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Not satisfied with your frames? Read these tips!


Kepti

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Hello everyone!

Following to the Mega Airport Helsinki X release there has been some discussion about the framerates with Aerosoft Mega Airports. A-Flight team wants to make sure everyone is satisfied with their frames, so we have made the following tips guide for everyone to use!

First of all, please click the following link:

http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

The website is for tweaking your fsx.cfg -file which, if modified successfully, can increase your performance a lot. The website is made by Jesus 'Bojote' Altuve, so thanks to him!

Here are some extra tweaks that might help get better performance on some systems:

1. If you have a 1GB+ graphics card, then it is recommended to add these lines in the FSX.CFG file:

[bufferPools]

UsePools=0

Although some people claim that it is not recommended to set it to 0, we found absolutely no stability issues in our tests, and the fps increased in some cases for more than 5 units. However if you have less than 1GB of video memory, you are bound to run into stability issues. The more video memory you have the better it is for this setting.

2. Again in FSX.CFG, find/add this section:

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33

and change the value to something between 0.1 and 0.2, try different settings to find what suits you best. Lower settings increase performance but can slow down texture loading and cause blurred terrain textures. In our main core i7 test computer, we found 0.11 to be a good setting but it waries. Sometimes the default value of 0.33 is needed to avoid blurred ground textures.

3. If you have an NVIDIA 500 or 600 series graphic card (or higher), you may want to try enabling the "adaptive vsync" for FSX. Setting it to 1/2 refresh rate can give amazing smoothness on a 60Hz display.

Also, some of Aerosoft sceneries, such as Mega Airport Helsinki X, comes with the scenery tweaking tool. You can change settings to your scenery and make the performance even better.

Please tell your experiences!

Regards,

A-Flight and Aleksi Lindén

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Thx for this post. I will try it after my flight.

i have just took off from Helsinki with the 737 NGX with around 25 fps on ground with engines running and active sky 2012. Still all features in the tweaking tool turned off.

Maybe you could give advise, which features will hit the fps the most (Mathijs told something that the static cars will drop the fps a lot).

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Thank you Alex!

I would advise you to start removing cars and static vehicles first. If you're still not satisfied, continue on removing baggage carts and lighting poles!

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Thank you Alex!

I would advise you to start removing cars and static vehicles first. If you're still not satisfied, continue on removing baggage carts and lighting poles!

Okay, i´ll report back :) Anyways, great scenery. It is really a large area!

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The adaptive vsync works exceptionally well on GTX400 series cards as well... just make sure that when you install the new nvidia driver you clean all remnants of the previous driver with something like DriverCleaner Pro...

I have a GTX470 with 1.25Gb on it. UsePools=0 causes spiking of autogen in high density areas...

Jarlsberg and Alex:

By adding UsePools=0 below a rejectthreshold entry is like telling FSX to use pools, but send everything above the threshold directly to the card, and then with the usepools=0 you tell FSX to send everything directly to the GPU, thius bypassing the rejectthreshold command...

You cannot use both settings, at least this is how I understand it...

A

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Jarlsberg and Alex:

By adding UsePools=0 below a rejectthreshold entry is like telling FSX to use pools, but send everything above the threshold directly to the card, and then with the usepools=0 you tell FSX to send everything directly to the GPU, thius bypassing the rejectthreshold command...

Even with UsePools under rejected threshold made my day, so I will definitely adding moving it over rejected threshold. :D

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I found the config generated by the venetubo site not to work well on my system. I used the guidelines...

Mindyerbeak: you are getting OOMs on FSX in Win7X64? Do you change views a lot or switch to the desktop a lot during flight? I have not experienced an OOM in FSX and I run all the sweeties from OrbX with the NGX... and so on...

A

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The adaptive vsync works exceptionally well on GTX400 series cards as well... just make sure that when you install the new nvidia driver you clean all remnants of the previous driver with something like DriverCleaner Pro...

I have a GTX470 with 1.25Gb on it. UsePools=0 causes spiking of autogen in high density areas...

Jarlsberg and Alex:

By adding UsePools=0 below a rejectthreshold entry is like telling FSX to use pools, but send everything above the threshold directly to the card, and then with the usepools=0 you tell FSX to send everything directly to the GPU, thius bypassing the rejectthreshold command...

You cannot use both settings, at least this is how I understand it...

A

sorry :D of course i told some strange stuff :D i have overwritten the entry of rejected threshold :D definitly not my day :D

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Even with UsePools under rejected threshold made my day, so I will definitely adding moving it over rejected threshold. :D

if UsePools=0 is above, then I guess that RejectThreshold will be meaningless, as you have effectively switched buffer pools off... If UsePools=0 is below, then you have Pools running by default, you set a threshold, then turn off pools...

So either way, buffer pools are off in your configuration ;)

A

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  • Aerosoft

I had a new PC here, a sub $800 machine (Core I7, 12 Gb mem, GTX 560i) as we normally use. I had just Win7/64 fully updated on it. I installed FSX Gold, Vantaa and the Airbus X Extended. Without any tweaks and using medium to high FSX settings (a bit low in Autogen as that seems to work fine around the airport) I get 30+ from all external views, and 25+ from the VC. Memory use was as expected high (close to 500 Mb more then same location without addon).

Using limited FPS (25 fps) I got 18 to 19 fps, as it clearly hits the totally buggy fps cap of FSX. Unlimited almost doubles the fps as so often.

post-43-0-80743900-1349438028_thumb.jpg

post-43-0-27494100-1349438039_thumb.jpg

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I found the config generated by the venetubo site not to work well on my system. I used the guidelines...

Mindyerbeak: you are getting OOMs on FSX in Win7X64? Do you change views a lot or switch to the desktop a lot during flight? I have not experienced an OOM in FSX and I run all the sweeties from OrbX with the NGX... and so on...

A

Yes OOMs in fsx and win7 x64.I get OOMs as soon as approach the airport even if I do not see it.I switch views during flights.I wouldn't say a lot but i do often.

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Please be carefull with any Bufferpool setting.

Especially the Bufferpool=0 setting

While it might work fine under most circumstances, it might start some very ugly graphical artifacts and autogen spikes if Your videocard start to be overloaded with some heavier sceneries.

Though alot of the tweaks can improve performance there is always some kind of price to pay.

Believe me, I have experimentet with all known tweaks and read deeper into many of them. At some point You might findout that the default settings are the most stable settings any way.

The best "twea"k for FSX is simply a fsater CPU with at least 3Ghz or more.

Faster graphicscard might just improve performance slightly and in some cases even give worse performance.

But these settings are a must:

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14 (For quadro core)

While Jesus' settings might work for some of You, I never have seen any noticable performance gains using them.

What often happens is, that people get cought by the placebo effect. They make a tweak and "Feel" that performance has become better, simply because they hope for it.

The best way to gauge Your performance is to turn off any FPS counter and then simply fly a circuit with a newer, state of the art addon aicraft over a dense scenery.

Try to use either unlimited FPS or lock it to 25-30 FPS in the FSX Display setup menu.

For some sceneries/ Aircraft, but also dependent on Your computer, unlimited might work very good, as Mathijs posted. The problem with unlimited FPS is that in some cases You will get quite big flucturations in FPS, which will cause microstutters.

Better go with somewhat lower FPS, but no stutter.

Finn

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  • Aerosoft

For some sceneries/ Aircraft, but also dependent on Your computer, unlimited might work very good, as Mathijs posted. The problem with unlimited FPS is that in some cases You will get quite big flucturations in FPS, which will cause microstutters. Better go with somewhat lower FPS, but no stutter.

I always use limited FPS when I get FPS that are 70 or higher. Then setting it to 30 or so will guarantee you get 30 and it will be much smoother. Though I must say that at Vantaa limited FPS does not seen to hurt as much as I expected.

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Since the introduction of adaptive vsync in the newer nvidia drivers, I set to 1/2 refresh rate (60Hz) and get around 30 locked externally... it does fluctuate a little, but the variance is minimal. Setting internally to unlimited unleashes the potential. As I have said before, I generally have no issue with this...

I feel that the problems here are down to the very high number of additional small 3D objects, lights, trees, cars, static vehicles, paired with the high number of 2048x2048 texture sheets...

We will see what the future brings in terms of performance improvements. It is a beautifully crafted scenery, I just want to be able to use it in a little more of its glory with adequate smoothness than I experience with the objects and textures currently in the package.

A

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I tested it with Landside scenery, 3D-Taxilights and trees on and it works without any problems. Thanks to A-Flight, thanks Alexi.

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I believe it needs full screen to work, though I vaguely recall a post in a thread over at avsim (connection resets currently, don't know what their hosting problems are, been like this all week...), which implied that there was some way of getting it to work in windowed mode...

A

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For V-Sync to work, do you need to use full screen mode?

No it just works in windowed mode with 1/2 refresh rate set in the driver and 30 fps locked in FSX :-)

This line must be added to the fsx.cfg file under graphics section ForceWindowedVsync=1

Further bufferpools=0 gives spikes and flashes when the memory load is high on the GPU bus...

Far better solution is which does actually almost the same is this line.

Under the section bufferpools the only line

RejectThreshold=126976 //98304 you can play with the values which are best balance for the local system...

With the AffinityMask=14 and HIGHMEMFIX=1 and TextureMaxLoad=30 (instant loading of VC textures) those are the only tweaks in my fsx.config file...

Plus interresting link about OOM http://support.microsoft.com/kb/947246

Cheers,

André

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André: Thank you for the suggestion, the affinitymask change and texturemaxload values seems to have fixed my OOM errors at EFHK, at least for the time being anyway

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I have been told multiple Affinity masks value for me.

So could someone tell me what is recommended for i7 2600K Oc'd to 4.6Ghz with Hyperthreading turned ON.

Cheers!

PS: I think I will get rid of jesus tweak and just add the four or so recommended above.

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Fellas, there is some conflicting information in this thread. With respect, the AffinityMask=14 settings is pertinent to quad core CPU's and should not simply be added at random. There is numerous information on Avsim regarding the different values depending on how many cores your CPU is running.

With regards to the 1/2 refresh rate tweak, in depth information about this extremely good tweak, can aslo be found on Avsim and posted by Kosta. To expand a little, there are certain parameters that need to be in place before running it: Firstly your framerate MUST be locked at 30fps, secondly you need to have a monitor running at 60hz (which is most I guess) thirdly, you need to have the latest Inspector installed, and also, it is stated the latest drivers although it has also been suggested that it will work with some earlier drivers. Of course this is perinent to Nvidia cards, unsure to be honest whether the same can apply to ATI. It primarliy works only with FULLSCREEN mode using the parameters I have decribed, for use in WINDOWED mode, I suggest you read up on things as there are a few further elements that need to be added to allow it to work. This is not a tweak to gain extra frames, but one that can offer very smooth flying, and in return allow you to run slightly lower framerates if you wish.

Regarding the BufferPools tweak, yep, when it works it works unbelievably well! I get a performance boost of about 20-25%!! BUT... as with most good things, there is often a price to pay. If graphical artifacts are experienced, and it is more than likely, then this is caused by the data being sent directly to the GPU and overloading the card. To alleviate this anomoly it is necessary to increase your water slider setting in FSX to High X2 (?) (second notch down from the top) in doing so it will cost a few of the frames which you gained through using the Bufferpoools=0 tweak in the first place. Not only will you gain extra frames, but in my case, it has also smoothed out micro stutters too.

This is my understanding of the RejectThreshold....The RejectThreshold tweak is instead of the BufferPoools tweak and effectively determines the amount of data that is transfered to the GPU by whatever value is used. So that is why experimentation needs to be the key.

Seems odd that this thread was about poor framerates at Mega airports and we once again start talking about how to run them successfully. Probably why I no longer purchase any of Aerosoft's mega airports :unsure:;)

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I have been told multiple Affinity masks value for me.

So could someone tell me what is recommended for i7 2600K Oc'd to 4.6Ghz with Hyperthreading turned ON.

Sure, thats very simple and it is totally up to you which value suits you. Let me explain how the Affinity mask value works:

The Affinity mask is a decimal number that is translated to binary so the engine of FSX knows on which core to run the main thread and on which cores to run terrain threads. It is read from right to left and the first '1' the engine encounters will be the main thread. The length of the binary code represents in number of cores (or threads)

Example: Affinity maks=14 translates to 1110 in binary. Reading from right to left we get: core 0=no thread, core 1=main thread, core 2=terrain thread, core 2=terrain thread. The reason 14 is used for quad cores, it to relieve core 0 for other applications that will automatically run on core 0.

Alright, now your case. You have a quadcore with 4 threads and 4 virtual threads, making 8 in total. Hyper Threading does not benefit FSX, it is advised to run FSX on the physical cores. I advise the following configuration: 00001110. This will give you core 0=no thread, core 1=main thread, core 2=terrain thread, core 3=terrain thread, virtual core 4=no thread, virtual core 5=no thread, virtual core 6=no thread, virtual core 7=no thread. 0001110 in decimal is 14, the same as a normal quadcore. You can experiment with different configurations. For example: 00001111=15, 00011110=30, 11111110=254. But FSX doesn't really benefit from more than 3 or 4 threads, especially if those threads run on virtual cores.

Hop it helps!

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