PSA: Performance problems with latest update might be rooted in Trees (calling for feedback)

Nothing noticeable.
I’ve changed the Trees parameter to make them look more realistic.
The LOD seems to push their draw distance further out. At 100 it’s drawing trees right in front of me.

So, yes. The game engine is changing trees constantly when set to low (even those really close ones). I have definitely more micro-stutters with trees set to ultra than when set to low (VR, i7-7700k, 1080Ti, 64 GB RAM).

Terrain LOD is my big frame rate killer. There seems to be minimimal impact with other settings. But if I put Terrain LOD over 100, my frame rates tank hardcore. I typically keep most of my settings at High and Medium with a couple of Ultra. Most of those settings may affect my frame rate by 1-2 fps increasing or decreasing. Overalll pretty minor though compared to TLOD.

I currently keep my TLOD at 85 as a “sweet spot” that keeps me in a playable frame rate range of high 20s / low 30s. At 100, I can’t break 25 fps. If I go any higher, I drop below 20 and eventually go into single digits, making it unplayable.

Object LOD, by contrast, seems to make no appreciable different in performance, so I keep it at 200.

Prior to WU3, I had both my LOD settings to 200 and saw very little noticeable performance impact from adjusting them either up or down. Since WU3, I’ve had to lower TLOD because it was a giant fps black hole.

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Thank you for sharing you feedback about the various TLOD settings and their impact on the overall fps on your system. There is definitely some good info there.

Have you actually tried comparing Trees ULTRA vs Trees LOW with same TLOD 100 on your system so that you can further contribute to this specific topic too?

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I probably did at some point, because I’ve tried pretty much every settings to try to determine what was causing my poor performance after WU3. The only thing I could reliably point to making any appreciable performance difference was TLOD. Other settings seem to have minimal impact at best. Like I said, 1-2 fps at most between low and ultra. Only visual quality is noticeable. Including trees and their draw distance, as you described in your OP.

Prior to WU3, I was able to run everything Ultra with both LOD settings at 200 and get 40-45 fps most of the time. After WU3, TLOD at 200 dropped me into the low teens. I had to dial it back to where I have it now (85) to be able to maintain a frame rate in the high 20s / low 30s.

Also, I find lowering it below 80 has little appreciable performance difference. 0-85 seems to have no difference except on the visuals. Above 85 and frames start disappearing with every tick it’s increased.

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when I set Terrain LOD to 200, I got a lot off stutter and panning the camera was not smooth.

I stick with Terrain LOD 100

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Just flown around the same area changing the trees from Ultra to Low and back again a couple of times - utterly dull 12 minute video recorded and uploaded to Youtube. Resolution isn’t great as was done with the XBox Game Bar quickly , but may help with your theory.

Happy to test somewhere specific under more set conditions if it helps :+1:

R9 3900x RTX 2060S 32GB Ram

Microsoft Flight Simulator 07 April 2021 Trees Low/Ultra Buildings Medium TLOD 100 - YouTube

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@LincolnSixE
Thank you for taking the time to make this video!

It is hard to see in the video and you never know in what proportion taking the video in itself is causing additional problems, so I might just be wrong interpreting what I see in the video, but I can notice:

  • With Trees LOW on your system they are also changing shape nearly every frame as you’re flying, like I’ve seen in my tests (in VR for me).

  • With Trees LOW you might have some stuttering I don’t see with Trees ULTRA:
    .
    Low (some stuttering): https://youtu.be/KMZSEhYpU6w?t=181
    Ultra (less or no stuttering): https://youtu.be/KMZSEhYpU6w?t=519

  • Regardless Trees LOW or ULTRA, this doesn’t seem to be affecting your fps overall either.

This last point is important, because the idea of a LOW to ULTRA setting is to balance the perf for a system. Either your system is so much capable it won’t make any difference at ULTRA, or, the game has a bug causing this setting to not be as effective at reducing the load in LOW vs ULTRA.

There is actually another setting like this, “Terrain Vector Data”, which I find is doing nothing at all (no difference in perf or visuals).

Try taking off from KPDK and switch to an external view - then focus on the tree rendering below. Can you give it a try?

Should back up your test case.

No improvements on my side when switching between Low and Ultra, however it’s important to note that I have a high end machine and my main issue within VR is the shuddering when looking around the cockpit and not the overall performance.

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No improvements here

hm. I’m seeing that there’s a huge framedrop when changing the trees initially (~ -20), then after about 20 seconds, the trees flicker and everything stabilizes. With the Bijan Tree Mod, I’m not seeing any difference between Ultra and Medium. I’ll test cities too, this was done at KGCN. There is about a 10 FPS difference between Medium and Ultra with no noticeable degredation in visual quality. As for stutters, not seeing stutters in either.

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Yeah not the best but figured that whatever performance hit using the Game Bar capture I might get was the lesser of the two evils compared to not videoing it and trying to describe in words what the sim was doing. The forums have shown that people’s perceptions of stuttering do vary, so try to remove one variable and potentially introduce another. Didn’t realise the resolution of Game Bar was so bad. I think it can record FPS so will have a tinker with it.

Have to say that video is pretty much what I get the majority of the time as far as performance goes, unless I try my luck in the well known areas that do cause problems. I’ve pretty much got my system setup in a sweet spot that works well for what I’ve got. Little point in trying to get it to do the equivalent of blowing a basketball through a garden hose :astonished:

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Just a quick recap for the time being:

a) Most of you don’t see any change with Trees LOW or ULTRA:

  • Either there is no real need for this setting because in practice Trees are so lightweight to render, or,
  • Regardless of the setting it takes as much resources which would indicate a bug, because LOW is supposed to take less resources, but your results seem to indicate they are taking as much (even if low).

b) Some of you do see a change of performance which can be significant:

  • I’ve not looked in details where you’re all flying to, but there is a LOD Distance Ring bug where the closer to the equator, the farther the trees (COS(LAT) factor).
  • It is possible your hardware is overall just “below” the hardware of the ones not having a perf difference.

c) I’ve only tested and evaluated this in VR, and in this case I’m observing the reverse:

  • Trees LOW are changing shape every frame like in the video above and are causing more micro stutters
  • Trees ULTRA are not changing shape (at least not as much) and there is much less micro stutters, even none, very often.

This is not scientific a test condition nor exact reporting, but I hope this little experiment reports will be sufficiently enticing for Asobo cross-checking the Trees rendering and settings, because they seem to be affecting users in very different ways, while one would expect they’ll be affecting most people the same (i.e. LOW = better perf, less stutters / ULTRA = lower perf, more stutters eventually)

Thank you all for your time with this, and don’t hesitate reporting more of your findings!


There are a lot more LOD problems to take care of

If anyone would like to have more control over vegetation render distance (maybe to test the effects of the load generated by trees), consider voting for and/or commenting on this wish-list topic:

Please add a ‘Vegetation render distance’ slider - Self-Service / Wishlist - Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

My sim runs pretty smooth overall and the only time I really get stutters is coming in for a landing on final because trees are drawing. This is really noticeable coming in for a landing on 36R at KMCO. I thought it might be the high rez scenery for Orlando International so I uninstalled OIA and still, it’s those damm trees ruining my experience.

I think there are a lot of unnecessary tree’s being drawn and if they could get these under control then there would be performance benefits.

Tree’s being drawn inside/on top of photogrammetry buildings must be having an impact right? (this is not an isolated example of central Boston, there is A LOT of this.)

I think a vegetation DENSITY slider would be pretty handy. I would quite like to have my tree’s etc render a fair distance away, however I do think the tree density is a little overcooked. A lot of places look like primordial forest.

Yep Atlanta area especially too. Not necessarily the downtown area but in suburbs in the metro area and near KATL causing fps drops when facing the camera down over the trees.

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