Performance decrease noticed after installing GSX

[tnorton776]

the title says it all, I noticed a FPS and in general performance decrease after I installed GSX... I also saw some camera jerkyness that didnt seem to be there before while flying.. When I uninstalled GSX these hiccups went away. I Know this product is new.

[virtuali]

Sorry, but that's just not possible, since it doesn't do anything if you are not calling its menu on an airport, except that just checking your coordinates to see if you will eventually enter on an airport, which is a very low priority task that doesn't take *any* performance hit, and that all our sceneries already did so, if you already had any of our sceneries installed before, it's really technically impossible that installing GSX would change anything.

[Joe Porter]

Looks like I wasnt the only one to notice a sizable performance hit. I was a beta tester for another product like this which was said to NOT possible to hit performance. After much searching by a well known developer, he found the culprit in a loop and related to a sound file, if I recall that continuously tried to play in the back ground.

Anyway, wherer there're is smoke, there're is usually fire.  We shall see if more users see this anomaly.  This product is too good to have a possible FPS hit.

The not named other developer made the very same initial response, but finally found it. I am curios if a blank sound file is looping.  But what do I know, but that this is an awesome product.

Joe

[virtuali]

Looks like I wasnt the only one to notice a sizable performance hit. I was a beta tester for another product like this which was said to NOT possible to hit performance. After much searching by a well known developer, he found the culprit in a loop and related to a sound file, if I recall that continuously tried to play in the back ground.

That doesn't mean this would apply to GSX.

Main reason why I'm saying this is it's impossible, it's because GSX doesn't NOT run in FSX, at all!

The whole GSX code is running inside the Couatl.exe that, being an external .EXE file, can't have any impact on FSX by just running, the only time it could affect performances is when actual objects are displayed, but that's just the normal impact of anything graphic that is being displayed, it would be exactly the same if the same object would be in a .BGL.

Running in a different process, means that even in the case you mentioned, like a sound playing likely because the code forgot to dispose of it when needed, if did happened with GSX, it won't affect FSX performances at all, because the Windows taks scheduler woud have assigned the Couatl process to a different core in your multi-core system.

AND, if Couatl exe was taking too much processing time, you should see an abnormal amount of CPU time occupation for its process it the Task Manager. Try to check that while FSX is running, and see how much CPU time is taking the Couatl.exe process.

[tnorton776]

Yes but thats the catch, because we all know how rediculously CPU intensive FSX is. If the coatl engine is now taking more processing power from my CPU to run all the airport services, it is definetly going to have varrying degrees of performance hit if it is not yet fully optimized. I am guessing because this product is brand new, that it is not fully optimized yet. I am sure there are some performance loop holes here and there.

[virtuali]

Yes but thats the catch, because we all know how rediculously CPU intensive FSX is. If the coatl engine is now taking more processing power from my CPU to run all the airport services, it is definetly going to have varrying degrees of performance hit if it is not yet fully optimized.

That's exactly the opposite: if FSX has a problem, is that it doesn't use ENOUGH CPU! Of course, I'm referring to the total amount of a modern multicore system. The biggest problem in FSX is that it occupies ONE CPU at 100%, and the rest not really so much.

Which means, there's a lot of spare power in those other cores, enough probably to run another entire simulation in parallel...

If Couatl was an internal module, running in the same process space as FSX, it would have to either not being multithreaded at all, so it would have the ability to decrease FSX fps or even pausing it when doing its own calculations, or if it was multithreaded, it would have real concurrency problems working with FSX, which is not really thread safe, having a multithreaded module inside FSX, assuming it's even possible, is so complex and unreliable, that I doubt any FSX developer has even tried it.

Which is why, OTHER modules, loaded as .DLL, have the ability to slow down FSX, but NOT GSX.

BECAUSE, if you followed all the explanation so far, with Couatl being an separate Executable, has its own separate threads that can't conflict with FSX, so it can be as multithread as it could without any issues AND, it will be scheduled automatically by Windows to use those famous spare CPU cycles that every modern systems has in quantity.

So, to give an example, if GSX needed to calculate a path for a vehicle on a very complex AFCAD with hundreds of nodes, the only effect of this would be that the vehicle might start a *bit* later, but FSX wouldn't be slowed a bit in that time.

Not to mention that, when you are not using GSX, is not running any code at all, let alone a complex one (which wouldn't slow down FSX in any case).

That's why I'm saying it's really not possible that GSX could slow down FSX, just by being installed.

And, if you already had any FSDT scenery before, you already had Couatl running in the background.

[tnorton776]

well if that is the case, which I really hope it is.. then shame on microsoft for only making the game utalize one core... I cant understand why a game so graphically intensive would only utalize 1 core... they had quad core CPU's in 2006-07... And surely microsoft is smart enough to know that high tech multi core CPU's were going to be utalized and greatly enhance game performance

[Nocaltom]

My system has no performance hit at all with GSX installed and both FSDT airports, klas and kdfw. Just my 2 cents.

Tom

[Joe Porter]

My FPS has been cut in half.  I had this happen with another of your products before and it has something to do with your install/ manager program where you can change CFG settings for you scenerys.  I made the mistake of saving when I activated GSX with it.  It makes changes to FSX cfg when using it, especially if you save the FSX CFG setting from there.  I had to fix this before.  It was not necessarily from GSX itself. 

I will have to go back to tweaking again. Unfortunately.

Joe

[virtuali]

I had this happen with another of your products before and it has something to do with your install/ manager program where you can change CFG settings for you scenerys.  I made the mistake of saving when I activated GSX with it. 

Well, of course changing settings and pressing "Save to FSX", you should expect that settings *will* be saved to FSX.

But note the settings you see in the Addon Manager before you touch any of the sliders, are taken from your actual FSX.CFG file so, if you just change FSDT-only settings, and press Save, nothing will change compared to before, because it would write back the same values you had before opening it.

It's only if you play with FSX-related sliders (or press the "Defaults" button) and THEN Save, that you are making a difference in your settings.

[Joe Porter]

Hi and thanks for being patient on this.  I found the issue which was a changed setting in the addon manager which somehow the infinity (affinity) mask setting got changed.  I reset it and I am back to normal performance.  Thanks for a great product.


Joe