Improved Performance in 4.5, but more freezes

[connormcc15]

Hi FredK

No I haven't seen your post on P3Dv4.5 and CPU Core Performance Observations. Do you mind directing me to it please

Regards

Connor

https://www.prepar3d.com/forum/viewtopi ... 2&t=134097

Long post, but the bottom-line point is that with the latest versions of P3D I am seeing 100% loading across all 12 cores of my system. I do not remember ever seeing that kind of utilization in earlier versions of P3D where CPU utilization across cores was restricted.

So, it is nice to see that there is improved core utilization on one hand, but on the other hand I am seeing much slower loading of scenery. It is totally counter of what you would expect. So is something amiss as to how it is supposed to work?

No comments from LM about it as yet.

Hi FredK

Thanks for the link. I agree The scenery I think is loading much slower in P3Dv4.5 hotfix

Regards
Connor

[downscc]

I don't think LM is going to comment on this because there is nothing they can say, this is not a new issue with v4.5 at least for me since I've seen it in all v4 versions and it is definitely has to do with loading scenery objects and my 'long frames' can last up to 15 sec. This is with an 8700K at 4.8GHz and 2x 1080Ti SLI.

This has nothing to do with core loading; rather, I believe it to be a problem with the code structure that forces lots of I/O causing the long frame. Based on comments from Orbx developer that gave us Orlando Cityscape, I think LM and Orbx on working on this but if so they have been working on it since before Orlando was release when current P3D was v4.4.

I really don't expect a fix for this any time soon, which is why I don't think LM will comment.

[JorgenSA]

Basically, the more scenery and AI you add to the system, the longer the load times will be.

And Dan is right, neither ORBX nor L-M will say anything about any fixes until they are ready - or nearly ready, when they are certain something will work. Indeed, they CANNOT say anything, because if they did, and no fix came anyway, then they had set false expectations, which is about the worst things you can do, and one of the first things you learn NOT TO DO when you start working in tech support.

Jorgen

[TomazDrnovsek]

Same issue here.

[aua668]

Hi,

Is there anyone of LM reading this topic? A statement, that you are able to reproduce the long frames, would be at least a good message to the users affected.Because if you see the problem, you can address it.

Yesterday I did a flight from LOWL to EDDN (29palms scenery). The whole flight with the full Orbx product portfolio was totally smooth. And before the airport came in sight, the sim hangs for some endless seconds and the scenery is obviously loaded although not yet visible. And afterwards everything down until to the parking position was smooth again. While it's fine and necessary, that scenery is pre-loaded, it would be good to do this with low priority in the background and not fully blocking the simulation. Please search for improvements.

Rgds
Reinhard

[JorgenSA]

You can be absolute certain that the L-M support team reads every single post in these forums.

Since you mention that you have ORBX, have you then verified with ORBX that the products you use from them are fully compatible with P3D v. 4.5?

Jorgen

[downscc]

You can be absolute certain that the L-M support team reads every single post in these forums.

Since you mention that you have ORBX, have you then verified with ORBX that the products you use from them are fully compatible with P3D v. 4.5?

Jorgen

Jorgen, I take it from your question that you do not have Orbx products? Be assured, they are P3Dv4.5 compatible. One cannot put the blame for the long frames that are the main topic of this thread on anyone but LM.

[JorgenSA]

You are correct in that I do not have any ORBX products, but I distinctly remember from a thread on here that when v. 4.5 came out, ORBX was mentioned as one of the manufacturers that had issues with the compatibility.

Jorgen

[downscc]

You are correct in that I do not have any ORBX products, but I distinctly remember from a thread on here that when v. 4.5 came out, ORBX was mentioned as one of the manufacturers that had issues with the compatibility.

Jorgen

I had no such issue, and don't recall that there were a number of reports. Keep in mind that if there are two full moons in a month people will find that it is causing a problem with their computer.

[aua668]

Hi,

I did a fresh install with V4. And I did install only addons, which explicitly confirmed, that they are P3D V4 compatible. What's really annoying is, that you can fly over scenery with all graphic details very high and the simulator is loading new scenery elements smooth and the whole flight from take-off until parking is so smooth. Bettr than ever. But only when you come in th vincinity of more complex addon airports, the loading is done with such a high priority, that the sim freezes for some seconds. Once this is done you can continue until parking at the airport again without any stutters. And btw it doesn't matter, which developer made the airport. It's the complexity and number of objects, which influences the length of the freeze.

And again: If this loading could be don in the background we never will see the slow loading, as this happens in a distance, where you typically are not seeing the airport.

It obviously has to do with the priority you give loading such addons compared to the running sim processes.

Rgds and thanks for taking care for this issue.
Reinhard

[JorgenSA]

Reinhard,

It also has something to do with your installation. If P3D itself and your add-ons are on the same drive, the drive read accesses needed to keep P3D running and load the add-on at the same time will interfere with each other, it is simply unavoidable. Even when using SSDs you will have that issue, the "lagging" will just be less noticable than with a HDD. For this reason I am actually contemplating getting a separate SSD for my add-ons (both scenery and AI), and, as my RAM is 2133 MHz DDR4, I also need to get at least 3200 MHz RAM.

Jorgen

[Bill721]

I'm having the same issue also.

[downscc]

Reinhard,

It also has something to do with your installation. If P3D itself and your add-ons are on the same drive, the drive read accesses needed to keep P3D running and load the add-on at the same time will interfere with each other, it is simply unavoidable. Even when using SSDs you will have that issue, the "lagging" will just be less noticable than with a HDD. For this reason I am actually contemplating getting a separate SSD for my add-ons (both scenery and AI), and, as my RAM is 2133 MHz DDR4, I also need to get at least 3200 MHz RAM.

Jorgen

Jorgen, I have all my addon sceneries on a separate SSD from P3D and I have 3600 MHz DRAM so I can make the counter point that it has nothing to do with your installation. One still experiences long frames regardless of installation.

[JorgenSA]

Good point, Dan. I wrote that posting, because I had seen this on flightsim.com:

https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthre ... -SSD/page2

Look about in the middle of the thread posted to see an explanation of the I/O operations going on.

Jorgen

[downscc]

Exactly, it is that huge amount of I/O calls being driven by loading scenery objects that seems to be related to long frames. I can see this instantly by displaying the little activity window for I/O and the one for CPU in the task bar and see I/O go to high levels when the animation is frozen.

However, I have Orbx on a separate drive from the OS and P3D (using a symbolic link as recommended by Orbx) and I still see this excessive I/O activity. My complaint to LM is that the processes on-going with the simulation platform should not have to wait for an I/O process to complete. They've got a bunch of legacy code from the earliest MSFS days that they need to replace.