Wanna know why Autogen drives your system mad?

[PhilTaylor]

read
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2 ... elope.aspx

[J.]

very interesting, never realised how much of the bandwidth isused by autogen :O

looking forward to see how the engine evolves

[NickN]

Have been aware of this for some time... one of the reasons we rework AG based on the type and the amount in GEX

I think whats more important is you guys are looking in the right direction now and taking a serious move toward perf. I hope that goes into all areas of the new CORE system.

Shooting lower is never an option... shooting strait, clean and hitting the bullseye for your customer base, is


great post Phil    :)

[macca22au]

Oh dear and at last!

Don't quite know what to say.

In offshore yacht-racing we are known as the PBO - the poor bloody owner.  It is us who pay up for the demanded changes, not the needed changes - and we pay for the optional changes too.

I think this iteration of flightsim has created the next generation of PBOs.  It has not been one investment in the next level of cpu and vidcard but several.  FS9 cost me one big upgrade, but FSX is two already.

Is this saying that the Terrain_max number tweak is still the way to go? I believe so, especially with Nick's explanation of the GEX design.

Having said that, to make me feel better, I hope that ACES can take this forward into FS11.

I still wonder if an SP3 devoted to scenery might actually delay the need for FS11 - if these new insights could arrive as a fix- an SP3- then we have a great flightsim.  It would in fact be as good as a next version if scenery rendering could be made much less CPU intensive - or operate equally across all cores of today's common multicore chips,  and therefore make the high end of today's systems perform to the max.  (Leave aircraft alone or simobjects in general, it really costs me to bring them in line with each SP)

Just think what a complete scenery threading re-coding would do,  and a re-write to enable SLI.  Do those, rename the sim (FSTheBest), and without too much effort ACES and MS have the next version.  Dx10 sure, but to me it is unproven and really doesn't matter.

Low end systems I am  sorry.  Most games are already beyond you, but FSX and FSX+ with their fantiastic scenery engines have now gone too far in their demands and cannot nor should they be dumbed down.

I will pay for the next really good upgrade happily, but I suspect I feel that I have paid, and continue to pay for a great product, but one with crippling sub-optimal features.

[NickN]

I do not use the tweak. My hardware can handle the slider at 100% without issues but I also use GEXn too.

For Europe, Anthony and I are taking a calculated approach in texture/AG creation...

[BillG]

Interesting reading...nice to have some information right from the source for a change instead of just the usual speculation.

[Fr. Bill]

[quote]...

[macca22au]

Nick and Fr Bill:   forgive me, I am bewitched bothered and bewildered.

I list below my system specs.

I am not reluctant to buy, and I can afford to.

Apparently you are using DDR3 RAM, most of us only have DDR2. Is yours 1026mhz, and do you use 4 or 2 gig?  In fact you prove again that hardware is at the core of FSX performance.

Do you still use nHancer and which version?  I read there was a beta that overcame some new nVidia fixes.

Even with the default 172 I am sure I could not get that quality of perf with my presnet setup.

I have the three UTXs and FTX for temperate Australia.  I use Scenery Tech landclass for NAM and Europe, Cloud 9 for Australia.

I have and use the GEXn for North America, but it still does  not produce the performance gains you show.

It would seem that you have the hardware edge.  I would like to know what I should install.  

My cfg tweaks these days are few with SP2.

The forums have said many times that SLI is not supported by FSX.  If this is wrong and SLI is a hardware matter - a second video card, with the pair setup in SLI then I would have done it.  But it has been suggested the performance gain is slight!

My setup is:  

Intel Q6850  (4x3.0 GHZ)
nVidia 8800GTX
Gigabyte 965P-DS3 motherboard
4 gigs Cougar 800mhz DDR2 RAM
X-Fi Creative soundboard
Vista Home Premium 32bit with SP1

[loomex]

Looks great Nick. I just applied the auto-gen tweak and that made a big difference. Now am I to understand that this is heading to a possible "adjustment" to be downloaded at a later date?

[NickN]

[quote]Nick and Fr Bill:

[Slotback]

Hmmmm Macca... My Q6600 and stock clock you can run with autogen on dense perfectly. Does it only lag with AsX running?

[Fr. Bill]

[quote]
Apparently you are using DDR3 RAM, most of us only have DDR2. Is yours 1026mhz, and do you use 4 or 2 gig?

[NickN]

[quote] b. volume of data being generated and sent downstream

Of the three, I suspect the most critical is "b" since FSX is capable of generating and send far more data than any current hardware is capable of handling.

[macca22au]

NickN;  you are absolutely right.  Although I haven't done exactly as you suggest, I have run FSX in windowed mode, still through matrox but on one screen and the fps goes up.  However I am addicted and I do find one screen now very confining.

I plan do try out a series of ideas, ideas first mind you.  

First how would FSX go on a single large screen now available that has something like 2900 pixels width, using my rig as it is.

Second, installing another 8800 GTX in SLI - to see whether it can relieve some of the load on the single vid card - in the context of Matrox of course.

Add good DDR3 RAM with low latency and see how that improves either of the above.

Or should I wait until Q3-4 for the new cpu and vidcards, (undoubtedly including a new mobo that means my old CD/DVD player would need to go too).

[NickN]

[quote]NickN;