TheEagle wrote in Sat Jul 17, 2021 12:51 pm:Hmmm - using the minimal profile I only got 60 fps - nothing compared to your 500+ fps ...
No, that's to be expected (search for "vsync") - basically, FlightGear and/or your driver/OS will use a sensible update rate, in sync with the refresh of the screen/monitor, which is why 60 hz does make sense.
Anyway, 30-60 fps/hz is indeed what most people would consider "flyable" (playable).
Thus, you could use these settings now and incrementally re-add other features to see which ones have an impact.
For instance, you could try different aircraft (the ufo/ogel being fairly lightweight).
Then, you could tinker with different locations and visibility settings.
Ultimately, you will almost certainly have to stay away from complex airliners with many Canvas MFDs, similarly aircraft like the Extra5000 are probably also not suitable.
The shuttle will be too complex, too. But you might be able to find lightweight single engine airplanes with a "steam cockpit" (and possibly a 2D panel) that you can use for certain types of flying.
For example, if scenery/terrain complexity is too much for your system, you could use a different/custom set of terrain tiles, or simply do ocean flying (or flying in unpopulated regions). You could also check if carriers are working for you or not.
Looks like I'll have to live with stuttering. One last question - what could I do on the hardware side to improve my fps ?
Adding more RAM is probably the easiest thing to do. Using an SSD drive might help with disk I/O related latencies.
Other than that, a CPU/GPU upgrade would obviously help, too - but that will involve opening your notebook - and back in 2011 only very few laptops had support for replacing/upgrading built-in GPUs (called "MXM" back in the days).
The good news is, that your system is so old, that doubling your RAM or adding an SSD can surely be done for under $100 bucks.
A CPU/GPU upgrade would be more involved and would only make sense if you can get used/refurbished parts that are compatible with your system.
Otherwise, you're paying more for the work - given that a refurbished PC with >= 2gb of VRAM, >=16 gb of RAM and >= 8 cores is typically in the $200-300 USD ballpark
Speaking in general, getting a refurbished workstation/server and upgrading that by adding a dedicated OpenGL card, will provide plenty of bang for the buck;
search.php?st=0&sk=t&sd=d&sr=posts&keywords=workstation+server+vramHow to install OpenGLHooray wrote:The recommendation looks sound, if possible it would be great if you could help us update the hardware recommendations accordingly.
Like I said elsewhere, even an "old" (3-5 years) used/refurbished Nvidia based quadcore workstation with at least 2gb of VRAM and 16gb of RAM will usually be in the 200-300 USD ballpark and should provide plenty of horsepower, and it's likely to take years before it will require an upgrade, at which point 150 USD for a better graphics card will go a long way. Things like Vulkan are unlikely to become relevant until a handful of long-standing core issues are addressed.
Minimum and recommended computer spec?Hooray wrote:a quad core system, with 16gb of RAM and dedicated graphics with 2gb of VRAM still is a fairly decent system these days, even as a mobile device.
Still, it's probably what I'd consider the "minimum" these days for people wanting to set up a system specifically for FlightGear.
Obviously, FlightGear isn't "Crysis" - but anything much lower than these specs, might be frustrating by future developments.
However, like I said, I would be very surprised if over the course of the next 36-60 months, FlightGear would address all its technical/architectural challenges that are currently preventing it from leveraging modern gaming rigs.
FlightGear simply isn't there yet - and even if the core team were able to address core most issues, there simply is too much fgdata stuff (Nasal !!) that cannot easily be ignored - even the way people currently tend to use Nasal + Canvas is highly problematic from a rendering standpoint, if you want fast rendering, it simply is not a good idea to set up subsystems or avionics in Nasal space using timers and listeners, which then update properties to in turn update a FBO/RTT context to update a MFD ... this kind of thing is prohibitive when it comes to modern OpenGL/OSG, let alone anything involving Vulkan and multi-threading.
Which is to say, an 8-core system (2-3 ghz), 16+ gb of RAM, 2gb of VRAM is certainly going to suffice for quite a while... and using a workstation like the Z800 will provide plenty of buffer to grow over time - Compared to X-Plane or MSFS FlightGear simply isn't there yet, so there really isn't much to be gained from buying the latest gaming rigs, unless you happen to be into turning on all the latest eye candy (effects and shaders), or if you're a contributor/developer.