2K textures

[diamonddriller]

You did some 2K textures for the Mooneys.  Any chance of one (don't need 20!) for either or both SR22s?

I still can't understand why, in Metal (iMac), I'm getting such low frame rates (14/15 fps) with this plane.   It's better in OpenGl.  

Upgrading the iMac shortly, so we'll see what happens then. 

[Cameron]

1 hour ago, diamonddriller said:

I still can't understand why, in Metal (iMac), I'm getting such low frame rates (14/15 fps) with this plane.   It's better in OpenGl.  

If this is the case, something more is at play here. Have you tried manually sizing down the files yourself to see if it even helps?

[diamonddriller]

"If this is the case, something more is at play here. Have you tried manually sizing down the files yourself to see if it even helps?"

I resized all the png files in one of the liveries (I duplicated it for the experiment) in Photoshop, by lowering the resolution from 72 to 36.  I saved them, using the smallest file option, and loaded up that livery.

The funny thing is that it looked barely different from its parent!   What was even more surprising was that it made virtually no difference to the frame rate.  Maybe a 1or 2 fps change, maybe not.   Perhaps I didn't "do" it correctly....?

On the ramp at John Wayne (OrbxTE), I was getting between 4 and 7 fps.

I'm still using Mojave and perhaps Catalina has a better AMD driver, but I'm waiting till I get my replacement computer - which will come with Catalina anyway.   At that point, I'll see if things do get better, but it is surprising that this plane is uniquely slow.   For example, Thranda's Marchetti (which has the G1000 and a very detailed cockpit) has a better frame rate in Metal.  It's very odd, but as I can fly the SR22 nicely in OpenGl, the problem is not going to keep me awake   It's just that (particularly in this crazy time) the tinkerer in me is getting more free reign! 

[Attitude]

For what you need it for adjusting the dpi wont do anything. Resolution is the pixel size itself. SO you could test it by resizing the documents in photoshop to 2048x2048px to see If that helps.

Also comparing add-ons does really does not work when looking at performance numbers. "Why does A's plane have more frames than B's? Must be that A is just better at making frames appear." It is actually far more complex than this. We are each very different artist who focus on very different aspects of what we do. No two are the same, thus no two planes will ever run the same. 

What are your PC specs and what are your XP graphical settings?

 

[diamonddriller]

@Attitude    I obviously went about the resizing in the wrong way , so I did what you suggested instead.  The appearance was not bad (after all, a lot of developers offer so-called lo-res liveries), but it made absolutely no difference whatsoever to the frame rate.  It merely depleted the size of the loaded textures a bit.

Your point about different developers is, naturally, appreciated.  Variety is the spice of life!

I'm on an iMac, which was top of the line (27", 4GHz i7, 32GB ram, 4GB graphics), but it's almost certainly the graphics card that is the weak link in the chain.  Newer cards will surely perform better in Metal , and the latest iMacs have several other areas of improvement.   I'll see when my new one arrives.

It doesn't matter how much I dial down the settings in b17, running in Metal.  The frame rate is still poor.  For this setup, OpenGL works better.  It's also quite likely that Vulkan will run faster, and I could try this in Boot Camp..........

For me, it's mainly just curiosity, and it's not a complaint.   Sometimes, these inconsistencies can easily be ironed out, but I think horsepower is the answer here.   X-Plane is very resource hungry, and it makes Macs run quite hot.  

It will be interesting to learn how MSFS 2020 runs on modest rigs, as nearly every tester seems to have been equipped with top of the line CPUs, and similarly expensive 11GB 2080Ti graphics cards!

Thanks for your interest and support.

 

 

 

[Cameron]

In general Metal has been pretty game changing for Macs. Both Coop and myself use Macs as our primary machines.

Catalina also definitely has much better Metal drivers. I think you'll find your new iMac will perform very well.

[diamonddriller]

4 hours ago, Cameron said:

In general Metal has been pretty game changing for Macs. Both Coop and myself use Macs as our primary machines.

Catalina also definitely has much better Metal drivers. I think you'll find your new iMac will perform very well.

Thanks Cameron.  That's really reassuring.  I'll report back after it is up and running.  Apple have told me it could be another couple of weeks. I resisted Catalina, because I have a few 32 bit programs left that are useful.  Maybe I'll run those few in Mojave as a virtual machine in Parallels for a while.  It's a thought.

[Attitude]

@diamonddriller Please let us know If this changes anything. Thank you for the well thought out and kind reply above. Truly refreshing when someone has an issue and doesn't light us on fire in the process. I am dedicated to getting this right.

 

[diamonddriller]

@Attitude    I'm never going to rant at anyone who is trying to give me things that I will enjoy! 

Today, in a fit of "Let's find something to do-itis", I decided to finally get this iMac running in Catalina.  I figured that it would be better to know the devil now, rather than spend time wrestling on a new machine.  As always, Apple makes an upgrade easy, and I lost a few old programs - but they were old!

Getting all the X-Plane permissions sorted did take a while, and a bit of fiddling, but it's done.  Maybe the OpenGL in 11.41 is working a bit better, because my frame rate is excellent.  Maybe imagination....  ?   The SR22 in 11.50 and Metal was running at between 15 and 18 fps on the ground.  

I also made a VM of Mojave, so I could still run a couple of favourites.  

It's amazing what you can get up to, when you are not having a "normal" life!