Windows 7 experience

[Jas451 1]

I did a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit. Installed FSX and started the program. On the 1st load it only took approximately 1 1/2 minutes. After ending flight and starting a new flight load time increased 2-5 minutes. Never had this problem with XP. It seems to load quickly the first time I boot my computer and start FSX but each restart after that takes much longer. Any ideas as to what the issue might be?

[gman! 1]

I did a clean install of Windows 7 64 bit. Installed FSX and started the program. On the 1st load it only took approximately 1 1/2 minutes. After ending flight and starting a new flight load time increased 2-5 minutes. Never had this problem with XP. It seems to load quickly the first time I boot my computer and start FSX but each restart after that takes much longer. Any ideas as to what the issue might be?

The first load FSX builds only part of the fsx.cfg, unless you start a flight in free flight or somewhere else. 2nd time if you actually flew then the rest of the fsx.cfg is built.

[darem 84]

Ok, as I said, I gave Win7 a second chance by using dual boot. Clean install again, of course.This time, my experience is way better. Don't exactly know why, because I didn't do anything different than during the first install. Didn't have a single crash so far, and with the 182.50 driver from NVidia, everything is smooth and as fast as under Vista 64. The latest drivers (191.xx) give me the crackles, like they did in Vista, but it was no problem reverting to the older ones.All hardware is working perfectly, even the MPanel, TrackIR and the Saitek Switch Panel. FPS Limiter is working fine, no problems installing the addons.I will watch this for a week or so, and then, maybe, drop Vista. Looking good so far...

[gman! 1]

Ok, as I said, I gave Win7 a second chance by using dual boot. Clean install again, of course.This time, my experience is way better. Don't exactly know why, because I didn't do anything different than during the first install. Didn't have a single crash so far, and with the 182.50 driver from NVidia, everything is smooth and as fast as under Vista 64. The latest drivers (191.xx) give me the crackles, like they did in Vista, but it was no problem reverting to the older ones.All hardware is working perfectly, even the MPanel, TrackIR and the Saitek Switch Panel. FPS Limiter is working fine, no problems installing the addons.I will watch this for a week or so, and then, maybe, drop Vista. Looking good so far...

Good to hear, and just for anyone else that may be getting bad FPS or looking to improve it even more. Try comparing DX9 and DX10 mode!

[gman! 1]

I think I may have found a serious problem. The FPS counter in FSX when running Windows 7 may be horribly flawed. I say I was getting 27 FPS with DX10 in one area, but it was so smooth and looked like it was running above 40 FPS that I said that it couldn't not even possibly be running at in the 20s. I fired up fraps and what do I know. 53 FPS. Don't use the FSX counter, user a different utility such as Fraps which is free. I'm not sure if there are any other free FPS counters. If anybody is disspointed with their performance, ditch the FSX fps counter and get something else. You may be getting more performance than you think...I also found that on my system I need a large amount of buffefpools (around 25-100MB) to stop skipping or getting lower FPS when I move the camera in the cockpit. Try it out and see how it goes for you. I think it may be with how Windows 7 handles memory. I have 512MB GDDR3 RAM on my graphics card, and when I open dxdiag it reports the memory as 2298MB because I have 4GB of RAM. Maybe the bufferpools section is running on the PC RAM instead of GFX card, making it slow?Good luck :(

[darem 84]

Good to hear, and just for anyone else that may be getting bad FPS or looking to improve it even more. Try comparing DX9 and DX10 mode!

My experience is that DX10 mode is looking bland against an NHancer optimized DX9 mode, and the DX9 mode seems to be faster than DX10 (285GTX with 2GB RAM, 182.50 driver).Another thing I noticed: upping the display quality in Win7 seems to be less demanding than in Vista 64. I can run water 2.x high instead of 2.x low without noticeable framerate loss, and I can have autogen set to very dense instead of dense and still have good framerates.Here's a funny observation: In Vista 64, I had TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80 in order to keep blurries away. In Win7, I can leave this set to TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40 and haven't seen blurries yet, even with the 300S and 180mph 500 feet above ground.Demanding areas seem to be less demanding in Win7. My Vista install gives me 17fps over Manhattan (stock) with UTX lighting on during dusk, Win7 gives me app. 20fps with same settings.So far, it is looking better and better.

[gman! 1]

My experience is that DX10 mode is looking bland against an NHancer optimized DX9 mode, and the DX9 mode seems to be faster than DX10 (285GTX with 2GB RAM, 182.50 driver).Another thing I noticed: upping the display quality in Win7 seems to be less demanding than in Vista 64. I can run water 2.x high instead of 2.x low without noticeable framerate loss, and I can have autogen set to very dense instead of dense and still have good framerates.Here's a funny observation: In Vista 64, I had TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80 in order to keep blurries away. In Win7, I can leave this set to TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40 and haven't seen blurries yet, even with the 300S and 180mph 500 feet above ground.Demanding areas seem to be less demanding in Win7. My Vista install gives me 17fps over Manhattan (stock) with UTX lighting on during dusk, Win7 gives me app. 20fps with same settings.So far, it is looking better and better.

Fore me its looking pretty similar. DX10 sometimes gets lower performance than my custom settings for DX9, but most of the time I get more FPS in DX10. And yup, in Win 7 I can up the water or autogen to extremely dense, and I saw virtually no FPS change! It's great because we can now have almost all or all settings at full right. I'm going to see how bloom works out now!

[darem 84]

Next findings: Autogen, even cloud distance do not matter they way the did before. On the scenery page, I have everything maxed now, except water. Going from high to max halves framerates. No big deal, though.Bloom still eats framerates, not as much as in Vista, but still too much. Since I find bloom very artificial, I don't miss it.Unlimited framerates give me much smoother flights now, no need to lock the framerate either via FSX or fpslimiter - I am going to ditch that now.All in all, more pleasant surprises.

[kerosene31 349]

Initially I had a bunch of blurries in FSX with Win7 that I did not have with Vista. I worked at shutting down a bunch of non-essential things and got my performance to improve considerably. Now, I flew over KLAX and had much better FPS. In Vista, even with no traffic LAX would drop my fps into the low 20s. Now I maintain closer to 30.

[betelgeuse 41]

I have a licenced copy of Vista 64 Ultimate which I never got around to installing - my current system is XP Pro for FS9. Now I wish to install Windows 7. Do I need to actually install Vista Ultimate to take advantage of the Vista to Windows 7 upgrade licence? Or is it enough just to have the Vista key/licence number? John

[Geofa 108]

Well, my upgrade to Win7 finally arrived. Now installed, and at first, I noticed a decrease in performance. Actually had some stuttering which I didn't have before. I tried many things, but eventually got it all straightened out by renaming my old config and starting a new config. Then I had to tweak my NHancer settings. But the best thing was to delete the 191.07 drivers and go back to the 190.02's. Now all is well again, but I really got concerned. You know....if it works, don't mess with it. Vista 64 was running perfectly, but Windows 7 was too tempting. I had to go for it. Thankfully, after a day of tweaking and trying my default flight over and over with ASA running, I got back to my comfort level. I'm also wondering if Affinity Mask makes a difference with Windows 7. Please advise!Stan

HI Stan-I just got a new "puter with Win7 64 bit.Love the operating system.Have lots of troubles with fsx-the biggest for me that realityxp 430 crashes now-along with flightsim hardware I have bought not working.I went from a system where Vista hosed my whole computer but fsx worked fine-to one who's system works great but fsx no longer does.Grrrrr.....

[sluggy 3]

HI Stan-I just got a new "puter with Win7 64 bit.Love the operating system.Have lots of troubles with fsx-the biggest for me that realityxp 430 crashes now-along with flightsim hardware I have bought not working.I went from a system where Vista hosed my whole computer but fsx worked fine-to one who's system works great but fsx no longer does.Grrrrr.....

Hi GeoffThe bad news is that the RXP GNS430/530 won't work in a x64 bit environment, as the trainer is a 16-bit application. Damn shame, so that now I have a 'heavy iron' FS9 running in Win 7 x64 (as I was getting OOM errors in XP x86), and a 'GA' FS9 running in XP SP3 x86 (completely separate install on another HD away from Win 7) as I didn't want to lose the RXP gauges either. I'm not sure if the 'WAAS' 430/530 works in x64?Cheers, SLuggy

[Geofa 108]

Hi GeoffThe bad news is that the RXP GNS430/530 won't work in a x64 bit environment, as the trainer is a 16-bit application. Damn shame, so that now I have a 'heavy iron' FS9 running in Win 7 x64 (as I was getting OOM errors in XP x86), and a 'GA' FS9 running in XP SP3 x86 (completely separate install on another HD away from Win 7) as I didn't want to lose the RXP gauges either. I'm not sure if the 'WAAS' 430/530 works in x64?Cheers, SLuggy

Someone mentioned that it might be possible to run it by setting things up to run in xp compatibility mode. I haven't had success yet but will be trying-I can not live without my gps! :-lol

[sluggy 3]

Someone mentioned that it might be possible to run it by setting things up to run in xp compatibility mode. I haven't had success yet but will be trying-I can not live without my gps! :-lol

As far as I know, no-ones got them to work in XP-64 nor Vista-64. That's why I kept XP-32. Not the most elegant or efficient solution (2 full installs of FS9, albeit with different aircraft, but at least HD space is cheap these days), but at least it works. And if an addon doesn't play nice with a 64 bit OS, I can have it running a couple of minutes later whilst someone smarter than me figures out how to get it working. It's like having 2 PCs in the one box! :( Cheers, SLuggy

[sluggy 3]

After a bit of research, it appears that the 430/530 WAAS models ARE Vista-64 compatible, so I'd hazard they'll work in Win 7 x64. US$50 a pop!Cheers, SLuggy