FSX & SLI

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]Nick and John,

I would like to thank each of you for all of the work that you have put into this Tutorial.

[Nick N]

[quote]Nick and John,

I would like to thank each of you for all of the work that you have put into this Tutorial.

[Nick N]

I think what I am going to do after SP1 is released and hardware has hit the market is produce an entire SINGLE thread which will finalize list my settings and recommendations for preparing a system with a much better presentation and defined explanations and also include how to set up FSX.

Right now everything is buried in a huge thread and scattered all over the forum in different areas. A compiled thread which has no Q/A discussions but with links to the original threads/post which contain the pertinent discussions for reference.

Vista is a whole different animal and I will be starting to dissect it for performance upgrade soon. I will say that other than FSX DX10 when it is released I find no reason to switch as of now. Vista needs to be patched and Vista SP1 will most likely not hit the streets until about the same time FSX DX10 is released, which I guess to be around October or November. Those who need DX10 support for other titles released prior to that time will have to make the move to Vista. When you do so, I would highly recommend you consider hardware upgrades. MS has made an OS that looks for their super secret decoder ring in the motherboards and cards of next gen hardware, and will respond positive accordingly, if you catch my drift...  

[macca22au]

Nick:  this is great news and such a aummary would be of exceptional value.  I and others have said it already, that this has been the most useful thread ever at helping us gamers understand the fundamentals of our computers, hardware and FSX itself.  This thread has been read over 15000 times and must be some sort of record, and shows how many people needed to learn how to handle the slideshow that we first experienced with X.

May I ask:

That you write the first edition immediately after SP1 is available and based on the hardware that is around at the moment.

That you consider revising it, or adding a new section when Dx10 arrives and the new CPUs and cards hit the market.   By the time they do, it is likely that FSX will run on these without much special attention and tweaking as 9 did when the hardware caught up.

Some of us are already into Vista, ready or not, and those who buy new computers from here on out are going to get Vista like it or not. So as you get to know Vista keep us up to date please, because by Christmas with the DX10 patch there will be a massive incentive to change.

Thanks again, and please follow through with this great intention.  

Ian.

[scruffydog]

Thanks much for your replies,  I don't know how I missed those parts of the thread, but it was a long one.
I think my 7800 GTX's are 256 models, not sure though.  Right now I am getting really great visuals, no blurrys on the scenery with the sliders as you posted originally, however, I do have some stutters, but it is still 500% better than as it came out of the box. Will continue to work on it.
Again, thanks for your input.

[AnGeL_MaKeR]

[quote]Nick:

[scruffydog]

Nick, something I forgot to ask, where you speak about turning off services, since I am creating a HD strictly for FSX and have no need for any services except to run FS (including Internet connections etc etc) could I turn off such things as
Network Connects
Print Spooler
Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts
Server
Web Client
Wireless Config
Workstation

and any other that might apply to this setup?

Thanks

[Nick N]

Nick, something I forgot to ask, where you speak about turning off services, since I am creating a HD strictly for FSX and have no need for any services except to run FS (including Internet connections etc etc) could I turn off such things as
Network Connects
Print Spooler
Remote Access
Secondary Logon
Security Accounts
Server
Web Client
Wireless Config
Workstation

and any other that might apply to this setup?

Thanks

Now you are getting into the "Black Viper" method... and he does not even tell you how to correctly shut them down.. just set them to DISABLED does not work, they have to be set to DISABLED as LOGON as well as under the main service tab.

I am going to put it like this... I see a few of those I would never shut down on your little list and others that can be. Unless you know exactly what you are doing, leave it alone.

Black Viper's method of shutting down all services worked fine for 1gig Athlons running 256-768mb memory on slow motherboards because of the trade off of seriously needed resources, but they will mess up a modern system faster than than anything else you may screw with unless you know exactly what you can shut down and can not.

Turning things off further than what I posted for a modern system will not increase resorces enough to make a difference worth the risk of shutting something down you shouldn't. You will never get 3 frames out of a compelte service shut down. What you get from shutting down the right ones is more memory available and more CPU cycles for terrain, but even then.. the ones I listed, includung system restore and indexing are the majors and will have the most influence. The rest are either used at some point or another -or- they have little or no impact on a modern system running 1.8gig+ and 1gig of memory or more

[scruffydog]

Thanks once again, I shall leave them alone.

Dick

[macca22au]

Returning to the enthusiastic response regarding the central content of this post being retained,  I think rather than making the FSX and SLI thread a sticky we should listen to Nick.  He is saying that the thread should be condensed and re-written as an FAQ.  I agree, there is a lot in that thread that wanders off-topic, and certainly the bulk of it has nothing to do with SLI - (as does FSX).  If Nick and the others could be persuaded to distill their wisdom into an FAQ it would be fantastically helpful.   BUT with one BUT.  The thread is made a sticky until the new FAQ turns up;  there is far too much good stuff in there to be lost.

[scruffydog]

Well I followed your recommendations for "slower machines"  Wow, what a difference.  Here are the numbers for my ASUS A8n Deluxe SLI-AMD64 4000+-2g Coursair Platinum-SLI 2 7800GTX's.  Tex Band Mult 80..Frame Limit 18..Fibre .25..Trees 1800..Bldgs 1200..Poolsize 5000000..Airline 13..GA 13..Freeway 22..Ships 2 Boats 2..Sliders..Level Detail Max..Mesh Max..Resol 10..Texture 1m..Water 1x low..Complex Max..Auto Gen Dense..Was getting 16.5 to 18 FPS when airborne.

With these numbers I am right on the edge, very slight stutters on the ground, once airborne above 2000' I increase Auto Gen to Very Dense and she flies real nice(Carenado 206).  I can live with the slight hesitations.  What I am really surprised about is how good the scenery looks even with Mult at 80.  I was scared to go below 240 but once I read through your recommedations I tried 160, 120 and finally down to 80..Trees below 1200 and bldgs below 1000 looks a lot like FS9, elected to reduce AI traffic to get a much nicer look. Fibre at .24 is blurry,
 
I believe if I overclock the memory and get to 1T it will be even better.  Am also thinking about getting a dual core 939 since they are so cheap.

Thanks much,



 

[justpassingthrough]

Glad it worked out for you!

[macca22au]

I run what I term the Seattle test.  I take off from Everett, fly south over the increasingly complex scenery at 3000ft, and then descend across the western face of downtown Seattle to land at Boeing Field.  The approach goes right over the ships, cranes and containers, and then a quite heavily developed urban area before landing on the airfield into the south, while the airport is very detailed in default.  Even with my system, e6700 CPU, 8800 vid card, 4 gigs Corsair 800mhz RAM I cannot get into Boeing without serious jerking and juddering.  This is with scenery complexity at Max, and autogen all the way down to sparse. Clearly the Matrox setup gives a performance hit as well.  But I can get in with only microstutters with scenery complexity and autogen at normal.  Interestingly I have discovered that autogen is not the determinant, but scenery complexity.  It means I lose the ships and some of the containers, keep the cranes and most of the downtown high-rise, the Seattle Tower and the aerials to the north. With complexity at max, and autogen at sparse there is little difference in the poor performance, but pull the complexity slider back to normal it dramatically changes.  Does this experience match that of others?  And will SP1 be targeted at this sort of loading problem - and CPU constraint?  I did the best flight last night with the FSD Navajo (a type I flew in the real world) and the new settings - and with AI Traffic at 70% as My Traffic X seems to have almost no impact on smoothness and Boeing Field comes alive (in spite of a curious Delta tailfin written in mirror script).

[Nick N]

I have the flu and it is getting worse. It could not have come at a worse time because I am preparing to push off for Alaska at the end of this month and I am behind on prep and upgrades for my boat.

I need a some days to recuperate because right now my heard is the size of a basketball and not in any condition to think.

The settings I gave you before should be the same and you are always going to fight that high res 4 monitor problem without a 2nd 8800 card in the system to handle the load.

Yes, the scenery complexity slider will have a large impact on the system, 2nd to autogen. I always leave it at 100% for the better hardware and work the autogen values in the configuration file along with the slider to balance it out. Your 4 monitors may simply be taking too much from the card to overcome without dropping the scenery complexity.


here were the original instructions

Start FSX and set the sliders and all the check boxes up exactly as they are shown in Miltest post on page 4 of this thread EXCEPT:

Your Monitor Resolution x32
Frame Lock to = 19 // you said this was too low. You will have to set it but be aware higher = less resources, ground blurs and stutters.
Mesh Resolution = 19m
Autogen Density = DENSE (3)
Airline Traffic = 35
GA Traffic = 24

Close FSX.

If you have not already done so, download this file:  

http://www.fox-fam.com/FSX/AutogenDescriptions.zip

Unzip it. Browse to:
C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Autogen

And save the original AutogenDescriptions.spb file to a safe place. You MUST have this file for the SP1 update. Then place the downloaded version into the Autogen folder

I highly recommend installing this add-on correctly by the directions that come with it:  

http://www.fscloud9.com/php/products.php?lang=EN&id=187

Because it will replace the landclass file and reorganize autogen along with fix terrain issues. The result is a smoother and much better looking sim. You do not have to do that but I highly recommend it.

Browse to FSX.cfg file, open it in NOTEPAD

Scroll down and make the following edits:

NOTE: Some of these items will -not- be in the file. The entry Disablepreload= 1 must be added under the [MAIN] heading. TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN lines must be added as they are shown below under the [TERRAIN] heading. Bufferpools, including the heading, does not exist at all and you will simply add the entire entry as shown to the very bottom of the FSX.cfg list.

[Display]
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=340  
NOTE: You have to work with this. Watch for city skyscraper building textures popping in as the view changes and raise it if you see that. You may be able to set this to 400 with the memory on that card. If you do not see city skyscraper textures popping in slow and you do have micro-stutters especially in turns, drop this value by 20 repeatedly until building textures start to pop, then, raise it once by 20-40 to eliminate the texture pops.

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=19 // you said this was too low. You will have to set it but be aware higher = less resources, ground blurs and stutters.

WideViewAspect=True
NOTE: If you are not running wide screen this may need to be set to FALSE. Heretic found setting it to TRUE without a wide screen monitor cleared up the image. It does cost frame resources to set it to TRUE.  


[Main]
DisablePreload=1  
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.37
NOTE: If the sim is smooth but the ground textures are burred, raise this in .02 increments and retest (ie; 0.39, 0.41, 0.43 etc) until the blurs are sharp or the sim starts to drag. If the sim starts to drag before the ground texture sharpen, we must reconfigure the AG and frame lock. If you find the ground textures are sharp with 0.37 and the sim drags, drop the value by 0.02 until the sim is smooth or ground textures start to blur.

[TERRAIN]
AUTOGEN_DENSITY=3 // You may try 4 if 3 works
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1876
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=938

[BufferPools]
PoolSize=5000000


Save the edited config file.

Always keep the AG trees and buildings in a 1:2 ratio when testing different values. Your load factor is 750/375  


Do NOT focus on the frame rate.. focus on the sim and how smooth it is. Forget the frame rate. FSX is not a frame application like a game. A simulator draws resources to make the image and calculate everything going on around you. In a shoot-em-up game you need frames, in a sim you only need to balance the load so its smooth, the frame rate does not matter at all. In FSX the frame counter is 3-5 frames off so at 19 frames you are getting 22-24 easy.

Make sure your dirivers are set up as Miltest posted however turn THREADED OPTIMIZATION ON for Vista

[macca22au]

First, sorry to hear that you are not well.  I can sympathise, as in a week I am going up north in Australia, but into the semi-tropics where my boat is, and I am going to do some overdue maintenance.  Thanks for taking the time to reply, and you have no need to respond to this comment.  1. I have just done a full install, and now the game is running better than ever, and I haven't even introduced the changes to fsx.cfg.  I can get into Boeing field with full complexity, and normal autogen, sure with some jerking and stuttering but entirely acceptably.  I must have had some near corruption, or very inefficient arrangement, and I also discovered my scenery folder held 20gigs, which I simply couldn't believe, so I suspect there lay the problem.

2. I didn't install a second vid card because everyone has emphasised that FSX doesn't use SLI.  However if a second card can share the load of the four screens through normal OS functioning, then Nick it will be in and running by the time you get back from Alaska.  As of course will SP1 or is that tempting the Gods of Redmond?

Do you fish or hunt?  No answer required, but if it is either or both I wish you every success and enjoy a great vacation.  Email me sometime and we can swap boat experiences- they are of course holes in the water into which you throw money.