Troubleshooting graphics and performance issues
| Troubleshooting |
|---|
Troubleshooting graphics and performance issues will help you if:
- you meet rendering issues in FlightGear
- you think that FlightGear could run smoother on your computer
- your hardware is not exactly from the latest generation
Guides
How can I see the OpenGL info?
Just click "Help > About" in the menu.
How do I see my framerate?
During the simulation, open the View > View Options menu and toggle Show frame rate. You'll see the number at the bottom right of the screen.
Graphics issues
By hardware/OS
Linux
If you want to use Vulkan, you can run MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink ./fgfs to switch to the Zink renderer. If your driver has issues, try using LIBGL_ALWAYS_SOFTWARE=1 ./fgfs to switch to the software renderer.
Windows (with integrated graphics)
For most devices (before Intel Arc), the default Intel OpenGL driver has deficiencies. You can download Mesa3D for Windows and then place mesa's opengl32.dll in the same directory as fgfs.exe, and use set MESA_LOADER_DRIVER_OVERRIDE=zink.
macOS
There is a blog post for Apple Silicon users seeing rendering issues.
Graphics artifacts
|
|
Performance issues
There are some factors affecting the performance that can be optimized.
Graphics drivers setup
- Graphics card drivers: Ensure that the manufacturer's graphics card drivers are installed. You may be able to download and install drivers specific to your card from the manufacturer's site. See Graphics drivers configuration.
- Graphics drivers settings: Disable Anti-Aliasing and Anisotropic Filtering or at least set them to their lowest settings. Decreasing the setting for Mip-Mapping to its lowest setting can also help.
FlightGear configuration
- Rendering options: Click "View > Rendering Options", uncheck "Custom", and set "graphics quality" to low.
- Framerate limiter: be sure that it's unchecked in "View > Rendering Options", or that it's not set to too low a value.
FlightGear simulation choices
- Location: Some airports like KSFO are wonderful but have a high-volume of traffic, which can slow performance. Try another airport if you encounter performance issues.
- Rural flying: While framerate may initially be as slow as 5 fps during takeoff, they may jump 5x or more after flying out to less-populated areas.
- Weather: Fly in clear skies. 3D clouds may incur a less pronounced performance hit.
- Choice of aircraft: Certain aircraft have lower resource requirements, especially the UFO. The airliners are known to be quite heavy.
- Cockpit: Although 3D cockpits look very tempting, the HUD is much easier on the framerate.
- AI/MP traffic: Computer-controlled traffic includes AI traffic and the traffic over the multiplayer network. By turning off this function you're not able to see other aircraft. Most stuttering, or lag, is caused by the need to load the models for these aircraft while they appear. It can range from a minor annoyance to a crash. Turning off just the computer-generated aircraft (leaving the MP traffic visible), can be done by clicking AI > Traffic and Scenario Settings in the menu and unchecking Enable AI Traffic.