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How do I uninstall/get my clouds back?

dpny

By dpny
in SkyMaxx Pro v4

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dpny Newbie

dpny

Posted
Posted

Unfortunately, I found SkyMaxx to be an absolute performance killer: on the default settings, looking up at several layers of clouds dropped by fps into the single digits, and flying through the clouds turned the sim into a slideshow. Even turning the performance choices all the way down meant fps in the mid-teens.

 

There doesn't seem to be an uninstall option, so I moved SilverLining and Gizmo into my plugins_disabled folder. However, after restarting X-Plane, I have no clouds at all. Even manually setting three layers of thick clouds results in a clear sky..

 

What did you do with my clouds, guys?

 

2010 Mac Pro 3.33, Bootcamp, Windows 7 64, 16 GB RAM, 4GB 670 SC with the latest nVidia drivers, X-Plane 10.25.

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

Don,

Can you tell us your rendering settings? We'd love to try and help you more than anything.

If you're keen on uninstalling:

1. There's an uninstaller in: X-Plane/X-Aviation

You may also just rerun the X-Plane updater. It will replace JUST the files that have been altered.

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

Don,

 

A few questions:

 

1. Did you dial rays all the way down in the UI?

 

2. Did you try with both HDR on and off?

 

3. This rendering settings image shows a load of 2GB...how much VRAM is on the 670 you have?

 

Edit: sorry, I should have read...you have 4GB..

dpny Newbie

dpny

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Don,

 

A few questions:

 

1. Did you dial rays all the way down in the UI?

 

2. Did you try with both HDR on and off?

 

3. This rendering settings image shows a load of 2GB...how much VRAM is on the 670 you have?

 

1. Turned the rays completely off.

2. Didn't try with HDR off. To be honest, if I have to turn HDR off to use SkyMaxx, I'm not interested.

3. As I said above, it's a 4GB 670 SC.

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

2. Didn't try with HDR off. To be honest, if I have to turn HDR off to use SkyMaxx, I'm not interested.

 

I was more curious if it made a difference. I was not suggesting you run it with HDR off.

 


3. As I said above, it's a 4GB 670 SC.

 

I caught that and edited prior to your post, but I don't think you caught it. :)

 

What monitor resolution?

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

So I have just loaded up sim with following settings:

 

CPU: i5 2500k

GPU: GTX 680 4GB

Resolution: 1920x1080

Trees, objects, and roads on full setting (extreme)

Shadow set to overlay

Atmospheric scattering to on

Per Pixel to on

HDR on

4x SSAA + FXAA

8x Anisotropc 

 

With the above settings and SkyMaxx at default settings I am at a consistent 24 fps

 

With the above settings and the only thing changed was Rays turned off, I am at a consistent 33 fps

 

I don't really consider the 670 to be a slouch compared to my 680, so I'm a little confused by your performance here....

 

 

For those of you curious, attached is an image showing the FPS with HDR and SkyMaxx on with settings as listed above...

 

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/948823/Baron_58_1.png

dpny Newbie

dpny

Posted
  • Author
Posted (edited)

A couple of things comes to mind. First, any Mac which doesn't have an Ivy Bridge or Haswell i5/i7 is going to be CPU-limited. Second, because this is a PC 670, it runs at PCI-E 1.0 speeds, and not 2.0 speeds.

 

I will do a non-HDR checking later on tonight, just to have that data point.

Edited by dpny
Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

A couple of things comes to mind. First, any Mac which doesn't have an Ivy Bridge or Haswell i5/i7 is going to be CPU-limited. Second, because this is a PC 670, it runs at PCI-E 1.0 speeds, and not 2.0 speeds.

 

I will do a non-HDR checking later on tonight, just to have that data point.

 

Thanks, Don. I was not aware that the bus speeds were limited in your configuration, which makes this a bit more believable for me then, and thus your performance is not typical for what an average windows user would experience vs your boot camp config.

 

None the less, definitely interested in the extra data point!

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

Well this has been very interesting...

 

Our server came under very high load in the last hour for which appears to be an attempt at an attack. Our security measures in place on the server disabled services to prevent further attempts, and then restarted service. We monitored the situation as load became very high yet again (typical load averages 1 to 2), and reached above 40. The ip address connected to this high load 'attack' leads straight back to dpny, the original poster of this topic. To put this in shorter words, this got caught as a small-scale denial-of-service attack.

 

Other than the interaction in this very topic, there has been no other correspondence with dpny. I question motives at this point. Needless to say, dpny has been banned. 

flydav Newbie

flydav

Posted
Posted

I believe that John really nailed it with this add-on it is really incredible and I don't see any performance drop maybe the second I look into the death rays Ahahaha. 

Actually the fps improves as these clouds are tiny (the file) compared to what I used to have before. 256 vs 1024 res. There can't be performance drop because of the clouds.

 

I have only one issue which is that the clouds are horribly black at sunset, this was fixed in the replacement package of clouds by Sabach since the shader was adjusted. So maybe John if you could tweak the shader a bit in a next update I would be extreeeeemely pleased. Thanks!

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

Technically shader tweaking is not condoned by Laminar and is considered a very unsafe move in a commercial product.

We'll need to work out a more fail safe measure than this (or Laminar will, anyhow).

Thanks for the compliments though!

Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

For those of you curious, attached is an image showing the FPS with HDR and SkyMaxx on with settings as listed above...

https://dl.dropboxus.../Baron_58_1.png

Tbh, those fps worry me. Add a custom airport and what happens? 33 fps on a bare runway, outside the 3d pit......

Sounded too good to be true anyway, again.

This is precisely why the test was conducted in an area with a massive amount of objects.

The autogen, trees, and roads were set to extreme for good reason, and show a case of settings most people do not even use.

As SkyMaxx relies more on CPU to do its job rather than GPU, I don't see much an issue for concern as you bring up.

sparkie66 Newbie

sparkie66

Posted
Posted

This is precisely why the test was conducted in an area with a massive amount of objects.

The autogen, trees, and roads were set to extreme for good reason, and show a case of settings most people do not even use.

As SkyMaxx relies more on CPU to do its job rather than GPU, I don't see much an issue for concern as you bring up.

 

 

i Hope so, I have a similar pc as your specs, but quite a large resolution 2560*1440. Atm (before skymaxx) running 30 - 50 fps with avg around 40. But fps drop to 22 with the god rays on and thats with the lowest detailed overcast. Ill try on 1920*1080. See what that brings. I know you cannot compare with fsx bladibla but thats old tech and with numerous custom airports/scenery/rex etc I get a minimim of 22 fps or so at schiphol and 40 plus in the air with stuff like the pmdg 737 and amazing rex clouds. So thats kind of the performance I want from xp10, without having to turn everything off, and I'm kinda bummed to find out I cannot get there with xp10.

HiFlyer Newbie

HiFlyer

Posted
Posted (edited)

Tbh, those fps worry me. Add a custom airport and what happens? 33 fps on a bare runway, outside the 3d pit......

Sounded too good to be true anyway, again.

HDR is on, and high AA. Known framerate downer...........

Edited by HiFlyer
JohnMAXX Newbie

JohnMAXX

Posted
Posted

HDR and AA are killers but keep in mind you can make adjustments in the UI along with the default rendering settings to increase performance.   We included these options so that SkyMAXX can be tailored to a large range of systems... 

 

 

I would start by setting "cloud detail" to its lowest setting and "cloud draw distance" the same....

 

Keep the cloud sizes smaller also, once you have this make incremental increases until you are happy with the output....

 

Crepuscular Rays are going to be expensive, no way to get around it.  If your system has a terrible time with them just shut them off, but by tweaking some settings in the UI and default rendering you can get them to work well.....

 

Two other performance tweaks we included are the cirrus texture resolution and 3 different overcast layers.....

 

Selecting low or mid cirrus layers help slightly with a smaller texture load...

 

Out of the three overcast layers "Med" is my favorite,  a flat overcast layer is there for performance also in the "low" setting.  "High" uses ray-casting and is recommended for power users.....

  • Upvote 1
Cameron Mentor

Cameron

Posted
Posted

nice work John, thanks for contributing , however I am uninstalling as well for a variety of reasons. But I wanted to thank you regardless Now like the OP I am trying to get my clouds back

Run the X-Plane updater.

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