FPS Performance Test Script for Mac OS X 10.5

[brockguntersmith]

After learning about the command line tests you can runs to see how many Frames Per Second X-Plane runs at at various rendering settings, I thought I would create a quick little Automator Workflow (  http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#automator  ) that executes 3 separate shell commands to execute the 3 levels of FPS tests built into X-Plane, and then create a folder marked with the date and time the tests were run and copies the results in there.

I would recommend doing a restart of your computer, have nothing else running, and then run the Automator Action.

You'll see X-Plane launch 3 times and then you can look in your X-Plane folder to see a folder named something like:

  Performance Test - Fri Apr 10 11/18/54 CDT 2009

With something like the following files:

        - Performance Test Results - Level 1 - Fri Apr 10 11/14/27 CDT 2009.txt

        - Performance Test Results - Level 2 - Fri Apr 10 11/16/34 CDT 2009.txt

        - Performance Test Results - Level 3 - Fri Apr 10 11/18/54 CDT 2009.txt

If you look at the end of each of the files you can see the Frames Per Second your computer was able to achieve at each level. Level 3 is the highest rendering setting...using the 256 shared video on a MacBook Pro I got a measly 2fps, enabling the dedicated 512MB card I got between 35 and 39 fps.

For those not on Macs, or Macs without Automator installed (I can't remember when Apple first shipped Automator), here are the shell commands that are run in sequence:

------------------

/Applications/X-Plane\ 9/X-Plane.app/Contents/MacOS/X-Plane --fps_test=1

cp /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/Log.txt /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/"Performance Test Results - Level 1 - `date`.txt"

/Applications/X-Plane\ 9/X-Plane.app/Contents/MacOS/X-Plane --fps_test=2

cp /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/Log.txt /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/"Performance Test Results - Level 2 - `date`.txt"

/Applications/X-Plane\ 9/X-Plane.app/Contents/MacOS/X-Plane --fps_test=3

cp /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/Log.txt /Applications/X-Plane\ 9/"Performance Test Results - Level 3 - `date`.txt"

myfoldername="Performance Test - `date`"
mkdir "/Applications/X-Plane 9/$myfoldername"
mv "/Applications/X-Plane 9/Performance Test Results - "* "/Applications/X-Plane 9/$myfoldername"

--------------

If I have the energy I'll rip out the pertinent performance info from each file and create a summary report that's nice and easy to read/post. :-)

Enjoy.

Brock Gunter-Smith

X-Plane_FPS_Performance_Test_Script.zip

[Ben Russell]

Nice work! I've got way to much on my plate to have looked at this, so thanks for taking the initiative!

[JBalsa]

This looks interesting. How do we change it to run the test on different directories? My X-Plane file is located in a folder on my desktop.

[brockguntersmith]

Here's a version of the script that works with X-Plane running on the Desktop. It doesn't create the forder to copy of the reports into, but it does create the 3 nicely named log files that are time stamped.

X-Plane_FPS_Performance_Test_Script_on_Desktop.zip

[JBalsa]

Thanks allot! I did the test, and it works great. It's helped me out allot. 

[GlowWorm]

Hiya brockguntersmith,

Cool script! I changed from G5 to Linux-based XP recently, and will be able to run your script in the linux command line.

One question: is the script driving a pre-set rendering and whether settings as well as using a stock plane?

After learning about the command line tests you can runs to see how many Frames Per Second X-Plane runs at at various rendering settings, I thought I would create a quick little Automator Workflow (  http://www.apple.com/macosx/features/300.html#automator  ) that executes 3 separate shell commands to execute the 3 levels of FPS tests built into X-Plane, and then create a folder marked with the date and time the tests were run and copies the results in there.

[brockguntersmith]

Cool script! I changed from G5 to Linux-based XP recently, and will be able to run your script in the linux command line.

One question: is the script driving a pre-set rendering and whether settings as well as using a stock plane?

The script should work just fine. I've attached to this post a bash shell script that will do everything the other scripts do, but just done as a text file with the bash path (that you may need to modify depending on your system setup).

Just run it with:  bash xplane_fps_test_bashscript.sh

->  Brock

xplane_fps_test_bashscript.sh.zip

[GlowWorm]

Hiya Brock,

System: i7 920 2.66GHz, 6GB ram, GTX 295, Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit

XP 9.22 @ 1920 x 1200

Test 1

FRAMERATE TEST phase 1:time=30frames=6241fps=208

FRAMERATE TEST phase 2:time=30frames=7097fps=237

FRAMERATE TEST phase 3:time=30frames=8158fps=272

Test 2

FRAMERATE TEST phase 1:time=30frames=5361fps=179

FRAMERATE TEST phase 2:time=30frames=6080fps=203

FRAMERATE TEST phase 3:time=30frames=6638fps=221

Test 3

FRAMERATE TEST phase 1:time=30frames=4396fps=147

FRAMERATE TEST phase 2:time=30frames=4930fps=164

FRAMERATE TEST phase 3:time=30frames=5068fps=169

[brockguntersmith]

Hiya Brock,

System: i7 920 2.66GHz, 6GB ram, GTX 295, Ubuntu 8.10 64-bit

XP 9.22 @ 1920 x 1200

<snip>

Test 3

FRAMERATE TEST phase 1:time=30frames=4396fps=147

FRAMERATE TEST phase 2:time=30frames=4930fps=164

FRAMERATE TEST phase 3:time=30frames=5068fps=169

You disgust me.   

In all seriousness thanks for posting your stats. The more stats we get posted, the easier it wil be to help address the innumerable inquiries as to "what machine should I buy for x-plane".

More than that, I was forced to inform my wife of our my new found commitment to purchasing a new machine sooner rather than later. My Dual G5 has too long been my primary flying platform, with my Intel MacBook Pro being my secondary machine (obviously higher performance). As soon as Apple formally releases OS X 10.6 and refreshes the MacPros, I'll be all over them. My plan is for going the 3 video card route with 2 more 24" monitors to give a nice panorama. I'm normally not a "waiter", I dive in and buy when I need...BUT in this case I'm hoping GPU performance and selection will increase with the awesome new features in 10.6.

->  Brock

[GlowWorm]

Yeah, I know the feeling. That's why I didn't care to wait for a similar performance from a Mac. My G5 dual 2.5 will continue to serve me for regular computing stuff, while the Linux rig is 100% dedicated to flight sim, w/o installing any weird tools and utilities. Flight sims will always require top hardware and software. Question is, do we want it now, or later.

Are you saying you want 3 video cards in 1 system or 3 separate systems?

Ultimately I want a FOV of 160 deg using 3 24" monitors - that'd give me the feeling I'm up front and looking outside.

You disgust me.   

In all seriousness thanks for posting your stats. The more stats we get posted, the easier it wil be to help address the innumerable inquiries as to "what machine should I buy for x-plane".

More than that, I was forced to inform my wife of our my new found commitment to purchasing a new machine sooner rather than later. My Dual G5 has too long been my primary flying platform, with my Intel MacBook Pro being my secondary machine (obviously higher performance). As soon as Apple formally releases OS X 10.6 and refreshes the MacPros, I'll be all over them. My plan is for going the 3 video card route with 2 more 24" monitors to give a nice panorama. I'm normally not a "waiter", I dive in and buy when I need...BUT in this case I'm hoping GPU performance and selection will increase with the awesome new features in 10.6.

->  Brock

[brockguntersmith]

Are you saying you want 3 video cards in 1 system or 3 separate systems?

1 system, 3 video cards, 3 24" monitors. I'm going for exactly what you're talking about, 160 degree-ish FOV. I'm questionning how well it will perform since I won't be able to buy the crazy-uber high end cards for each slot, Apple currently limits multi-card setups like that to the slightly lower end cards I'm sure due to both the physical size of the cards and power draw.

With a new 8-core MacPro, 12GB of RAM and 3 x NVIDIA GT-120 512MB cards, I'm hoping to be able to maintain > 100fps with volumetric clouds, tree hugger trees, insane objects...etc, for most areas that I fly in which is is the west coast of Canada and central Canada.

->  Brock

[GlowWorm]

Roughly the concept is this: if you have 1 gfx card with 1GB vram, XP needs to work with roughly that amount of ram to supply to the gfx card. So multiply that with the qty of gfx card and you have an idea of of how much ram is used to keep the gfx cards busy. At the same time XP also needs ram to do the regular flight modelling. Current XP 32-bit executable is limited at 4GB ram (minus OS overhead); so in a 4+GB system, max is still 4GB fro XP. Another consideration is: how fast does the CPU talk to the multiple gfx cards? Feeding 3 gfx cards will require large bandwidth for the bus. And it requires the CPU cores to spend more time on deciding what objects to draw for each of the screens; at this moment XP is coded in such way 1 core does all that (objects review + flight model), and the other cores aren't really used except for background scenery loading. And then there's the question of whether the gfx card slots are available for 3 (or more) cards. Power is also a challenge. Currently my GTX 295 can draw almost 450W when flying about (idling @ 200+W). I couldn't immediately find the power consumption of the GT-120-cards. But if Apple is shipping a triple GT-120, the power draw should be certified for use in that Mac.

Are you saying you want 3 video cards in 1 system or 3 separate systems?

1 system, 3 video cards, 3 24" monitors. I'm going for exactly what you're talking about, 160 degree-ish FOV. I'm questionning how well it will perform since I won't be able to buy the crazy-uber high end cards for each slot, Apple currently limits multi-card setups like that to the slightly lower end cards I'm sure due to both the physical size of the cards and power draw.

With a new 8-core MacPro, 12GB of RAM and 3 x NVIDIA GT-120 512MB cards, I'm hoping to be able to maintain > 100fps with volumetric clouds, tree hugger trees, insane objects...etc, for most areas that I fly in which is is the west coast of Canada and central Canada.

->  Brock