Do you use FSX on your Alienware M17x r3

Hi
I got a new M17x r3 a few weeks ago and looked forward to a vast improvement over my m11x r1 for FSX. While there is an obvious improvement I am not getting the frame rates I expected. I had visions of everything maxed out with consistently good frames but not so. I know that the simulator is not optiimiszed for multi-core processors but I expected a bit more.

I have a core i7 2860QM with 8GB RAM and nVidia 580m. I run the sim with the following settings:

1366 x 768 x32 (tried 1980 x 1080 x 32 but fps dropped a bit)
Most sliders at medium except
Water effects 2x
Scenery: Very Dense
Autogen: Normal
Weather: 80miles visibility
Traffic: all at 50% except road which is at 20%

I also run Active Sky Evolution weather programme.

If I load up a flight in a busy airport for example London Heathrow I am getting only around 8 to 10fps on the ground or on approach. Frames improve once in the air and away from the airport to 20+. I have the frame rate set to "unlimited" which I have read in a number of forums to be the best thing to do.

I have looked in the flight sim thread but this question is really specific to the M17x r3.

Any comments or advice most welcome.

Thanks

Gerry

 

hmm you should be able to get wayy better frame rates with the 580m. have you made sure you aren't running on the integrated Vid card?

if I have time later ill put FSX back on my rig... can't remember what settings i had but i think they were higher than what you are getting

 

FSX is CPU intensive and quite old not optimized for the latest gpus. You may find more info on simaviation.com.

 

I have tried looking at forums on Avsim and reading the suggestions for optimisation in PC Pilot but none are really specific to my system.

When I launch the sim it shows "Intel(R) HD Graphics Family.0 under "device". This made me think it wasn't using the GTX580m and I asked that question here previously. However if I right click on the launch icon for FSX it gives the option to "Run with high performance nVidia processor (default)" so I assume that means it is running with the 580m? Also in the nVidia control panel the sim is listed as using the card. The fans also cut in the way they do when I'm playing a game like Battlefield 3 so I just assume that the sim is using the card?

I think the 2860QM is 2.5 to 3.6MHz and I chose it because I expected that to be plenty for FSX?

Thanks

 

the 2860 will plow right through FSX easily, im thinking there is a graphical problem at work here

 

That's what I have felt all along so if you get a chance to load FSX up later that would be great.

 

I updated to the new nVidia driver and now the card is listed under the "devices" heading. There were lots of blocky textures when I first started the sim but changed to "Preview Direct X 10" and it works just fine with a very small fps improvement. Still around 10 fps on the ground in a busy airport with lots of clouds and much better as you climb to altitude. Still think it could be better though.

 

Gerry, i'm willing to bet that your 580 is throttling. Have you installed the latest vbios from dell for the 580?

The 2860 will destroy this game

 

I did install the latest vbios a couple of weeks ago but it made no difference. Is there any way to tell for sure if throttling is the issue?

 

you are going to have to run some diagnostics. There are many ways to do this.

This is one way:

Download:

FURMARK
HWINFO64

In Furmark, run the Extreme burn in test (so check off extreme and start burn in)

At the same time, monitor your temps and GPU mhz in HWINFO. The simplest way is to click on the sensors button and scroll down.

Furmark extreme burn in should keep your GPU at 100%

I have read that with the new vbios, it will throttle at 79c

If you are throttling, you'll see a continual cycle of GPU clocks dropping when a thermal threshold is reached , then as your temps come down, the mhz will rise until the thermal threshold is reached again etc...

Another thing that you should do is download 3dmark11 and run the free default performance benchmark. Lets see if your scores are normal for your computer

 

if you are throttling, consider a repaste of the GPU with some quality thermal paste. It will bring your temps down significantly. Its the best 15 mins you'd ever spend. (30 mins if you've never done it before)

 

I ran 3DMark and the score is 20440 which sounds about right?

It will take me an hour or so to run the other checks...have to work as well...

 

was that 2006? Vantage?

download 3dmark11

Oh this is more important than work! Drop everything and fix your beloved alienware

 

I ran FURMARK and had HWiNFO64 running at the same time.
In Core #0 clock it ran consistently at 3289.1MHz Min 3288.1 Max 3588.5
Core #1, 2 and 3 Clock 3289.4 Min 797.4 Max 3588.5. They dropped to 797.4 only once or twice during the test but were mostly at 3289 or so with Max up to 3588.
Core#0 Thread #0 Usage 12% mostly with Min 9% and Max 100%
The rest of the listed Cores were at 0 to 1.4% or so.
Total CPU Usage 12.7% with a Max of 19.7%
CPU Digital Thermal Sensor were:
Core #0 Core 0 69degrees with min of 49 and max 73
Core#0 Core 1,2 and 3 were 56degrees with Max 69 degrees

What do you think.

The 20440 was Vantage. I'll download 3dmark11 and run that.

Work can wait for now...

 

Those temps look great but its not the CPU the throttles, its the GPU...so you have to look at your GPU temps in HWINFO while you are running furmark. Just scroll down on the sensor page

EDIT: Actually, you don't even have to use HWINFO64 to look at your GPU temps...furmark will tell you the min, max and current.

Here is mine at stock clocks after 4 mins:

 

I took a note in FurMark and the temps are almost identical to yours and I ran it for longer than 4mins.

I ran 3DMark11 and it showed two demo videos and then displayed an error "The program can't start because C:\Program Files.DLL is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem"

I re-installed with the same result. I'll un-install and re-install and see if it works then.

 

I uninstalled and reinstalled 3DMark11 with the same result. I'll have a look again later this evening and post again.

Thanks for all your help today.

 

Turned out to be the my anti-virus programme.

Ran 3DMark 11 and got P2805 3D Marks which is says is low??

Here is the link to my score: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2117793?show_ads=true&page=/3dm11/2117793?key=rlrl_mJU_mdy7tFSzuDnEQ

It says I have 800MHz RAM but I know I have 1333MHz DDR3?

 

that is low...my system ran over P4500 with tess off yesterday.

You are about 1000-1200 points lower than where you should be. one sec...i'll post my numbers for you to compare with

hmmm...your graphics score is 2538...that is low. I think you're throttling...a stock 580m should have a graphics score around 4K stock

 

I ran the test again when I got home, having re-booted and making sure all other programmes were closed etc. The score is now improved to 3550 which seems to be more normal, here is the new link.
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-2860QM Processor,Alienware M17xR3 score: P3550 3DMarks

What do you think?

 

Make sure you have installed SP1+SP2 updates; these vastly improve FPS and makes the game engine much more optimised for multi-core systems. If you haven't installed these updates, do install them and you will notice a big difference.

 

I'm using FSX Acceleration which I think covers all of the updates of SP1 and SP2 from what I've read, it also allows DX10 which seems to affect frame rates a bit.

 

Gerry, i just want to confirm that you've downloaded and installed this:

Drivers and Downloads

 

Yes, definitely installed it a couple of weeks ago when it came out first.

Bit of a time difference between there and here so gotta go now and back online until early tomorrow morning. Thanks again for all your help today.

(been playing Battlefield 3 campaign all evening on ultra settings with frames in the high 20's to low 30's, so don't know if that's normal or not? Fans on all the time)

 

well i reinstalled FSX earlier today and took it for a spin i maxed out all the graphics and got about 20 fps in the sky. ill post a screen shot of the settings in a bit

and slickdude, im impressed with the furmark screen shot with 40fps my 460m gets about 15

 

you'll be at that 40 soon enough ...when is that card coming?

 

ok Gerry...have a good nite. We'll pick up tomorrow

 

when it comes i guess

Edit: Added a screenshot of the video settings im using atm

Edit 2: according to fraps, i was at 20fps the whole time. Kinda seems like an fps cap is on somewhere but idk.

 

Thanks for trying out FSX.

Using your settings and with the framerate set to unlimited I am getting around 30fps on the ground and 40 or so in the air. Keeping the same settings my frame rates really drop when I use a complex aircraft, Active Sky Evolution and with lots of clouds and also Traffic X. I was seeing only around 10fps on the ground. I know that clouds and draw distance have a big negative frame rate impact.

After that I decided to let FSX create a new .cfg file by renaming the old one and fired it up. What do you know, it now lists the GTX580m as the default GPU and frames have improved considerably! I had done this before and it only ever said "Intel HD Graphics" but maybe installing the new nVidia drivers the other day helped here?

Anyway it looks like I am on the right track here. From the various tests you suggested yesterday it also looks like my 17x r3 might not be the fastest one ever built but it seems to be fairly average and not faulty.

What do you think?

 

Looks like I might have been a bit premature in my last post.

I loaded up FSX with weather, traffic etc and my frames are low again at 10-15 on the ground and 20 or so in the air.

I ran the programme in a window and launched HWiNFO64 and could see the following:

CPU #0
Core #0 Clock 3288.4 MHz
Core #1 Clock 3288.4
Same for #2 and #3

Core #0 Thread #0 Usage is 93% for Core #0 and the others are at mostly 2% or less.

Under nVidia GPU:
It is showing the GPU temperature at 57 degrees.
GPU Core Load 17%
GPU Memory Load 16%

Does this mean the programme is not using the GPU properly?

 

This means that fsx is using one core (so single threaded) primarily. Is there a way to increase the CPU threading on this game? Maybe download a patch or something? The game is using a fraction of what your computer can do.

 

That's what I figured, I have installed the Acceleration Pack and it is supposed to at least use dual-core.

I am cutting and pasting the config file which might mean something to you but there doesn't seem to be anything to tweak. At least now I really understand what the problem is and I've learned something more about my laptop. I have an Alienware m11x r1 since last year and it was my first new laptop for five years and I thought and still think it's great. But coming from an XPS Gen2 (which cost €4000 in 2005!) the m17x is a revelation.

Thanks again for all your help and advice. This forum is really great for how people just help each other out.


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Gerry,

i found a couple of tweaks that might help you so its time to modify your FSX.cfg

Add this under [GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1

add this under [MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.15

add this under [SCENERY]
SmallPartRejectRadius=4

since you don't have a [JOBSCHEDULER], add this whole block below to your file. This one is important...it balances the load across the 8 threads of a quad core better:

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=244

Try it...

 

i have the same problem it just got mines two days ago and it was running fine but today and last night the fps just dropped dramitically

 

Gerry/Martin,

Aside from the tweaks above to you FSX.cfg file, I also found this on google that might really boost your frame rates:

Limitation of the frame rate fps.

It doesn't make sense if the PC calculates and draws the screen content with a rate of 50 fps and more. That is simply a waste of valuable computing power. Hence it's better to limit the frame rate enabling the simulation to run smoother and with better image quality. Hence we set internal FPS limitation to 30 frames per second (fps). On top of that we use an external FPS limiter from Marko Ludolph. You can download the file FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar and unpack it. Java should be installed on your computer to use this excellent limiter.

You can move the directory FPS_Limiter_0.2 into the FSX-directory (e. g. C:\FSX). Then you start the user interface FPS_Limiter_GUI.jar. You accept the preset maximum fps of 30, select "Search Executable" and point to the FSX.exe file. Pushing "create bat" will create the batch file you need to start the FPS_Limiter_0.2 and the simulator FSX.

You can increase and decrease the preset fps-limit on the fly using F12 and F11.

This setup should stabilize the frame rate and run the simulation smoother. More CPU power is available to do texture work and thus increase the image quality.

 

i am currently downloading a gpu driver update i will see if this makes a diffrence and if not will use ur method

 

good news it appears the gpu driver update has done the job was playing the game there and no lag or fps drops at all back to running smooth hope it stays like this i am also currently downloading the service packs for fsx just to make sure
Download Confirmation - Microsoft Download Center hope u get ur problem fixed gerry try installing the service packs

 

I'm just going to edit the cfg file with your suggestions first and see how it goes...

 

Ok, I edited the cfg file as suggested. There is no obvious increase in frame rates and hopefully here is a screenshot with HWiNFO64 running and FSX in a window paused in the background. Frames are a bit higher because the sim is paused. Not too sure how to do screenshots but hopefully this link will work

http://forum.notebookreview.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=72245&stc=1&d=1320263302

 

Martin what settings are you using and what frames are you getting? Are you using any add-on aircraft, traffic or weather packages?

I will also look at the frame rate limiter suggestion and see how it goes. The collective wisdom (?) to do with FSX always says to set the frame rate limiter to "unlimited" as it gives better results. There is an article in this month's PC Pilot on improving frame rates in FSX. The author, a software developer for FSX add-ons, states under "Target Frame Rate":

If I have just one piece of advice for you, it is this one: always leave your target frame rate set at "unlimited" as you will always achieve far better fps. Only when you're experiencing wildly fluctuating fps does it make sense to set a limit. Limiting frame rates may have worked in FS2004, but this is not the case in FSX."

It is counter-intuitive but I have found this to be true. However I will give the limiter suggestion a go and see what happens.

 

AffinityMask=244 is doing exactly what its suppose to do

Core 0 is reserved for other apps
Core 1 is your main
Core 2 and 3 for rendering textures and terrains etc...i see that. So it has already made an improvement with load distribution across all threads

The only other thing that i can think of is to reinstall Nvidia Drivers, make sure that anything 3d is off, then reinstall FSX SP1 and SP2 or FSX Acceleration.

Your computer is suppose to play this game very well. You can also try to run the Marko Ludolph fsx limiter...i see that you are running unlimted

 

Gerry...there is something troubling that i see...your core 2 and 3 are hitting 90c and 86c. This is a little too toasty for my liking. 100c is the official shutdown temp where your computer literally shuts off

My CPU cores hover around 72c under 100% load

 

It will be after the weekend before I have the time to do the un-install, re-install so will leave everything for now...that work thing getting in the way again.

About those temps is it time to call Mr. Dell?

 

no you should prob repaste your CPU as dells paste job is crap. I'm gonna redo mine soon when my 6990 gets here cause im hitting around 80C in games in such.

 

I'll search for a re-paste guide and already looked at a youtube video so looks like even I can do that job.

Just want to say thanks again for your help and advice and as I said even though my frame rates have not improved very much due to the limitations of FSX, I've learned more about my laptop and monitoring and such.

Best of luck with the 6990.

 

WHAT? WORK?

COME ON MAN! FIXIN YOUR COMPUTER IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN WORK hahaha

ok, i'm kidding (kinda lol)

BigTony is right, its probably best to repaste yourself. if you call dell, they will replace crap with crap. You can follow my "how to replace Cpu" guide in my sig to see how easy it is to take off the heatsink, replace the stock thermal paste with something decent and put the heatsink back on. A novice will do it easily in 30mins.

In the meantime, i will bestow upon you some secret knowledge only few are lucky enough to know. Take a paperback book (about an inch thick) and put it in the back of your laptop (between the 2 fans). This raises up the back and will drop your CPU temps like 5-10c

I wonder if your CPu's are somehow throttling from the high temps

 

You're right about work but it paid for my laptop so I'm not complaining..too much..

thank you for the secret knowledge which I be careful to guard...I can imagine some writers are better than others at that particular job, I'll have to think about that..Stephen King maybe??!!

 

LOL...Stephen king will do just fine

 

i use an old 1994 battery off an old mac power book. It's perfect for keeping the laptop upraised and not blocking the fans

 

lol...you have the secret knowledge too.

I've decided to not look so ghetto with my DIY laptop stands...so, i've opened up the the wallet and bought these for $1.50 shipped

Notebook Netbook Laptop Cooling Cooler Ball Leg pad | eBay