Bad perfomance, again

[Careless]

Hey, guys,

first of all, thank you for your work on this plane.

But, i need to say, that ican't use CRJ for now, very bad perfomance at all. My system spec:

E7500 2,93 Dual Core, ATI5870 1Gb GDDR3, 8Gb RAM. I'm running on XP SP3.

I have 40FPS, which is more than enought, when everything is cold and dark, but if i switch on battery my fps drops to 19 with severe stutterings. I was downloading the documentation before buying the aircraft and it says that my spec is enought to have 22-35 fps. Also i was using the hardware diagnostic tool to test my system and i have "green light" to proceed with purchasing.

What is causing such behavoir?

I was testing everything regarding perfomance setups in X-Plane, even i was switching off everything and making the graphics uses the most lowest settings, same things - i have 90fps, when she's cold and 19 fps when battery on.

I have bought 2 weeks ago PMDG 737NGX for FSX and i have stable 25-30 fps on it with smooth perfomance. I can't belive, that unoptimized engine of FSX with NGX my system can handle, but not an X-Plane with CRJ.

As i looked, such behavoir can be caused by the OpenGL displays with sound engines, but i can say, that they are not so heavy regarding complexity compared to PMDG NGX.

Is there any workaround?

[Cameron]

Hey, guys,

first of all, thank you for your work on this plane.

But, i need to say, that ican't use CRJ for now, very bad perfomance at all. My system spec:

E7500 2,93 Dual Core, ATI5870 1Gb GDDR3, 8Gb RAM. I'm running on XP SP3.

I have 40FPS, which is more than enought, when everything is cold and dark, but if i switch on battery my fps drops to 19 with severe stutterings. I was downloading the documentation before buying the aircraft and it says that my spec is enought to have 22-35 fps. Also i was using the hardware diagnostic tool to test my system and i have "green light" to proceed with purchasing.

What is causing such behavoir?

I was testing everything regarding perfomance setups in X-Plane, even i was switching off everything and making the graphics uses the most lowest settings, same things - i have 90fps, when she's cold and 19 fps when battery on.

I have bought 2 weeks ago PMDG 737NGX for FSX and i have stable 25-30 fps on it with smooth perfomance. I can't belive, that unoptimized engine of FSX with NGX my system can handle, but not an X-Plane with CRJ.

As i looked, such behavoir can be caused by the OpenGL displays with sound engines, but i can say, that they are not so heavy regarding complexity compared to PMDG NGX.

Is there any workaround?

Hi, Careless,

PMDG/MSFS are two very different things when compared to X-Plane. OpenGL vs DirectX for starters!

Given your system specs, I think the first thing that sticks out is your CPU. The E7500, while great in its time, is aging relatively quick (I had an E8600).

The CRJ works so "fast" with your cold and dark situation because the displays are not showing anything. These displays are primarily driven by your CPU, exhausting all CPU cores that it's able to. The E7500 is bottlenecking your 5870 (great card, by the way), which is also contributing to your lower frame rate, but not near as much as the CPU itself contributes to the operation of the CRJ.

There are a few topics in this forum that have discussed ways to "preserve" fps, but overall you're not going to see a big improvement until you make the upgrade on the CPU.

[dave71]

When I recently purchased the plane I had the same problem. The FPS would drop to 19 with everything powered up. Then I would restart the sim and it would work fine after that. I had to do that every time. When I updated to version 1.2, the problem went away. It still humbles my CPU if I get carried away with the settings around large scenery areas

[Careless]

Guys, I have an update.

I was planning to upgrade my system before I bought CRJ, so I've reacted your words, regarding my outdated system specification with awareness. So, now I have following hardware:

Windows 7 64 bit, Intel Core i7 2600K, Asus P8P67-M Pro, Asus Nvidia GTX560, 16 GB DDR3

And once again, I can't use your aircraft comfortably, it's poor on FPS, and it needs hardcore code optimization for the displays. Yes, I can have 60-100 FPS in the air, but ugly 20-25 FPS on the ground in the default airports.

Please, compare your performance with hardcore PMDG products, which uses heavy FSX-engine - I have around 50 FPS on the ground with heavy scenery and AI-traffic.

[philipp]

There's no way your PC is too weak for the CRJ - we demoed the CRJ at FSWeekend on a PC with quite similar specs: i7-2600K, P8P67 mainboard, 8GB RAM, Zotac GTX570 AMP!

We demoed on 3200x1600 screen resolution (dual monitor setup) with extreme resolution and 50+fps.

Here are a few things you should try:

-Up-to-date graphic drivers are a must! Get the drivers from the nvidia site and not via Windows update

-X-Plane settings scenery-wise: You mentioned you are having trouble on airports - is there any scenery setting that brings down fps at airports?

-Background applications: One customer reported that he had a stuttering problem when in the background his browser was open on a website with snowfall animation. Make sure there are no applications are running in the background that require GPU power. And these days, a browser is in this category, as modern webbrowsers use GPU acceleration to render certain CSS effects.

Philipp

[Careless]

Phillip, thank you for the fast response,

-Up-to-date graphic drivers are a must! Get the drivers from the nvidia site and not via Windows update

285.62-desktop-win7-winvista-64bit-international-whql is installed

is there any scenery setting that brings down fps at airports?

No, nothing heavy, it uses settings from my old system, which gave me smooth performance on aircrafts like Felis An-24, Yak-40 (which are simulated quite realistically and uses all custom logics on every gauge with custom sounds and failures).

Background applications

It's obvious for me not to use anything in the background.

I need to tell you, that I'm commercial aircraft designer for MSFS series and now I'm making my first project for the X-Plane (I'm not alone, we are working in a team).

There is some post from X-Plane developer's blog, which describes how to set proper settings:

Remember, going from 100fps to 90fps is a difference of 10fps (“wow” you’re thinking)…but that’s only 10%! That same 10% reduction at 20fps would bring you down to 18fps. You should care about the PERCENTAGE change, not the FPS change.

And my IMHO, when I switching displays on CRJ on every scenery (both custom and default, heavy town, or not) the perfomance drops from 60-100 FPS to 20-25. So the drop in performance is around 50-70% Now I'm sure it can't be claimed on my poor system. Edited December 12, 2011 by Careless

[philipp]

Now I'm sure it can't be claimed on my poor system.

That's what I'm telling you. We have basically very similar computers. I'm running at LOWI, extreme texture resolution, 4x anti-aliasing, 3200*1200px at solid 50fps.

You are seeing a drop in fps as soon as there is power to the displays, because we are launching 5 rendering threads in the background to asynchronously render the displays while X-Plane is running.

My development system is an aged, dual core, 2gb ram, 256mb integrated graphics mac mini. And it runs 25fps at LOWI also. So I still think you are missing one important X-Plane setting that steals your fps, because our (similar) windows PCs are immensly more powerful than my Mac and if I get 50fps out of it, so should you.

If you want to get into technical discussion you can do so by sending me a pm and uncover which FS products from you I should know.

Philipp

[Japo32]

Are you talking about xp9 or 10?

If you talk about 9, then lots of users have it and lots of them (depending in hardware software configuration) they have good performance.

If you talk about xp10 then well...... still work have to be done to raise performance in this last version. Be patience. But 20-25 is not a bad performancein airports. Well In xp9 I have better than you with same cpu (but overclocked to 4.6ghz) but a better graphics card. An Nvidia 580.

Making overclock to your computer is a winner (if you have a good cooler) try it!

[Careless]

You are seeing a drop in fps as soon as there is power to the displays, because we are launching 5 rendering threads in the background to asynchronously render the displays while X-Plane is running.

That's what I'm telling you, why displays in CRJ are very heavy, that needs to use all cores to maximize performance on all threads, more complex displays in PMDG 737 from FSX (with much more systems simulated) uses much less demand on hardware, I could use all these systems on my previous machine with smooth performance. If you position your aircraft like very simulated in X-Plane, I think it needs more simulated features and more adequate performance. If comparing to MSFS complex aircrafts, CRJ uses default logics. It's not good simulated and heavy demands on hardware, which is not good for such statement like "First full simulated aircraft for X-Plane". There is Felis aircrafts, which are much simulated and have nothing demand on hardware.

Guys, i don't claim you, I'm not want to say anything to injure you and your work, I know what it is, but if you could listen me - it would be good for all of your customers and me, who wants to fly this aircraft with pleasure.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Careless

[Cameron]

That's what I'm telling you, why displays in CRJ are very heavy, that needs to use all cores to maximize performance on all threads, more complex displays in PMDG 737 from FSX (with much more systems simulated) uses much less demand on hardware, I could use all these systems on my previous machine with smooth performance. If you position your aircraft like very simulated in X-Plane, I think it needs more simulated features and more adequate performance. If comparing to MSFS complex aircrafts, CRJ uses default logics. It's not good simulated and heavy demands on hardware, which is not good for such statement like "First full simulated aircraft for X-Plane". There is Felis aircrafts, which are much simulated and have nothing demand on hardware.

Guys, i don't claim you, I'm not want to say anything to injure you and your work, I know what it is, but if you could listen me - it would be good for all of your customers and me, who wants to fly this aircraft with pleasure.

Comparing MSFS to X-Plane in terms of performance is not even something worth discussing, really. Getting into the complexities of DirectX vs OpenGL are just not worth the time. Simply put, they're different. X-Plane is not MSFS in terms of how it renders avionics.

The core usage is important for numerous reasons. If this was slapped to one core you would not be pleased AT ALL....no one would.

I also beg to differ with you on your sentiments about realism (coming from CRJ check airmen in this forum, as well as CRJ pilots on the beta team), and also about your statements regarding Felis' aircraft. He does a mighty fine job, though it does not reach this level (my opinion).

At this time, the best thing you can do is upgrade your dual core machine to get better performance. I hate to say it, but as time goes on, so to do aged processors. I was in that boat up until a few months ago, so I can completely sympathize with your current position.

I will say, however, that on the i5 and i7 setups, the CRJ runs phenomenally well!

[Careless]

Cameron,

I'm not using my old machine anymore, I've described it in this topic already (I made an upgrade few days ago), my current specifications are following:

Windows 7 64 bit, Intel Core i7 2600K, Asus P8P67-M Pro, Asus Nvidia GTX560 1Gb GDDR5, 16 GB DDR3

And my opinion, your team should try to use not such approach, like, "we made full complexity of CRJ systems".

Comparing MSFS to X-Plane in terms of performance is not even something worth discussing, really

And I think, it's worth, you can compare FSX with heavy aircrafts, with complex system modelling+heavy loaded AI traffic+complex weather programs (which are running in the background) and "weak" X-Plane+CRJ. You'll know the difference at once.

Getting into the complexities of DirectX vs OpenGL are just not worth the time.

I agree with this.

and also about your statements regarding Felis' aircraft. He does a mighty fine job, though it does not reach this level (my opinion).

Yep, it does, sorry to say. Moreover, the aircrafts, which he simulated are far away from CRJ.

[Cameron]

Sorry, I missed the post about your new system.

I assume you are using X-Plane 10 when speaking about this? It's far too early to be assessing performance until all of the issues are ironed out and optimization complete.

How is your performance in X-Plane 9?

[Careless]

Cameron,

it's a surprise for me, but I'm using X-Plane 9, (I haven't any intentions to use 10 version yet, it's too early) and everything I've described relates to 9 version. I don't want to overclock my CPU, because I don't have any reasons to do so, every custom commercial aircraft, which I have, besides CRJ, haven't any impact on performance.

[Japo32]

Well I recomend you to increase do the overclock. Always there is a first plane to make it, and maybe this crj is. We will try to make performance fixes in future, but for now a overclock is a winner and you will be pleased with it (i am).

[Careless]

Javier,

thank you for the response, good to hear, that your team will dig this problems. I should wait for the code optimizations, I don't want to rape my system now with overclocking (it's not necessary for such tasks). But now the aircraft will be on my shelf for better times.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to get an update for this issue.

Edited December 13, 2011 by Careless

[Cameron]

Javier,

thank you for the response, good to hear, that your team will dig this problems. I should wait for the code optimizations, I don't want to rape my system now with overclocking (it's not necessary for such tasks). But now the aircraft will be on my shelf for better times.

Good luck, and I'm looking forward to get an update for this issue.

Hi, there,

I actually don't believe you should have to overclock at all. I do not, and on my i5 and i7 systems I get absolutely wonderful performance!

Perhaps we could help you solve some issues here. Do you mind loading up the CRJ in XP 9, going to a random airport, and then taking a screenshot of your X-Plane resolution settings window? There really is NO reason this product can't run very well on a stock i7 setup!

Also, as a little tip, try to remain off the LEGS page of the FMC when possible. While the i7 copes with it fine, it's still a resource hog at times.