Author Topic: KLAX/KJFK performance  (Read 21579 times)

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
KLAX/KJFK performance
« on: March 13, 2012, 03:19:21 pm »
Hello,
I recently purchased KLAX and KJFK for FS2004.
I notice (well mainly because I was in iFly 737 with 55% AI with WOAI installed) I get about 11 or so FPS. I do have a lot of other addons installed, but I was wondering if the following changes to my system would improve performance:
I have Dell Inspiron with AMD athlon x4 3.2 GHz
6GB DDR3/5 RAM
ATI radeon 6450. (1GB)

Would upgrading the GPU to an XFX HD 6770 (1GB) make a big difference?
And any other tweaks???

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51367
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #1 on: March 13, 2012, 04:47:49 pm »
Upgrading the video card might help, but the best upgrade would be upgrading to FSX instead, airports under FS9 don't get much benefit from an upgraded video card, especially KLAX, which is faster in FSX than FS9:

http://www.fsdreamteam.com/forum/index.php?topic=4899.msg45498#msg45498

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #2 on: March 13, 2012, 06:42:56 pm »
Yeh well that isn't really an option considering the amount of money I've spent on it. I wouldn't go to FSX for one or two addons.

I've heard maybe anti aliasing on the video card instead of in game...

But just so I know, is the update for JFK going to be for FS9 as well? And will it add YA crossing 22R and the new holds around 31L??

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #3 on: March 13, 2012, 08:07:20 pm »
And having spoken to a man I know who's spent 5-6 years building computers and he says FS9 is much more GPU than CPU dependant, and given my current one, with 1GB but very low clock speeds, versus one with 4.3 GHz clock I think I won't ever upgrade to FSX.

(Sorry if this isn't your reason - you'll stop making FS9 stuff and then lose me as a customer :P)

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51367
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #4 on: March 13, 2012, 09:02:08 pm »
And having spoken to a man I know who's spent 5-6 years building computers and he says FS9 is much more GPU than CPU dependant, and given my current one, with 1GB but very low clock speeds, versus one with 4.3 GHz clock I think I won't ever upgrade to FSX.

Saying that FS9 is "more GPU than CPU dependant" doesn't automatically mean it will always get a benefit when upgrading the GPU.

It only means FS9 use the CPU even worse than GPU, which is not the same thing. FS9 doesn't use more than 1 core, so you will not see huge benefits upgrading the CPU, considering that any CPU you buy today it's multicore.

But this doesn't mean it will *USE* a better GPU, because it will not, not after a certain point, where you will see benefits only if you were trying to drive a very high res monitor, or several of them. Only in that case a better GPU will help, just because of the raw fill rate.

However, the problem it's a bit more complex than that, and of course someone that builds computers can't possibly know how the *software* you are trying to run works, which in this case happened to be made by US so please, just accept the explanation:

In order to achieve a decent image quality in KLAX for FS9, since the FS9 graphic engine doesn't support a lot of the shaders we used in the FSX version, we had to simulate them using more polygons and, due how FS9 works, they affect both the CPU and the GPU, while if we were in FSX, it would be a purely GPU issue (so you WOULD get a benefit from updating the GPU, in FSX ).

On top of that, since the FS9 graphic engine doesn't support more than 32K polygons per drawcall, we had to get rid of LOD levels in FS9, otherwise the object would simply disappear, because the polygon count with LODs exceeded what FS9 supports. FSX has this limitation much higher so the FSX version, on top of being more GPU dependant, it also enjoys LOD, which help with the frame rate too.

That's why is wrong keep using FS9:

sceneries that have exceeded its capabilities are already out, and this trend is not going to reverse. On top of that, you can't even purchase better hardware to substitute the missing capabilities of the FS9 engine, because everything you will buy today will be heavily multi-threaded, and FS9 doesn't support any of this, and having a powerful GPU that will help running shaders code more fast, wouldn't help much in FS9, because its scenery format doesn't use shaders much.

Quote
(Sorry if this isn't your reason - you'll stop making FS9 stuff and then lose me as a customer )

Even if we wouldn't stop, we'll keep pushing the ahead the usage of the FSX capabilities, which means the FS9 version will not just look worse, but it might be even slower, but there's no way we'll do anything to fix this, because it would mean undermining the FSX version, which is the only version we care.

The only reason we offer an FS9 version in the first place, is to allow users to upgrade to FSX without having to say "I have too much money on addons", because it doesn't apply with *our* addons, were the cost to upgrade to FSX is exactly ZERO.
« Last Edit: March 13, 2012, 09:03:55 pm by virtuali »

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #5 on: March 13, 2012, 09:20:23 pm »
Sorry but you also have to consider other developers who may not be so kind - if I upgraded to FSX I would lose SSTSIM and countless sceneries.

And speaking to computer genious at the moment - you can make FS9 use multi cores. It's not very difficult actually.

data63

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 123
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #6 on: March 13, 2012, 09:59:56 pm »
Sorry but you also have to consider other developers who may not be so kind - if I upgraded to FSX I would lose SSTSIM and countless sceneries.

And speaking to computer genious at the moment - you can make FS9 use multi cores. It's not very difficult actually.

how do you acomplish that (could be a reason to reactivate FS9 that is still slumbering on my harddrive)

Happy Landings

Juergen

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #7 on: March 13, 2012, 10:15:20 pm »
Well...
You have to do it each time you start FS.

Taskmanager
Processes
FS9.exe
Right click > Set Affinity
Then you see all your cores, untick all except 0
Then press ok, open set affinity again, and retick them all. This makes FS9 know it can use all however many cores.

It's a bit of bother to do this each time but it's worth it.

I guess another thing to do is to use convimx (texture resizer)
And convert all the textures like buildings and cars (less noticable) but not ground!
To DXT1 with MipMaps... also helps reduce stuttering in cases...

data63

  • Full Member
  • ***
  • Posts: 123
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #8 on: March 13, 2012, 10:20:45 pm »
I'll give that a try!

Thanks!

Happy Landings

Juergen

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #9 on: March 13, 2012, 10:34:56 pm »
Shouldn't really have to do that myself and to be honest I think it's rather lazy of a pay ware developer who's only solution is 'switch to FSX'.

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51367
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #10 on: March 14, 2012, 12:21:06 am »
Processes
FS9.exe
Right click > Set Affinity
Then you see all your cores, untick all except 0
Then press ok, open set affinity again, and retick them all. This makes FS9 know it can use all however many cores.

With that setting, is just said to Windows that you what to force the WHOLE FS9 to run ONLY on Core 0, which is exactly the *opposite* of what you were trying to achieve, so now FS9 would run just on Core 0, which means the few multithreading it has, will not be used anymore. Not that will really change much, because 95% of the workload is the graphic engine, and that will always run on a single core in FS9, playing with the affinity mask will just tweak its relationship with the REST of the operating system, so depending what other programs are running in the background, you might get small benefits (or not)

FSX multithreading it's really different, the graphic engine *knows* about multi-cores, and it's capable of running in parallel.

On top of that, since we use separate interpreter that runs *outside* FSX (the Couatl.exe program), we get OS multithreading for free, since Windows will assign free cores to different .EXE files, this means we can run even complex logic (like in GSX) without slowing down FSX itself.

Nothing you do with the affinity mask can compare to this, sorry.

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51367
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #11 on: March 14, 2012, 12:27:18 am »
Quote
and to be honest I think it's rather lazy of a pay ware developer who's only solution is 'switch to FSX'.

You got it entirely backwards: if we were "lazy", we could simply do a scenery that works (and looks) just the same in FS9 and FSX.

It's because we *aren't*, and used FSX the way is supposed to be used, that it ended up showing the limits of the old FS9 graphic engine.

JonnyT

  • Newbie
  • *
  • Posts: 18
KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #12 on: March 14, 2012, 08:02:50 am »
So explain why, when I deselect all except 0 then reselect them all, the tskmgr shows core one working at 100%, and then afterwards, core 1 at 20, core 2 at 30, core 3 at 20 core 4 at 30. It's obviously not true what you just said because I can see it happening.

And this is mainly what happens - taxi down toward 06r, frames are about 23-25 (locked)
turn on to runway so we face the terminal - frames down to 09-12.

Maybe you could tell us your 'big group BGL' for cars and needless static objects like baggage boxes... Sure they look nice but it's not worth the performance sacrafice.

flapsup

  • Jr. Member
  • **
  • Posts: 99
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #13 on: March 14, 2012, 09:27:15 am »
Shouldn't really have to do that myself and to be honest I think it's rather lazy of a pay ware developer who's only solution is 'switch to FSX'.

You must be the rudest person I have ever seen here. You own a Dell for pity sake, and the contents are low end to the extreme. You cannot make a silk purse out of a sours ear, so pull your head in.
« Last Edit: March 14, 2012, 09:29:08 am by flapsup »

virtuali

  • Administrator
  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 51367
    • VIRTUALI Sagl
Re: KLAX/KJFK performance
« Reply #14 on: March 14, 2012, 11:31:22 am »
So explain why, when I deselect all except 0 then reselect them all, the tskmgr shows core one working at 100%, and then afterwards, core 1 at 20, core 2 at 30, core 3 at 20 core 4 at 30. It's obviously not true what you just said because I can see it happening.

I've read that explanation on a web site, and obviously tried it, but it doesn't do that on my system, at all. What the affinity mask does is clearly explained, and what you did set exactly the opposite of what you tried to achieve, it simply forces FS9 to run on 1 CORE only.

What might happen on *your* sistem, is NOT that FS9 has magically became "multithreaded" the distributed load might just be the *rest* the running programs across the cores, not FS9 itself, this might just simply prove my point: since FS9 it's NOT multithreaded, it doesn't make any sense to tell Windows to run it on all cores so, by telling Windows (as you did) to force run it on core 0, the rest of the OS is working better.

Quote
Maybe you could tell us your 'big group BGL' for cars and needless static objects like baggage boxes... Sure they look nice but it's not worth the performance sacrafice.

That's entirely irrelevant, fact is, they are faster in FSX, regardless if they are needed or not, which is of course your opinion.