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We developed a UI to give the end user tons of control in regards to performance and visual appeal in SMP.   More options were added in V2 as a result users have almost complete access to the clouds to taylor it to their specific system.  I am not trying to create a complete guide for using the UI but just a few pointers to help you out.  

 

 

 

If you are unhappy with the performance lets start by having you "reset" SMP to the default settings...

 

Navigate to your plugins folder and then open the silver lining folder.  Delete the settings.dat file, this will "reset" SMP.....Try flying using the default settings and make adjustments if needed.....

 

OK now below is the UI:

 

flTmHgJ.jpg

 

Most of these settings have an impact on performance some of the heavy hitters and areas to focus on are below....

 

Heavy hitters:

  • Cloud Draw Distance
  • Crepuscular Rays 
  • Cloud Reflections

Other options have impact on performance but I feel these 3 should really be looked at.  Since our cloud engine is open ended I don't think there is a solid solution for everyone but if performance is really bad I do suggest turning off the crepuscular rays and cloud reflections first after that explore the cloud draw distance and further tweaks like cirrus resolution and overcast type will give more gains......

 

Additionally you can revert back to the old V1 clouds by un-ticking the High-Resolution Puffs radio button.....

 

Other considerations:

 

Obviously X-Plane as a whole is very open ended and resource hungry,  you should consider the following:

 

  • What kind of custom scenery are you flying over?
  • X-Plane rendering options,  how much optimization have you performed?
  • Complexity of aircraft you are flying?
  • How much AI do you have in the air?

Again not a complete guide, just some basic considerations :)  And, for instance, if you are flying a complex aircraft you may need to make further adjustments for performance......

 

 

X-Plane Rendering Options:

 

A couple of heavy hitters in X-Plane you might want to look at:

 

  • World Draw Distance-personally I set mine to high or medium
  • Water reflections-I usually have this off on my MBP
  • HDR-I tend to have this on nowadays but some locations I cannot use it
  • Autogen-since I use UrbanMAXX I set this to a lot or lower at times
  • Shadows-generally I keep this at static

 

Remember there is no such thing as a silver bullet in X-Plane,  its a series of different systems that have to be adjusted properly to work in harmony.  Our clouds are just another layer on top of a bunch of complex layers and its easy to blame us for performance losses because when you add our layer unoptimized ,for your system, performance can tank......V2 is different than V1 so adjustments are needed once you have it installed.  We stand by our performance claims and we also stand by our customers.

 

I hope you re-explore the UI and get the most out of SMP :)

Edited by JohnMAXX
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