Various X-Plane optimizers for mac!

[JBalsa]

Here are a few programs that you can use to enhance the X-Plane experience with fps!

1: CPU: (DBoost is free) A GUI for the Renice command. What this does, is prioritize applications in the amount of CPU Cycles they get. DBoost (when running X-Plane) will run a renice command prioritizing X-Plane high; which will give X-Plane more CPU Cycles, thus allowing a higher frame rate in X-Plane.

Available here: http://mac.softpedia.com/progDownload/DBoost-Download-5989.html

2: RAM: (iFree mem is 10 Pounds) A simple app that you can run before X-Plane that will free up plenty of ram, allowing more ram to be used in X-Plane. The result? Well, more fps! (Frame Per Second)

Available here: http://www.activata.co.uk/ifreemem/

3: GPU: (Secrets is free) This app is a bit different than the other two apps. This app has a feature that you can enable in it called "quartz extreme 2d" and "Quartz GL" These features enable some software that Apple has included with all macs. The only reason it's not used, is because it's buggy with certain software. I find that it works well in X-Plane, and increases fps by about 10 - 14 fps. USE CAUTION WITH THIS SOFTWARE, IF YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING, IT CAN BE VERY DANGEROUS TO YOUR SYSTEM!

Available here: http://code.google.com/p/blacktree-secrets/downloads/list

Note: This app can be used to access multiple other features in OSX as well.

Hopefully this has helped some of you in your toil to find greater frames per second in X-Plane without spending 1000's of dollars! 

Happy landings - Jman

[Ben Russell]

In the unlikely event that Quartz Extreme does something odd to your Mac here's how to boot in Safe mode:

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1455

Basically;

Press and hold the shift key after you hear the boot chime.

Release the shift key once you see the Grey Apple Logo boot up screen.

This should boot your Mac with Quartz Extreme disabled, safe video drivers, etc.

[Setanta]

Hi folks...

I feel the need to point out a few things about the above mentioned optimisers...

1 : Renicing X-Plane is unlikely to have very much if any effect on frame rate, especially on a dual cpu system. Even on a single cpu system gains are likely to be absolutely minimal and some timing critical functions may be compromised by uninformed use of the renice command. If you quit all other open applications before running X-Plane then you are unlikely to get more than perhaps a couple of percent extra cpu allocated to X-Plane, which will only give any detectable increase in frame rate if your setup already maxes out your processor.

2 : It is the nature of OS X and its virtual memory system to deal with memory allocation on the fly in the most effective way possible. Freeing up ram with an application such as this will not affect the actual amount of ram available for X-Plane and hence will not affect frame rate. What it may do is free up ram before X-Plane starts up rather than as required which will speed the loading process somewhat (through the process of freeing up the memory in the first place probably takes at least as long). It may also give an increase in frame rate immediately after X-Plane loads - however this advantage will rapidly disappear as memory is allocated normally.

3 : According to reports 'Quartz Extreme 3D' and 'Quartz GL' may or may not give frame rate advantages depending on your particular setup. In some cases it may make frame rate drop significantly. However, turning the options on and off globally is not recommended. The procedure recommended by Apple is for the developer to test their software and, if there is an advantage to be had either way, for their software to turn the option on or off for that particular application. I don't know if X-Plane does this or not. However, if you find a significant advantage to having either turned on I'd recommend dropping a line to Austin to ask him to examine the possibility of turning it on the correct way.

Setanta

[JBalsa]

Setanta,

    I have to disagree with you on the renice command. I (and others with low CPU speeds) notice a great increase in cpu speed. It is very good if you are running iTunes or something in the background. The renice command is more for older computers.

    As for your second point, if you quit an application or something that was previously running, the data from that program does not go away. It still stays in the memory. So when you run this free up at the start of X-Plane, you are getting rid of all of the other programs garbage that was left behind, allowing X-Plane a bit more ram. If the other program is no longer running, then the data from that program won't go back into the ram.

    And please, don't smite me on my karma if I am not correct on a comment, I'm only 13 here.  :-[

[bsupnik]

Hi Y'all,

I have not seen any performance sampled profiles of X-Plane running on either in-house machines or in the field that would indicate that _any_ of these three apps would improve performance, with the exception of:

- Renice if you are CPU bound AND running another app.

I have to point out that the best way to improve fps on old machines when running multiple apps is to ... quit the other apps!!! :-)

But...run the fps test a few times to get solid fps differentials with these tools.

I would expect freeing RAM to improve load times, but NOT to shorten load times more than the time it takes to run the tool that purges RAM.  Paging out is paging out.

cheers

ben

[JBalsa]

Hi Y'all,

I have not seen any performance sampled profiles of X-Plane running on either in-house machines or in the field that would indicate that _any_ of these three apps would improve performance, with the exception of:

- Renice if you are CPU bound AND running another app.

I have to point out that the best way to improve fps on old machines when running multiple apps is to ... quit the other apps!!! :-)

But...run the fps test a few times to get solid fps differentials with these tools.

I would expect freeing RAM to improve load times, but NOT to shorten load times more than the time it takes to run the tool that purges RAM.  Paging out is paging out.

cheers

ben

Well, when you quit a program prior to running X-Plane, the prior running program still leaves some data in the ram, so when you use this program it gets rid of the previous data that was left in the ram. This of course gives X-Plane a bit more room to work with, not just the load times.

P.S. Don't run the program while running X-Plane; bad things happen...

:'(

Happy landings - Jman

[bsupnik]

"Well, when you quit a program prior to running X-Plane, the prior running program still leaves some data in the ram, so when you use this program it gets rid of the previous data that was left in the ram. This of course gives X-Plane a bit more room to work with, not just the load times."

This is not really true when you get into the guts of how modern memory management works.  IF any pages are left around after a process quits (I do not know OS X's policy on this) they would certainly be unloadable when necessary.  The VM system wouldn't put X-Plane into a state of thrash to attempt to save physical RAM for a dead process.

/ben

[gilbenl]

Ben, as always, you know your stuff...but here's just a piece of anecdotal info: I will tell you that runnin XP immediately after a clean boot of the computer ALWAYS produces SIGNIFICANTLY higher FPS (30-50 FPS compared to 25-40), than running it following a long period of system up time. Dunno why, but its consistent. Whenever my FPS go to the crapper, a reboot will always bump 'em back up to a livable level. As for all of these "optimizers", believe it or not, the openGL one marginally improves things, but this may be a placebo effect. Aside from that, I would say all of these are just snake oil cure-alls that don't do diddly.

One more note, and I am putting on my helmet before saying this BUT when I set settings of XP8 and XP9 to be the same, XP9 says it's using 85 MB of VRAM and XP8 says its using 120 MB of VRAM. With that in mind, XP8 runs faster while using more VRAM than XP9 does while it says it's using less...care to enlighten me? PS: this is minus shaders etc.

[bsupnik]

X-Plane does _not_ tell you how much RAM it uses!  It tells you how many bytes of textures it has asked the driver to manage on X-Plane's behalf.  This information has in the past incorrectly been labeled as "VRAM" in the past, but is correctly labeled as "Total size of all loaded textures at current settings" in 930 and the last few patches.

More than you ever care to know here:

http://xplanescenery.blogspot.com/2006/07/x-plane-framerate-and-vram.html

In particular, the textures loaded is not the same as VRAM, and VRAM is not a good proxy for overall GPU load!

And as a final note: you can set the settings user interface to similar positions in the two products, but this is _not_ the same as asking the rendering engine to do the same amount of work.  The very definition of _how_ we render changes between major versions, and settings are recalibrated to better cover the total range of visual output.  So...comparing disparate versions of x-plane useally means an apples-to-oranges comparison _even_ if the rendering settings look the same.

cheers

ben

[gilbenl]

Learn something new everyday! Thanks for clearing things up Ben. Believe it or not, your blog was relatively understandable. Thanks boss!