New high-end PC, dreadful framerates - HELP!

[7S5]

Hi,

I have a new HP running Vista 64-bit, 4GB RAM. Video card is NVIDIA GeForce 9300 GE, 250MB VRAM. Even with NO scenery, just water showing and the texture resolution set to "Minimal" in the rendering settings menu, I still only get 19 - 23 fps! I can increase my resolution to Extreme Res, and I still get 19-23 fps! My visibility is set to 10 miles, no clouds, no 3D objects. It's as minimal as I can get.

Since I'm getting the same framerate regardless of my X-Plane settings, It has to be a video card setting, but I've tried all sorts of things with that too with no luck. I've run X-Plane on other machines with frame rates over 100fps so I know it's something with my system.

My vertical-sync is turned off in my video card setting, which has really helped in the past, but it isn't doing anything now. I know Vista is a hog, but I should be able to get better that this, shouldn't I?

I've searched online, but haven't really found any good solutions beyond what I've already tried.

Thanks for any help you can provide!

[Cameron]

Hello,

It sounds like you may not have drivers properly installed. Have you installed the latest by chance?

You can download those here: http://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx?lang=en-us

I'm not sure what else to chalk it up to at this time, but I'll keep thinking...

[7S5]

Yes, the drivers were the first thing I did after other failed attempts to get the framerate up. I uninstalled them and then downloaded new ones from NVIDIA, which were actually newer than what was installed.

Through playing with both the video card settings and X-Plane settings I'm up to about 35 - 45fps, which is much better, and this is at any resolution, including extreme res. I was just hoping with a new high-end PC, I'd have better luck - maybe it's a Vista issue?

Just a thought - I have X-Plane installed on an external USB drive. It's a half-terrabyte drive in size. Would that make any sort of significant difference compared to having it on the internal C drive? I haven't tried any other versions of X-Plane either. I'm currently running 9.2 final.

Should most of the video card setting be set to Application Controlled? Should some, like vertical sync, be turned off? On previous PC this made a HUGE difference, but I'm not really seeing much difference with this new machine?

I really appreciate your help.

[Ben Russell]

Running off a USB drive shouldn't make any significant difference once the sim is loaded up, it may increase load times very slightly but it definitely shouldn't have the effect on frame rates that you're describing.

[Cameron]

Hello, again!

I still don't have much more insight into this, but I'm happy you've got a fairly stable setup going.

I will answer the question regarding Vista: It runs just fine with X-Plane. I currently have Vista 64-bit running it.

My setup usually hangs around 85+ fps with Extreme Res settings, and sometimes gets burst of up to 145 (depends on local scenery).

One of the things I have always lowered is the world detail distance (I think that's the name of it) setting in the rendering options. I've always heard it can have an impact on FPS, so just through reading other posts, I've lowered it without much investigation.

My setup is as follows:

Intel E6850 3.0GHz

8GB Ram

768MB VRam through an Nvidia 880GTX.

I'm sorry I can't provide much more assistance at this time, but it sounds like you're off to a good start by just fiddling with settings!

Good luck!

[7S5]

OK, I think I've got this figured out. 

I went into my Windows Color and Appearance settings and changed the configuration to Windows Vista Basic. From the outside of the plane, looking forward, I now get 88 fps! It didn't drop below 40fps in other views. It looks like my previous Windows settings were using too many video resources. Vista Basic still looks good but doesn't have all the shadowing around the windows, etc. which was hogging a lot of resources that could go into driving X-Plane.

Thanks for looking into this!

At any rate, I have the new drivers for my video card now, which I wouldn't have done if this didn't happen. Things work out for a reason. ;D

Hopefully this will help some others. - It may not be your video card, it may be your Vista settings!

[Nova]

Hmmm, looks like i have to try to disable Aero too, when playing.

Since 9.3 i got really bad fps, however was able to increase them dramaticly by overclocking my pc.

Previous: C2D E8400 @ 3.0 ans 1333MhZ FSB now on 3.6 with 1600MhZ FSB. Looks like the new lightning uses extremly the cpu, not the GPU.

When you talk about 88 to over 100 fps, what are your settings? Do you set the objects higher than "default"? I have currently "too many" objects with "high" distance and @ 25fps.

The GTX260 is not the best, but benchmarks say its way better than a 8800 which i still very common.