FPS Slowdown during daytime only?

[E-Buzz]

Hi All,

 

Does anyone else have this problem?

 

I have my frames locked at 33 (I know, weird number) and when I fly in FSX during "dawn", "dusk", and "night", the FPS is pegged between 32.9 and 33 - perfect and smooth as glass. To me, that sounds counter-intuitive as more "lights" need to be displayed (ground, airport, road, AI aircraft lights, car headlights and taillights, etc.) that during the "day."

But, when I fly during "daytime" hours there is a noticeable slowdown and FPS hovers between 15 and 20.

I once sat in an airport parking spot and set the time in FSX 5 minutes before "day" (started at "dawn") and the FPS was 32.9-33 and when it hit "day" (after 5 minutes) the FPS dropped to 15-20.

The reverse happens when going from "day" to "dusk," the FPS goes up when the transition to "dusk" occurs.

I've tried setting the FPS to 'Unlimited" and the slowdown still occurs.

 

I have a few Orbx areas (NA Pacific Northwest, NA Central Rockies, all the NA scenery freeware, and AI traffic) and this does not happen while flying in them during the "day," "dusk," "dawn," or "night." This only happens in non-Orbx areas.

I usually fly in the USA and I have UTX and GEX. I have MegaSceneryEarth New York State, and I originally thought that was the problem. But the FPS slowdown occurs in all other non-Orbx areas. I also disabled MSE NYS with no improvement.

I know 15-20 FPS isn't that bad for FSX, but it really does make a noticeable difference in smoothness when panning around using TrackIR.

 

I'm running an i5 4690K at 4.7 on an ASUS Maximus MB, 8gb 1600 ram, an older Radeon 6950HD 2gb vid card, and (please don't laugh) Windows 8.1 (apart from a few little annoying things, like joystick disconnects if you click out of FSX, it works great under win8.1).

 

I've tried using the Orbx DAY/NIGHT switch thingy, and it seems to make no difference with FPS in non-Orbx areas.

I've tried setting all the AI to zero in FSX (I use Traffic X) and it makes no difference either.

I also fly in windowed mode using Windowed Borderless Gaming, and if I switch to full-screen, still no difference in FPS.

 

Sorry for the long-winded post, but I'd like to know if anyone else has had this problem and what they did to solve it.

 

Thanks all for your help,

E-Buzz :cool:

[PhantomTweak]

Are you running a "Real-World" weather program, whether the included FS Weather or a third party? Do you have 3D clouds settings turned up high? From what I've seen, clouds will EAT FPS and perhaps there are more visible in the daytime? Car and Boat traffic does too, I understand, and perhaps, again, more are visible in "Day" time?

 

I run FS9, and pretty much have the opposite problems. I slow down at night, speed up in the day.

 

Those are just suggestions, though, from what I've had to to run my FSX-SE. They may, perhaps, give you lead in the right direction, I hope :)

Pat☺

[E-Buzz]

Hi PhantomTweak,

 

Thank you for your thoughts.

Yes, I have ActiveSkyNext with REX OD clouds (tweak in FSX.cfg to 1024 textures) - and your idea that clouds would be more visible during the day is something I didn't think about and makes sense.

I'm wondering why this doesn't occur within Orbx regions though. Does Orbx handle textures differently than UTX/GEX - Orbx regions are very detailed and look great - maybe they are more efficient? I have no idea.

I may just have to take the plunge and move to Orbx Global.

I know I really should go through the whole uninstall process and reinstall all my addons one at a time while checking for issues in between each install, but ugh! Who really wants to do all of that?

I was hoping that someone may have had similar issues and offered possible reasons and/or fixes.

What you describe happening in FS9 is what makes sense to me. The opposite occurring in FSX has me stumped.

Again, thank you for your reply! :D

E-Buzz

[pvarn]

Day/night difference in performance is directly attributable to how much detail you can SEE. Re-installing anything is a waste of time.

 

-Pv-