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Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Installing FlightGear, scenery, aircraft etc. on Mac.

Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby flywisher » Sat Sep 01, 2012 12:28 am

With your aircraft cockpit screen up and ready to fly, pull down your View menu (2nd from left) and select Rendering Options.
In that dialog box, the shader control (slider) is in the upper left quadrant. Make sure it is all the way to the left. It will say something about Performance vs Quality, and the number next to the slider will go to zero.

Also, if you haven't already, off of the View menu again, select the Display Options and check the top two boxes, Frame Spacing and Frame Rate. The Frame Spacing number will appear in the lower left corner of your screen as some number of mili-seconds (ms) and the Frame Rate will appear in the lower right corner as a number of frames per second (fps).

Once your cockpit appears, I find it often takes as much as 60 seconds before the Frame Spacing settles down to a reasonable and fairly consistent number, and the Frame Rate goes much above 1. This is because even though FG is showing you the cockpit, it is still very busy setting up scenery where you cannot currently see it. You may see the Frame Spacing jumping between 20 ms and 2000 ms (2 whole seconds per frame. Very un-flyable!). Once FG gets everything set up, it can give you its full attention. Your clue is that your Frame Spacing becomes very consistent at a fairly low number. Anything that stays below about 70 ms will give you flyable performance.
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby aviationR » Sat Sep 01, 2012 4:18 am

Thanks flywisher! I just need help with what you call Frame Spacing. Can you explain exactly what it is? Having a hard time understanding it.

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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby flywisher » Sat Sep 01, 2012 5:24 am

From the wiki:
http://wiki.flightgear.org/Howto:Improve_framerates#Hints_for_users:

Also, imagine a system producing 100 frames in 0.5 seconds, then blocking completely for another 0.5 seconds. The fps display would still show "100fps", which seems great. But the 0.5 second stutter cause the visual performance to be terrible. That's why I prefer to display "(worst-case) frame spacing" instead of fps (View => Display Options => Show frame spacing). The frame spacing for the previous example would show "500ms", while a system producing 100 frames with perfectly even spacing would show "10ms".

So, frame spacing is a much better property to judge visual quality than just watching fps.


As I understand it, Frame Spacing is the longest delay between frames being put on-screen. I routinely see Spacing intervals greater than one second during scenery setup, so it's more than just within one second. Computer animation works just like film and cartoon animation: a sequence of still pictures flashed on-screen fast enough to trick the eye and brain into interpreting the changes as motion. Simulators like FlightGear and 3D games face the daunting task of doing massive calculations for EACH still picture to re-paint the simulated scene and all its parts as it should appear from the viewer's viewpoint, including angles, sizes, lighting and shadows, and how things have moved -- and building each picture in less than about 70 thousandths of a second (milli = one thousandth), to change the pictures fast enough for the illusion to work. But when FG has to calculate for complex models, huge complex scenery and/or extensive AI activity, it can end up spending a big chunk of a second (or more!) on a single portion of its processing cycle to construct the next picture (frame).

That can wreck the illusion with "stuttering", lags and delays, as described in the quote above.

The machinery behind the illusion is awesome, enormous, frightfully complex, and magnificently impressive.
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby aviationR » Wed Sep 05, 2012 1:23 pm

Ok. So I've put the shaders all the way down and I am getting consistent frame rates for most of the time. For some reason, aircraft like the Beechcraft B1900d and the Airbus A330-200 family seem to give lower frame rates than the rest. Is this because of the detail on them? Just wondering. I tried the A330-243 for a while and for some reason it was really giving me bad frame rates, especially when I change views. Some other times it works fine. :?

Hope I'm not such an encumbrance,
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby someguy » Wed Sep 05, 2012 2:38 pm

Yes, it's the Airbus. Most of the airliners have too much detail and use shaders that the Mac can't handle in hardware. It doesn't matter whether it's your plane or someone else's in MP, it will drag your Mac to its knees. I just delete the offending planes from my Aircraft folder. There are plenty of well-behaved aircraft to fly that won't spoil your fun.
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby aviationR » Thu Sep 06, 2012 5:23 am

Ok thanks someguy (LOL)! Can you help me by giving me a list of the planes that actually work fine? Also, I installed the 787 from the aircraft download page. It worked fine the first time, then when I tried it for the second time, FG only loaded the model. The plain .ac file. I hope you know what I mean. Is this something to do with my hardware not being able to handle the detail therefore only loading the model? Then, when I loaded up FG 2.0 with the 787 (so far my favorite plane), the same thing happened, even though the 787 was fine on 2.0 before! That problem only happened when I installed the 787 onto FG 2.8! :shock:

Thanks,
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby someguy » Thu Sep 06, 2012 4:19 pm

It depends on your hardware, so you'll have to experiment. 2.8 is more tolerant than 2.6, or perhaps has a better selection of low-resolution models for other users' planes in MP. Start by setting the Model shader to zero.

You may need to decide what's more important to you: tons of detail, or flying with other users in MP.
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby aviationR » Fri Sep 14, 2012 3:17 pm

Ok thanks guys for all your help! Got FG running at the optimum level (hopefully)!

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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby efel » Fri Nov 09, 2012 9:50 pm

someguy wrote in Thu Aug 30, 2012 10:56 pm: Can any Mac use Rembrandt


hello! what news about Rembrandt and Mac now ???? Is it possible to active it, and how ???
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby Gijs » Fri Nov 09, 2012 10:02 pm

Enabling Rembrandt is explained at our wiki: http://wiki.flightgear.org/Project_Remb ... _Rembrandt
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Re: Any RAM Requirements for FG 2.8?

Postby efel » Sat Nov 10, 2012 10:51 am

Gijs wrote in Fri Nov 09, 2012 10:02 pm:Enabling Rembrandt is explained at our wiki

hello Gijs ! I know very well this page of Wiki... Unfortunatly, none of these command lines is efficient to enable Rembrandt on Mac OSX: FG don't run and quit... :(
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