Do you experience sudden frame rate drops in Vancouver City?

Last edited by JonPatch on Tue Jul 24, 2007 5:36 pm; edited 2 times in total

Several users are reporting dramatic frame rate drops around the city core, down to 1 or 2 FPS, from much higher rates elsewhere.

- 1 system has only 1 GB ram so is suspect (X1600 video card). 1Gb is below the recommended minimum for FSX
- 3 systems have 8800GT series video cards
- 1 user has not identified their video card

We had 6 systems with 8800GT series cards in the beta test and this issue was not reported. Also we have hundreds of installations out there now, and with a few eports, this is a very rare problem.

If you experience this problem please report:- whether if you save the flight at that point, and restart it, you still have low frame rates, or do they start ok, and degrade again?
- if this always occurs at the same location

If you have a 8800 series video card and WHETHER or NOT you have problems please do the following. If you do not have a 8800 series video card, but experience a huge frame rate drop when pointing towards downtown Vancouver, then please do the following. First make sure you have the latest released driver for your video card!

1. load the Van+ 30 cm settings
2. load the ultralight aircraft
3. choose Fair weather
4. turn on average frame rate display (see http://jonpatch.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/new-nvidia-9147-driver-test-with-fsx/ ) if you don't know how to do this
5. fly from CYVR, towards downtown, fly right over downtown and to CPYK

Note average framerates and stutters

1. before takeoff at CYVR
2. just as you turning north towords downtown
3. minimum average framerate as he floew towards and over downtown
4. framerate when landed at CYPK

Please report the following data:

5. CPU type and speed
6. System RAM type and amount (eg 2Gb DDR2)
7. Motherboard model number
8. Video card type and amount of video ram
9. Any addons you have running or installed (eg other scenery, TrackIR, FSX SDK (list each component), Instant Scenery, FSUIPC (include version number)
10. Operating system

Jon

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 5:00 pm (No subject)

Jon,

Just a heads up. I'll do the test later tonight - I had some RL things to attend, but I'll test this later tonight.

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:31 pm (No subject)

Hi Jon,
I received an Average frame rate of 24.9 at CYVR. Received only a slite stutter when turning North. Frame rates stayed high (21.9-23) and did not detract from flying. The lowest ave. frame rate over downtown was 18.2. No stutters over downtown frame rate did not drop below 18.2. Midway to Pitt Meadows ave frame rate dropped to 15.9 low average but hitting pause the average frame rate would climb back to an average of 22.8 while paused. I received stuttering when turning final at Pitt Meadows, worse then occured when turning north from CYVR. Again for me it did not detract from flying but it was noticeable. The framerate when landed at Pitt Meadows was 20.9.

Machine Specs:
Nvidia 8800 GTX 784MB Ram, 7.15.11.5824 Driver dated 4/26/07.
Intel Core 2 Dual 6600 dual 2.4ghz cores
2 gigs Corsair Dominator DDR2 800 Ram
EVGA nForce 680i motherboard.
FSX, SP1 with SDK Traffic explorer,
FS Genesis Canada Mesh
Traffic X with SP1.

Hopes this helps,
Mike Cameron
Seattle, WA

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 8:43 pm (No subject)

Thanks, Mike, this is useful. I suspect if on the way to CYPK you'd saved the flight, ended it and loaded it again your frame rates would have gone up.

Regardless, it seems that there is something peculiar about only some of the 8800GT series systems that they experience a mysterious drop. As we get more info, we'll be able to narrow this down.

Jon

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 10:38 pm (No subject)

My experience was very similar to Mike's.

Av. Frame rate at CYVR: 26.7

Turning north towards downtown: 22.7

Flying north towards downtown: 21.8 at one point my av. frame rates was 18.9 but only briefly.
Over downtown: 20.1
Turning east towards CYPK my frame rate was about the same - until about halfway where my frame rates went down to an av. 16.1 - 16.4
When I looked back at the downtown area, my frame rates went up to 20 - 21.
Looking over at CYVR the frame rates were about 19 - 20. Looking forward the frame rates went down to ~16 again. I could repeat this.
Stuttering or micro pauses happened just the same way it did for Mike. Turning north from CYVR and turning final to RW 26L and CYPK.
Landed my av. frame rate was 17.1 at CYPK.
Again same as Mike - when setting the sim into pause, my frame rates went up into the high 20'.

Machine Specs:
Video card: BFA Nvidia 8800 GTX 784MB Ram, Bios Info 60.80.e.04
Driver: 7.15.11.5824 Driver dated 4/26/07.
DUAL Monitor setup (Only using one for FSX - 1680X1050, the other idle at 1280x1024
Intel Core 2 Dual 6700 dual 2.66 GHz cores
4 gigs Corsair Dominator DDR2 (6200) 800 Ram
Motherboard: MSI P965 NEO
OS: Vista Ultimate 32 bit. (All updates)
Software:

FSX, SP1 with SDK Traffic explorer,
MyTraffic X 5.1 (With sound AI enhancement)
R. Fabers ground textures.
ASX (Not used in this test - but installed some graphics like runway textures and could textures)
FSUIPC 4.12 (Registered -WideFS also registered - but turned off for this test)

Posted: Sat Jul 14, 2007 11:20 pm (No subject)

Thanks, Lars.

Jon

Posted: Sun Jul 15, 2007 8:45 pm (No subject)

Hi Jon,
here are my results.

Start from CYVR with 25,1fps (20,3/24,7/25,1/V0,8%)
Flying to downtown, heading about 23° near "CAK7 (about the big oval building): 16,8fps (8,3/17,3/25,1/V4,2%)
after Downtown near the few round cylinders (silo) heading 75°: 15,4fps (9,9/15,1/16,9/V4,3%)
Approaching to CYPK: 16,6fps (11,6/15,7/17,4/V5,37%)
Landed in CYPK: 16,2fps (8,6/15,1/10,8/V7,2%)

no stuttering all the flyingtime

My PC specs:
Intel Duo Core E6700, 2,66GHz
4GB RAM
Geforce 8800GTX 768RAM
Motherboard: Asus P5K Deluxe

FSX SP1 and SDK only the ObjectPlacementtool and Instant Scenery,
X Graphics
Windows XP + SP2 with all SP
Running Bitdefender Antivirus and ZoneAlarm Firewall

I hope this helps.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 6:05 pm (No subject)

Hey Guys / Jon,

I might have stumbled upon a "fix" last night with regards to Vancouver+ performance in FSX. I am one of the few that suffers from a degraded performance over the downtown area.

Despite my somewhat of a high end system (C2D E6600 @3.45GHz, 2gb Dominator 8500 C5D RAM, eVGA 8800GTX video card), Van+ would do fine outside of downtown area, but once over downtown, it gets jerky. I had been in correspondence with Jon privately by email at first with testing results that I had amassed over 3 1/2 hours of testing and adjusting sliders, renaming bgls etc.

Well last night after picking my brain on what could be the problem, on a whim, I browsed the FAQ forum and looked at the specs that Jon recommended for Van+. I figure why not match my settings to Jon's recommendations and get this, its almost smooth over downtown right now, framerates hardly drop more than a few fps for an average of 28fps.

I am using the higher resolution settings in the Van+ config utility, my framerates are capped at 35fps, all sliders and settings are set to what Jon recommended here:

http://forums.fsaddon.eu/viewtopic.php?t=335

It seems that one of the sliders in the FSX settings is causing degraded performance over downtown, I have not yet narrowed down to what slider it could be, but I suspect it may be the Mesh Resolution and/or Texture Resolution. I will explore this further tonight.

All in all, for those who are experiencing degraded performance, try matching your sliders with what Jon outlined in the FAQ (first backup your FSX.cfg!) and report back here. Many of those with performance issues have very similiar systems as mine and I'd like to start narrowing this down.

Cheers,

Jason in YVR

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2007 10:51 pm (No subject)

I eagerly await your findings, Jason ...

Jon

Posted: Sat Jul 21, 2007 1:31 am (No subject)

One setting that was likely significantly different from what higher end users use was that we recommended water at 1.x low. However 2.x High should still give you around 60% of the framerate of 1.x low.

Jon

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:11 pm (No subject)

Just my 2 cents, this tweak helps a lot and few people knows it (new SP1 stuff):

Quoted from Phil Taylor:
######################
[SCENERY]
SmallPartRejectRadius=<pixels>

Basically this culls out small model parts (e.g. air conditioners on roofs of buildings, aircraft doors) if their radius would occupy less than the specified number of screen pixels.

The default is 1.0 (i.e. 1 pixel). 2, and 4 are the next 2 settings we advise. Can significantly improve performance but may cause “popping” of small objects
#####################end quote

I have mine at 4. It helps A LOT, I have very good FPS all over Vancouver+, with autogen to very dense. It does cause "popping" of small objects, but I think it is a very good compromise.

Posted: Tue Jul 24, 2007 6:16 pm (No subject)

Thx for the tip Sergio. Users should be aware that among the objects that will pop out of view quickly are the AI aircraft and the boats in the marinas.

Jon

Gender: Age: 43 Joined: 03 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

I also recognized the degradation of framerate / stutter over Vancouver midtown. I also had slow loading ground textures resulting in blurries.

I disabled all traffic options in the configurator and voila !.. no more stutter, everything smooth and faster loading ground textures.

Often the degradation started when the ferrys and the cruiseship near Vancouver intl. seaplanebase came into view.

I know with only 1GB RAM, my system is below Yoyr system requirement, but I have no problem running Vancouver+ on my computer.

Wothan

Posted: Fri Aug 03, 2007 5:07 pm (No subject)

Thanks for the feedback, Wothan.

I suspect the ferries and cruiseship you refer to are MS default, with lower traffic sliders (25%), you shouldn't see those, and it looks like that's what you did.

It's good to know that a 1GB system is adequate, would you be willing to share your settings with other users?

Jon

Gender: Age: 43 Joined: 03 Aug 2007 Posts: 5

Hi Jon

Well with al traffic options disabled in the Vancouver+ FSX configurator, I don´t see the cruiseship and ferrys. It´s not MS default ships. The small ferrys I see are looking like hydrofoilsboats. The cruiseship is the one with some jetengine exaust lookalike mounted at the rear part of the ship.

With this system I get 16-22 FPS (16 FPS is over Vancouver midtown) with my bushflying setup. 18-22 FPS with my normal setup:

AMD 3500+ Athlon (single core)
1 GB RAM DDR
GF 6800GT, 256 MB VRAM
Onboard sound

FSX settings:

FPS locked to 22 FPS
1280x960x32
Global texture resolution: Very high
Lens Flare: No
Light Bloom: No
Advanced animations: Yes

Aircraft: Very Low (all ticked except shadow options)

Level of detail radius: Medium
Mesh complexity: 80
Mesh resolution: 10m
Texture resolution: 1m
Water effects: Low 2.x
Scenery complexity: Very dense
Autogen complexity: Normal / Dense (depends on weither I choose my normal or bushflying setups)
Ground scenery shadows : No
Special effects detail: High

Weather: High

Airline traffic: 10%
GA Traffic: 15%
Road vehicles: 8%
Ships and ferrys: 6%
Leisure boats: 10%