MS FSX vs DT FSX SE: The Conclusive Performance Benchmark

[Jordan_King_]

Hey Pilots,
I wrote an article on AVSIM recently regarding all of the banter about performance between standard FSX and Dovetails FSX Steam Edition. I think the results will surprise you! Check it out!

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/458260-ms-fsx-vs-dt-fsx-se-the-conclusive-performance-benchmark/

So the only question is, with the programming/code improvements to Terrain Cache Flushing, Vertex and Index Buffers, VS2013 compiler, Texture Composition, and other changes that aren't in the change log but that Pete Dawson says are "significant" and the numerous reports from users of better frames and smoother performance, is it just placebo or is it real?

A little about me: I have been a flight simmer for the better part of 15 years. I have belonged to about 3 different VA's where I have accumulated about 3000 hours and have about 180 real world hours in various aircraft such as the 172, 150, and Cherokee. I am an avid computer builder, overclocker, and a watercooling freak. In real life, I am the VP of the Global Technology and Operations group of a large financial institution. I own products from FSDT, Flightbeam, ORBX, Pacsim, PMDG, FS Global, Cloud 9, Aerosim, blah blah blah. Basically I spend too much money on this. :-)
So enough about me, on to the benchmarks.

First, let me share with you the computer I used for these tests:
Intel I7 3960k (overclocked to 4.7ghz)
2xGTX 680 4gb models on 344.75 drivers (I need the Vmem)
2x Samsung 840 SSD's running in raid (1tb of storage running at 980mb/s)
16 gb of 2000 mhz corsair dominator gt DDR3
Asus Rampage 4 extreme
2 gallons of water :-)

Both the FSX and FSX SE were done on clean build with all files, registries, and folders cleaned as well as all TEMP data. They are like being on a brand new hard drive and in the case of FSX:SE it was on a newly formatted drive because ORBX installers still have a little work to do for compatibility when switching sims.

The tests were conducted in So Cal with the following addons:
Textures: ORBX Global
Mesh: FS Global Mesh
Vector Data: FTX Vector (frozen water and golf courses turned off due to graphic anomolies and ran the auto airport elevation tool)
Airports: FSDT KLAX, KONT and KLGB by Shez Ansari
Aircraft: Aerosim 787
Thats it, no REX textures, no weather addons, just these terrain addons. Weather used was Cold Fronts. Needless to say this is a OOM/VAS crash waiting to happen as these are all high poly mega airports and a ton of Vector and texture data across So. Cal.

My flight plan took me from KLAX 24R, direct to KLGB, to the PDZ approach to KONT 26R. Cruise altitude was 11000 and speed was 250kn with a manually managed VNAV fixed climb of 1800 fpm after gear up @ 500 ft asl.

The settings are follows:
Graphics Tab -
Target Frame Rate: Unlimited
Resolution: 2560x1440x32
Filtering: Anisotropic/Anti-alising on
Global Texture Res: Very High
DX9
Lens Flare
Advanced animations
Aircraft Tab -
Global Settings Ultra High
Scenery Tab -
All sliders to the right except for mesh resolution @ 5m
Land Detail Textures On and Ground Scenery Shadows Off
Weather Tab -
Cloud Draw Distance: 90m
Thermal Visualization: Natural
No Weather changes
Detailed clouds: maximum
Traffic Tab -
Airline traffic: 40
Gen Av: 20
Airport Vehicle Density: 20
Road Vehicles: 20
Ships, ferrys, and leisure boats: 40

**In FSX, I applied the Max Texture Size to 4096 and High Mem Fix. I did not tweak or adjust any other FSX.CFG settings**

One more note is that I took these strictly with screen shots in sim and desktop shots. I was worried that FS Recorder would create too much debate so these are raw, unadulterated, straight from sim results. They were tough to reliably get but after a few hours I got consistent data.

Now before we get into the results, I can tell you that I already knew how FSX was going to perform, I have used this benchmark for years as my "stress test" to test out new planes, tweaks, programs, and anything else that I wanted to test a quantifiable performance increase. I can tell you that the only way to get FSX to complete this flight is to turn down Scenery Complexity to Very Dense, Autogen Density to Dense, turn off cars, and decrease Airport Vehicle Density to High, this will not be reliable on DX9 and will usually require you to run DX10 as it manages VAS better. I have done it countless times and these are generally the only settings that will allow FSX to complete this pattern. But can FSX: SE do it?

First lets look at departure. I took some idle shots from the ground. You can see that FPS is pretty much exactly the same give or take a few frames which fluctuated anyway.

FSX 20.9 FPS:
http://i.imgur.com/eV2v6Jh.jpg



FSX SE 21.3 FPS (note, that for some reason colors look to have more "punch" in FSX SE):
http://i.imgur.com/IWPYNSE.jpg



FSX 17.4 FPS :
http://i.imgur.com/sVlQaEr.jpg



FSX SE 14.7 FPS :
http://i.imgur.com/uQEn13E.jpg



Now, lets get in the air, these shots are taken after making a 180 to the left to intercept the course to KLGB.

FSX 13.3 FPS:
http://i.imgur.com/7ZCIOCm.jpg



FSX SE 11.5 FPS:
http://i.imgur.com/AzXwBqf.jpg


Ok, so now we are just beginning our turn over KLGB and you can start to feel the strain on the sim. We have now fully loaded 2 high quality airports with a ridiculous amount of autogen and the VAS is building.

FSX 22.4 FPS and 2.78 GB of Memory used:
http://i.imgur.com/KYIUQP7.png



FSX SE 18.1 FPS and 2.79 GB of Memory used (note the color difference once again):
http://i.imgur.com/3fdKY3L.png


Now we are 12 NM from PDZ and the KONT scenery is about to be loaded we also have a number of other airports populating such as KRIV, KCNO, KPOC. This is usually where the FSX "pings" start. I was looking downward and both sims performed very well.

FSX 40.6 FPS and 2.78 GB of Memory:
http://i.imgur.com/Pu6Z6FK.png



FSX SE 40.7 and 2.64 GB of Memory (this is where things begin to get interesting because I have never seen Memory fall while flying this route even in DX10 and it appears that the Fix to flush all levels of detail in terrain cache is possibly starting to kick in.
http://i.imgur.com/TSA3Erm.png



Sadly, this is where the story ends for FSX, about 4 miles up the pinging began and as soon as the PDZ procedure turn started the sim died.

This is also where the FSX SE story just begins...

I didnt hear a single ping, I made it through the turn and said "to hell with it, lets land". The PDZ turn to 27R is a wide one and the plane did another 180 through to make it to the runway. This was while loading even more autogen, descending, and making the approach. It was absolutely shocking that with the sim COMPLETELY maxed out it was able to make this approach successfully. My mind is blown. Here is one last shot for the end. As you can see, the Memory barely climbed and it still stayed well within limits and FPS did very well.

FSX SE 28.4 FPS and 3.10 GB of Memory:
http://i.imgur.com/9D9igpX.png


I will conclude by saying that I am yet to convert to P3D, or X-Plane because FSX has always served my needs well, but as more and more addons have come into play over the years, I have found myself running into OOM problems at mega airports and have had to turn down eye candy and invest a good sum of money into the DX10 fixer to manage the VAS of modern day simming.

We know that without a significant re-write of the FSX code, it is very hard to increase FPS significantly, but with the stability and VAS improvements in FSX SE, simply put, FSX SE manages my flying much better.

Any questions, please let me know. I put hours into the installs, setup, and validation of this test so I hope you enjoyed.

One last shot, here is my computer "Penelope" who made this all possible
http://www.modsrigs.com/UploadImages/246170/28542/558223ad4802.jpg

[PTCGho5t]

Screw Avsim, this is STEAM. Avsim is run by old geezer idiots and they're Pro-PMDG and hate all other developers. Don't pollute the Steam forums with crappy Avsim links.

[JohnnyP]

Best way is for people to try it out themselves.

[Alice Fly-Motion]

A real performance benchmark should show an average FPS.
I'm sure there is not really much difference if they do some other benchmark with average FPS comparison.

But I didn't expected this little color difference, it's nice :)

[JohnnyP]

There are so many different factors, computer, ram, CPU. Personally it runs amazing , so much better than my boxed versions. No crashes, high end graphics, menus pop open. Only problem I have is with some pay ware, it is not working at all really

[Jordan_King_]

Added full review with links

[epergrem]

Thanx. Great work.

[SimSoarer]

That was a convincing review and much appreciated. It has increased the incentive for me to keep trying to get this darned product to get past the splash screen on startup.

Thanks.

[Jordan_King_]

Originally posted by SimSoarer:

That was a convincing review and much appreciated. It has increased the incentive for me to keep trying to get this darned product to get past the splash screen on startup.

Thanks.

You are welcome! I know I had to format to really get it to work reliably. That's a tough decision for many I know, but if you use it alot it's a good choice.

[barnstormer1]

Originally posted by WinterSoldier710:

Screw Avsim, this is STEAM. Avsim is run by old geezer idiots and they're Pro-PMDG and hate all other developers. Don't pollute the Steam forums with crappy Avsim links.

IMO, that is exactly true!.. Now when you start comparing performance to this and that you just open up a can woop butt for all. No basis in any of it due to sytems to systems addons etc.

[Luminik]

and the troll dance must go on

[Jordan_King_]

Originally posted by Stonedsub:

and the troll dance must go on

Sad isnt it? Just a shame