I have a relatively powerful PC running the sim. AMD 5900x, 32GB RAM, EVGA 3080 (10GB). I run with pretty much all graphics options maxed out on a 4K HDR main monitor. With no instruments popped-out, I get around 40-45FPS in the Working Title CJ4. With each increasing pop-out window, I lose FPS. Dramatically at first then it decreases further up to the 4th pop out instrument.
The thing that I note is that the Dev Mode FPS monitor information shows basically the same ms values for each of the 5 cases shown below (0 through 4 popouts). The only thing that changes is the frame rate and the ms value right below the frame rate.
Similarly, in Task Manager, my GPU usage goes from 90-95% with no popouts down to a measly 22-25% with all four pop outs. But even at the 22-25% CPU usage level, the Dev Mode says “LIMITED BY GPU”.
The CPU, RAM and VRAM usage seems to stay about the same across all 5 cases. EDIT: Actually, the CPU usage seems to decrease as well with increasing pop out instruments.
This performance degradation applies to all airplanes that I’ve tried, including the Baron G58, Bonanza G36, Carenado Mooney M20, C172 G1000, …
Can we have this addressed by the Development Team please? It makes using the simulator with a hardware cockpit and external screens very difficult due to the poor performance induced after popping out instruments to move to other screens.
EDIT2: It’s like having a Ferrari that gets a spark plug wire pulled each time an instrument is popped out. I’m sputtering along on only a few cylinders needlessly. My computer runs cool with pop outs so it’s not like I’m asking too much of the hardware. It’s the software not using the hardware capability.
Hoping the DX12 port forces this issue to be addressed. I suspect it’s how the UI gets redrawn (often needlessly) for every frame, and the main render loop might have to be rewritten when they switch to the new API.
Yeah, I know it’s been around forever. I was just hoping to document how it STILL IS and make more noise about it. I hope you’re onto something with the DX12 port forcing them to deal with it. That would be a very pleasant surprise.
I also figured posting in the main community section might get more visibility and bring more awareness to the masses. I can hope, can’t I?
I think there are too few people actually using this feature for us to be able to raise enough of a stink about it. That number is definitely growing as people are discovering how this can be used, finding out about tools like Spacedesk and Air Manager and such.
At least in the bug thread @SkipTalbot linked, the bug is now logged. That change happened a couple of weeks ago as a ton of other “dead” threads about that were merged into that thread. However, it’s sad to think that this bug was first posted Oct 2020 and just finally got a “logged” acknowledgement a year later. That doesn’t bode well for how much of a priority they’ll be putting on fixing this.
I think that’s a little cynical as they have always known big changes were afoot and may well have always seen DX12 as the ideal platform for multi monitor. No matter how many votes it got this will be seen as a key feature of the sim and it wouldn’t surprise me if it is one of the first things we see once DX12 is here. IMO the coding isn’t going to be anything Microsoft haven’t already used several times elsewhere.
