak there. 

 

Cheers,

Jarrad

[Meta]

HI Jarrad,

 

I set up a SimStarter "Lite" profile for heavy scenery airports.  I'll just use it when I fly into KPSP.  Looking forward to the next one.

 

Gregg

[Rob Ainscough]

Hi Gregg, 

 

Have you tried disabling the windmills ... I believe the windmills respond to building shadow settings (which is unfortunate) and there are 100's (maybe even 1000's) of windmills at KPSP.   I'll get stutters with Building shadows enabled when taking off from 31R or 31L (facing Windmills) but not from 13R or 13L (not facing any windmills).

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Jarrad Marshall]

Hi Gregg, 

 

Have you tried disabling the windmills ... I believe the windmills respond to building shadow settings (which is unfortunate) and there are 100's (maybe even 1000's) of windmills at KPSP.   I'll get stutters with Building shadows enabled when taking off from 31R or 31L (facing Windmills) but not from 13R or 13L (not facing any windmills).

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

G'day Rob,

 

I wouldn't suspect that the windmills themselves are the cause of any fps/stuttering - it is far more likely to be something beyond these but in the same direction. I say this as, though there are just under 1000 wind turbines, I was very careful to avoid the normal performance pitfalls such a feature would otherwise entail by making them three giant models (to save having hundreds of placement calls) and making them super low-poly - the entire wind farm has about the same performance cost as the airport control tower or Cabazon Dinosaurs. It is to be expected that in general your fps figures will be lower when facing west towards the LA basin rather than east into the desert, especially if you have any sizeable AI enabled (including stock P3D2 AI traffic, which utilises some default aircraft that are not at all optimised for AI use). 

 

Cheers,

Jarrad

[Rob Ainscough]

Hi Jarrad,

 

It's the animated shadow casting from the Windmills that seems to be the issue for me anyway ... even more so during dusk/dawn with many long animated shadow casts.  I haven't experimented with changing the shadow maps ... currently default at 2048.  So your low poly count windmills is good news, but it's the shadows they cast that seems to be hard on my setup.  My main FS PC is under renovation right now so I can't experiment more with KSPS.

 

AI traffic On/Off was a very marginal difference (in this case) ... but I also use a traffic limiter.  But I do concur if one is not managing AI traffic the LA basin will tend to generate considerable traffic ... but in my case that was NOT the problem.

 

Cheers, Rob.

[Meta]

Hi Jarrad,

 

It's the animated shadow casting from the Windmills that seems to be the issue for me anyway ... even more so during dusk/dawn with many long animated shadow casts.  I haven't experimented with changing the shadow maps ... currently default at 2048.  So your low poly count windmills is good news, but it's the shadows they cast that seems to be hard on my setup.  My main FS PC is under renovation right now so I can't experiment more with KSPS.

 

AI traffic On/Off was a very marginal difference (in this case) ... but I also use a traffic limiter.  But I do concur if one is not managing AI traffic the LA basin will tend to generate considerable traffic ... but in my case that was NOT the problem.

 

Cheers, Rob.

 

Hmmm...I did think to turn off the animations on those but it didn't occur to me to do something like remove them.  I wonder if those shadows could be optimized somehow.  Honestly speaking, from where I'm typically flying, I can see that there are poles out there but can't really make out what they are.  My brain says that they're windmills only because nothing else makes sense.