Below average performance?

[pacinka 0]

So I have installed FSX on my new computer (using the proper install procedure), and I think there's something wrong. I am getting seemingly low performance, for example, running FSMark 11, I can only achieve an average of 29fps (see attachment), which does not seem on par with the results here and here. Everything is default; I haven't installed any addons, and the only thing I have changed in the BIOS is that I turned Hyperthreading off. Any ideas? Could someone with a high end machine maybe compare their performance with mine? Or will overclocking give me the performance I'm looking for? (or are my expectations simply too high?)

[GabethePilot 1]

Well judging by the first of the above links, it appears you are on course.

He has it o/c'd to 4.5 or so... 25% higher. an average of some 33 fps is about right.

Don't forget to switch off vert synch. That will mess up your results.

(NEW ADDITION: it actually looks like you have Vert Synch ON - 15... 30 are very much locked values ! Ensure Vertical Synch is off or it may well jump between 15, 30, 45 and 60 (max monitor refresh rate.) It looks like that's what's happening to you.)

Also, do you have the same levels of AA and AF etc. as the other results you refer to ?

And ultimately, what really matters is what you get in a large airport, in the a/c you like to fly, with Ai and weather. That "FS Mark" is very synthetic, and if you don't use Autogen for example, pretty useless... and, even more so if you don't fly the default aircraft.

Your system is the best avaialable. I'd be tempted to compare results in 3D Mark / Vantage etc. to check if your hardware is okay. There are so many variables in FSX setups, comparing FS Mark is fraught with problems........

........ as is FRAPS to be honest !!!!! - I find it pretty worthless - the variation is so huge, you could never get statistically signifcant results using it - there is simply too much subjectivity when interpreting the numbers: ERGO... as FS Marks relies totally on FRAPS results, the validity of the entire test is brought into question.

[mutley 4,487]

To be honest I don't get too hung up with FPS. So long as what I am viewing is smooth, responsive and not jerky then I am a happy bunny.

I use FPS limiter with my set up and have the sim set to unlimited and the external limit pegged at 30.

Try http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html and see what sort of changes they make to your FSC.cfg, that may help and you don't have to take their advice.

Cheer

Joe

[GabethePilot 1]

Have you got a link for a good thread on this extenral limited Mutley ?

I have heard of it, but not tried it.

[mutley 4,487]

Hi Gabe,

Google FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar that's the file name, I have been using it for a couple of years to iron out the massive fluctuations in FPS and stuttering you can get with faster systems, I wouldn't use FSX without it.

There's some talk on AVSIM here

[SEATAC 400]

The current issue of PC Pilot has a great article with Mathijs Kok of Aerosoft and he goes through all of the settings in FSX, what they do, their impact on FPS and his recommended settings. It's a great place to start and you can then tweak yours from there to get your best results. And then you can save multiple profiles depending upon whether you like VFR or flying airliners at 35,000 ft.

[pacinka 0]

Gabe, I'm glad to hear that my frame rates are on par with my hardware - I though they were fairly low. I am sure that I do not have v sync on (unless it can be turned on outside the Nvidia control panel), so I don't think those results could have been caused by having it on. As for AA ad AF, I am controlling all graphical options from within FSX, telling the Nvidia control panel to "Use application settings".

Joe, I have tried both the FPS Limiter and the automated tweaking tool - the tweaking tool does help a bit and seems to smooth out the sim, however the FPS Limiter only causes more stuttering. Here's FSMark 11 with the tweaked cfg:

Seatec, I have not received the latest issue of PC Pilot yet, but I will take a look at that article when it finds it's way to my mailbox.

[mutley 4,487]

No need to wait for PC Pilot to arrive we have that document in our download section here

Sorry FPS Limiter did not work for you.

[GabethePilot 1]

Thnx for the info Mutts.

As for the vert synch issue, just double check by watching FRAPS in-sim, to make sure your not constantly around "round" number (multiples of 5 usually). Your numbers still look like they are.

If you are closer to 30 than 45, it will fix to 30 and so on. But due to the polling times, it will average out at 1 or 2 FPS above or below.

Check that the in-sim settings are not forcing it on, and that you are not using nVidia Inspector (which you would be better off with BTW !) or nHancer (not good for recent driversI believe) which may be fixing it on.

I'd bet my toasted crumpet, it's on.

[stu7708 244]

Hi John.

Are you only using the Nvidia Control Panel for setting up the Graphics setting (AA, AF and so forth)?

If so, take a look at this thread on the PMDG forum.

It takes you through using a 3rd party freeware software for tweaking your Nvidia drivers, in combination with FSX, to work proper, and it gives you access to more settings than the Nvidia Control Panel.

It gave me a massive boost on my computer. I'd say that I get the same FPS preformace as you do with lower specs...

The only thing to remember if you use it is that you need to redo the set up of the profile for FSX if you update the drivers, other than that I find it a great tool.

[allardjd 1,853]

Ah, another thread with a deceptive title...

John

[rob16584 42]

My advice would be to tweak the settings for whatever type of flight you are making and save them. That way you can re-load them as and when you need them. There is no hard and fast rule to getting massive FPS all the time. I have (had ) a set-up for flying around austrlia with FTX AU that gets me 40+ fps in a light GA aircraft. But the same settings at EGLL in the CS 767 bring the system to it's knees, so I load my IFR settings file. You may find a file that has a sweet spot for most scenarios, but it will take a lot of tweaking to find it. The main things that kill your fps are autogen and AI

[pacinka 0]

Hi guys, sorry for the late reply.

Joe, I actually found that article on the Aerosoft forum a while ago, and I have been looking at it quite a lot.

Gabe, I checked the fps again, and it does not seem to show in multiples of five; it seems to jump around quite randomly (one moment it's at 50, then it jumps down to 15, etc.). Plus, as far as I know, vsync caps the fps at your monitor's max refresh rate. My monitor's refresh rate is 60Hz, and I have been able to achieve over 100fps in some cases. As for the Nvidia Inspector, I shall take a look at it. By the way, what in-sim settings could trigger vsync?

Mikael, as I stated earlier, I am controlling AA ad AF from within FSX, selecting "Application-controlled" in the Nvidia control panel. However, I will test out that Nvidia Inspector.

[pacinka 0]

Okay, I have done a bit of testing, and here is the progress:

- I have overclocked my i7 2600K to 4.5 GHz at 1.3v, which I think is pretty good. With Prime 95 and OCCT it can run stable for an hour, and temps don't go past 60 degrees C.

- I have retweaked my fsx.cfg using this tool to accomodate for the new overclock.

- I have tried out Nvidia Inspector, and have tested both the settings found here and here. The ones on the PMDG forum seem to have better performance than the ones Nick Needham posted, and also seem to be slightly smoother than the built-in FSX AA and AF, but not by much.

- I ran FSMark 11 again, just to check the new overclock. I achieved an average of about 43fps this time, however my lowest fps were around 20, which is quite lower than the results others are getting.

Overall, FSX performance is good now, but I am still experiencing some horrible stuttering at times, even when frame rates are in the 30s and 40s. Does anyone know of a way to fix this? (a tweak of some sort, perhaps?)

Oh and Gabe, I do not have 3D Mark (or any sort of benchmarking software, for that matter) on my computer, but I can try downloading a free one, if the benchmarks from that would be of any use to you (something like this or this?).

Thanks for all the help!

[mutley 4,487]

John,

I have been waiting to test this one before passing it on.

Stutters can happen for SEVERAL reasons, they can be due to memory timing problems, CPU reaching 100%, GPU overheating / overload... there are literally 'hundreds' of reasons why you would experience stutters, this FIX is not a 'magical' solution to your stuttering problems, however there is a procedure that will fix 100% of your autogen induced stutters.

This 'fix' assumes you have a HEALTHY machine and that you ONLY experience the stutters when panning around in high density autogen areas EVEN with bufferpools disabled.

The fix involves editing the Autogen/default.xml file in your FSX root directory and making sure it is saved in UTF-8 format. This is a VERY simple step to follow, you only need to:

1) Open the Autogen/default.xml file in notepad

2) Once you open it, you'll notice the FIRST line of the file contains: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?>

3) Change the above line to this: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

4) Save the changes and thats it!

A word of caution: When you do this change, the next time you open FSX you'll see that the A/C in the welcome screen has no textures. there is nothing to worry about, this happens everytime there is a change to the default.xml file, and the second time you start FSX everything will be fine.

FSX 'parses' XML files 'assuming' they are in the format indicated in the encoding field. The default.xml file is an ASCII only file, but its encoding is set to UTF-16, which is completely absurd. (ascii files in UTF-16 encoding take TWICE as much space), yet this file is NOT encoded in utf-16, just the XML header says so, and the XML parser in FSX will treat it as such. This 'fix' will also give you some aditional FPS! try it.

If you want to see for yourself:

1) Add to the [TERRAIN] section of your fsx.cfg file the following entries (this is just temporary) just for testing purposes:

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=6000

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=6000

2) Start FSX and set the Autogen slider to EXTREMELY DENSE

3) Go to PNW (the most autogen intensive product I have) and takeoff from KSEA airport, take a fast Jet, spin around while looking around the VC using the mouse. Preferably, 'record' a test flight with FSRecorder with a sampling rate of '1 frame' and re-play it while moving your mouse to look around the cockpit while the recording is playing. Do it with the default.xml before and after the utf change so you can objectively judge for yourself.

Enjoy!

I really cannot vouch for the validity of this information but the xml encoding comment is new on me.

As I said untested, just passing on this information which may not work at all!

Cheers,

Joe

[pacinka 0]

Okay, I tried that tweak, however, I does not help.

I bought FSX Booster a while ago for my old computer, and I'm wondering if it will help with the stuttering on this computer. I have tried installing it, only to be told that the serial key has been used on another computer, and that I must contact FSPS support to resolve the issue. So I'll do that for now, and hopefully it will work out. But I do remember that FSX Booster helped me out a lot with regards to stuttering and low performance on my old computer, so maybe it will help again.

I have been searching the Internet for any sort of tweaks to get rid of stuttering, and while doing that, I came across these two videos:

and

. The first one is made by bojote, and I am amazed at how smooth the sim is at such low frame rates.

I'll do some more testing/tweaking, and will report back once I find something.

[mutley 4,487]

Thanks John for keeping us up to date, I am sure this will help others too.

[pacinka 0]

Update

I have tried deleting the fsx.cfg, so FSX would make a new, fresh one. The result? Stutters have noticeably decreased, but now I am getting blurries, and scenery is taking forever to load, even with the Level of detail radius set to "Large".

I am starting to think that this unusual performance is caused by something else - maybe something went wrong during the FSX installation, or there's something wrong with my computer? Would reinstalling FSX be worth it?

Sometimes I just hate technology.

[GabethePilot 1]

Gabe, I checked the fps again, and it does not seem to show in multiples of five; it seems to jump around quite randomly (one moment it's at 50, then it jumps down to 15, etc.).

Well that is the problem with FRAPS... as depending on the polling rate, it can well register say 18 FPS, even though it's actually on its way to 20 or to 15 etc.

Plus, as far as I know, vsync caps the fps at your monitor's max refresh rate. My monitor's refresh rate is 60Hz, and I have been able to achieve over 100fps in some cases. As for the Nvidia Inspector, I shall take a look at it. By the way, what in-sim settings could trigger vsync?

Well, that does suggest that VS is indeed off. So, I'm off... !!!

Mikael, as I stated earlier, I am controlling AA ad AF from within FSX, selecting "Application-controlled" in the Nvidia control panel. However, I will test out that Nvidia Inspector.

Yes indeed, nVidia Inspector is apparently the best utility for the 4 and 5-series cards. The onboard controls are ropey at best. Mutley is yer man for The Inspector!

[pacinka 0]

Okay, after some thinking, I have decided to reinstall FSX, and have a fresh start. The original install only took about half an hour, so I don't think this will take too long. I will follow Nick Needham's guide, and hopefully, I will get better results this time.

[pacinka 0]

Update

I installed FSX in a custom location (C:\Flight Simulators\Flight Simulator X), and I am ready to start installing addons, as per Nick's guide. I'm assuming I should install REX first, followed by any large scenery addons (Switzerland Pro X, in my case), and then all the smaller, individual aircraft and scenery addons. Does that seem right?

[Kelvin_C-J 0]

Update

I installed FSX in a custom location (C:\Flight Simulators\Flight Simulator X), and I am ready to start installing addons, as per Nick's guide. I'm assuming I should install REX first, followed by any large scenery addons (Switzerland Pro X, in my case), and then all the smaller, individual aircraft and scenery addons. Does that seem right?

While you've probably already done it by now, I'd say that's the way to go when installing FS and the add-ons.

Install the Add on, then restart (As per Nick N) then add on, then restart etc - it is time consuming, but worth the benefits and peace of mind.

Personally, I always install the latest FSUIPC first - as it seems that more-or-less every other add on nowadays requires it.

From there, I do the scenery and then on to the aircraft and last but not least, the weather.

I don't think there is a 'correct' way of installing the add ons - just whatever you prefer installing first. - Even if something installs over something else, in all likelihoods, it should only be updated on, not 'downgraded' as it were to a previous version.

I could of course be wrong, but I'm just trying to help!

[allardjd 1,853]

There's a Q&A article at the back of the current issue of PC Pilot. Two of the items talk about FSX and Win 7. One recommendation is to avoid the C: drive entirely. Win 7 security is a bit to the south of paranoid but it is worst on the C: drive. The recommendation is to install FS on a different drive to avoid some of the security interferences with FSX. I believe it also says to avoid installing it to folders named "Program Files" or variations of that.

All that seems to fly in the face of conventional wisdom and will require manually telling install programs where your FS installation really is when putting in add-ons, but they certainly make it sound as if this is the thing to do with Win 7 and FSX.

I can't vouch for the accuracy, but PC Pilot is usually a pretty reliable source of information.

John

[Kelvin_C-J 0]

I have to agree there John.

I've found that having FS on an entirely separate drive does seem to help, be it loading times or 'stuttery-ness'. Of course, the difference in loading times can be argued to be minimal, but at least, as you mention: the burden of Windows security plays a smaller role and so - with fewer folders to access, loading times decrease.

One point to note though is that while the addons may all defer to C:/Program Files... you can quite easily correct this to save some time during each install by using the free (kindly provided by) Flight1 FSX/FS9 Registry repair tool - I've used that multiple times and it really does save a big install headache.

Furthermore, I suppose the 'best bet of all' is merely to replace the Windows Security centre (User Account Control) and Windows Defender with more robust anti-virus / security software to ensure better protection and fewer performance impediments...? (Granted some AV uses more resources, but this can be limited to scans I believe?)

[MartinW 0]

And don't forget to install the FSX service packs, or frame rate will be abysmal.

And if [like me] frame rate crumbles your cookie, then don't set everything to absolute max, and switch on known frame rate killers like bloom, just because you have a powerful rig.

Regarding installation location and FSX: If you disable UAC by moving the UAC slider to the bottom, and then rebooting, there shouldn't be an issue with FSX within X86 program files. You can also right click FSX and select compatibility tab. At the bottom set FSX to run as administrator.

I've had FSX inside and outside X86 program files and had no issues in either loaction... with UAC off. UAC is a waste of space.

As for testing your set up, my preference would be to ignore the utilities you mention, set your FSX settings to a reasonable level, a level that provides the eye candy you require, rather than going over the top, and then test within FSX.

Remember to install the latest BIOS for your motherboard, along with chip set drivers etc. Same goes for your graphics card. Don't rely on the BIOS the board shipped with, or the outdated drivers on the motherboard CD.