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Post by MarkH on Oct 2, 2016 16:57:31 GMT
I couldn't see the blurries that you noted upon landing. I hope you get that sorted out. I know there are tons of references to the blurries online. I thought it was a memory issue, myself.
I have been playing with this and I tentatively think I have sorted it out. I was reading about the AffinityMask and the thing I was reading directed me to the bit in Windows Task Manager that shows the usage of each CPU core separately. The only thing I saw at first was that when FSX is running all the cores are running at 100% all the time This didn't seem to leave much scope for optimisation. But then I noticed that when I hit ESC, which put sup the 'End Flight/Continue Flight' dialog, three of the cores went to sleep but one continued to show a high usage. For some reason this was core 2 (the third of four). It seems this is the pattern of CPU usage I get consistently when all the FSX addons are running but FSX is suspended. So I added the AffinityMask=11 parameter. That's 1011 in binary, which as I understand it is telling FSX to steer clear of core 2. And what do you know, I can fly the same scenario without a single blurred texture. That includes weather, and even with the autogen bumped up to maximum. I am hopeful that this has been a breakthrough, although with FSX you can never be quite sure. If this has indeed made a real difference I may do a video about it...
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Post by ScottB on Oct 2, 2016 18:02:37 GMT
I couldn't see the blurries that you noted upon landing. I hope you get that sorted out. I know there are tons of references to the blurries online. I thought it was a memory issue, myself.
I have been playing with this and I tentatively think I have sorted it out. I was reading about the AffinityMask and the thing I was reading directed me to the bit in Windows Task Manager that shows the usage of each CPU core separately. The only thing I saw at first was that when FSX is running all the cores are running at 100% all the time This didn't seem to leave much scope for optimisation. But then I noticed that when I hit ESC, which put sup the 'End Flight/Continue Flight' dialog, three of the cores went to sleep but one continued to show a high usage. For some reason this was core 2 (the third of four). It seems this is the pattern of CPU usage I get consistently when all the FSX addons are running but FSX is suspended. So I added the AffinityMask=11 parameter. That's 1011 in binary, which as I understand it is telling FSX to steer clear of core 2. And what do you know, I can fly the same scenario without a single blurred texture. That includes weather, and even with the autogen bumped up to maximum. I am hopeful that this has been a breakthrough, although with FSX you can never be quite sure. If this has indeed made a real difference I may do a video about it... Hmmm... glad you got it working! I didn't find that AM made a noticeable difference on my machine if I recall, and I only used it to see if I could eliviate some heat issues seemingly tied to one core but later decided the heat was more likely a result of poor readings from RealTemp, or a poor application of cpu paste by the builder. :-)
I just went over my AM notes (mostly copied and pasted from websites). I use 62 for a six core rig (HT off), leaving only core zero (the first core) free. That seemed to help with the heat while OC testing a few years back, or at least I thought it did... coulda been a placebo thing, tho. My understanding is that FSX is heavily tied to the core "0" by default so advice pointed to leaving that core off. I also understand that after service pack 2 FSX is multicore aware anyway so, not sure AM is really doing much. I recall trying many different parameters and couldn't see any real performance/smoothness gains running identical FSX scenarios with all AI bgls off. That said, I never experienced the blurries from the get-go. AM 62 is still in my fsx.cfg file, but I'm not sure why, or at least I don't recall a good reason.
Just curious, are you sure you want that core "0" on, or am I reading your binary incorrectly? What about 10?
Anyway, glad it's working! That's always a good thing with FSX! Any other simulator that worked out of the box would be boring!
I have to wonder if something else caused the fix though. Do the blurries come back if you remark (correct terminology here?) out AM? If AM fixed it, I may have to reconsider where I rank it in my log of FSX tweaks! :-)
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Post by MarkH on Oct 2, 2016 22:53:26 GMT
My observation is that core 2 (third core - 0, 1, 2) is doing a lot of stuff that is not directly FSX-related. I don't know why, but the point is to lay off that particular core. This is the purpose of the affinity mask. Setting the affinity mask doesn't make a program use extra cores, all it does is say which cores we allow it to use (or not use) when Windows does its scheduling. So when we set the affinity mask to 1011, Windows will not schedule any of FSX's threads on core 2, that's all. For me, experiments show this has made a clear difference.
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Post by ScottB on Oct 4, 2016 14:54:19 GMT
My observation is that core 2 (third core - 0, 1, 2) is doing a lot of stuff that is not directly FSX-related. I don't know why, but the point is to lay off that particular core. This is the purpose of the affinity mask. Setting the affinity mask doesn't make a program use extra cores, all it does is say which cores we allow it to use (or not use) when Windows does its scheduling. So when we set the affinity mask to 1011, Windows will not schedule any of FSX's threads on core 2, that's all. For me, experiments show this has made a clear difference. Just curious, if you didn't have the blurring issue (or your third core wasn't loaded down), would you bother with Affinity Mask? The reason I ask is because there are online indications that there may be benefits to freeing the first core (core 0) since FSX is bound to that core anyway for "fiber frame scheduling", in order to "isolate" it for other use. like add-ons I suppose. I gather it's recommended for possible performance gains, not so much for troublehooting, as far as I can tell. But I'm skeptical. Every PC is different but, I can't tell whether having FSX avoid the first core is detrimental, or beneficial. Thoughts?
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Post by MarkH on Oct 5, 2016 6:36:47 GMT
Just curious, if you didn't have the blurring issue...would you bother with Affinity Mask? No. My feeling is that the people who made FSX probably made it work as well as they could so I only resort to fiddling when something is wrong. For example, I found when I built my last FSX PC that TrackIR wouldn't work properly unless I used AffinityMask=14, so I used that until just recently. That seems to have gone away now, presumably because in the couple of years since I have somehow adjusted the balance of add-ons in a way that impacts on the scheduling.
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Post by ScottB on Oct 5, 2016 13:40:42 GMT
Thanks. I agree. Interesting that you have to use it because of various add-on issues. I know a lot of folks have had trouble with long-flight "out of memory" errors too, like Froogle. I've never experienced that issue either. That's not bragging, it's just that I run Track IR, ASN, simplugins, PlanG, FTX, REX, A2A, etc and either I don't notice the blurries or it isn't occuring so I wonder what's so different, or what I've been lucky enough to get right. (Now I've voodooed my machine... it will crash tomorrow) That's not to say FSX doesn't still slow to a crawl in some areas like Seattle, which is why I'm always interested in the specifics of your Affinity Mask. Lots of variables. I probably do more fiddling than flying, but I enjoy that it seems.
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