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Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

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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Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby someguy » Thu Nov 13, 2014 2:24 am

Mid-2010 iMac with mediocre graphics card, Yosemite, FG 3.2. My frame rates have dropped in the past few days, from 10-20 fps with most sliders maxed and random veggies @ 1.9, to <1 fps with quality=0 and everything turned off, using global textures. Looking straight up with no clouds yields 60 fps, but as soon as the horizon comes into view FG screeches to nearly a halt. Typical frame delays are 900-2000 msec. Not model sensitive. CPU usage hovers in the 150% range on my Core2Duo, though I don't know if that's new. It doesn't matter whether I'm in MP or not.

Something is different, and I don't think it's different here.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby wlbragg » Thu Nov 13, 2014 6:33 pm

If you haven't reinstalled or anything like that, nothing else would have changed.
Are you in a different scenery location?
If your in a different area or at a different airport than you normally use, that could cause noticeable changes.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby Thorsten » Thu Nov 13, 2014 6:54 pm

Please check whether you might be seeing this issue by disabling random objects.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby someguy » Fri Nov 14, 2014 2:41 am

Same airports, same scenery, NO optional features enabled, including random objects, trees, precipitation, particles, weather, multiplayer, etc., except ALS (which actually improves the frame rate slightly). Even ridiculously low LOD settings don't help, or apparently even take effect at all. Terrasync has been very slow to load tiles that were already downloaded and worked fine last month, sometimes leaving them blank over multiple sessions (e.g., the tile just north of KNUQ).
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby wlbragg » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:36 am

This is interesting, I have also noticed in some areas of my custom scenery that I get a big drop in frame rate. But the times I have noticed it is in an area of a bigger city that is heavy in trees and objects. I just chalked it off to the weight of all the graphics. But when I stopped to think about it, it happens suddenly.
Yesterday i went there and debugged all the options in rendering. Shaders only took +-3-4fps, trees about the same, objects maybe *-2-3 fps. But what did make a big difference was when I reloaded the scenery. I suddenly got most of it back.
To describe it a little differently.
I'm in a heavy graphics area and am getting 17-19fps. Suddenly it starts to spiral down to 4-5. I mess around with rendering settings and can bring it back up to 7-9. I reload the scenery and I'm back up to 17-19.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby Thorsten » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:40 am

I'm in a heavy graphics area and am getting 17-19fps. Suddenly it starts to spiral down to 4-5. I mess around with rendering settings and can bring it back up to 7-9. I reload the scenery and I'm back up to 17-19.


Yeah, that's consistent with the random objects bug - it reacts the same way. If you're in the ufo, you can try to specifically triangulate the framerate drop zone and find out what part of the scenery causes it (assuming of course your framerate does jump up if you look e.g. at the sky and isn't down in general).
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby someguy » Fri Nov 14, 2014 4:27 pm

I forgot to mention, I see the same effect after reloading scenery: an initial jump in frame rate to 15-25 fps, which then drops to 1-4 over the next few seconds without changing the view. I never use random objects, so that probably isn't the cause.

However...last night I flew over the wilds of southeastern Alaska in Buckaroo's Velocity-XL-RG and my frame rate was stable at 10-17 fps, with random trees at 2, live weather, and high shader settings. For me, that's about as good as it ever gets.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby Thorsten » Fri Nov 14, 2014 7:35 pm

Bring the on-screen statistics up next time it happens before you reload and make a before/after comparison. I'd like to see whether it shows something like this

Image

Image
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby wlbragg » Fri Nov 14, 2014 9:12 pm

your framerate does jump up if you look e.g. at the sky and isn't down in general

That is how it behaves. I can look at sky or limited ground and the fps comes back up.

I'd like to see whether it shows something like this

I can pretty much make this happen on demand by going into this one area. I'll try it.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby someguy » Fri Nov 14, 2014 11:06 pm

Minimum config, per wiki:
Image

Normal config, with UFO:
Image
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby Thorsten » Sat Nov 15, 2014 7:49 am

I don't really need to see minimal config, I need the before/after comparison.

Having said that - have a look at how many vertices arrive at your view - it's a few hundred million (probably many instanced, otherwise the card would have given up a while ago). Vertex shader is choking on something - which is why the draw call takes forever.

You have in fact 20 times more vertices shown in the View than I have with all the bells and whistles on. So that'd be the immediate reason for the low framerate. And with the vertex shader solidly occupied, of course changing quality levels or textures or in fact anything doesn't address the bottleneck.

As for the cause... You know where to look at. You know that minimal profile doesn't exhibit the same problem. So find out by successively enabling features what makes the vertices jump up so dramatically.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby wlbragg » Sat Nov 15, 2014 12:14 pm

I can confirm in my case it is the random objects triggering the problem. Random buildings and Random vegetation don't cause the dramatic frame rate drop.
no random objects
random objects
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby someguy » Sat Nov 15, 2014 4:14 pm

Thank you, Thorsten, but you're making the usual developer mistake: you assume I know what the hell you're talking about.

If there's complex scenery visible, the frame rate plummets. Buildings, objects, vegetation, and shaders are not the cause. The only apparent solution is staying away from developed scenery and not using multiplayer, which means there will soon be a large empty space on my hard drive where FG used to be.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby wlbragg » Sat Nov 15, 2014 6:05 pm

The only apparent solution is staying away from developed scenery and not using multiplayer, which means there will soon be a large empty space on my hard drive where FG used to be.

If your not able to continue to try and help us debug the problem and your choice is to remove FG, you may want to check back from time to time and see if it ever gets corrected!
It would be a shame if you just give up and quite using FG over a bug that will eventually get corrected.
One way this stuff gets fixed is with help and feedback from users. But it does take time and effort on everyone's part.
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Re: Did something in the Terrasync scenery just change?

Postby Thorsten » Sat Nov 15, 2014 7:00 pm

Thank you, Thorsten, but you're making the usual developer mistake: you assume I know what the hell you're talking about.


Right... you have 1200 posts to your forum history, so do you really want me to assume you don't know how to use the wiki/ ask if something is unclear?

If there's complex scenery visible, the frame rate plummets. Buildings, objects, vegetation, and shaders are not the cause.


Right again... that makes a lot of sense given that 1) there's mostly ocean in the direction you're looking in the screenshot rather than 'developed' or 'complex' scenery and 2) I have all visual goodies on and get 20 times less vertices shown on the counter.

It doesn't matter whether I'm in MP or not.
(...)
The only apparent solution is (...) not using multiplayer


I'm sure this makes some sense to you, but to me it makes none whatsoever.

You can't have it both ways - either you want to be the expert who determines the cause of your problems, then spare me the line about not understanding what I'm talking about. Or you let me try to figure out what is happening, then kindly help me get the information I need.

As far as I can see so far, your system seems to exhibit a unique problem which is somewhat different from what I'm seeing and what wlbragg is seeing. So the only avenue to a fix is - you provide information, because I can't reproduce it. This is how these things go. You can delete FG for all I care, it runs fine for me after all - but then don't complain that developers don't fix any bugs if you can't even be bothered to try help tracking down the cause and follow a bunch of simple instructions.

There's one thing I really don't appreciate, and that's me investing my time to try to hunt a bug, and the user who reports it sulking because there isn't a magic fix immediately. Sorry, I'm not clairvoyant, unlike apparently you, I can't know the cause of framerate loss before I have the relevant information.
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