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1 FPS When starting up  Topic is solved

Graphics issues like: bad framerates, weird colors, OpenGL errors etc. Bad graphics ar usually the result of bad graphics cards or drivers.
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1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:01 pm

Hello there!

Ive been trying to run the most recent version of flight gear for some time now. Unfortunately It always seems to start at 1FPS or lower. All shaders and "Eye Candy" have been turned off, yet the problem persists. I used to use the simulator a couple of years ago with the same computer and an earlier version and it worked brilliantly, 30 FPS. Whats changed? I feel there's a button I need to press somewhere! Is my graphics card broken?
I will also add I have tried using this earlier version also, but to no avail!
Ive been Starting at the pre set airport with the basic Cesna 172 each time

Computer Stats:

Macbook 2009
Nvidia GEForce 9400M Graphics card
2GB Memory 1067MZ DDR3
Processor 2.26GHZ Internal Core 2 Duo
OSX 10.9.5

Thanks very much!
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby Thorsten » Mon Jul 16, 2018 1:35 pm

Is my graphics card broken?


With 2GB of memory, you're probably well into swap space - which reliably slows you to a crawl. For most scenery you need at least 4 GB, 8 GB are better. You could try to not use the 2.0 scenery and install the old 1.0 lowres version from the website, similarly not use the new C-172p and use a lightweight airplane.

But sorry - the days where a default FG ran on 2 GB of memory are over for good.
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:15 pm

Thanks very much for the reply! I'll see if I can upgrade my memory, not sure how possible it is though. As I'm sure you can tell, I'm trying to avoid a new laptop!
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby Clive2670 » Mon Jul 16, 2018 6:32 pm

From a quick search with the limited info' you give on your Mac it looks like you should be able to upgrade your RAM to a maximum of 8Gb hope this helps?
Thanks Clive aka: G-BLS01
Can be seen flying the Boeing 777-200LR
Toshiba laptop,
Intel i5 4210U,
16Gb RAM,
AMD R7-M260 graphics 2Gb RAM
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Mon Jul 16, 2018 7:53 pm

Clive2670,

I saw this myself, however I believe this is only for the MacBook PRO, which mine isn't (White 2009 MacBook, unsure which size). I may go for the 4GB to be safe. If I do, what sort of Frame rate range should i be seeing?
Also I'm hoping this will solve it. I previously thought it was a software issue and downgraded to Mavricks for £60! Are all other hardware pieces in the green for this program, or do other changes need to be made as well?
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby Clive2670 » Tue Jul 17, 2018 8:51 pm

Not sure....maybe try and find a site where you put in the machine serial number to tell you what the maximum upgrade for yours is (I have a Toshiba and I put in my PSK serial number and that told me exactly what SoDimm RAM to buy and how much the laptop could handle, as my was fitted with 6Gb as standard I upgraded to 16Gb) as for FPS when I was running 6Gb my average WITHOUT all the shaders turned up was (a stable) 8 to 10 FPS once upgraded I get 25 to 30 FPS without any shaders (Only water and model maxed out), NO AI, and real weather on. With me this will always drop to 10 to 15 FPS when i stream Live on facebook or YouTube as the OBS software I use is a resorce hog as well as the 777 which loves to chew up RAM and processor power! Make sure you have the most up to date GPU drivers installed as well. I always update my drivers each time a new one comes out. Hope this helps?
Thanks Clive aka: G-BLS01
Can be seen flying the Boeing 777-200LR
Toshiba laptop,
Intel i5 4210U,
16Gb RAM,
AMD R7-M260 graphics 2Gb RAM
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Wed Jul 18, 2018 12:56 pm

Thanks again for the Info Clive,

Found out that my laptop could actually potentially take 8GB of RAM, although it's quite a controversial topic: Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. People talking of the computer "Beeping and not starting up". The cost is also a bit of an issue for me as well, some of the 8GB of RAM cards around online look quite expensive, all for a Sim that's said to be free! I've found a few bargains though and am asking about them at the moment.
I'm hoping this will solve the issue of FPS. I don't think I'll be using the 777 anytime soon as all I really want to use it for is military actions, with potentially the odd cruise around the alps.
Thanks again for all the support!
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby Thorsten » Wed Jul 18, 2018 5:43 pm

all for a Sim that's said to be free!


Sorry, but this isn't a fair point to make. None of us will benefit from you upgrading your hardware or not, nor do we ask you to. The software you get for free, but the hardware to run it you have to supply yourself - we also don't buy computers for people who can't afford their own.
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby wkitty42 » Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:07 pm

i agree... that's definitely not a fair point... i have 16Gig of RAM here and FG can easily eat it all and toss me into swap misery if i make some really long flights and have scenery options turned up too high or my LODs too large... one has to determine the level of realism they want with the hardware they have... the higher the level of realism, the more memory required...

even if i upgraded my video card, for example, and replaced the $60US card i now have with a $300+US card, that won't help the memory consumption... it might help with the frame rate but not if the bottleneck is elsewhere... doubling my RAM may help with the larger amount of data needed for those long flights... especially if we're flying at 35000ft and have our LOD set so that we do actually load the tiles all the way out to 370km from our location... 370km away is where the horizon is when you're 35000ft in the air... go up to 40000ft or higher and you'll start seeing the tile edges unless you increase the LOD to compensate and that's going to require even more memory...

that's a lot of tile data and it isn't just that that's in front of you... the sim doesn't know if or when you'll look to the side or behind you so that data is also loaded... we won't even mention the memory needed for the really detailed areas of the earth (eg: Paris, France) and all the 3D object models that are loaded in those places... this will get heavier, too, as more OSM (Open Street Maps) data is worked into the sim to add even more realism...

heck, a lot of computer systems are sold with the minimum amount of RAM the installed OS needs to operate... folks don't even know they're swapping all the time and even more when they load more apps that sit in the system tray running all the time... doubling or quadrupling the RAM in those machines generally makes them amazingly fast once they have enough memory to operate in without having to swap memory to disk to make more room for another task to do something... once the OS is happy, other things will be more happy but it may still take additional RAM to get everything loaded and running in memory... especially if one is running a program that uses a huge amount of data like FG can...
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"Why not?" said Gurder.
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Wed Jul 18, 2018 6:28 pm

This is a totally legit response to my earlier comment, it was my poor judgement and assumptions that are at fault. I'm quite a novice when it comes to PC's and hardware/software and didn't recognise that such a brilliant simulator might need better specs. Come to think of it, it makes sense really. But I'm hoping that 8GB RAM plus my other specs should cover the hardware side of things!
Here's to hoping!
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:19 am

So A small update on the situation...

I Installed the 8GB of RAM in to the computer, which accepted it thankfully. however like previously mentioned, the blockage seems to be elsewhere as i'm still running on 1/2FPS. Again, all forms of Vegetation and AI are turned off with minimal eye candy. I'm not running TerraSync either (or Anti aliasing, although I'm not to sure what that is....) and starting up in the Cesna 172. Any other suggestions?

https://imageshack.com/a/img921/2193/98ey1N.png
https://imageshack.com/a/img923/2779/3nRUjB.png
https://imageshack.com/a/img923/7333/O7D8JD.png
Last edited by RobAndrew on Sat Jul 21, 2018 11:05 am, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby icecode » Fri Jul 20, 2018 11:29 am

You shouldn't be getting 1 fps.

Could you press the "Cycle On-Screen Statistics" button three times in the Debug menu and upload a screenshot?
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:04 pm

Sure thing,

[img]https://imageshack.com/a/img921/6602/vhrIls.png/img]

Hopefully this works? I will quickly say that I am using the 2016 variant of the Simulator. I didn't think this would affect it much
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby icecode » Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:17 pm

Wow those frame times are just absurd. This doesn't look like a problem with FG itself. Are you sure you have no other running apps in the background? Also, I'm not a Mac user myself, but Apple is known to force people to buy newer models of their products by "updating" the OS, making performance much worse in the older models. I'm also not aware how Mac handles its drivers, but to me it looks like you are using some kind of fallback software renderer.

If I were you I'd check if everything runs poorly or just FG. Install some old games or look on the internet how to check if there is hardware acceleration in OS X.
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Re: 1 FPS When starting up

Postby RobAndrew » Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:25 pm

Icecode GL,

Thanks for the Info, I always run Flightgear on its own for that reason. I will say I'm running Mavericks on this Laptop, which has got to be at least 5 years old now in terms of OS. Maybe thats the issue? The thing I don't understand is that this used to run brilliantly on this laptop 4 years ago. Now I know 4 years ago was very different, different OS, different coding and programming on the Sim. Is it worth Getting the latest OS as well as the latest Flightgear sim? Maybe this would "Line up the stars" as it were :lol:
Last edited by RobAndrew on Fri Jul 20, 2018 12:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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