The A2A Simulations Community

It has to be said that the cub is a very impressive and enjoyable fsx model. I do however seem to have a problem with frame rates. Flying the cub seems to result in frame rates that are around 75-50% of, for example, a Real Air Citabria. This means that over complex Orbx areas like Coffs Harbour, the frame rate is struggling to exceed 20. This is using a Q9550 quad overclocked to 4Ghz on a 1920 x 1200 screen. Lowering the autogen sliders, etc. does not make a difference. Is there anything that would improve the frame rate?

On my system it is due to the 4096 textures on the Cub. You can download a paint with 1024 textures (Jigsaw has uploaded one). That will definitely help you frames, plus it will give your pc more resources to render the terrain textures (sharper terrain).

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Absolutely nothing wrong with 20 FPS anywhere in the sim world, in my opinion.
There are those who judge their simulator's performance by the number of frames.
If you are constantly chasing framer rates, you have a never ending quest. Stop
and enjoy the sim experience.

If the scenery if flowing smoothly, then frame rates are likely sufficient. Frames rates,
in excess of 20, only gives you bragging rights. I use a laptop with 2.1gig duo-core,
3 gig ram and with FTX scenery and the cub my rates are from 10 to 20, however, the
scenery flow is smooth, so it does not matter if the rates drop to 6 or 8 for a second or
two, my simming experience is not ruined.
Danny

I generally aim for a locked 25 (usually achieveable). This is not so much in respect of scenery flow, but rather in smoothness and accuracy of the planes response. Since the cub feels like it is a very good sim of the real thing, I'd like to get the frame rates up a little to remove some of the hestitation from the flight controls. Anyway, I'm going to try one of the 1024 texture repaints and see if that makes a difference.

The problem with locking the framerate is that it lowers the performance in general. Meaning: in scenes where you would usually get 30fps or even more you only get 15-20 when locking to 25 fps, for example.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

I don't understand why so many run with locked framerate - For me the sim is much smoother with unlimited (using Windows 7 x64).

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My personal rule of thumb is:
-if I have low fps (25 or less), I unlock fps, because it gives me several extra frames.
-if I have too many fps (40 or more), I lock fps, because of stuttering.

Speaking about Cub, I find it very frame friendly, on par with default Cessna 172. However I have relatively new GPU (nVidia GTX 275 896MB) and fast CPU (Core 2 Quad @3,5 GHz) and never seen lower frame rates with 4096 textures on my rig. I have REX and don't see any performance hit when using HD clouds.
Your mileage may vary.

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Mike Krawczyk

No obvious difference with 4096 textures...

Daft thing is my intention when I started out with FSX was to learn to fly, theory and practice, as much as possible within the confines of the simulator, but I spend far too much time tinkering with addon software (currently networking ASA onto a second PC) and hardware! I should just take the cub to a nice quite airfield and fly from there AND concentrate on the flying (there is a limit to what can be fitted in around work after all).

Still haven't made my mind up over the locked / unlocked issue - though have been trying out the latter quite a bit of late.

But if 20FPS or 25FPS is offering a smooth flight, then you would have lost NO performance. You look at the numer of frames as a measure of performance and in so doing, are always trying to 'improve' your performance. I and others, look at the smoothness of the sim. We learned long ago that chasing FPS is an endless quest. I got the sim running smooth and never (rarely ever) look at the FPS because that number is meaningless, unless I want to brag to someone what my fps is.
Danny

Let me rephrase that: in scenes where I get a smooth impression of flying when set to unlimited, I get a jerky and stuttery impression of flying when locking the framerate regardless of the actual fps number. I just used the framerate numbers to put the subjective impression of visual graphics in text form that others can read objectivly, in order to document the loss of performance (and a lower average performance means that it hits the unplayable bottom in peak situations). I never use the FPS counter when flying. But when I notice stutters and jerky performance I sometime check the fps counter in order to have empirical data that proves that I'm not just imagining things but that there actually is a performance loss.

All I wanted to say is this: at autogen heavy locations like big cities I get smooth flying when I set the framerate to unlimited. But when I lock the framerate I get much, much, much worse performance, close to the unplayable. Or in other words: the performance with locked framerate is far worse than it should be, because it stays way (and noticeably!) below the locked framerate even though the performances surpasses that of the locked framerate when set to unlimited. The logical thing to expect would be that the performance levels out at exactly the locked framerate, but it doesn't. This is something that should be kept in mind when locking the framerate. It has an actual effect on the quality of flying not just on the numbers. I hope you understand now what I was on about. It was about a huge and noticable loss of performance when locking the framerate and not just about feeble bragging numbers.

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Happy Landings
- Patrick

The "best of both worlds" solution for me has been to set frames at unlimited, then launch FSX via the FPS Limiter tool (details here) with the limiter set at a cap of 30. With other settings tuned, I get a smooth 30 FPS in rural areas and a smooth 20-25 FPS in most others. Worth checking out.

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i7 3770k (de-lidded) @ 4.8 GHz | XSPC custom water cooling | 16GB GSkill Trident DDR3 2400 @ 10-12-12-31 | EVGA GTX 680, Forceware 310.90 | Windows 7 64 | PFC Beech Yoke and Throttle Quadrant | Rainman helicopter controls | Nick N tuning

My frames have not been negatively affected while using this aircraft. I have my FPS set at unlimited and usually hover around the 55-75 range and have reached into the 100's with specific view points. I did try to lock the FPS around 80 FPS and saw the FPS numbers hold between that 55-75 range but are more consistent.


My specs-

E8400
9800GTX+
4 GB RAM
Vista 64 Bit
(No tweaks or alterations to FSX)

I personally have locked my frames at 20FPS and find that makes for a smooth flying environment. I cannot speak for the Cub as I do not own it (yet). I would say it really comes down to how you tweak your PC as much as what you have inside the box. I have been on both sides of the fence, and have noticed that you can have a blazing fast PC. Without the proper tweaking of the graphics settings and fsx.cfg file the game may still stutter though. I cannot offer a one for all cure to this. This is the tutorial I have used to tune both of the FSX computers I have had: http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_p ... 29041&PN=1 . While it seems extremely complex on the surface once I actually did it I realized it wasn't to hard after all. There are always plenty of helpful people in the community that are willing to help you try to get the most out of your system.

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S Jordan
Milviz Staff Member
AM; United States Navy
FSX Hours: 2000 and counting

Agreed - Nick N(eedham)'s guide is superb. I relied on it and it got me great results. He provide great guidance on OS tuning as well.

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i7 3770k (de-lidded) @ 4.8 GHz | XSPC custom water cooling | 16GB GSkill Trident DDR3 2400 @ 10-12-12-31 | EVGA GTX 680, Forceware 310.90 | Windows 7 64 | PFC Beech Yoke and Throttle Quadrant | Rainman helicopter controls | Nick N tuning

Sadly, on my system at least, I can confirm that the cub is a framerate hog. There are models that are, and models that aren't. It does not seem to relate to level of detail or sophistication.

E.g.

Good framerates:
o Realair Scout Package, Spitfire.
o Anything Carenado
o Lotus Albatross

Poor framerates:
o Cub
o Just Flight Tigermoth
o Digital aviation Katana