Low framerate when using SCRAM

[EnDSchultz]

I've been a fan of the XR series and they are by far my favourite ships to fly in Orbiter, but the one thing I've never understood is the rather low framerate I experience when running the engines sub-orbitally, and the extremely low framerate when running the SCRAM engines (15 FPS or so). At first I had assumed this was related just to the particle effects involved, as my old video card always had a habit of being butchered by particle effects. With my recent purchase of a GeForce GTS 250 I thought the problem would be solved, but alas, it still persists. This brings me to the conclusion that if it is a hardware issue, the problem lies in the CPU; perhaps there are some advanced physics and flight model calculations that are run with the XR SCRAM engines that bog down my relatively aged processor. Any thoughts on this would be appreciated.

Edit: I believe the problem is SOLVED. I think I've tracked the issue to the Camera Shake addon. Checking the "No staging detection for this vessel" box in the Camera Shake setup screen for each of the XR craft seems to stop the stuttering altogether.

 

[TSPenguin]

Please post your full system specs and usual framerates.

 

[RisingFury]

No no... it's just Orbiter's outdated DirectX 7 rendering engine and XR's huge smoke output that kills the frame rate...

 

[Hielor]

No no... it's just Orbiter's outdated DirectX 7 rendering engine and XR's huge smoke output that kills the frame rate...

Sigh.

DX7 has nothing to do with it.

http://www.orbiter-forum.com/showthread.php?t=7356

 

[EnDSchultz]

Okay, upon further experimentation, here's what I've discovered. Started at the ReFuel HQ in the XR2, framerate was pegged at 60. Activated the standard rocket engines. Framerate still pegged at 60. Took off, gear up. Upon opening the SCRAM doors, the game started stuttering severely, average framerates dipping down towards 20. This stuttering subsided as I reached altitudes above 15km or so and at that point it was little more than an occasional barely noticeable hiccup. Then I activated the SCRAM engines and cut regular power. Framerate plummets to about 18. I decided to test if it was related to the particle effects. I ran the scenario again with particle trails turned off. Exact same result.

Specs are:

Windows XP 32bit
Intel E4300 Core2 Duo processor. 1.8mhz
2gb DDR2 667mhz RAM
GeForce GTS 250 512mb

I have the latest video drivers off the NVidia site and am running DirectX 9.0c

 

[Hielor]

Okay, upon further experimentation, here's what I've discovered. Started at the ReFuel HQ in the XR2, framerate was pegged at 60. Activated the standard rocket engines. Framerate still pegged at 60. Took off, gear up. Upon opening the SCRAM doors, the game started stuttering severely, average framerates dipping down towards 20. This stuttering subsided as I reached altitudes above 15km or so and at that point it was little more than an occasional barely noticeable hiccup. Then I activated the SCRAM engines and cut regular power. Framerate plummets to about 18. I decided to test if it was related to the particle effects. I ran the scenario again with particle trails turned off. Exact same result.

Specs are:

Windows XP 32bit
Intel E4300 Core2 Duo processor. 1.8mhz
2gb DDR2 667mhz RAM
GeForce GTS 250 512mb

I have the latest video drivers off the NVidia site and am running DirectX 9.0c

This has nothing to do with DX7/GDI problems, since you're on XP.

Can you disable vertical sync (in the video tab) and see what kind of framerates you get when it would otherwise be pegged at 60fps?

It's possible that the XR2 is doing something weird, do you notice anything similar with other complex vehicles such as the DGIV?

 

[EnDSchultz]

I did a brief test with the XR1, XR2 and XR5. The first two, without V-Sync, were upwards of 200FPS, the XR5 between 60 and 70, while on the ground and flying on normal rockets. But the exact thing happens for all three of them upon opening the SCRAM doors or running the SCRAMjets; they all start stuttering and average framerate drops down towards 20. I've not experienced any noticeable framerate hits for any other spacecraft. Just tested the DGIV and it runs magnificently at 175FPS. The only issue I've had with it is a small sound bug with alarm resetting, which is totally unrelated.

 

[TSPenguin]

And this happens for all XR vessels exactly the same?

 

[EnDSchultz]

Yes, with no discernible difference between them. Particle effects are disabled, also. I'm going to start seeing if its related to any of the realism options such as 'complex flight model'.

Update: Problem solved. See first post.