Rendering Settings after an upgrade

[Dustin]

I just upgraded my computer and I'm finally able to turn up some of the rendering settings on X-Plane. After flying with the settings set on the minimum for years of course my first inclination was to crank them all to the max . This obviously doesn't work so I started tweaking and had a few questions I thought I'd get the opinion of the group. What looks better higher textures with compression or lower textures without compression? Also, what about HDR? AA looks better without, but you lose detail distance with it turned off. I couldn't tell that water reflection did a whole lot, keep it turned down?

[lwilliams]

Just my opinion, but drawing distance, water reflections and shadows being increased offer the least visual improvements versus performance costs.

[stevekirks]

I recently made a switch to X-Plane (10.32 via Steam) and have an older computer with a lower end Nvidia card, the GT640. I've found that in my case, AA settings and total objects make the difference. I turned of vehicle traffic and lowered cloud complexity, along with Lee's suggestions in the post above, and can keep FPS in the 25-30 range unless I'm in downtown LA with lots of drone and pilot models to render.

I'm on the fence about getting a better card because I'm not sure that my PC can move enough data through the PCI bus to keep up with it.

[tshuff]

My suggestions for tweaking. You'll probably get 20 different answers from 20 different people, so go with your gut.

Set the texture resolution to "High" with compression, check your framerate (if you have *any* dips at this point, take it down another notch). It will only get worse, quickly.

Start with HDR on, all special effects on, at least one notch of AA, and crank AF. If you're still at a respectable framerate set shadows to 3d on aircraft. After that tweak autogen in this order:

Airport Detail
Number of Objects
World Detail Distance
Number of Trees
Number of Roads
Number of Cars

Turn the clouds all the way down. Seriously, they look bad in X-Plane and hose performance more than anything else. Skymaxx supposedly helps (not with my setup), but the default clouds are just not worth tweaking for IMO.

You can play around with texture resolution, but I've found high to be a sweet spot allowing me to add more autogen.

I'm running stock scenery with some custom airports (no photoreal, no mesh, etc). I have a GTX770 4gb with a I7 2600. Here is a link to my current settings. I've tweaked this so that I get 20+ fps in my most framerate demanding plane (Carenado B1900D) on a 15nm approach into KLAX. Your nautical mileage may vary.

http://imgur.com/ktxRbIC