What should my FPS Expectation Be

Question

Just bought Xplane11, and while my expectations were somewhat low based on my older system, I was hoping I'd be able do better than I am.  I've read a lot of the FPS questions, but none seem to address 'shared system memory' on the adapter and how it relates to FPS.

I have 3 monitors: 1 is on the Radeon below and 2 others on the integrated HD 4000. 

My system is as follows:

Asus P8Z77-V PRO Motherboard

Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-3570K CPU @ 3.40GHz, 3401 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 4 Logical Processor(s)

Installed Physical Memory (RAM)        32.0 GB

Monitor #1 is on: MSI ATI Radeon HD6450 1 GB DDR3 VGA/DVI/HDMI

Windows Adapter Properties for the Radeon shows:

Total Available Graphics Memory:                    4864MB

Dedicated Video Memory:                        1024MB

System Video Memory:                        0MB

Shared System Memory:                        3840MB

Monitors #2 and #3 are on:

Intel(R) HD Graphics 4000 (System Information Shows: Adapter RAM (1,879,048,192) bytes)

My FPS looks like this in xplane 11:

Do I really have 3.8GB to present to Xplane11?  I run it on the monitor with the Radeon adapter.  It won't even load on the other monitors on the HD 4000.

I read somewhere, related to shared memory, that "...applications that don’t correctly comprehend a fully unified memory architecture." - the implication being that some apps will only look at the 'Dedicated Video Memory'.  Does Xplane11 fall into that camp?

** all graphics settings are at LOW and Minimal.

Also, would an SSD drive for the app help at all? 

Any help/thoughts greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hey man, I suggest you dont play this game because I have a core i7 8700k 1070 ti over clocked and 16 gb of super fast ram and this crappy game can not get over 30 fps at 1080p!!!!!!

I have never been so offended at a game before! haha! Like I cant believe the guys at x plane think that getting 27 FPS on a pc with literally the latest tech out is acceptable! Who is this game even made for? Clearly not for consumers because at this rate not even a 1080ti would be getting over 60fps!!!

You literally a $7000 TITAN X to run this game as well as other triple A titles of 2017

Comments

I have a 1080ti and i'm stuck at 6fps...

Answer 2

If you have a look on the forum you'll see plenty of other posts regarding poor fps on xplane 11, the long and shot of it is that the sim is based on OpenGL, which is now extremely outdated. Laminar have said they aim to move the game to Vulkan in 2018 which will yield significant performance gains.

Basically, sit tight until the games switched to Vulkan later this year...

Answer 3

Hi pxdcar,

I am not with Laminar Research; just a flight simmer.

I am no computer "geek" but my observations of the info supplied are as follows:-

1.  How are you operating the 3 monitors?  Linked so that you have the appearance of a single monitor or running for multiple purposes?

2.  You should be running the three monitors from the graphics card and not utilising the motherboard connections.  In doing so you are diminishing the capability of the motherboard to give you full benefit of the CPU..  There are comments by others in this forum with a greater knowledge base advising that all monitors should run off the graphics cards.  Because of the card you have you may not be able to effectively do so.  I am of the opinion that your comment about the two monitors "not loading" confirms my comments.

3.  In considering points 1 as a single screen then the three monitors should be of the same brand size and model.  The only difference being the serial numbers.

4.  On the basis you can implement point 2 and want to run in point 1 format, set the monitors up in X-Plane mode (refer to X-Plane manual) rather than in windows mode.  If you card was a NVidia card (better performance than Radeon) this is a third option for multiple configuration.  The Radeon software may have/allow for the same capabilty.

Try it and see what improvement you get.  Good luck

Glenn

Comments

Hi...thanks everybody for commenting.

Like I said I knew I wouldn't have the best experience with my hardware, but really thought it'd be better than 7fps.  

I thought laminar monitored this site because I was really wanting to know if xplane sees my radeon as having 3.8GB or are they one of the apps that doesn't.  If they do see 3.8, then I should actually be doing pretty good, so I suspect the just see the 1gb on the card.

Glenn, as far as the monitors situation goes, I am not using the 2 monitors which are connect to the internal motherboard graphics.  As I indicated, xplane won't even start on either of those.  So, I just have 1 monitor set up inside xplane and it's on the radeon.  I would love to sim with all 3, but with this hardware that's impossible.

So, Laminar, If you do monitor this, can you look at my radeon question regarding the shared system memory?

Thanks again everbody.

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Here's an update to my situation.

I sent this post to the x-plane support email address.  The result was an arrogantly useless reply, and a wholesale dismissal of my having any chance of running xplane11, without even an attempt at helping.

I'm back here on the forum to try again with a little more info to provide.

1) Unfortunately, I'm still not sure if xplane11 sees the 3.8GB on the radeon.  It would make a big difference.

2) I can run xplane10 with no problems.  I obviously can't run fully rendered, however, for my purposes it's been perfectly acceptable... average of 20fps.  Honestly I don't run it much because I still have MS-FS and I preferred it to xplane10.  I just loaded up xplane10 on the monitor running on my radeon and here's my FPS and rendering options:

3) Does it makes sense that I can get 23fps on xplane10 with at least some rendering of objects and only get 6fps with xplane11 with rendering at the lowest level?

I asked for a refund (not holding my breath) but i'd really like to keep xplane11 and I guess i'm just wondering if there's something wrong in the setup that's obvious to someone else that is not to me, or is xplane11 just so much worse at performance that xplane10 was.

Thanks again for the help.

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Hi pxdcar,

Sorry, I can't offer any further solutions as it is beyond my knowledge base other than suggesting you rerun the installer file again.  The rerun should pickup any corrupted or damage files and replace them.  Other flight simmers have used this method as a last resort and has fixed the problem.

Good luck.

Glenn

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Hi Glenn,  Thanks for the suggestion - I hadn't considered that but it might be worth a try.  Thanks again for your input!

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What is the actual version of X-Plane you are running?

There was a problem between Radeon graphics cards and the earlier versions of XP11.  My memory tells me that there was a fix created when either XP11.11 or the XP11.20 beta versions were released.  How successful I don't know but the number of Radeon card problems in this forum decreased.

If you are not running a Beta 11.20v6 version update It is suggested that you create a total backup of your current XP directory and then give that copy a different name.  Don't touch or upgrade this version.  This will be the master version.  

Then, update the official/original version to the latest Beta version.  Try running the program to see if your problem has been rectified.  If so, well and good.  If not, totally delete this updated version and copy the master version back to replace the deleted.  Don't copy back onto the beta version as there may be some remnant files that may create other problems.

Good luck

Glenn

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Hey Glenn,

The 'about' window says my version is 11.11r2 (Build 111101 64 bit).  I'm definitely willing to try a beta, and the radeon issue you describe is interesting.  Where is it that I would download a beta version from?  I don't seem to see it on the website.

Thanks.

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Hi pxdcar,

When you boot up your current version and looking at the initial main screen there should be an option box to tick or check for updates and there should also be a box to tick for Beta versions.  I know this option is there for XP10 and I can't fully remember for XP11.

When you update to XP11.20 v6  and you are NOT running or initially intend to run the Virtually Reality capability, make sure you do not tick the option box or hit the (blue) button to load this facility.  If you follow this, I understand that no reference will be found regarding VR.  You will have the "normal" XP arrangement. You carry out the reverse if and when you want to run VR.

Good luck

Glenn

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I found it Glenn.  Unless I'm missing something, It appears that in xp11, you have to run the installer to see any update options.

I'll mess with it this evening.

Thanks again for your help.

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Well, I actually got another 2.5 fps with the beta. lol.  It was running (all rendering at minimal) at about 8.5 fps.  Perhaps this might actually improve upon release, as typically betas tend to be a bit more bloated during testing....just speculating of course.

Anyway, thanks again!