PNW Steady Performance Settings

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Over the past few days I have been running tests to see if I could adjust FSX so that I can have good performance in all areas of ORBX's PNW without having to change my settings. So after some 20 hours of testing here is what I found for MY machine. Yours may be very different.Specifications:Q9550 OC'd to 3.65ghzEVGA GTX 275 with 1792 ram OC'd to 721mhz4g 1066 ramWin 7-64 Home Prem.NHancerFPS Limiter185.50 driverSettings:All Scenery settings at extremely dense except autogen, which is at very dense.CFG Trees/Buildings tweakTERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=800TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=600Lowering the trees allows me to run in thick forested areas stutter free (including Darrington) without losing anything in the cities, and lowering the buildings allows me to operate stutter free in the largest cities without losing anything in the rural areas. Both work well in this context and settings. Without the tree settings I have to lower Darrington to normal autogen and lose most of the buildings. Now I can run very dense everywhere and have less, but still sufficient trees, and heavy buildings. However each computer will vary in results, as may your choices of what looks balanced to you. Results (Performance numbers embedded within screenshots):Detailed buildings and Forestation in Darrington Everett WashingtonDensitySouthfork north, mixed urban and rural acreages (think $$$$$$$.$$)Exquisite Rural ScenerySmall hill with dirty snow situated south of the majestic and pristine Canadian Rockies that are found in SuperNatural Beautiful BC :( The bottom line is that excellent performance is available for the entire ORBX PNW without having to sacrifice being able to fly in the cities, or detailed addon airports at the expense of stripped down rural settings. With adjustments for individual computers a balance should be able to be had without having to change slider settings. These settings work for me, allowing me to fly seamlessly in this exciting virtual world. I hope this encourages those that do not have the latest and the fastest and the most expensive computers to customize the ORBX PNW for uncompromised satisfaction and fun fun fun.Stephen :(

[BobP 56]

I wish I could boast the same, however, IMHO the balancing of settings is in the 'round off error'. A 3.65 cpu is doing the heavy lifting. For me KPDX is a slide show with 'not much' turned on. In fact it's worse than KSEA. I'll will enjoy the back country for now and look forward to buying a faster computer in the future. Enjoy. :)Bob..

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I wish I could boast the same, however, IMHO the balancing of settings is in the 'round off error'. A 3.65 cpu is doing the heavy lifting. For me KPDX is a slide show with 'not much' turned on. In fact it's worse than KSEA. I'll will enjoy the back country for now and look forward to buying a faster computer in the future. Enjoy. :)Bob..

Bob, overclock that chip and it should be just fine. It is easy, safe and inexpensive. There is no reason why the PNW should be a slide show if it is set up right on your computer, even the way it is, but why leave it in the slow lane? On the other hand, if you are on the way to a new i7 975 or something, run, don't walk to your nearest computer store!Stephen

[spotlope 0]

Bob, overclock that chip and it should be just fine. It is easy, safe and inexpensive. There is no reason why the PNW should be a slide show if it is set up right on your computer, even the way it is, but why leave it in the slow lane? On the other hand, if you are on the way to a new i7 975 or something, run, don't walk to your nearest computer store!Stephen

Thanks for sharing your settings, Stephen. My rig is fairly comparable to yours, so I'll try them out tonight. FTX performs well for me as-is, but like most 'simmers, I'm always looking for a boost.

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Thanks for sharing your settings, Stephen. My rig is fairly comparable to yours, so I'll try them out tonight. FTX performs well for me as-is, but like most 'simmers, I'm always looking for a boost.

and in your honour Bill, right now, this very minute, I am going to check into Adrian's store and buy your Twin Oaks airport! :( Stephen

[badaboom 0]

Beautiful shots Stephen,I'm having a great time FPS and immersion wise in rural areas,however when I try flying out of Seattlle I get Pummeled!! :( I'm going to try your values in FSX CFG File.Thanks!!

[SpiritFlyer 987]

And here is Bill's new Twin Oaks addon. It is incredible and the performance is right through the roof! He obviously knows a thing or two about these things. This is in spite of the fact that Bill wrote that I was in a fantasy world when I stated that Canada would take the Gold metal in men's Olympic hockey! Canada beating USA only goes to show that the world is just and fair and balanced after all! :( This is great work Bill. Congratulations on a job well done! What's next?From the Great White North,Stephen

[SpiritFlyer 987]

Beautiful shots Stephen,I'm having a great time FPS and immersion wise in rural areas,however when I try flying out of Seattlle I get Pummeled!! :( I'm going to try your values in FSX CFG File.Thanks!!

That is great. Let us know how it goes. There is more than one way to skin a cat!Stephen

[spotlope 0]

And here is Bill's new Twin Oaks addon. It is incredible and the performance is right through the roof! He obviously knows a thing or two about these things. This is in spite of the fact that Bill wrote that I was in a fantasy world when I stated that Canada would take the Gold metal in men's Olympic hockey! Canada beating USA only goes to show that the world is just and fair and balanced after all! :( This is great work Bill. Congratulations on a job well done! What's next?From the Great White North,Stephen

Man, I really had to eat my beaver-pelt hat on that hockey thing, didn't I? Maybe that's why they call it a "hat trick" :( .Hey, thanks for picking up Twin Oaks, Stephen! I hope you enjoy your flights around Portland. Next up for me FTX-wise is probably Pearson Field (KVUO), but I haven't confirmed that yet. Before that though, I'm finishing up Emma Field X, which will fit nicely into Orbx's Olympic Peninsula.

[JimmiG 244]

I also experimented some with those settings yesterday. My problem was that framerate over the biggest cities was extremely poor, but I didn't want to turn down too many settings since this would also affect rural areas, where the FPS is more than high enough (also 95% of my flying is over those types of areas).I had already limited trees to 2000 for Tongass Fjords. It makes a big difference to the frame rate but only has a very small effect on the perceived forest density.I found that lowering buildings from 4500 to 2000 or 1500 made no difference to either the density of buildings or the FPS. I took screenshots over downtown Seattle and compared. I don't know what Microsoft were thinking when they set the default value to 3000. Clearly that's at least 2x higher density than what even this addon uses. Then you have to remember that FSX came out in 2006, when a Core2 Duo at 2.4 GHz was pretty high-end...Going even lower started thinning out buildings in cities, but didn't have any effect over rural areas or smaller cities. This was the big surprise for me - I expected e.g. a 50% reduction over both rural areas and cities like when you adjust a detail slider. Of course it makes sense that at first it only affects complex areas, where the density approaches the max value.The trick then will be to find a setting that thins out buildings in major cities just enough to fix the FPS problems, while not going so low as to affect rural areas, where every 3D building contributes to the scenery experience. That sweet spot seems to be somewhere between 600 and 1500, but I need to do more testing and A/B screenshots to find the "perfect" value, which will of course depend on system performance and what other settings you use.

[Guest]

Going even lower started thinning out buildings in cities, but didn't have any effect over rural areas or smaller cities. This was the big surprise for me - I expected e.g. a 50% reduction over both rural areas and cities like when you adjust a detail slider. Of course it makes sense that at first it only affects complex areas, where the density approaches the max value.

It's not surprising when you know how it works. :( While the slider lowers autogen everywhere with 20% for every step, the setting (for houses) in the cfg is a cap. Let me quote Holger from another topic:

Hi guys,Mitch, there's nothing special about the way autogen is handled in FSX PNW. Just like everywhere else in FSX moving the autogen density slider a notch to the left removes 20% of the autogen in a more or less random fashion, with Extremely Dense giving 100%. Thus, at Very Dense you get 80%, at Dense 60%, etc.For those of you who have difficulties with autogen building densities in urban areas I'd recommend trying a lower value for TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL in fsx.cfg. TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL is a "hard cap" meaning it limits the total number of buildings displayed in one land class cell (~1.4 sq km). To find a good value for your system you need to consider two things: (1) as mentioned above the autogen density slider removes 20% of the overall autogen density with each slider notch to the left. (2) even the most dense urban areas don't have more than 1300 building annotations per cell. Thus, at Dense you'd only see 1300*0.6=780 buildings to begin with and a MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS value of anything greater would have no effect.If, for example, you'd like to keep the autogen slider at Very Dense while reducing building density by a third in urban areas the equation would be 1300*0.8=1040 and 1040*0.66=686 meaning your MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS parameter should be at about 700. Moreover, since most rural areas only have a few hundred buildings per tile to begin with you don't lose building density in the rural areas.With my elderly Q6600 rig I use a value of 600 and an autogen density slider setting of Very Dense and the big cities work fine and still look great.Cheers, Holger

Hello Howard,I did some formal testing on the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS and MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES parameters recently and it turns out that they behave differently. MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES can also act as a hard cap but in most cases it doesn't. It depends on the way the tree annotations were placed with the FSX SDK autogen tool. This tool gives the devloper an option whether to place larger boxes, which the sim then fills with trees at random locations, or with individual small boxes that place only one or a few trees at specific locations. Usually, the small boxes are used in urban and agricultural areas where it's important that the autogen trees get placed on the individual tree crowns shown in the ground texture.The testing showed that the sim ignores MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES if there are more individual boxes than the value set for MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES. In other words, if an urban tile has 2000 trees and your MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is at 1000 then you'll still see 2000 trees (at Extremely Dense autogen slider setting).Moreover, if there are ovelapping boxes (a common method to place more than one tree species in an area) then the MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is additive for each box, meaning two boxes = double the tree density, etc. In short, it seems as if the best approach is to use the autogen slider to establish a tree density that works for your system and then the MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS parameter as described in my previous post should urban areas still cause problems. You can experiment with a lower value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES, say 500 or 1000, but it's unlikely you'll see much of a difference, at least not in urban and agricultural areas.By the way, all this isn't specific to FTX PNW; the two parameters behave the same everywhere in the sim.Cheers, HolgerP.S.: Interestingly, I also discovered that due to this behavior with MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES there is no maximum value for tree density in FSX. According to information from ACES the maximum value of MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES is 6000. However, given that this parameter is ignored when there are more annotation boxes I've been able to place 10,000 or even 20,000 trees per 1.4 sq km tile in my test area :( While that is close to a realistic tree density in real-world forests it's also rather academic because at that density even the best hardware takes a nap :(

If you want to discuss this further, please do so in the topic where these posts were posted:http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=277622

[SpiritFlyer 987]

I also experimented some with those settings yesterday. My problem was that framerate over the biggest cities was extremely poor, but I didn't want to turn down too many settings since this would also affect rural areas, where the FPS is more than high enough (also 95% of my flying is over those types of areas).I had already limited trees to 2000 for Tongass Fjords. It makes a big difference to the frame rate but only has a very small effect on the perceived forest density.I found that lowering buildings from 4500 to 2000 or 1500 made no difference to either the density of buildings or the FPS. I took screenshots over downtown Seattle and compared. I don't know what Microsoft were thinking when they set the default value to 3000. Clearly that's at least 2x higher density than what even this addon uses. Then you have to remember that FSX came out in 2006, when a Core2 Duo at 2.4 GHz was pretty high-end...Going even lower started thinning out buildings in cities, but didn't have any effect over rural areas or smaller cities. This was the big surprise for me - I expected e.g. a 50% reduction over both rural areas and cities like when you adjust a detail slider. Of course it makes sense that at first it only affects complex areas, where the density approaches the max value.The trick then will be to find a setting that thins out buildings in major cities just enough to fix the FPS problems, while not going so low as to affect rural areas, where every 3D building contributes to the scenery experience. That sweet spot seems to be somewhere between 600 and 1500, but I need to do more testing and A/B screenshots to find the "perfect" value, which will of course depend on system performance and what other settings you use.

Jimmy,You nailed the scenario pretty much as many are beginning to understand it. However your "1500 buildings" numbers are far too high to make a difference, because the maximum number of buildings that can be shown within FSX is not 3,000, but 1300 per cell. Autogen slider differences make a 20% decrease each time they are moved back a notch, so "very dense" is dialed back (1300 - 20%) to 1040 buildings, and normal (-60%) to 520. Tree renderings are a bit different in certain cases. Reducing them via the cfg file will make a huge difference in thickly forested areas, but will not do so within cities, nor in many mixed urban and rural sceneries where large numbers of autogen objects (buildings and trees) add together to block a reduction in trees.In other words, a cfg ceiling setting for buildings below 1300 buildings per cell to 600 reduces them within cities only, and not in forested or agricultural areas. Reducing the trees to 800 in the cfg will reduce their numbers in thick forested areas but leave them unaffected in the cities and most agricultural areas. However, since tree numbers can greatly exceed these numbers in certain areas due to other programming parameters, they are best adjusted with both the autogen slider and the cfg file. As you explained, the sweet spot is determined per individual computer by testing. I found that the numbers of trees and buildings set at 800 and 600 give me super-smooth flight without painfully paying a huge visual penalty within the PNW. The trees for Tongass Fjords may need to be set differently because it is much more forest based.The screenshots posted in the original posting shows what these settings look like so if anyone fiddles up or down with these numbers they can render the best possible visuals and the smoothest stutter free performance their machine is caplable of. Essentially these bothersome little details may not matter as much to, and try the patience of, those with extremely high end i7 machines, but they can make a whole world of difference to those who do not. Most posters in this thread do not have super-duper i7 based machines, so focused attention to these kind of details can make what we have run as good as it can get. Everyone can benefit however by focused methodical and intelligent testing and open discussion. A well tuned year old model can out perform a newer one that is not, under ideal circumstances, if all other things are equal. The object is to make circumstances more than equal, right? I hope that all those that are interested, including those with dual or quad based machines, will experiment with these settings and numbers and get back and report what has been have found. Meanwhile, have fun.Stephen

[Griphos 138]

Stephen, so do you have any other tweaks in your cfg? I spent a couple of hours last night trying to accomplish the same goal (one setting for all), but with the BP=0 tweak. I can go from teens-low 20s in the add-on areas and cities to high 40s-50s on my new rig with the BP tweak (with everything on max but AG on very dense), but it comes at the cost of weird graphical anomalies. I have reduced those by adjusting the TMP setting, but haven't gotten rid of them entirely. And it seems to work better yet with the FPS limiter set at 30 (which I also didn't use to use, but find I need now in the new system to get rid of jerkiness using unlimited when scenery becomes less dense and FPS climb toward 100).I'm going to try your terrain settings (which I used to use in my old system as the BP tweak didn't make much difference there). But I'm curious as to whether that's the only tweak you're using. My preference is for the fewest tweaks and the most vanilla cfg.By the way, I join in on your accolades for Stark's. It's my default airfield now. I just love taking off from there in the A2A Cub. Brilliant!

[CanadaOne 36]

and in your honour Bill, right now, this very minute, I am going to check into Adrian's store and buy your Twin Oaks airport! :( Stephen

In all truth, I thought it would be more appropriate if, in Bill's honour, you checked into Adrian's store and bought me Twin Oaks airport.But that's just my opinion. Neither here nor there. Happy flying. :(

[CanadaOne 36]

CFG Trees/Buildings tweakTERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=800TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=600

I forgot where in the cfg file those lines go.Thanks if you can point me to it.