Toggling Dynamic Lighting

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Pete / John,

Dynamic Lighting at some airports imposes a significant hit on my frame rate. To get around the problem I have to bring up the menu and switch it off. I wondered if there was a command in P3D to do it but there isn't. Neither does a Toggle Dynamic Lighting appear in FSUIPC commands.

Is it possible to control this outside of the P3D menu? Having a button to toggle it on/off would be helpful. This is with P3D v4.5 but the same would apply to v5 too I imagine.

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Dynamic Lighting at some airports imposes a significant hit on my frame rate. To get around the problem I have to bring up the menu and switch it off. I wondered if there was a command in P3D to do it but there isn't. Neither does a Toggle Dynamic Lighting appear in FSUIPC commands.

Hi Ray,

I don't think there are any controls to change UI Menu settings. It would be nice to be able to change quite a lot of things 'on the fly' so that frame rates can be maintained automatically by changing items -- especially those controlled by sliders.

But in the case of Dynamic Lighting, why not just run with it disabled in any case. I know you don't fly at night, so what difference would you see?

I need it enabled because my Prosim model 738 needs it enabled. Luckily (I suppose) I've never noticed it affecting my frame rates particularly. But then i'm using P3Dv5 which gives me so much better performance than P3Dv4 that the hit (if there still is one) goes unnoticed.

Pete

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Pete,

Most of the time especially during daylight flights having it off is not  a problem. But during dusk and when flying some aircraft the enhanced effects it gives makes it desirable. And there are some ORBX airports like LEBB where even in daylight the DL option kills performance in UHD. It was for that airport where a toggle option would have been helpful instead of going into the menu.

Since I posted I've been doing some research and testing. The MSAA settings does have an appreciable effect on performance so I've switched it off as I never really saw any benefit running at 3840*2160 anyway. SSAA is even worse and I never used that. AA is also off for obvious reasons. Some flight deck lighting on certain aircraft has a big impact on the GPU so I'm avoiding using those. All this has been possible by using Riva Tuner RTSS which is great for monitoring performance.

[Pete Dowson]

1 hour ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

All this has been possible by using Riva Tuner RTSS which is great for monitoring performance.

Yes, but these days I'm using a utility by Thomas which is excellent, (but as yet unreleased). RTSS appears to give misleading measurements when using more than one 3D window.

Pete

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi Pete, I just checked RTSS against Task Manager / Performance and for a single display it's spot on. But for rich people with more than one it sounds ideal. 😁

I've found the culprit for stutters at Bilbao. I was testing using a 3rd party Learjet with nice cockpit lighting. It takes a real toll on DL. 10% extra with flight deck flood lighting on but the real killer is taxi and landing lights both required for take-off and landing because of the switch configuration. GPU usage goes from 64% (C&D) to 80% with instrument lighting on. Turn on taxi lights and it goes to 99% and fps drops below 30 with lots of stuttering. Add landing lights and it goes even worse with fps down to 21.

With them both on plus instrument lighting it pushes GPU to 100% which is where the stuttering starts. In comparison the PMDG737 with all lights on does max out at LEBB too but without changing anything switching to LEMD - a far bigger airport - has the GPU at just 65%. I'll write to the developer and ask if anything can be done to improve it.

[John Dowson]

@Ray Proudfoot Interesting! My usual test flights usually involve Bilbao (from/to/or via Asturias, Vitoria or Vigo) and I've never noticed an issue, though I only fly during daylight (no lights) and normally GA.

For the Dynamic Lighting issue, presumably SIMStarterNG also handles this, which I think you also use, no? But I guess that only handles the initial state, not changing during a session.
I've had SIMstarter a while now but not gotten around to setting it up yet (too much time developing rather than flying!), but was planning to use it to switch settings between flying in photo scenery vs autogen.

 

 

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

Hi John, the aircraft in question is Xtreme Prototype’s Learjet 25 from the 1970s. I tried another aircraft - Vertx Diamond DA62 - and the hit was far less. I didn’t set all lights on to run a full test but even looking at the GPU usage it was well down.

It appears to be a combination of 1) Bilbao, 2) XP Learjet 25 and 3) 3840*2160.

Remove any one of those and the problem disappears. This is in daytime, not dusk or night.

You can use SimStarterNG for the settings in P3D but as you say, it can’t change them on the fly. I’m sure there must be a reason why LM never gave us this option especially DL as it has such a profound impact on performance.

SimStarterNG is great for having different scenarios where you might want very different settings for each. I’ve used it since it was donation-ware. Very clever author.

[Pete Dowson]

3 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

I’m sure there must be a reason why LM never gave us this option especially DL as it has such a profound impact on performance.

What about the anti-aliasing options -- always a bigger performance difference for me, even one notch on each setting can make a big difference. Then there's shadows which have a stupid impact for me (so i always have them all off, though sometimes I could have some on at least)). And the LOD value (distance with detailed textures).

Of the performance settings it's really perhaps only the traffic slider that was made adjustable on the fly.

Pete

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

I conducted some tests earlier with AA at various settings to gauge the impact on GPU rather than fps as that is adjusted back to 30 by removing Ai in FSUIPC.

I was more concerned about trying to reduce the load on my 1080Ti. I’ll check shadows but this seems like one of those things where you could spend a lot of time tweaking to find the perfect settings. You’ll have far more leeway than I Pete.

Cloud shadows are worthwhile but not sure about building ones. Vehicles certainly not. LOD has only been an issue with Concorde in v3 but I had to keep than low for VAS purposes.

[Pete Dowson]

9 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Cloud shadows are worthwhile

Hmm. For me cloud shadows are the worst. Too dark. I makes my otherwise gorgeous TrueEarth or Orbx Europe scenery looks so dark on overcast days, really a waste of my nice wide screen and 4k projections!

Building shadows do make airports looks more realistic.

Pete

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

2 hours ago, Pete Dowson said:

Hmm. For me cloud shadows are the worst. Too dark. I makes my otherwise gorgeous TrueEarth or Orbx Europe scenery looks so dark on overcast days, really a waste of my nice wide screen and 4k projections!

Pete

Not in v4.5. 😁 They give it realism. I don't spend enough time at airports to think about building shadows.

[Ray Proudfoot]

When I land at Aerosoft Madrid Professional the instant the wheels touch the ground there is the most appalling series of stutters. It’s been like this for a while but I decided I’d had enough and investigated.

CPU1 is close to 100% so I loaded the LEMD utility and turned off all settings. All of them. Reloaded the flight 10 miles out and again, the same stutters on touch-down. CPU1 was still in the high 90s.

To cut a long story short only by turning off DL in P3D did the stutters cease. But this is in daytime with no DL options enabled at Madrid. There must be some code that is called on touchdown that is causing this. Crazy it has such an impact on performance.

Does the same happen in v5 in daytime flights with DL enabled in P3D. If it’s fixed it might be worth considering a switch. The alternative is not to have any taxi and landing lights illuminating the ground which takes away a degree of realism. Madrid seems alone in this problem. Maybe the airport is coded differently to other Mega Airports.

[Pete Dowson]

7 hours ago, Ray Proudfoot said:

Does the same happen in v5 in daytime flights with DL enabled in P3D.

I don't know. Might be a good question for the AVSIM forum -- not sure when I'll get time to fly to Madrid! Still doing ground testing mainly, with the the updates which I've been getting -- not just the P3D ones, but ProSim and its ancillaries, Active Sky and others. Also MSFS 'compulsory' updates which often mess stuff up we've done before.

But I've made a note to do some shorter flight llke Valencia to Madrid in the near future.

Pete

 

[Ray Proudfoot]

I'll raise it on AvSim although Aerosoft would be the more logical site. But given you can never speak to the developer that is probably a waste of time. If others confirm the problem with v4.5 but then say it doesn't occur with v5 that's food for thought.

Malaga or Bilbao to Madrid are also short hops. Malaga with northerly winds or Bilbao with southerly.  Try to get some flying time in Pete inbetween the updates! 😁