P3D Performance

[dougal]

A question for those running P3D (especially v3.1) re performance....

When flying in an OrbX region, my FPS and overall performance, are much worse than when flying over very high res photo scenery such as MSE SoCal.

Do others have the same results?

I ask, as I remember with FSX the difference was nothing like as dramatic.

[SpaceWeevil]

I'm also struggling a bit - mostly decent performance with stock scenery and aircraft but suffering with Orbx scenery (airfields) and A2A aircraft. Possibly my system is just not up to it, for all it runs FSX SE / DX10 / Orbx / A2A smooth as butter (i7 3770K @ 4.5GHz, GTX970, 8Gb RAM). With P3D I have to drop so much detail, traffic and weather it's almost not worth it - however I lock, or don't, it's just not as smooth as I'm used to. I've not worked my way through Nick Needham's advice yet - plenty of food for thought, suggested settings and the usual caustic wisdom here - you just might find something!

http://www.simforums.com/forums/than...opic52380.html
http://www.simforums.com/forums/swit...opic53980.html

[dougal]

I'm also struggling a bit - mostly decent performance with stock scenery and aircraft but suffering with Orbx scenery (airfields) and A2A aircraft. Possibly my system is just not up to it, for all it runs FSX SE / DX10 / Orbx / A2A smooth as butter (i7 3770K @ 4.5GHz, GTX970, 8Gb RAM). With P3D I have to drop so much detail, traffic and weather it's almost not worth it - however I lock, or don't, it's just not as smooth as I'm used to. I've not worked my way through Nick Needham's advice yet - plenty of food for thought, suggested settings and the usual caustic wisdom here - you just might find something!

http://www.simforums.com/forums/than...opic52380.html
http://www.simforums.com/forums/swit...opic53980.html

Although we're a mixed bunch when it comes to Nick and his settings, you're preaching to the converted as far as he's concerned

[SpaceWeevil]

If you can get past the style there's so much great info in his posts. In his famous FSX 'bible' there was something about a particular Texture Bandwith Mult setting for photoscenery - might also be relevant for P3D?

[falcon409]

From what I remember, once I got past V2.0, Nick's tweaks were no longer viable for P3D as most if not all of the "tweaks and changes" if you want to call them that had been incorporated into P3D or the reasons for those original tweaks had been rectified. Basically his changes from way back when have no effect anymore.

[dougal]

From what I remember, once I got past V2.0, Nick's tweaks were no longer viable for P3D as most if not all of the "tweaks and changes" if you want to call them that had been incorporated into P3D or the reasons for those original tweaks had been rectified. Basically his changes from way back when have no effect anymore.

Yeh, I agree totally about any P3D tweaks, which I pretty much leave alone now. So much so, I frequently delete the cfg file and let it rebuild. Many of the O/S tweaks and changes however, make a big difference to the 'crispness' and overall Windows responsiveness. This makes a difference with the PC as a whole, not just for simming.

If anyone has any ideas about improving performance in ares like the UK with OrbX activated, I'd be very grateful.

[SpaceWeevil]

Have you tried DSR (assuming you have an nvidia GPU)? I had some success enabling DSR in the nvidia control panel (manage 3d settings / global). I used the defaults and then ran P3D at a higher resolution. The visual improvement was such that I could lower the in-game AA setting and still have it looking better, and that may be what helped. It seemed to smooth things out a bit, and also reduced the shimmering that plagued my Orbx and A2A addons without resorting to SGSS.

[dougal]

Have you tried DSR (assuming you have an nvidia GPU)? I had some success enabling DSR in the nvidia control panel (manage 3d settings / global). I used the defaults and then ran P3D at a higher resolution. The visual improvement was such that I could lower the in-game AA setting and still have it looking better, and that may be what helped. It seemed to smooth things out a bit, and also reduced the shimmering that plagued my Orbx and A2A addons without resorting to SGSS.

Thanks I'll give that a try. Never used the nVidia settings - only ever used nVidia Inspector for that stuff....

[Daube]

I just wanted to confirm that P3D suffers from dramatic FPS loss on any scenery that uses complex scenery objects.
Flying over cities or big airports in P3D is almost impossible, because the FPS crawls down to unacceptable levels.
Globally, P3D gets impacted much more by complex sceneries than FSX ever was.

[IanHenry]

I just wanted to confirm that P3D suffers from dramatic FPS loss on any scenery that uses complex scenery objects.
Flying over cities or big airports in P3D is almost impossible, because the FPS crawls down to unacceptable levels.
Globally, P3D gets impacted much more by complex sceneries than FSX ever was.

Daube, that's not what I've found, P3Dv3.1 runs really well on my machine. My specs are:

Haswell 4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7 4790K 4.0GHz
nVidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB
Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB DDR3 1866MHz

And I run with most of the sliders fully to the right, but I only run Flight Simulator on that computer, I keep a "retired" FS computer for everyday work.


Ian

[Daube]

I also run P3D v3.1 with sliders full right, and it runs quite well. I just need to deactivate the send and receive shadow option for trees, because they create too much FPS impact on OrbX sceneries.
Without that option I get smooth performance, and I can maintain the locked 30 FPS... excepted on very complex areas, like Seattle in OrbX PNW for example. On such areas, the FPS impact drops down to lower levels than in FSX.
My computer also has a GTX970, but only an i7 960 overclocked to 3.7GHz. That CPU is totally outdated nowadays (it was already 4 years ago anyways...). I'm sure I would get smoother FPS in dense areas with a more modern CPU.

[gman5250]

I'm running 3.1, sliders full right for the most part. Also running Aivlasoft EFB and ASNext live weather with cloud saturation at full right also. Machine specs are in my signature.

What I find is that from flight to flight, even using saved scenarios my performance will vary substantially depending on variables, especially weather. For short VFR, low and slow hops I can max out sliders, shadows and all of the eye candy with no problems. Maintain an average of 30 FPS, but to be honest it's an average. On the ground at a high demand location, FPS can bounce wildly as the view direction is calling various levels of texture loads. Once in the air, FPS will climb to the 50 FPS range and stay there until I come into the "cone" of a destination, which will most probably be another high demand draw. Like I said....averages out to around 30 FPS.

I don't run my ORBX scenery as much as I used to, but let's use NorCal as an example. There are many options offered in the scenery that you may or may not be able to handle, but the load menu will give you the options to disable the higher demand stuff that may be hurting performance. I can run either NorCal or my own HD Photoreal and see, honestly about the same performance on average, but day to day this will be more favorable to one or the other. I just adjust on the fly.

As rule of thumb, I disable tree shadows for all flights that will reach 10K AGL. No need to crunch shadows when you are above the clouds. Turn off building shadows too...at FL18 and above you don't need them.
Clouds, that's another factor. You can tweak your sim settings to adjust the clouds which will draw a lot of memory, especially if you use shadows.

Adjust your cloud shadows to a lower distance setting, no need to draw shadows that are out of your cockpit view.

I usually fly at 4096 resolution, but if I'm flying in a heavy hitter I'll go down to 2048.

Overall, I have quit comparing P3D to FSX. The changes are so significant that there is no real barometer any longer where by one can put the two side by side. I just take P3D for what it is, a work in progress. While we are in 32 bit, hoping for silky smooth, double throw down, WFO, pedal to the medal performance is not really in the realm of realistically being achievable.

One thing for sure, I'm going to start dropping all of my pocket change into a bucket and aim for a EVGA GeForce GTX TITAN X. Once LM works out the P3D VAS issues (think 64 bit), a monster card will be the game changer.

IMHO

[dougal]

Many thanks for all that info. Its all to easy as well, to compare apples with oranges, as no doubt we all have our different aircraft of choice too. I can get pretty good performance over OrbX scenery with most light GA aircraft. Trouble is, my 'current' AC of choice is the PMDG737NGX! I absolutely LOVE coming in on final at Gatwick at dusk, with a strong cross wind and a layer of low cloud. Dont ask for much eh?

[gman5250]

.... Trouble is, my 'current' AC of choice is the PMDG737NGX! I absolutely LOVE coming in on final at Gatwick at dusk, with a strong cross wind and a layer of low cloud. Dont ask for much eh?

That's asking a ton...same for some of my favorite scenarios, but isn't that the nature of things? Always pushing the envelope....

[IanHenry]

Have you tried running with the frame rate set at 60 fps or unlimited? I find that setting an upper level costs me quite a few FPS.


Ian

[roger-wilco-66]

I'm quite pleased with the performance on my GTX970 card, and didn't have any VAS issues yet. One thing that I see on my system is a stutter every few seconds. I noticed that each stutter is connected to a hard disk access. Haven't found out what is causing the access and how to avoid it, if this is possible.

Cheers,
Mark

[dougal]

I'm quite pleased with the performance on my GTX970 card, and didn't have any VAS issues yet. One thing that I see on my system is a stutter every few seconds. I noticed that each stutter is connected to a hard disk access. Haven't found out what is causing the access and how to avoid it, if this is possible.

Cheers,
Mark

I had that too Mark. Seems a bit extreme, but what finally stopped that on my system, was to use TWO SSD drives.... one for my basic sim installation, the other for ALL addon scenery and FS addons. I also made sure the SATA ports used were not a shared resource, so one on an Intel socket, the other on a Marvell. Although I still get some stutters when under heavy load, its not disk I/O related.

[UnknownGuest12]

Sliders full right here , no problems. Nvidia 970. Consider it very much better than FSX (retired), no doubts about...

regards

[papab]

Have you tried DSR (assuming you have an nvidia GPU)? I had some success enabling DSR in the nvidia control panel (manage 3d settings / global). I used the defaults and then ran P3D at a higher resolution. The visual improvement was such that I could lower the in-game AA setting and still have it looking better, and that may be what helped. It seemed to smooth things out a bit, and also reduced the shimmering that plagued my Orbx and A2A addons without resorting to SGSS.

SpaceWeevil,
When I go to manage 3d settings / global) in the nvidia control panel --DSR-Factors, which native resolution box did you tick?
Then what % did you set DSR-Smoothness? It automatically sets it at 33%


Thanks for the tip!
Rick

[Mach3DS]

So hopefully my skimming all the threads above yields my brain the right info....

basically, P3D handles the rending differently from FSX. It want to offload object creation to your GPU. So, while in FSX you could get away with a high clock speed CPU and see very good performance, because your CPU was doing almost everything....GPU is now fully integrated. So if you had/have previously/currently a mid grade video card and in FSX were seeing very good results, you will like see worse results in P3D. Although v3.1 is actually very good for performance overall. Your GPU is very much in the game. If your CPU is pumping out info and you have tessellation set all the way on your mid grad card...you're probably sending too much info for you GPU to handle. So either backoff the sliders, or get a new gfx card. gman is right on...and we've had many conversations about how P3D is really a whole new flightsim under the hood. Just because the paint job looks FSX...it's not. And it really is a change for the better. You have to find your PC's sweet spot between CPU and gfx usage. I have a GTX 770 4gb ddr5 card and am very pleased with it.

[gman5250]

I read a good post on tessellation a couple of years ago, but can't remember where it was. Bottom line, this particular article explained in detail how the load had been assigned to the GPU in P3D. This is one of the reasons I'm looking at an absolute Rock Crusher of a GPU somewhere down the line.

With my system, I run tessellation at medium for 99% of my normal VFR or high altitude flying. The only time I turn up tessellation to max is when I want to shoot traps or do low and slow over the ocean. This consideration is even more important in 3.1 with the changes in wave rendering.

Like Rick said, it's going to come down to finding the sweet spot for your computer...but then when LM comes out with 3.2 or what ever the next iteration is going to be called...we can all start the process all over again.

[SpaceWeevil]

I'd all but given up on getting P3D running smoothly before this thread. More than anything else it made me look at my expectations. Obviously – I thought - with more efficient coding and DX properly supported it was going to be sliders far right, every last 4096 doorknob glowing in glorious HDR. As for the frame counter, surely I'd need four digits? OK I'm exaggerating, but so many people report running maxed out with perfect smoothness and this was a long way from my experience when I first tried P3D.

This thread encouraged me go back to basics - all addons disabled, shiny new cfg - and see what could be done with my mid-range hardware (i7 3770K @4.5, GTX 970, 8GB RAM, SSD). The answer, it turned out, was a lot more than I thought. I started with the settings P3D chose and went from there – some went up, some went down, but the goal was to run as smooth as possible with stock a/c and scenery. It took a lot of testing but I finally found my system’s sweet spot which is basically 'medium and a bit more' all round (happy to post if anyone's bothered..) and DSR enabled. I found that running a higher resolution with less AA really smoothed things out visually and performance-wise. I can now run my favourite freeware and most payware a/c with almost perfect creamy smoothness over Orbx EU and PNW, even Orbx airfields as long as most of the optional detail is off. The view out of the cockpit is a LOT better than FSX – sharper textures, less autogen popping, more realistic colours, better haze, better clouds. On the downside it just can’t run my A2A Cherokee, 172 and 182 with anything like the same smoothness as FSX. Also I deplore the loss of force feedback - it may not have been very realistic but at least it gave something to trim against.

So anyway, even though this wasn't my thread, thank you all for your thoughts. I won’t be retiring SE or the DX10 fixer just yet but I’m a lot happier than I was last week – happy enough to stick with P3D while I save for that monster PC build I’ve always promised myself.