FSX comments

[happytraveller]

Thought that I would pass on a few comments about FSX, now that it has been installed for a few months. Might give others some hope/encouragement.......

Lots of problems initially after installing, and lots of tweaking needed, although this was basically just a matter of following the advice of others (thanks for posting!!) and downloading the various articles designed to improve frame rates. Some resizing of tree/building textures, and lots of experimenting. At one stage I was VERY near to uninstalling FSX and going back to FS9, but perserverance paid, and things DID get better. Main problem was poor frame rates, but SP1 and SP2 seemed to have helped, along with the tweaks. I can now spend less time tweaking, and more time flying, which is what it is about.

Better was to come, with some very impressive add-ons for FSX. It was very interesting to go back to FS9 and try to fly the same flights there. Now FS9 looks very basic in comparison. FSX is far from perfect, and will still need improving, but it IS much better than FS9. The good news for everybody is that the learning curve is much shorter than for FS9, as many of the principles are the same for FSX and FS9, so it has taken me much less time to get FSX working well than it did for FS9. I now ENJOY FSX, rather than constantly being disappointed/frustrated with it. As an example, yesterday I watched a windsock blowing gently in the wind whilst taxying, a small realism detail that gives FSX a great advantage. FS9 was not 'as real as it gets'. FS9 was not perfect when it came out, and it relied on external companies to improve the basic microsoft product, and it is the same with FSX.

So to others who might be having major problems with FSX, the advice is do not give up. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Keep tweaking and it will get better.

Smooth landings. (in FSX)

[Redda03]

Interesting to read your comments about your current FSX performance....like you I have tried various "tweaks", but they seem to have made little impression on my system performance....fortunately I retained FS9 which now performs perfectly with my new computer set-up purchased specifically for FSX operation!!....and find I am now using FS9 most of the time.

My basic Set-up is as follows:

Intel Core 2 Duo E6850
Gigabyte GA-P35-DS4 LGA775 Motherboard
500GB SATA11 16MB HDD
ASUS N8800GTS 320M Video Card
2 GB DD2-800 CL4 RAM
700W PSU
80X25mm 2050RPM Vantec Stealth Fan

Would be intersested to hear which of your "tweak/s" had the biggest effect on your increased performance.

Cheers,

Bob R

[happytraveller]

Not easy to say which tweak had the greatest effect, and a few that I tried (like turning off the cockpit head movement), I later reversed. One thing that I did early on was to download new tree textures, so that the file size was about half the original MS FSX sizes, and a similar tweak on building roofs. Traffic settings and the other setttings like boats, cars and animations, are also turned down, as these did seem to have a big hit on performance..

There are still a few add-ons that seem to have much poorer frame rates, Budapest for example seems to be hard on fps rates. I am operating on a dual core 2.2ghz system with a Nvidia 8600GT card (and on a laptop as well), so not the best that is available now. The same advice as for FS9 seems to apply, ie to turn off all other programs when you are running flight sim, as even anti-virus can take a few percent of processor power.

When I was initially having lots of problems with frame rates (nearly gave up on FSX for a time but perservered), I did lots of googling to find out how others were tweaking FSX. Tried some other users configuration files (eg one by 'Mango'), then went back and increased the setting until frame rates started to suffer.

One other tweak that seemed to help was to turn off Aero in Windows Vista. Again, trying to get the maximum out of the processor and graphics cards.

I hoped that by posting some comments about FSX, that it would encourage others to keep adjusting. FSX CAN be made to work, just not with all the bells and whistles.

smooth landings.

[G-HEVN]

Here's a tip that you might not have tried: Set your task bar to Auto Hide (right-click the task bar, then Properties Auto Hide). On my system that gives an easy 20% (yes 20%!) performance boost. And it works for all combinations of XP/Vista and FSX/FS9.

Use a program like AffinityPC (used to be FSAutoStart) to shut down unnecessary programs & services, and defrag your RAM

I've not personally found much if any benefit from the endless slough of cfg/ texture tweaks, and I get an easy 30+fps most places without them (Dell laptop with T7600 2x 2.33GHz, 4GB RAM, 7950GTXgo gfx @ 1950 x 1200, 250GB SATA + 750GB eSATA, Vista32)

[Timmo]

Defrag your RAM??

[Charl]

QUOTE (Timmo @ Mar 25 2008, 12:11 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Defrag your RAM??

Yer, just takes a pair of tongs , and a steady hand

[happytraveller]

If you are really interested in defragging your RAM, have a look at this piece on UTube:-

http://youtube.com/watch?v=MXD16THEDEs&feature=related

and a program to download that will do it for you:-

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,...escription.html

Smooth landings

[HardCorePawn]

*cough* snake oil *cough*...

Thanks for the link, but I dont think I am about to take computer advice from some random 12yr old kid on YouTube...

I especially love the way he has ~1300Meg free RAM before he starts, then he has ~1000Meg free when it finishes! What a useful utility... and then the program kicks into a continual loop of defragging to free up memory as it's below his target level... I'm sure that is doing wonders for his performance

[G-HEVN]

Hehe I noticed that too - every time he pressed the button he seemed to lose about 300meg! Of course the English educational system is so poor these days that I'd be truly surprised to see a 12 year old that could actually count...

Nevertheless, the issue of RAM fragmentation is real - as real as disc fragmentation, and potentially serious for apps such as FS that need large contiguous chunks of memory. The slow down may not be as noticeable as with a disc, but an OOM error will certainly grab your attention!

However on the basis of that video, I'd be inclined to stick with a trustworthy util, such as FSAutostart/AlacrityPC.

[Charl]

Y'know if you really are that strapped for resources, why not create a second, bootable, partition with a minimal Windows install?
(Leave out stuff like MSN, extra fonts etc etc)
I have one on a second HDD, and with internet connection locked so I don't get stuff trying to phone home while running the sim.
It's much simpler than crippling a perfectly good Windows installation, and maybe damaging it on the way.

[SUBS17]

My own impressions of FSX are quite good overall but the lack of a manual for the aircraft means that alot of features are overlooked as people won't know that they are there unless they look on the internet. So far I've done nearly all of the missions for FSX acceleration and deluxe and now I'm at the stage of racing missions so all my settings are configured for high FPS so traffic is turnned right down and so is scenery to get enough FPS to race for red bull etc. Of course I'm running XP 2.4gig pentium with 2gig dual channel so there is a bit of room to increase detail for some missions which feature better terrain etc. BTW pity MS didn't have MP for carrierOps what were they thinking by not making it MP compatible for the Hornet?