X-Plane 10: Huuuuge performance problem with Geforce GTX 680

[nasszelle]

Hi all,

 

just bought a new pc to replace my "old" laptop (MSI GT780DXR with i7 2670, 8GB Ram and GTX570M) with following config:

Intel i7-3770, 8 GB Ram, 256 GB SSD, Palit Geforce 680 GTX with 2GB VRam, Win7 64bit (Asrock Z77 Mainboard).

I thought that this system would rock X-Plane 10 (10.20) and there would be a great framerate...  

Nothing! At all! It's even slower than my "old" laptop! High details, no HDR anitaliasing and ONLY 15-20fps at KSEA airport!!!  

I installed the newest drivers for the graphiccard and everything is up-to-date.

 

What am I doing wrong?

 

Please help! I just love X-Plane 10!

 

Cheers,

 

Nasszelle

 

PS.: All other games are performing well, just X-Plane seems not to like my system.

[Orcair]

Are you running 64-bit? As well could you screenshot your rendering settings - you have to tune them usually to get the best mix of performance/graphics. Another suggestion is clouds - keep the percentage low - they are frame-rate killers!

[nasszelle]

64-bit

 

settings:

[RealScenery]

From Ben Supnik:

"I told you earlier that the “Framerate-Lock to Monitor” setting should ALWAYS be on “Do Not Lock”. This is a tiny white lie. If you’re an advanced user, if you know what VSync is, if you know how it works and if you have enough performance to spare and you want to stop scene tearing, go ahead and turn it on. Even then, don’t turn it on until you are done tuning framerate, because VSync will obscure changes in fps, making it impossible to tell what effect a rendering setting has on your hardware. If you don’t know what it is or what problem it’s meant to solve…please leave it off and forget it exists. It will NOT improve your performance."

I always turn VSync off with nVidia cards and get much better frame rates.

Edited April 6, 2013 by RealScenery

[nasszelle]

@RealScenery: Thanks for your post. Unfortunately I cannot choose Vsync on (option on the right top) to try it out. It's already off.

[OlaHaldor]

Looking at your settings, I think you should adjust the following to a lower setting. Take it back a notch or two.

 

- Number of trees

- Number of objects

- Number of roads (might not be the biggest performance hit, but see what it does)

- World Detail Distance

- Set shadows to 3D on plane only

 

And since you're in HDR mode, you can easily add the first or second level of antialiasing. It shouldn't do much harm to your FPS.

Besides, I find different planes give very different frame rates as well. Going from a Carenado plane to the default planes make a huge difference. Or the CRJ or any other high quality payware plane.

Edited April 7, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[nasszelle]

So I just found one thread about GTX 680 and X-Plane 10 where the size of the Vram was discussed. Do you think the 2GBs Vram are the problem and I should have taken the 4 GB card?? 

 

Does anyone have a similiar pc configuration and could post his framerates with video settings?

Edited April 7, 2013 by nasszelle

[OlaHaldor]

I have a GTX 680 4GB. I get variable frame rates depending on the scene. I think, somehow, that the objects and such are being processed by the processor. Thus, adding a kick ass GPU won't boost as much as GPUs did just a few years ago.

 

Texture size and amount of different textures loaded due to objects will need more VRAM, but going up to 4GB is overkill for X-Plane, I think. For heavy lifting where the GPU is utilized better on the other hand... I have no problem filling up the VRAM while doing fluid simulations for instance.

Edited April 7, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[nasszelle]

@OlaHaldor: Could you make a screenshot of your settings and post your framerate at KSEA with the standart B747? 

I just gonna bite into my a** if I took the "wrong" graphics card by thinking 2GB VRAM would be good enough...

Edited April 7, 2013 by nasszelle

[OlaHaldor]

OK, give me a sec.

[OlaHaldor]

Here's the results. I actually forgot to lower the number of objects (essentially buildings along the streets), but it was a notable improvement the few things I adjusted.

 

Here's your settings, as mentioned in your post above.

 

Here's what that looks like

 

 

And here's my settings based on yours, which I think will give you a better experience. I highlighted what I adjusted.

 

This looks like...

 

 

 

Um... For some reason the forum is scaling down the images, so you don't notice the aliased edges all over the place with your settings.

Note the frame rate counter in the lower left corner. I use fraps for stills and video from games and X-Plane, and made the FPS counter show up in the stills for this test.

Edited April 7, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[nasszelle]

@OlaHaldor: Thanks a lot! Great support! Just testing it, going to post the results here. 

[nasszelle]

@OlaHaldor: Ok, I almost get the same fps. The second settings are quite nice, but I thought that a GTX 680 with a new Intel CPU would achieve more frames. Especially on final approach and taxiing on ground, the framerate is very low. Expected more 

[OlaHaldor]

Yup, as I said, I think it's due to all the buildings. I can only imagine how it all is programmed and handled, but I think there's very little difference between an older GPU vs. the ones we've got.

[AnonymousUser68]

My understanding is that the current bottleneck in most x-plane systems is the CPU. I have a feeling that your GPU is not working to its full potential because it is limited by the CPU. This is where I would recommend over-clocking but your CPU is not unlocked.

Good luck, hope you can find a solution!

[Cameron]

For clarification...when you say new PC, I assume you mean new desktop PC and not a laptop, correct? This is a full size GTX 680?

 

Your CPU would not be the bottleneck here.

[FloB]

My experience is that GPU DOES matter especially when it comes to HDR, AA settings and number of objects.

To avoid VRAM and performance problems I suggest to set screen resolution to "very high" and world distance detail to "medium" (in HDR mode). Makes very little difference in visual quality and huge difference in performance on my system.

 

2600k@4.3, GTX670 2 GB, 16 GB Ram, 23'' screen.

 

You said: slower than with my old laptop...running the same settings??? That would really mean your system is set up wrong.

 

Flo

 

PS: 2GB are sufficent for XP10 in my eyes and you shouldn't worry about this. Nobody can run XP10 with settings maxed out today and I myself never had trouble with the 2GB limit. 

Edited April 7, 2013 by FloB

[nasszelle]

Thanks to all.

I have also the feeling that the CPU may be the bottleneck, because in my "old" laptop I had the Intel i7 2670 - which was or still is one of the fastest CPUs for a laptop.

The performance boost with the new desktop pc is not thaaaat huge at X-Plane 10 (CPU is limiting) than in other games, where the new GTX 680 can show off.

[glenner]

2GB is fine is you only use a single monitor.  I have the 4GB using 3 monitors and I have to use compress textures so that the frame rate stays up in large citys.  Mind you I always set texture resolution to extreme and I will not compromise on texture resolution.  Out of urban areas I get between 30-50FPS on triple screens with shadow detail set to global low and water reflections to default.

 

My system - Core i7-3930K, GTX680 4GB, 16GB RAM quad channel, Matrox Triple Head 5040x1050.

 

At KSEA, if I run one monitor at 1680x1050 with the following settings I get average of 26FPS.

At 5040x1050 I get 16FPS but I set flight models to 2 under Operations and warnings so it still flies under control.

 

 

Try out these settings.

 

Also, I found the following NVidia settings help alot

 

 

This is what it looks like on a triple screen but I believe the GTX680 is fill rate limited at these resolutions.  Guess I'll be looking at the Titan in the near future.

 

 

[OlaHaldor]

glenner, that kind of proves the thing about CPU vs GPU right there. Even on one single monitor at that resolution and those settings, you still don't get higher fps rates. The GPU kicks in good when you're on the triple monitor setup I guess, since you're not going lower on fps than you do.

 

I honestly don't think the Titan will be worth it if you're looking for a performance boost in X-Plane. I really, REALLY wish it was possible to utilize CUDA (don't know too much about OpenCL, sorry!). I'm using several apps that utilize CUDA, and I can switch off the CUDA processing so it's all done on the CPU. The GPU can run loops around the CPU as it's done hundreds of times faster.

 

 

That being said, I always look to optimize games or sims to run at 30+. Preferably 50-60fps. 

Edited April 7, 2013 by OlaHaldor

[john82088]

I am curious, why do you use Matrox Triple Head versus just configuring your computer for 3 screens? Is the view different?

[glenner]

I am curious, why do you use Matrox Triple Head versus just configuring your computer for 3 screens? Is the view different?

 

I've been using the THD since X-Plane 9 with the ATI 4870, then the GTX 275 which only had dual display ports.  I guess I just never changed the screen setup when I upgraded since it was already setup but I will try it out one day to bypass the Matrox Triple Head to see if it offers any improvements or loss of screen management features.

[john82088]

Thanks