Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler - Frames drop near clouds (Help needed!)

Delta Virtual Airlines Water Cooler | PC Support | Frames drop near clouds (Help needed!)

DVA3382
Senior Captain, B717-200
OLP, COMM

Joined on July 26 2006
Event Half Century Club
50 State Club
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"Go For Launch"
Houston, TX

3,439 legs, 9,084.9 hours
720 legs, 1,205.6 hours online
3,377 legs, 8,925.7 hours ACARS
61 legs, 145.0 hours event
0 legs dispatched, 6.1 hours

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 14:13 ET by Ryan Daugherty

Basically, I've gotten to the point where I can no longer fly with any sort of clouds in the vicinity. Currently, I'm running AS6.5 with the REX for FS9 textures (Wx engine is disabled in REX). The frames drop to sub 15fps, and landing is almost like watching a slide show...

My current system:
3.00Ghz Core2Duo E8400
Gigabyte GA-73PVM-S2H Motherboard
4GB Corsair DDR2 (XP only seeing 3GB)
nVidia GeForce 8500GT 512MB DDR2

What could be causing the slowdown in frames near any sort of clouds? What could I upgrade without spending too much (I'm a college student trying to pay for flight training wink

) I know I don't have the top of the line, fastest components, but I'd like to think I'm on the higher side of the medium end of the spectrum... I know the video card isn't the greatest, but I've never had these sorts of issues in the past. Frankly, I'm just tired of having to fly clear-skies all the time because of the "slide show effect". Any idea would greatly appreciated (I just want to get back into the skies with real weather! smile

)!!

Thanks for taking the time to read this,
Ryan

Ryan Daugherty

Senior Captain, B717-200

DVA6399
Captain, B777-200

Joined on December 19 2007
Century Club

Tel Aviv, Israel Israel

152 legs, 596.5 hours
73 legs, 346.6 hours online
141 legs, 549.6 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 14:28 ET by Jeff Popoviz

Don't you use a Macbook for Flightsim?

The videocard is holding your system back. You could try a GTS 250 for only $150.

Jeff Popoviz (DVA6399)

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 17:14 ET by Ryan Daugherty

Currently, no, I am not using the MBP for flight sim. It is my day-to-day computer since I've moved into a bigger place and could afford the space for the desktop.

I'll check into it! Thanks!

RD

Ryan Daugherty

Senior Captain, B717-200

DVA5929
Senior Captain, B747-400
OLP

Joined on May 10 2008
Million Mile Club
Online Quadruple Century Club
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Globetrotter
Six Century Club
50 State Club
DVA Ten-Year Anniversary

"It's buried under a big W!"
TX USA

651 legs, 3,806.1 hours
472 legs, 2,922.9 hours online
565 legs, 3,319.5 hours ACARS
8 legs, 18.9 hours event

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 18:39 ET by Nicholas Carpenter

This probably isn't the advice you are looking for, but I can run a reasonable amount of weather with a standard computer equipment from the year 2000 (yes, my computer is that old, and worked through several previously in a customer services department). My only upgrades were an Nvidia GeForce 7300 graphics card and 1GB of ram up from 512 mb. In other words, maybe you should just turn your settings down, and that doesn't cost anything. Sorry if this isn't what you are looking for.

Nicholas Carpenter

Senior Captain, B747-400

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 19:14 ET by Ryan Daugherty

I'm looking for any advice I can get at this point. smile

I appreciate your input very much!

I would, however, like it to look as good as I can for what it is. I'm not looking for a complete overhaul, maybe a part or two... Or maybe I'm just missing a setting somewhere that is killing my frame rates. I think anything will help right now!

Thanks Nick!
RD

Ryan Daugherty

Senior Captain, B717-200

DVA7373
Captain, B757-200
OLP

Joined on May 31 2009

"Howdy"
Southeastern United States

72 legs, 187.6 hours
32 legs, 85.4 hours online
67 legs, 153.2 hours ACARS
2 legs, 3.1 hours event

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 19:25 ET by Nicholas Taylor

Overclock.

Nicholas Taylor

Captain, B757-200

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 19:31 ET by Ryan Daugherty

Nicholas Taylor wrote:

Overclock.

How will that provide better frames around clouds, if it is the video card holding it back (apparently)?

RD

Ryan Daugherty

Senior Captain, B717-200

DVA4295
Captain, B767-300

Joined on April 05 2007
Online Century Club
Double Century Club

Stratford, CT USA

212 legs, 397.9 hours
194 legs, 368.4 hours online
190 legs, 356.7 hours ACARS
3 legs, 6.7 hours event
19 legs dispatched, 10.0 hours

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 19:45 ET by John Alusik

You can overclock video cards, my ATI card does it and I believe even some of the older ones do as well. It also could be that your video driver is screwed up. One of the experiences I had is that the Nvidia drivers don't like to be overwritten, you best bet is to completely uninstall the driver and reinstall the latest one, see if that helps.

John Alusik

Captain, B767-300

DVA7702
Captain, B747-400

Joined on August 25 2009

"If it ain't Boeing, I'm not going!"
Scandinavia

75 legs, 174.7 hours
41 legs, 104.7 hours online
61 legs, 131.4 hours ACARS
7 legs, 19.5 hours event

Posted onPost created on May 31 2010 20:51 ET by Tommy Hansen

You can blame videocard all you want, but if one doesn't have enough CPU power(speed), videocard will NOT solve any problems with performance(FPS).
FS is not like other games on pc, who need a good videocard for performance.
So, overclock, or resize cloud textures or tweak settings i AS is my advice.

Tommy Hansen (DVA7702)

DVA7338
Captain, B747-400
E-MAIL

Joined on May 17 2009

"Thou shalt maintain thy airspeed."
Faridabad, Haryana India

60 legs, 151.3 hours
49 legs, 135.1 hours online
58 legs, 145.2 hours ACARS

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 15:20 ET by Gurmeet Arora

1. Do not run REX and ActiveSky together. Probably that is the case. Just be sure.
2. Use lower textures in REX for clouds. Use 256 instead of 512.
3. Use the settings (bottom of Options page in REX) to a lower computer configuration (something on the lines of single core).
4. Try and avoid multi layered clouds if possible. Use single layer and increase the column height.
5. Do not fly at same Flight level as clouds. Try and fly significantly over or under them.
6. If you can and make sense, try switching from Cumulus type of clouds to Cirrus type of clouds.
7. (Important) Decrease the cloud draw distance and sight distance.
8. Decrease the percentage of 3D clouds.
9. Decrease MIP (Hardware Page in FS).
10. Close to the airport exit from Active sky. The destination weather by this time is already locked, so weather shouldn't change.

Get nHancer (for NVidia Cards) and try and optimize settings. The settings are available on some search in the cooler and all across the web.

Remove un-nessecary services (atleast while simming) and close unnecessary programs. Keep you hard drive clean and defragmented.

Report back.

DVA1763
Senior Captain, B757-200

Joined on June 29 2004
Everett 250 Club
Online Six Century Club
Seven Century Club
DVA Twenty-Year Anniversary

Oklahoma City, OK

723 legs, 2,015.0 hours
645 legs, 1,824.0 hours online
585 legs, 1,608.7 hours ACARS
10 legs, 44.8 hours event
740 legs, 2,044.9 hours total

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 15:34 ET by Steve Pickle

Get a nForce 790i x 2GB DDR3 RAM. It'll support your CPU and GPU.

Steve Pickle (DVA1763)

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 17:37 ET by Ryan Daugherty

Gurmeet, I run the Active Sky Wx engine and REX textures (REX is not opened at the same time). I have had nHancer for quite a while and have optimized from NickN's settings.

Thanks everybody!! I appreciate all your input and will try to get something figured out.

RD

Ryan Daugherty

Senior Captain, B717-200

DVA7692
Captain, B767-300

Joined on August 25 2009
Online Century Club
Double Century Club

Charlottesville, VA USA

258 legs, 434.1 hours
194 legs, 288.0 hours online
249 legs, 418.5 hours ACARS
38 legs, 67.6 hours event

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 18:37 ET by Arthur Johne

Gurmeet Arora wrote:

7. (Important) Decrease the cloud draw distance and sight distance.

^^He's right, this is important. I had the same problem you did. I use both ActiveSky 6.5 and REX together. Make sure to reduce visibility and distance to the lowest setting in both AS and FS. It may blur the clouds (farther away) in a not so pretty way, but in this case performance > looks.

Arthur Johne (DVA7692)

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 18:49 ET by John Alusik

I believe that the point that is being forgotten is the fact that this problem never happened before..... changing settings might treat the problem, but there could still be an underlying issue, I would also check to see if there is an excessive amount of dust in your system.

John Alusik

Captain, B767-300

Posted onPost created on June 01 2010 18:55 ET by Tommy Hansen

Good idea John, like I posted in another thread here: http://www.deltava.org/thread.do?id=0x16690

Tommy Hansen (DVA7702)

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