EGLL XP11 (more)

[martinlest 0]

Hi. I also have the payware version of EGLL (previous thread)... my bugbear with it is the poor frame rates. I know this is a difficult subject, as people's PCs differ so widely, but I have my XP11 settings at very reasonable levels (worked out and tested over the past two years), not all pushed to the right, and many other 'heavy airports' give me good frame rates; I am not going to push my settings down any lower now. Sitting at the gates at Heathrow I average about 17-18fps. My PC is not state of the art, OK, but it is pretty respectable (i7-4970K @ 4.5GHz; GTX1070, 16GB RAM; running XP11 from internal SSD): I can't see why I should expect 15-19fps at Aerosoft EGLL.

 

What might be the principal frame rate killers in this scenery? I'd probably try removing them if they are 'non-essential'... I think a minimum of 25fps is not an unreasonable expectation. Otherwise seriously considering trying some of the freeware offerings instead, so hope someone can advise.

 

Thanks. :-)

[martinlest 0]

Otherwise seriously considering trying some of the freeware offerings instead...

 

Seems there really aren't any!

[FlyAgi 396]

Heathrow is heavy on frames but it's also a very large airport and there is London City around so it's a tough situation overall. Nevertheless I managed to get pretty stable 60 fps out of this situation, with tweaking of course. 

 

I suggest to use my tweak utility, it's pretty simple but solves most of XP performance problems and more:

 

FlyAgi Tweak Utility - FlyAgi.de

 

 

 

Finally a video of proof and my current hardware  setup:

 

AMD Ryzen 7 3600X

32 GB DDR4 3000 MHz Memory

GTX 1070 8GB

 

 

Further AddOns:

 

AOA Simulations Van's RV8A

Alpilotx Treelines + Farms v2

FlyAgi Vegetation Global Trees

SkyMaxx Pro 4.8.2

 

 

 

 

[martinlest 0]

I'll have a look at that. Thanks.

 

Could you however perhaps give some specific advice on what best to tweak at EGLL. I would be more than happy with around 30fps... maybe you could kindly give some indication of exactly what you did in order to achieve your high frame rates at Heathrow.

[FlyAgi 396]

I usually do the following:

 

- Use Auto LOD (in FTU)

- Disable Water Effects (in FTU)

- Disable Road Traffic (in FTU)

- Setting DSFs max visibility to 30.000 (in FTU)

- Tweak the clouds for more performance (in FTU -> Clouds Fast, not available with SkyMaxx pro as shown in my video)

- Disable extended DSFs (via Settings.txt)

- Enable Threaded Optimization in NVidia Control Panel (always gave me 10-20% better FPS, with the Ryzen 3700X it's about 10%, with my old 2600k about 20%)

 

Note about that FTU 1.11 version: it's not released yet. Once released it will offer options to automatically set DSFs visibility and water effects based on altitude and the LOD control logic also does a much better job than in the current 1.10 version (higher object visibility at about the same FPS as before). 

 

If the current FTU download does not solve your problems you can try my indev one used in the video (should be stable, I'm using it for about two weeks now):

 

FlyAgi_Tweak_Utility_v111.zip (beta version)

 

 

And I'm using these settings in X-Plane (with objects on max, full right position):

 

Please login to display this image.

 

Performance killers on the CPU side usually are:

 

1. Reflection Detail (I suggest settings this to lowest, even one higher it impacts FPS heavily for me)

2. Draw parked aircraft (depending on airport)

3. Draw shadows on scenery 

 

I prefer to disable them all and get high object visibility instead at the same fps. Depending on where I fly I also add water effects back (in FTU) but in fps heavy inland situations I recommend to turn the waves off, this helps a lot on older CPUs (about 15 FPS on my old 2600k).

 

 

[martinlest 0]

OK, thanks.

 

To be honest though, I don't really want to make changes on a global basis. For example, I don't fly with extended dsf turned off as that IMHO produces hideously ugly terrain. I can't reduce the reflection detail to zero, as this introduces a bug into XP whereby the cockpit panel keeps turning very dark, then back to normal after some minutes, then back to dark (even when at the gate). This has been discussed a number of times of XP forums; if you leave reflection detail at the first notch up, this doesn't happen. I don't draw parked a/c via the XP menu (but do have some at least in WT3 or the airport is weirdly empty); I don't have shadows on scenery...

 

What I was really looking for is changes I can make to Aerosoft EGLL itself, perhaps by removing any of the larger frame rate killers, (if they are not 'essential' like jetways!), rather than change my global settings, which I have experimented with for two years and which suit most airports and flights pretty well. Easily done in Overlay Editor. AS would probably have some idea as to which could be dispensed with in order to increase the fps...

[FlyAgi 396]

I have some insight into the airport and the objects are already highly optimized, you can see them fade in very late and fade out pretty early (LOD based) so if I reduce the LOD value many objects disappear right in front of you even if they actually should still be visible in my optinion - but this reduces CPU load and seems to be part of the optimization.

 

If you want to take out some of the object yourself you can easily do that with WED:

 

1. Open the airport in WED (it should be empty)
2. Import apt.dat into wed (File > Import apt.dat)
3. Import DSF into WED (File > Import DSF)
4. To disable an object click on it an uncheck its eye symbol - this way you can get it back later if needed

 

The 'low reflections bug' is not actually a bug btw, it's just how the reflections work on lowest settings, they get updated only every ten seconds or so and then the change can be dramatic depending on what changed in the situation - but this lower update rate gives much better performance. 

[martinlest 0]

Hi. Thanks for the reply. I know how to remove objects, just not which would give the best frame rate increase! :-)

 

The 'bug' is actually a bug - you are thinking of something different I think. You can sit in the cockpit, engines off, stationary at the gate, and the cockpit will suddenly be plunged into blackness (impossible to read any unlit instruments) and then after another minute or two, back to normal - and so it continues. Hugely inconvenient not to be able to see the instrument labels.  Quite a few people have reported it. 

[FlyAgi 396]

Oh... well... I did not run into this bug yet.