jumping frame rates

[jimandgail32148]

while flying my frame rate will be about 55 for 2 seconds, then drop to 15 for a second, just keeps doing this all the time. scenery doesn't matter can be blue sky just keeps jumping. I have a radeon 5700 graphics card, windows 7, solid state hard hard, 8 g ram, i7 processor. any help would be great.

[jandjfrench]

Hi,

By maximizing your scenery settings in highly detailed areas the frame rate should drop below 55 and by minimizing the settings it should be substantially higher. As you've provided no info as to any software modifications it's hard to do anything but guess as to what's causing the variation. Some of the info provided in these so called "bibles" can cause problems like this and as there's nothing in them that's currently worthwhile, make sure your FSX.cfg hasn't been tweaked. I have my system limited to 30fps so I can't rule out that what your seeing is not normal for your particular system/settings.

I strongly recommend using a utility to limit any background tasks from running. I use the freeware version of Advanced SystemCare's Turbo Mode. You want to ensure that an OS problem is not the cause of what you're seeing.

Limiting the frame rate to 30 and seeing if the drop to 15 still happens might provide a clue as to what's going on.

[ScatterbrainKid]

I've always kept my framerate setting on 'Unlimited' and it works fine because I think it gives my PC more elbow room to strut its stuff. Anyway i never did fully understand why we should want to limit the setting to lower fps.

[PhantomTweak]

Because the human eye/brain combo can't see much better than 30FPS (prepare for the flames on that one!). That's why American Television is set at 60 FPS. They only render 1/2 the frame at a time, though, then blank the screen and render the other half. 60 FPS, but only 30, really.

If you limit your framerate to 30-ish it permits the CPU, which does most of the work in MSFS's, to utilize more clock pulses to actually do the calculations for flying the plane, and less trying to force more frames to render, to make eyecandy. In other words, your eye/brain won't "see" a difference much above 30, but the planes will work better and smoother overall.

THAT is why they recommend limiting the frame-rate to about 30. Again, though, it's what YOU want out of the Sim. Accurate flight performance in a smooth, well calculated manner, or lots and lots of scenery to look at. Or anything in between. Entirely personal preference.

However you choose to use it, enjoy what you do!

Pat☺

[MrUnSavory]

The Human eye can detect much more then 30 frames. If you are going to through out statistics like this at least have some facts to back it up.

 

Here are the real facts. If you don't believe this ask an eye doctor. This 30FPS myth needs to die.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7199031187

[loki]

The Human eye can detect much more then 30 frames. If you are going to through out statistics like this at least have some facts to back it up.

 

Here are the real facts. If you don't believe this ask an eye doctor. This 30FPS myth needs to die.

 

http://us.battle.net/wow/en/forum/topic/7199031187

 

Yep, it really does need to die. 30 FPS is about the point at which motion becomes smooth, but that doesn't mean we can't see higher frame rates. I could never use old CRT monitors unless the refresh rate was over 75 Hz because of the flickering when redrawing the image on the screen (LCDs are fine at 60 Hz as they work differently).

 

As most flying in a flight sim is done at a relatively slow pace, 30 FPS is fine for many people. Racing sims and shooters, on the other hand, benefit greatly from faster frame rates.

[jandjfrench]

Hi,

30FPS is not a myth The average person will begin to perceive a flicker if the frame rate is much below this. That's why when displaying a motion picture that was filmed at 24fps each image is projected twice before the next image is displayed. With 8mm film it's 16fps and thrice.

It's apples and oranges comparing frames per second and the ability to perceive a brief flash of light. Nothing to get up about.

[loki]

Hi,

30FPS is not a myth The average person will begin to perceive a flicker if the frame rate is much below this. That's why when displaying a motion picture that was filmed at 24fps each image is projected twice before the next image is displayed. With 8mm film it's 16fps and thrice.

It's apples and oranges comparing frames per second and the ability to perceive a brief flash of light. Nothing to get up about.

 

The myth in question is that people cannot see or detect more than 30 FPS. People can see more than this, and in some cases it is very desirable to have your sim or game running with higher frame rates. Movies and TV shows work differently than computer games and applications, as you note and also use techniques such as motion blur to give the impression of smooth motion. Although some recent movies have been filmed at higher frame rates, and the difference is very noticeable.

 

It's fine for people to be happy with 30 FPS, which is often perfectly okay for a flight sim. The justification just shouldn't be based on something that isn't true.

[dogdish]

"Your eyes can physiologically transmit data that quickly and your eyes/brain working together can interpret up to 1000 frames per second."

 

Guess I better get working on bumping up my frame rate :D

[evm]

Because the human eye/brain combo can't see much better than 30FPS (prepare for the flames on that one!). That's why American Television is set at 60 FPS. They only render 1/2 the frame at a time, though, then blank the screen and render the other half. 60 FPS, but only 30, really.

If you limit your framerate to 30-ish it permits the CPU, which does most of the work in MSFS's, to utilize more clock pulses to actually do the calculations for flying the plane, and less trying to force more frames to render, to make eyecandy. In other words, your eye/brain won't "see" a difference much above 30, but the planes will work better and smoother overall.

THAT is why they recommend limiting the frame-rate to about 30. Again, though, it's what YOU want out of the Sim. Accurate flight performance in a smooth, well calculated manner, or lots and lots of scenery to look at. Or anything in between. Entirely personal preference.

However you choose to use it, enjoy what you do!

Pat☺

 

Personally I don't think this should be generalized, it depends on your hardware setup. If you are sitting still in front of a single monitor, without things like TrackIR and/or EZDOK, this might be OK, but on more complex setups like mine (triple full HD with TrackIR and EZDOK) a target of 30-33 FPS is not enough. Every drop in FPS is very noticable as the head movement is no longer smooth, and there is a lot of movement going with this combo. I guess this will become even worse with VR headsets. If I don't want to get a headache, I have to aim at the highest possible FPS, just to make sure that I have enough leeway for the FPS to drop every now and then.

[evm]

while flying my frame rate will be about 55 for 2 seconds, then drop to 15 for a second, just keeps doing this all the time. scenery doesn't matter can be blue sky just keeps jumping. I have a radeon 5700 graphics card, windows 7, solid state hard hard, 8 g ram, i7 processor. any help would be great.

 

Is the timing consistent? You might want to look at background processes on your machine, like AntiVirus or some system optimizing tool. For example, I once had this effect when I installed the Asus suite on a new system. One of those supposed "helper" programs caused exactly what you describe, because it kept scanning the network hardware and CPU states in regular intervals.

[Captain Vodka]

Whatever the opinion is regarding what the mk1 eyeball can see..personally I have 30fps ..why??

 

Because my screen refresh rate is 60hz. And whatever bollocks you hear about peeps having ludicrous fps..130fps etc. ..The fact is your fps will NEVER be greater than the screen refresh rate. If your refresh rate is 60hz set your fps to 30. It will give you the smoothest rate second only to 60.if you have 100hz set to 50fps etc. I set to half value of the scene rate.

 

If your seeing stuttering it's more down to lack of allocated cpu power to the maths of fsx .set a good balanced fps and let your cpu take the strain.

[btwallis]

I've always kept my framerate setting on 'Unlimited' and it works fine because I think it gives my PC more elbow room to strut its stuff. Anyway i never did fully understand why we should want to limit the setting to lower fps.

 

I am not here to get into the debate about what we can see or not see in terms of frame rates, but if you are following the treads over at Orbx on their unified migration. I am one who has a new gaming PC powerful enough to launch the International Space Station that before the migration I ran at unlimited and had no issues, it allowed me to see the impacts of various scenery installs, then after migration, I get blurries into one or two minutes of flight, as soon as I lock down the frames to 25-30 my scenery pops back into focus. This is generally because the PC is pushing resources to that end of things. So this is why one might want to lock down the frames....its old school but it works.

 

Now hopefully Orbx folks can figure out what they have done to allow one to unlock the frames.

 

cheers

Bryan