Curiosity About Frame Rates and Toe Brakes

[Steve Hunnisett]

Hi.  Really enjoying the PT-19- certainly nice to try something basic.

I have a question about frame rates.  My iMac delivers a consistent 20FPS using Metal drivers and the usual graphic settings for the PT-19.  Other, far bigger and more complex aircraft with glass cockpits, etc will usually give 30FPS at those settings.  The PT-19 is flyable, no problem there but given the simplicity of the systems, etc I was curious to know why the frame rate is so low.  I've tried reducing the graphic settings and other known methods of reducing the load on the graphics card but these make little difference; indeed the only setting that seems to make any difference is the Anti-Alias.  I've also tried removing plug-ins but this too has no impact.  

The other thing is the Toe Brakes- I use Saitek Rudder pedals.  They work- when I brake the nose of the aircraft dips slightly and it slows down but the toe brakes don't seem to bring the  plane to a full stop.  Is this how the original aircraft works- toe brakes to slow, then parking brake?

 

Many thanks- the PT-19 is great!

[giaco]

For the part about fps i have more or less the same issue

[diamonddriller]

Steve and giaco - how old are your iMacs, and what CPUs and GPUs (VRAM especially) and RAM have you got?

When I read the specs., I'll relate my experiences.

[Uncle Jack Simulations]

Hey there Steve! First: Thank you for the positive feedback!
Yes, anti-aliasing does make a big difference in performance, specially for 4K textures and detailed meshes. What we tested was to actually disable AA inside the Sim, and use something else to control it, for instance, nvidia inspector. That helps performance-wise a lot, and will deliver good visuals too!
For the Toe-Brakes: They should work! There is this issue with X-Plane when the aircraft is rolling on grass or other unpaved runway, where the brakes won't hold you still above 1.700 RPM. If you're over paved surfaces, the toe brakes should work flawlessly, so i'd double check for any calibration deadzones.

Let me know if these work out for you!
Dan.

[giaco]

1 hour ago, diamonddriller said:

Steve and giaco - how old are your iMacs, and what CPUs and GPUs (VRAM especially) and RAM have you got?

When I read the specs., I'll relate my experiences.

I run on pc, i have i9-9700k oc 4.9, 32 gb ram 3600, rtx2080 ti, the fact is, at least for me, this plane in vr ( hp reverb) is 5 to 10 fps heavier then others payware planes

[Cameron]

The size of an aircraft or how "simple" it is in your mind is not how performance works.

It's a mixture of code and graphics. It sounds to me like you're limited somewhere @Steve Hunnisett. I'm also on a Mac and getting roughly 60-70fps on my setup, but I also have a late 2019 model Mac.

If I had to guess I'd venture to say that your GPU is the ultimate culprit on the Mac, but without running a bunch of tests I couldn't say for sure.

[diamonddriller]

@giaco  Oh.  As you said you had the same issue, I thought you were also on a Mac!  I'm amazed that your very highly specified PC is only seeing 30 fps.  However, you are in VR, and that's not an option on Macs yet.  I'm sure that the VR setup slows things down  - doesn't it?

@Cameron  Yes.  I also think it's a GPU issue, mainly.  It's largely the amount of VRAM, but will also be a driver issue.  I'm now (at last) running a 2020 iMac (27"), with the Radeon Pro 5700 XT 16GB graphics card, and all my slide-show issues have gone!  It will run Coop's Cirrus at 60 fps in Metal, and the PT-19 is also giving me at least 60 fps too.  The machine also runs way cooler!  Also, no "tearing" when I pan around.  I'm even getting 60 fps in dense scenery, like FlyTampa's Las Vegas.  With some planes and less dense scenery, I can see 100 fps!  Ridiculous  

[giaco]

Vr split in half the fps of the 2d more or less. About my performances, consider i run effects hdr, textures and objects max, aa 2x and reflection medium

[diamonddriller]

Maybe cut the textures down a notch???  Also, knock the reflections back, and (perhaps) the hdr.  After all, in VR, do you really care about the textures, reflections, etc.?  You are already looking at lower resolution displays, and spending most of your time in the cockpit - like a real pilot :-)

If you can get around 30fps, that's faster than a movie, so should be acceptable.

In 2D, if you see 60+ fps, that's probably about as good a it's likely to get, particularly if you wind the settings up.   You do, after all, have a great rig!   Or are you going to go for the $1500 3090 (none of my business, of course!  Just having fun!)?

[giaco]

Yes, 30 is good enough, only at 20 I experience stutters

[Steve Hunnisett]

Hi Dan.  My Mac is late 2015, (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5, 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB.  I know the graphics card is limited (most off-the-shelf machines of this age and type are) but generally speaking I'm getting good FPS with Metal on most aircraft.  It would seem my assumption that the PT 19's lack of complex avionics and passenger cabin detail would help with FPS was rather wide of the mark!

The toe-brakes act the same whether on tarmac or grass- the plane slows to a crawl (throttle to idle) but doesn't stop completely; the pedals move downward as they should.  I'm sure it's something minor...

Not being a computer genius I'm afraid I don't understand how Nvidia Inspector would work!

Tried to get the wind (and a few bugs  ) in my hair again today in the PT-19 and discovered a slight variation on the start up problem mentioned by Giaco.  It seems that the friendly mechanic is rather stronger than his appearance suggests- if you ask him to 'Help with Priming' then to 'crank' when the engine fires the aircraft flips into the air then rolls over on fire.  "Start with engines running' is disabled in the X-Plane menu.  I also had a similar problem with the other 'auto-start' option- it catapults you thousands of feet into the air!  I realise you're already looking at this- don't know if this information is useful to you.  

Thanks again- hope to see many more UJS products!

[Steve Hunnisett]

20 hours ago, diamonddriller said:

Steve and giaco - how old are your iMacs, and what CPUs and GPUs (VRAM especially) and RAM have you got?

When I read the specs., I'll relate my experiences.

Hi. Specs are:   Mac, late 2015, (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5, 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB.  

[Steve Hunnisett]

16 hours ago, Cameron said:

The size of an aircraft or how "simple" it is in your mind is not how performance works.

It's a mixture of code and graphics. It sounds to me like you're limited somewhere @Steve Hunnisett. I'm also on a Mac and getting roughly 60-70fps on my setup, but I also have a late 2019 model Mac.

If I had to guess I'd venture to say that your GPU is the ultimate culprit on the Mac, but without running a bunch of tests I couldn't say for sure.

Thanks Cameron- my Mac is late 2015, (Retina 5K, 27-inch, Late 2015), 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5, 24 GB 1867 MHz DDR3, AMD Radeon R9 M390 2 GB.  Generally it copes really well, video card considered. The latest version of the BN Islander has the same performance issues, however the previous release running on Open GL was giving me 30FPS- more than happy with that!  On that subject, is it possible to 'return' to a previous release of an aircraft?

[Uncle Jack Simulations]

I was so far unable to reproduce this issue with the 3D menu autostart and the with Jerry's superstrenght... Have you by any means tried to reload the aircraft through the developer menu? This is known to also glitch the aircraft into this catapulting state. I'd recommend loading the default glider and then loading the PT-19 back, making sure to check if any systems got broken during the glitch, and then attempting to use those functions again.

 

Respectfully,

Dan.

[diamonddriller]

@Steve Hunnisett  Steve, you are really going to struggle with that 2GB graphics card.  I was having a hard time with a late 2015 27" with the fastest i7, 32GB ram and the 4GB 395 Radeon.  X-Plane 11 would often have the fan running flat out, with processor core temperatures spiking to 100°C quite often.....   With a lot of ortho or Orbx (and even the Alpilot mesh and little else), frame rates could beat 30 fps, but a slide show could happen, and 25 fps or slightly less was common.  I often used X-Plane 10, as it ran cooler and quicker, even with the ortho, etc.  The planes are a bit less demanding, and many of the earlier types will run OK in X-Plane 11.  You only have to look at published recommended requirements for scenery or planes on the .org store to see that a 4GB graphics card is often stated as a minimum, and 8GB or more is recommended.  Maybe Cameron would consider putting this sort of info. on the main page of the appropriate product, as it does give one a clue as to whether one can expect to run things with a computer below that level.   Remember, if they suggest a 4GB card for a plane, you also have to load and move the scenery and clouds, etc.  So, keep your textures lower, and I found that Metal was not as good as OpenGL on the 2015 iMac.  Also, don't run any "heavy" scenery, and (unfortunately) not Skymaxx Pro with 2GB.  Note that SMPro will not run on Metal, sadly.  I loved it, but they can't make it run in Metal at all.

Edited October 5, 2020 by diamonddriller
typo

[diamonddriller]

@Steve Hunnisett As an afterthought, and you may well be doing this already, run the screen resolution at 1920x1080 (it seems to default to 2560x1440, not the 5K setting), and even 1280x720 when you are just doing a longer stretch on autopilot - no good in the PT19!  1920x1080 is acceptable.   Turn off HDR and anti-aliasing.  Also, use planes which have lower resolution liveries available.  You can also reduce the size of 4K liveries by reducing them to 2048x2048 in Photoshop.  Unfortunately, the 2015 iMacs were still on Thunderbolt 2, as the newer ones, with Thunderbolt 3, can run an eGPU.  

[Steve Hunnisett]

12 hours ago, diamonddriller said:

@Steve Hunnisett As an afterthought, and you may well be doing this already, run the screen resolution at 1920x1080 (it seems to default to 2560x1440, not the 5K setting), and even 1280x720 when you are just doing a longer stretch on autopilot - no good in the PT19!  1920x1080 is acceptable.   Turn off HDR and anti-aliasing.  Also, use planes which have lower resolution liveries available.  You can also reduce the size of 4K liveries by reducing them to 2048x2048 in Photoshop.  Unfortunately, the 2015 iMacs were still on Thunderbolt 2, as the newer ones, with Thunderbolt 3, can run an eGPU.  

Thanks for the help.  I've been aware of the limitations of the graphics card for sometime- I'm told having lots of spare RAM helps and generally even with Open GL I was comfortably getting 30fps .  I have a very big fleet of payware aircraft, most of which run pretty well and many of them are performing even better with Metal on XP 11.50 with 40fps not uncommon- even large and complex airliners run well for me which is why I was surprised at the low FPS of the PT 19.   Many of the aircraft I have recommend 4gb-8gb graphics but they still run surprisingly well on my system.  I do use SkyMaxx Pro but have consistently found that removing this makes little difference to frame rates.  I use little or no add-on scenery- a compromise I accepted a long time ago.

Interesting what you say about screen resolution- I'm using 2048x1152; the only other option would be 1600x900- probably not very good at all.  Having spent some years playing with X-Plane graphic settings the first thing I tried was to tweak these but curiously this made little or no difference to the PT 19.  There will, of course come a time when my trusty Mac can no longer cope- hoping it will do a few more years yet...

[Steve Hunnisett]

On 10/5/2020 at 9:48 PM, Uncle Jack Simulations said:

I was so far unable to reproduce this issue with the 3D menu autostart and the with Jerry's superstrenght... Have you by any means tried to reload the aircraft through the developer menu? This is known to also glitch the aircraft into this catapulting state. I'd recommend loading the default glider and then loading the PT-19 back, making sure to check if any systems got broken during the glitch, and then attempting to use those functions again.

 

Respectfully,

Dan.

I did reload originally through the Developer menu after selecting 'auto start'- that gave me a many miles high experience.  The crash experienced at Jerry's tender hands seems to be when you ask him to 'help with priming'- I didn't use the developer menu to reset after that, just started a new flight.  I actually feel quite sorry for Jerry as he cranks away for ages trying to get the engine started ;-)

[Uncle Jack Simulations]

3 minutes ago, Steve Hunnisett said:

I did reload originally through the Developer menu after selecting 'auto start'- that gave me a many miles high experience.  The crash experienced at Jerry's tender hands seems to be when you ask him to 'help with priming'- I didn't use the developer menu to reset after that, just started a new flight.  I actually feel quite sorry for Jerry as he cranks away for ages trying to get the engine started ;-)

I see! Well, after that traumatic experience, i'd still suggest loading other aircraft first, then coming back. That seems to "reset" the PT-19 and allow for it to properly start, and should make these systems work correctly, too!

Thanks, Steve! Hope it Helps!

[diamonddriller]

@Steve Hunnisett I was amazed that you get such good frame rates - and then I got to the sentence where you say you have little or no add-on scenery!  That's the answer!  Alpilotx meshes, or ortho, and complex airports - well, they add a lot of load on the system.  

Quite why the PT-19 is giving you trouble is tricky, but it is down to the coding, which is probably different to Carenado's or Thranda's, etc.  I found that with the TorqueSim Cirrus, and that was explained to me then.  Now, with the new iMac, those problems are gone.  

You say you will run your current iMac for a good while longer. These iMacs go on for years.  I gave away a 2009 27" one to a friend quite a while ago.  No, it won't run Catalina (actually, I think there is a hack...), but he still uses it daily.  Of course that oldie had the built-in CD/DVD drive, and had 3 fans, not just the one of the newer models.  It was thicker, and ran cooler.....   On a desk, who cares if it is half an inch or more thicker?  The most likely failure is the hard drive, but sometimes the display goes, or the logic board.  

[Steve Hunnisett]

20 hours ago, diamonddriller said:

@Steve Hunnisett I was amazed that you get such good frame rates - and then I got to the sentence where you say you have little or no add-on scenery!  That's the answer!  Alpilotx meshes, or ortho, and complex airports - well, they add a lot of load on the system.  

Quite why the PT-19 is giving you trouble is tricky, but it is down to the coding, which is probably different to Carenado's or Thranda's, etc.  I found that with the TorqueSim Cirrus, and that was explained to me then.  Now, with the new iMac, those problems are gone.  

You say you will run your current iMac for a good while longer. These iMacs go on for years.  I gave away a 2009 27" one to a friend quite a while ago.  No, it won't run Catalina (actually, I think there is a hack...), but he still uses it daily.  Of course that oldie had the built-in CD/DVD drive, and had 3 fans, not just the one of the newer models.  It was thicker, and ran cooler.....   On a desk, who cares if it is half an inch or more thicker?  The most likely failure is the hard drive, but sometimes the display goes, or the logic board.  

Thanks again- appreciate your guidance.  Having little scenery for reference (I'm 'flying' in Africa at the moment on XP) seems to help sharpen my Ded. Reckoning Navigation- when I get in a real plane I'm spoilt for landmarks to use and everything seems much easier :-).  I used to use Mac Minis- the first one got so old it wouldn't accept any upgrades and was still in good working order when I got rid of it.  For me Windows PCs were nothing but trouble but then I'm no IT wizard- I just want a working reliable computer and Apple gave me that!  

Thanks again