Setting recommendations compromise for high congested areas

[strykerpsg]

Gents,

Have been tweaking and adding on P3D for the last 8 weeks. I thought I had the "sweet spot" figured out with most all sliders maxed, sans traffic which is about 80% and it looked absolutely superb! Admittedly when I take off from KTCM, I generally head southwest and don't go over KSEA. I decided to take a hop to Friday Harbor and once I hit KSEA, my FPS really bogged down, not to a slide show bog down, but major hit and noticeable. I am running REX SF3D with maximum settings and that may also be why too, as it was overcast and ground mist was well represented.

So, do many of you just generally avoid cities and enjoy the great add on scenery or do you compromise to get the best FPS for flying over all terrain? Not sure that last statement makes sense, but I hope you get the gist of the idea. I mistakenly assumed I could max out everything with my current set up and indeed, it looks vastly superior to anything I ran in the past, however, humility is kicking in.

Thanks

[deimos256]

I don’t have SF3D but from what I’ve read it has a significant impact on frame rates. As for tweaking I adjust my settings to perform well in the hardest hitting of areas and then I never have to worry about performance elsewhere.

[Odie]

I generally (on setup) push everything to max on sliders and adjust from there. The one exception is the look of the a/c itself. It has to look the best. The rest of the sliders will depend on your determination of how you want the world around the a/c to look. I have a lot of ORBX scenery in my FSX setup on my other PC and it is at the very edge of what the PC will drive. However, it looks good at 2,000 feet and looks good at 30,000 feet. With the settings I'm using I expect some drop in FPS, but I read something in another forum while researching how to setup ORBX scenery that stuck with me. "Focus on what is working the way you want it to and enjoy the flight."

Tweak, evaluate, re-tweak, and fly. And I offer this as a guy that flew Jane's US Navy Fighters at 7-10 fps in some of the areas back in the day!

[lownslo]

Since FS2002 I have used the same flight for testing settings configs... flying north up the S.F. Bay. I start at Candlestick Park then fly between S.F. and Oakland, past Berkeley, Richmond, and onto Napa. Same airplane, same altitude, same airspeed, same WX. I have ORBX NorCal Region installed. I adjust settings until I can hold my set framerate of 30 FPS. Once tuned for my test flight I can usually fly anywhere (including ORBX SoCal) without many problems.

One of the nice features of P3D is the multiple settings profiles. Just create profiles for each type of flying you enjoy in a demanding area and go from there.

HTH,

Greg

[strykerpsg]

Since FS2002 I have used the same flight for testing settings configs... flying north up the S.F. Bay. I start at Candlestick Park then fly between S.F. and Oakland, past Berkeley, Richmond, and onto Napa. Same airplane, same altitude, same airspeed, same WX. I have ORBX NorCal Region installed. I adjust settings until I can hold my set framerate of 30 FPS. Once tuned for my test flight I can usually fly anywhere (including ORBX SoCal) without many problems.

One of the nice features of P3D is the multiple settings profiles. Just create profiles for each type of flying you enjoy in a demanding area and go from there.

HTH,

Greg

Great idea! I had no idea about configuring different settings in P3D though, perhaps I should have read the manual....

[strykerpsg]

I generally (on setup) push everything to max on sliders and adjust from there. The one exception is the look of the a/c itself. It has to look the best. The rest of the sliders will depend on your determination of how you want the world around the a/c to look. I have a lot of ORBX scenery in my FSX setup on my other PC and it is at the very edge of what the PC will drive. However, it looks good at 2,000 feet and looks good at 30,000 feet. With the settings I'm using I expect some drop in FPS, but I read something in another forum while researching how to setup ORBX scenery that stuck with me. "Focus on what is working the way you want it to and enjoy the flight."

Tweak, evaluate, re-tweak, and fly. And I offer this as a guy that flew Jane's US Navy Fighters at 7-10 fps in some of the areas back in the day!

Makes sense too and ties in with what lownslo mentioned too. Admittedly, just got a bit greedy with all the new hardware and thought I could max everything. Given that my CPU is overclockable, may try tweaking that a bit too, since the rig is also water cooled.

[cavaricooper]

Matt-

Once burned in OC the CPU... it is still the single most important performance limit. Then AFTER IT IS A TESTED STABLE OC, you will be able to optimize for rates. P3D v4 is where I stopped using different “profiles” for GA, study sims etc. My Annuschka and 744 fly with the same profile at the same frame rate- 24FPS.

After LOTS of testing I concluded that Steve Waite’s idea of eliminating long frames was more important (to me) than higher frame rates. P3D v4 is not a max and forget sim- it will tax even the latest HW, so don’t hesitate in pulling back sliders. Mine are NOT ALL maxed, and I’m still getting FAR MORE visual candy than I got with v3.

YMMV, but I HTH- C