Why is my performance bad?

[superkungfu]

I consider myself to have a pretty decent gaming computer: i7 4790, 32 gigs of ram, GTX 780 TI, and a SSD HD and i want to run everything in ultra high (it should be able to handle that) but it is actually quite laggy. Any way to optimize that other that to tweak down the settings? I feel like the graphics doesn't justify it being this slow.

[magnetite]

What kind of add-ons are you running?

FSX default is usually quite good on performance these days. Start piling on stuff like PMDG, etc, and that's where the performance drops.

In addition, running FSX in DirectX 9 will hammer your GPU and PCIe bus[i.imgur.com] with draw calls (99% GPU usage, 96% PCIe bus usage).

DirectX 10 uses instancing and allows me to run things like autogen trees/buildings with very little framerate hit. Instead of drawing 200,000 trees on the screen with 20 unique models in DirectX 9, DirectX 10 only has to draw 20 trees. In addition to balancing the load between the CPU and GPU, plus many other benefits. Scenery complexity does still take a hit, although, not as much. DirectX 10 also handles water shaders without a framerate hit.

Although default DX10 is quite buggy, there are some free shader fixes[www.lockonfiles.com] or paid software (Steve's DX10 fixer) to help with that.

[superkungfu]

Yea right now I'm running PMDG 747, A2A C172 and a Mega Scenery X Southern California.

I would love to run that DX10 preview but it always shows up on my secondary monitor. So that's a bug so I had to turn it off in order for it to show up in my primary monitor. Any ideas how to fix that?

[magnetite]

Is that when you alt-tab? I get that too. Not sure why. Under DirectX 9 I get a black screen, and have to alt-tab a few times in order to put me back into FSX. Some games have issues with alt-tabbing, some don't.

[superkungfu]

Nah it just starts that way, when I have that DX10 preview box checked, it would automatically go to the secondary monitor, the primary monitor is where the menu would launch but the in game is always on the secondary. I have to minimize and drag it back which would be a pain all the time so I left DX0 off.

[TU 114]

Gents;
Are you both using NVIDIA Inspector? Try turning off VSync option.

[Kosta]

PMDG 747 ain't really that bad on performance. NGX is actually way worse.
With the 747 you should be getting quite decent FPS. But it all depends on what you are expecting. 30fps locked is an aim you should have when selecting settings.

However, if you expect to have 30fps with the 747 and ALL sliders up - no go. Alone the last slider-page, for the AI, if you go for 100%, it will kill your CPU. Terrain settings can be high.

[Twelvefield]

AI traffic shouldn't go above 30%, unless you like your CPU hot and your ATC calling constantly.

OP your system is better than mine, so you should get good results. Turn off bloom, DX10.

[RoY]

You haven't said anything about your setting so I will just mention FSX ground shadows are a notorious drain on FSX performance.

The option in FSX is simply labeled as "Ground Shadows",
you will still see terrain shadows if this is off, which is nice and your frames will go up a good percentage

[Molly Bell]

It's the traffic. I'm guessing they're keeping tabs on the elevator trim position on that aircraft that's 50 miles away, and the only descernible result is massive lag. Just a guess though.