X-plane has VERY LOW framerates on VERY POWERFUL computer

[vtremsin10]

I have a very strong computer with these specs: Intel QUAD-core i7-3630qm, 16-GB RAM, and NVIDIA GPU.

However, X-plane runs EXTREMELY SLOW. When I use the LOW preset rendering options I get a frame rate of about 5-6 FPS at most. Attached is a screenshot of my rendering options...

I also have a ton of RAM left unused and my CPU is used only 20-35%! My computer is not using the power that it has, and the frame rates are still very slow. I recently updated to X-plane 10.41.

Something is definitely wrong, because people with much worse computers achieve a lot better rendering with a lot better framerate...

 

PLEASE HELP!

Thank you.

Edited November 8, 2015 by vtremsin10

[sundog]

Although you probably paid a premium for that Quadro chip, my guess would be that it's to blame. Quadros are aimed more at the CAD crowd, and aren't the best choice for 3D gaming these days. I think they have their own separate drivers, and don't benefit from all the speedups that go into the GTX drivers. Not to mention the K1000M isn't even a particularly powerful Quadro, and it's also limited in the amount of video memory it can have.

 

If it's possible to update your video driver, it might help - but it's not all that old, really.

 

If you post your log.txt, we might spot something else that's going on. This is just my guess based on the info you provided.

[Andyrooc]

I find I can't run clouds at 52% - kills my system too. Try lowering that.

 

The CPU and general RAM are somewhat second to GPU and video RAM, and you'll need at least 2Gb of video RAM on any graphics card to get thing happening. 20-30% CPU usage sounds about right.However, you GPU is probably running at 100%.

 

I don't know what OS you have, but you can get a tool to monitor GPU usage (like gpu-z for windows https://www.techpowerup.com/gpuz/). This might help find where the bottleneck is.

[chris k]

 have a very strong computer with these specs: Intel QUAD-core i7-3630qm, 16-GB RAM, and NVIDIA GPU.

 

Not really. i7-3000 series CPUs are a medium-range these days at best. In fact, thats a low-power mobile/laptop CPU variant you describe; on the low-end of performance in the i7-3000 series. That chip is designed to conserve battery power running at 2.4 Ghz and uses 45 Watts of power. The desktop CPUs from that series run 50% faster and consume double the power (95Watts or so) and get much better performance.

 

I also have a ton of RAM left unused

 

RAM is space, not speed. Computer Programs only use the memory that they need. Using MORE RAM than they need doesn't make things faster.

 

my CPU is used only 20-35%!

 

​Your CPU is actually 4 x CPUs. The way an i7 is built is actually 4 CPUs on the physical silicon die. X-Plane uses ONE of those four processing units on that i7 die. Meaning if your "CPU Usage" is 25%, then  ONE of your CPUs is running at 100% which is expected behaviour; and the other 3 cores are left for other programs.

 

Simple Explanation: a Multi-core CPU (like you have) allows you to run multiple programs simultaneously on the same physical die. It means you can run FOUR programs all at the same speed -- i.e for a silly example: you can run X-Plane, PowerPoint, Excel, and Microsoft WORD all at full speed at the same time. Thats what the i7 lets you do. It does NOT mean you can run one program four times faster. Sorry, but thats how computers and software generally work. One program -- one core. (X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded)

 

.. nVidia K1000M Video ..

 

As Frank said -- a K1000M is a LAPTOP MOBILE video chip. It is *not* a powerful video chip. It is a power-reduced NOTEBOOK GPU from 2012 for use in 2D/3D CAD programs. See how it stacks up -- in fact, it's lower than the first 1000 video cards out there:

 

http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Quadro+K1000M

 

it is nowhere in the same league as anything actually designed to do high-speed 3D Graphics.  $200 Video cards from 2008 which would run circles around that. That card was developed to do detailed double-precision mathematics for 3D modelling. Its made for high-precision CAD/CAM work, not gaming/3D frames per second.

 

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news... but the laptop you describe is simply not cut out to run X-Plane at all.

 

- CK.

Edited November 8, 2015 by chris k

[vtremsin10]

However, my VRAM is a whole 2.098 GB, which is perfect the HIGHEST texture resolution.

[Ryan M.]

 

I have a very strong computer with these specs: Intel QUAD-core i7-3630qm, 16-GB RAM, and NVIDIA GPU.

However, X-plane runs EXTREMELY SLOW. When I use the LOW preset rendering options I get a frame rate of about 5-6 FPS at most. Attached is a screenshot of my rendering options...

I also have a ton of RAM left unused and my CPU is used only 20-35%! My computer is not using the power that it has, and the frame rates are still very slow. I recently updated to X-plane 10.41.

Something is definitely wrong, because people with much worse computers achieve a lot better rendering with a lot better framerate...

 

PLEASE HELP!

Thank you.

 

I'm experiencing the same problem. I think X-plane 10.41 is the issue

[Andyrooc]

Hadn't noticed the "m" on your processor before. Laptops/Notebooks  can run usually X-Plane OK, but they are not great for it. As Chris says,  they concentrate on low power consumption, sacrificing performance to do so. There's a bit on X-Planes CPU usage here : http://forums.x-plane.org/?showtopic=55346

[AntonioG]

Same problem here. X-Plane 10.41 is the issue

 

I had 35-40fps in XP10.35

Now i have 13fps in XP-10.41

[AntonioG]

After a lot of research, i found the guilty!

 

The "URBAN MAXX V2 3D" doesn´t work well with the last update (X-Plane 10.41). It was killing my framerate.

 

Just go to CUSTOM SCENERY folder, and delete the entire URBAN MAXX folder. The X-Plane will work just fine as it worked in the previous versions...

[PhM]

Simple Explanation: a Multi-core CPU (like you have) allows you to run multiple programs simultaneously on the same physical die. It means you can run FOUR programs all at the same speed -- ... Thats what the i7 lets you do.

 This is inexact. This is not what a multi-core CPU "allows" anyone to do. Multi-core CPUs were designed because simply increasing the clock frequency was no more a recipe for faster processing. Therefore spreading the computation over several cores that would run at the same time (paralelliem) was the solution. A multi-core is in no way designed to only let one program run on one core at a time. Just like any other CPU it simply does what the programmer intended it to do.

 

It does NOT mean you can run one program four times faster. Sorry, but thats how computers and software generally work. One program -- one core. (X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded)...

Four cores cannot run a program, that has been designed to take advantage of this architecture, four times faster, apart from some exceptions, but they can make it run several times faster. If the program has not been written to take advantage of this architecture then several cores will never help.

 

It is misleading to say that one program per core is the way computers and software generally work. In fact there are programs that are written to take advantage of multi-core architectures that will run faster by doing several things in parallel, and others, like X-Plane as you mentioned, that are doing things sequentially and thus end up only using one of the available cores.

 

PhM

[sizziano]

​Your CPU is actually 4 x CPUs. The way an i7 is built is actually 4 CPUs on the physical silicon die. X-Plane uses ONE of those four processing units on that i7 die. Meaning if your "CPU Usage" is 25%, then ONE of your CPUs is running at 100% which is expected behaviour; and the other 3 cores are left for other programs.

Simple Explanation: a Multi-core CPU (like you have) allows you to run multiple programs simultaneously on the same physical die. It means you can run FOUR programs all at the same speed -- i.e for a silly example: you can run X-Plane, PowerPoint, Excel, and Microsoft WORD all at full speed at the same time. Thats what the i7 lets you do. It does NOT mean you can run one program four times faster. Sorry, but thats how computers and software generally work. One program -- one core. (X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded)

 

Uh no. XP can and will use more than one core. On my i7 all 8 threads are used to varying degrees. It's not "one program, one core", that is a complete falsehood. You clearly don't know how CPUs work and I mean that in the nicest non-dickish way possible.

 

Edit: Just noticed PhM responded with correct information.

Edited November 17, 2015 by sizziano

[sundog]

Chris knows how CPU's work. What he said specifically was "X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded" and that is accurate. X-Plane does spin up many threads, presumably for things like loading terrain, but only one thread can do the actual rendering of the scene. It's a fundamental limitation of OpenGL. If rendering is your bottleneck (as it would be on a mobile Quadro card), then it will appear as one core doing most of the work.

[sizziano]

Chris knows how CPU's work. What he said specifically was "X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded" and that is accurate. X-Plane does spin up many threads, presumably for things like loading terrain, but only one thread can do the actual rendering of the scene. It's a fundamental limitation of OpenGL. If rendering is your bottleneck (as it would be on a mobile Quadro card), then it will appear as one core doing most of the work.

That is accurate most of everything's else is not.

[sizziano]

Chris knows how CPU's work. What he said specifically was "X-Plane's rendering code is effectively single-threaded" and that is accurate. X-Plane does spin up many threads, presumably for things like loading terrain, but only one thread can do the actual rendering of the scene. It's a fundamental limitation of OpenGL. If rendering is your bottleneck (as it would be on a mobile Quadro card), then it will appear as one core doing most of the work.

That is accurate most of everything's else is not.

[chris k]

You do realise I prefaced the entire discussion stating this was a simplification. See the post. The caveat is there.

It is by definition Inexact -- as it was targeted to a very specific and nontechnical audience. (The O.P.). For its intent, it is effective to show why single threaded core speed is important to xplane, and not the number of cores.

I had no idea if the OP. Understands multi-threading, or even what a thread is; privileged execution modes, the role of an MMU, what a scheduler does, what an affinity is, what a program counter and registers are, and so on. Hence, I chose a method of explanation, although Inexact, correctly conveys the meaning. Start with the absolutely most basic way of trying to get somewhere close without resorting to a full gdb dump and stack pointers here.

I agree it's a gross oversimplification. Apologies if it was Inexact. I will simply refrain from providing any analogies or simplifications of deep technical issues to users who have questions, as the resulting backlash by those who did NOT offer to help the OP are startling.

The OpenGL stack is indeed single threaded, hence xplane'a major bottleneck. Scenery loads, AI aircraft, etc are indeed multi threaded in XP10, however the elephant in the room is the graphics processing -- which is an order of magnitude larger than all the other threads combined.

Hence, 4 cores, 8 cores etc will simply not help when it comes to the all important FPS figure. The OPs original post tells it all. 25-30% CPU load across his entire system.....

...and I didn't even start talking about hyper threading. It would serve no purpose for the sakes of Answering the OPs question -- which was the entire point of this thread.

Edited November 19, 2015 by chris k

[chris k]

/duplicate.

Edited November 19, 2015 by chris k

[rocketmandlgc]

Well said Chris K. We exist to help each other, not to beat each other up. If only the world would take note of this, events like Paris would be a thing of the past.

Please carry on being helpful.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited November 19, 2015 by rocketmandlgc

[rocketmandlgc]

For the record, At home I have a humble Mac mini 2012 edition with 8gb ram and whatever graphics chip comes shipped as standard I run uk photo realistic scenery, several libraries, my own club airfield modelled in 3d and being careful with rendering setting and screen resolution can achieve 30fps with 10.41

My advice - start low and work up.

Added later. Must own up to the fact I'm not flying heavy metal, but I do fly low level in a glider but even so I can get 27fps with the default Cessna

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Edited November 19, 2015 by rocketmandlgc

[chris k]

I just re-read my original posting.. hehehe.. It does appear that my technical knowledge appears to be at a 'George Bush-eqsue' level at best..!

 

All good.