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Why is a powerful PC unable to achieve decent frame rates with XP 10.42

0 votes
asked by (13 points)
x-plane 10.42

PC Specs:

MOBO: ASUS X99 Deluxe

CPU: 6-Core i7-5930K running at 3.5 GHZ

RAM:  32 GB 2100 Mhz DDR4

Graphics: AMD Radeon Dual-X R9 270X

Graphics RAM: 2GB GDDR5

HDD: 2TB, 7200 RPM

Displays: Dual 1920 x 1200 monitors

Saitek Pedals, Yoke, and quadrant

OS:  Win 7 Pro x64 bit

When running XP10.42 with Rendering  settings at Medium, this PC can only achieve 22 FPS

With rendering set to Extreme, FPS drops to 8.

How can such a powerful PC be unable to achieve faster frame rates at the Medium setting?

This makes no sense.

Any ideas?

1 Answer

+1 vote
answered by (27 points)
Very possibly its your Graphics Card.  I run a EVGA970 on a I7 16Gb and typically see 40-55fps.

Run the below benchmarks and see how your system stacks uo

3D Mark - http://www.futuremark.com/benchmarks

Passmaark GPU - http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/  (also has database of cards tested here is yours http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+R9+270X&id=

 

http://www.game-debate.com/gpu/index.php?gid=2438&gid2=1900&compare=geforce-gtx-970-vs-radeon-r9-270x-sapphire-dual-x-2gb-oc-edition
commented by (13 points)

Bill-

Ran Passmark tests per your suggestion, plus reviewed benchmarks for my Sapphire Radeon Dual-X R9 270X video card against other similar video cards.  Although, there are certainly faster video cards available, my R9 270X seems to have fairly reasonable video performance.  Overall, the Passmark results look quite good, except HDD performance which is not unexpected given that it is not an SSD.

Given that my previous, now dead, 9 years old ASUS PC, with a Dual core, Core 2 Extreme CPU, running at 3.8Ghz, 8GB ram, Radeon 557, w/1 GB Vram, ran quite well at 30 FPS frame rates, I am still puzzled by the low FPS values, given the significantly more CPU horsepower, plus 4 extra cores and a much more powerful video card, plus 4x CPU ram?  By chance, can you share a Passmark run with your system for comparison with my results?  I did read where someone stated additional Vram contributed more to XP10 performance improvements than additional CPU memory, once you had at least 4GB of CPU ram.

Attached are my Passmark results.  I have not purchased the SW yet and could only capture results as screen shots.

Given my 1 yr old, Radeon R9 270X card only has 2GB GDDR5 ram, it may be worthwhile to upgrade to at least a newer,faster video card, with at least  4GB or more?  Perhaps a trip to Microcenter is in order today? ;-)

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,

Ed Terry

commented by (19.3k points)

Hi Ed,

Have you checked out the updated system recommendations on X-Plane.com? We now note that "X-Plane depends most heavily on single thread CPU performance, but it will also take advantage of multiple cores or distinct processors – 4 are recommended. 16 GB of RAM is usually adequate, but 20 GB may be needed for the most complex custom scenery packages. Likewise, highly detailed custom scenery can use as much as 4 GB of VRAM at the maximum settings."

You did not upload a log.txt so I'm not sure if you're seeing such low FPS with default scenery or perhaps highly detailed custom add ons. That makes a huge difference too.

commented by (13 points)
I will need to pull the log file and forward it.  I'm not at my Desktop machine at this time.  Will send the log this evening.

I have been constantly monitoring FPS by always displaying in the upper left screen corner the small window with various performance metrics, including the FPS rates.

Also there can be noticeable latency with flight controls versus aircraft path, perceived as jerky motion at times.  I have been using a Cessna C172 aircraft model.

Also, I have been testing using the 5 presets display configurations.  The 20-25 FPS occurs with the middle setting (Medium as I recall).

With the lowest display preset, FPS will reach 30 FPS or slightly higher.

At the 2nd from the lowest preset FPS will be mid to high 20's.

I will forward the log later when able.

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,

Ed Terry
commented by (27 points)

Ed here are comps your -vs- mine.  I notice that your disk is considerable slower, I'm using a SSD and have XP installed on one also.  BTW the 40-55 fps I get is with the FlightFactor 777 which uses about 3Gb of Vmem.  I just tried it with the 172 and it was about the same.

Comps
TestYouMine
PassMark Rating29783546
2D Baseline710762
3D Baseline30633883
Disk8481478

 

commented by (13 points)

Bill-

Attached are log files and screen shots with the different Rendering settings.  XP10 crashed a few times.

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,

Ed Terry

commented by (13 points)

Bill-

Restarted XP10 as Administrator.  There was no crash.

Attached are new log files, with complete information.

Thanks for your assistance.

Regards,

Ed Terry

 

 

 

 

commented by (13 points)

Bill-

A couple of days ago, I replaced the RadeonR9 270X video card with a nVidia Geforce GTX980:

 STRIX-GTX980-DC2OC-4GD5)

FPS has improved some;although, not as much as expected.XP10 does seem to run much smoother without the jerkiness observed with the R9 270X card. I will continue to investigate settings.  Perhaps my choice of the i7 5930X was not the best?

 

 

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