Ultimate Smoothness at Modest Frame Rates

[teletom 98]

Thanks Noel, good information.
If I find time I'll give it a try.

But for the moment I will stick with my LG C1 screen set to 30Hz refresh rate, gives me (in my opinion) the same result in regards to "smoothness".

Edited December 29, 2022 by teletom

[CarlosF 1,266]

I would label a 1070 modest hardware, but not a 3080TI. Anyways, thanks for the post, quite informative.

Edited December 29, 2022 by CarlosF

[Republic3D 1,236]

Thanks for the post Noel, information like this deserves it's own thread.
I think I will try some of these options to see if it makes a difference on my system, where the CPU is the weakest link in the chain. 
Perhaps Project Lasso would be of benefit to me, but I'm kind of curious to see if someone else will try with an AMD CPU and see the results.
As far as I understand, you're saying the last core will be the one MSFS uses by default? On my 5900X it would be core 11?

[Noel 4,595]

2 hours ago, teletom said:

gives me (in my opinion) the same result in regards to "smoothness".

That's what I thought, for years.  But this is in its own class which is why I went to pains to describe it.  How can you get the same result w/o trying this first?  My default in P3D was 30Hz/30fps.  Then it was 60Hz/30fps via in-sim Vsync in MSFS for years, yes two years to be exact!   

23 minutes ago, Republic3D said:

As far as I understand, you're saying the last core will be the one MSFS uses by default? On my 5900X it would be core 11?

I don't know for AMD but I think it's true for all Intel.  Easy for you to tell just observe all cores in action and as mentioned Process Lasso does this as well.  Also, there will be some core processes that don't let you assign an affinity per se.  It's also easy to group select them all except MSFS and change affinity to all but the main thread core, and make one big change.  Also, after it initializes w/ your settings you can shut it down and the affinities/priorities/I/O stick until you reboot--but if you shut MSFS down, you have to reboot as MSFS doesn't launch when PL has run.  May be a work around to that just don't know what it is.

Edited December 29, 2022 by Noel

[Mace 1,984]

3 hours ago, Noel said:

Well it's now 3y/o, compared to RTX 4000 series with its frame generation, and I9-12900 or 13900, or 7950x3D and those folks can brute force their way to Nirvana but very fortunately it's not necessary (for the conditions I'm addressing, not for VR, etc).

But...but...I've had ultimate smoothness and no stutters for about 3+ years now.  In both P3D starting with 4.4 and in MSFS.

Is my memory foggy?  I thought you have had good results with certain fps limits for a long time, not just recently.  "But not like this!", you exclaim...well, maybe not I answer.  But what you're doing now is what you've done for a while, isn't it?

You were right to change the thread title.  Too many people get fixated on a certain FPS and if they do that it won't help them obtain smoothness.  If someone limits fps they should do it intelligently as you have by knowing what their hardware can do with sim settings + complex airplane + complex airport + AI -- if that's 30, 40, 50, 60, 100 fps it doesn't matter, same principles apply.  If the settings are too high for the hardware (a very common thing, we've all done it) then the results will be subpar.   The good thing is, MSFS looks great to my eyes even at the lower settings like a sub-100 TLOD, which yes I've experimented with on my current highly cpu-bound rig.

[Noel 4,595]

4 minutes ago, Mace said:

But...but...I've had ultimate smoothness and no stutters for about 3+ years now.  In both P3D starting with 4.4 and in MSFS.

Is my memory foggy?  I thought you have had good results with certain fps limits for a long time, not just recently.  "But not like this!", you exclaim...well, maybe not I answer.  But what you're doing now is what you've done for a while, isn't it?

I thought I did too, have ultimate smoothness, and really largely thought I did.  It was certainly very good.  About 2 months ago I began having different new issues w/ performance that lead to a complete Win 10 install, which did not help in fact a new source of hard pauses began then as well which took some troubleshooting to solve, but that is a separate issue.  I wrote about it then and went on a quest to see if perfection was possible and became totally jazzed when I learned about RTSS's approach which is unique to other methods in terms of generating ultra low FTV.   No other methods tried generate this and I believe this is why the difference.

But the fluidity at low frame rates now is unsurpassed significantly, and as a bonus I have no, is what I would call perfect no matter what the scenario, paning, turning, etc.  It wasn't bad before by any stretch, but it was hardly perfect, and I began becoming focused on getting perfect animation everywhere, hence the excitement.  So yes, it's only been a couple of months now in total.

 

 

 

[Bartul 51]

I tried to follow the tips but got stuck on the first step: I couldn't find g-sync option to check on Nvidia panel! Went all over the internet, tryed all possible tips, but to no avail. So i quit, thinking it was my monitor...

Than - what are the chances - I overheard a talk about video cards where a guy was saying that in order to activate g-sync, you need to have your monitor connected using display port. HDMI won't work!

Sure enough, my monitor was connected using HDMI. When I used display port cable, the option to activate g sync appeared on Nvidia panel.

Maybe it'll help save some time or nerves to someone...

[somiller 694]

"RTSS Framerate Limiter w/ Edge Sync w/ Passive Waiting enabled"

I have the same version of RTSS as shown in your pics, but I don't see where one can turn on/enable "Edge Sync" or "Passive Waiting".

Can you please provide detail on how to do this?

EDIT:

Ah, found those settings...but do you use front edge sync or back edge sync?

Thanks!

[f.skywalker 28]

@Noel

Hello Noel,
I also use PL.
Can you attach a picture of your settings in the PL to me, how you did the distribution of the cores.
I also use the Intel 9900K.
I am interested in how the cores for the MSFS are and how you have configured other addons. (FSTL.........)

Many thanks from EDDM
Frank

Edited December 30, 2022 by f.skywalker

[hvw 419]

1 hour ago, f.skywalker said:

Can you attach a picture of your settings in the PL to me, how you did the distribution of the cores.

For me as well, please? This would be a great addition to your excellent post. Thanks a lot.

[turbomax 3,413]

16 hours ago, Noel said:

It's a slouch compared to RTX 4090, or 4060, or what have you with its Frame Generation and massive VRAM--just go ask the guys who bought one!

I agree, got a lousy 4090 for Christmas because I confess I was too lazy for all those optimisation experiments. Enjoying my new 100 fps without doing anything else, I am done with tuning or overclocking, once and for all (until next round of 7000x3D CPUs next month)😊. Will be interesting to see if/what fps increase this process lasso thingamajig can still provide. I fly mostly VR so Gsync/Vsync is no option. now back to FrameGeneration "nirvana" or is it already Shangrila?

Edited December 30, 2022 by turbomax

[Ohmsquare 102]

17 hours ago, Noel said:

I hope this helps others it's been an absolutely astonishing finding and has made all flights a joy.  I tried all other methods to get here and none match this.  I'll not be upgrading my hardware anytime soon! 

Just out of curiosity, do you use head tracking? Unfortunately I have found that 33-34 FPS is generally too low for that and too far from anything that could be called smooth, regardless of the frame time variance achieved (even using RivaTuner with the tweaks in the OP) . 

 

[Luis Hernandez 622]

5 hours ago, f.skywalker said:

Hello Noel,
I also use PL.

Hello @Noel, I liked your post even before reading it, because I had already read earlier posts from you, and started applying your RTSS settings. In my case, the magical number is somewhere between 32 and 36 FPS (1/4 of my max refresh rate in my Freesync monitor). In P3D works beautifully (because I can set affinity masks in the CFG), but I'm still trying to make it work in MSFS. I'm also interested in your Process Lasso settings. 

[Bartul 51]

We all are! 🙃🤓

[Fiorentoni 4,561]

Hour-long analysis of the system, tweaks over tweaks based on borderline anectdotical evidence, Process Lasso... is this the P3D forum? Is it 2019 all over again? Will I have to go thorugh 2 years of covid-19 again?

Two days ago I installed XPL 12 just for checking it out (issued a refund after that) and found it was on maximum graphics settings not only
1) half as good looking as MSFS, but also
2) had half as much framerates, literally.

MSFS is so incredibly well optimized that any further generalized tweaking (mind: not system-specific problems like faulty hardware or a faulty driver etc.) is as sensible as pouring snakeoil over your GPU.