B747-400X and Vista - Your Opinions/Experience/Problems

[JETSET843D 8]

I finally got round to purchasing the 744X last and what can i say!!I have never been a huge 744 fan but I was blown away - it is the most fantastic add on to ever be produced for the flight simulator community. I cannot say how very proud the PMDG team should be of their product and their outstanding work!! I took her for a quick spin last night and as mentioned in a previous post, the sound quality really is out of this world, the package contains the most realistic RB211 soundset, it as though there are 4 huge engines strapped to your seat:-)I have had no issues thus far and the only 'problem' is as detailed in another post, the navigation lights appear ahead of the wing tip!I'm going to take her a spin later,The next question is do i purchase FSX Acceleration to compliment this amazing 747!Regards,James

[DF9AA 0]

Hi all,I am really in trouble . . .Lets start at the beginning =Installed FSX and SP1 about 9 months ago, made a few tests and then shut it down waiting for a PMDG aircraft available for FSX . . .This morning I downloaded the 747X - with no problems at all - installed it and started FSX . . . It took about 5 mins to the initial page and then selecting PMDG 747 GE version. The scenery load took more than 16 mins ( I started my stopwatch somewhat later . . . ) and after it was finally finished -IT STARTED ALL OVER AGAIN for another 30 MINUTES !!Totally frustrated I used the SEARCH FUNCTION ( FSX scenery loading ) and got over 500 ( FIVEHUNDRED !! ) replies, which I don't have checked all !I use Vista Home Premium, 2GB RAM ,Intel Dual Core and a moderate graphic card ( Nvidia 7650 )no add-ons and Active sky X was NOT activated.Has this something to do with 747X - I don't believe, because others would have mentionned this.Any help or suggestions highly appreciated !!

[blueridgeflyer 1]

Tim,This is what I suspected all along. I have 4GB DDR2 in my rig, so I always suspected that it was a Vista 32 issue that would magically go away with the 64bit version of the OS....wishful thinking at the moment. Im sure that we will enjoy a performance bump at best with maturing video drivers. As for the memory creep issue, perhaps Vista SP1 in JAN08?? Come to think about it, its not that far away. Oh well off I go to recurrent sim training, time to dump all of this 744 stuff for a few days.....Ryan

[JETSET843D 8]

Hi Karl,I have a few suggestions for you. How much hard drive space do you have? I ask this because on my previous system it was 80% full causing FSX to take an age to load!!Have you tried a disk cleanup to remove all the unneccesary files and have you tried the disk defragmentation?? It may help?Do you have all the most recent drivers for your hardware, i'm aware nvidia released a new driver not too long ago,How long does it take to load a default cessna at one of the default aerodromes??I hope this helps,Regards,James

[DF9AA 0]

Hi James,thanks for the fast reply.HD space is not a problem - 194G free . . . .Defrag is done on a regular basis.Nvidia drivers were installed about 14 days agoLoading time Cessna 172 at Friday Harbour = 12Mins 30 secMeanwhile I installed FSX and SP1 on my 4 1/2 year old XP machine( 1G RAM ATI 1650x graphic card Pentium 4 )and I loaded the same Cessna within SECONDS !!BTW : Cessna came up in the air . . . and frame rate looked OK with this relatively old machine !Have not yet installed the PMDG 747X on the XP machine. Karl-Heinz - EDDI/THF " Tempelhof "" The mother of all airports " - Sir Norman Fosterhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

[JETSET843D 8]

Hi Karl, Lefteris posted this reply in another post'Are you running Vista? If so, you NEED to have installed with "Run As Administrator", or else you'll have LOADS of issues such as this one. In fact, one of the reasons we don't recommend Vista is the UAC issue which makes the user *think* that it's editing files in their proper folders, but they're not there... I'd strongly suggest you disable UAC... (look it up with Google).'It is definately worth giving this a shot too??All the best,James

[Guest clear to land]

Hi Tim ,Thanks for your interest in settings. my system is set up much as advised by hints and tips you read around these quality forums nothing more than that. my only advice is make sure you have latest drivers ect for your system that means mother board bios updates ect too. With Vista i cant emphisize the memory quantity and quality enough. Vista aint hungry for memory it holds a banquet !!. this i learnt over the year whilst preparing for the 747 400. Yeah i ran the queen in XP but in Vista oh dear its been an expensive year the machine i now have aint the original well the case is and the plug to the wall socket is !!. three m/ boards (thats a long story ) but the whole machine up dated ( dont tell the wife !! )trial and error basically and alot thinner wallet !!. As for the settings well what suits one machine dont suit another its experiment mate . i do run as unlimited in the frame rate department and get 55 to 70 fps with addon scenery too. the rest is very much trial and error but do not try to push your machine to hard. save a little processor for plane (it is a flight sim ) not some wagon or bus travelling along a high way !!. I personally am running HORIZON VFR SCENERY FSX OF ENGLAND ALL THREE VOLUMES. hence i followed there settings to for setting up and it looks great. plus i use RADAR CONTACT VER4.also. i posted some pictures over on Just Flight Forum under general forum (level d 767 screen shots lake district ) plenty looked none commented !! bunch of kids if i may say so !! some were long post admin staff too. Prob after i had listed my true remarks about ther Airbus offering from WILCO and the fact it could not find a foot path never mind a glide slope !! may have upset the natives i dont know. Rubbish i do know it is. Not like PMDG 747 400 creame del la creame for sure..Hope this post helps you...the word is memory updates and experimentation TIM.neville (egnt newcastle int )england

[tfm 169]

RyanI tried again tonight with better success. This time I un-installed FSInn and set FEX to load 256x256 textures (instead of 1024x1024). I kept my other settings, including the Heathrow 2008 scenery and MyTraffic X (but set to "zero" traffic). The sim flew perfectly from Frankfurt to Heathrow. Not a long flight, I know, but definite progress.Tim

[bsmonroe 0]

No problem using Vista 32 for both FS9 and FSX. However, in my case I have a dual-core processor and very high end graphics card (ATI). If you use an NVIDIA card and anything less than a dual-core processor with Vista (and less than 4GB memory) you can pretty much forget it for FSX.

[Guest clear to land]

Hi guys As you may have read in my previos posts on this subject i am running 747-400 on VISTA ULTIMATE 64 BIT with no problems what so ever.I chose the Ultimate 64 bit against the advice of PC WORLD where one of there trained sales persons recommended the 32 bit version more compatable SIR !!!!.MMM. Well (bearing in mind my intentions ) it is i believe that VISTA 32 bit is sort of posh version of XP, in a way, and can only recognises 2gig of ram if i am not mistaken. Hence the purchase of ULTIMATE 64 bit which is of a higher spec version and can basically recognise as much memory as you can through at it. That decision has payed off.Tried 2gig at first with fsx ! mmmm well it ran but up came out of memory errors ( oom ! ). Two more gig added then the asus mother board i had in cud not handle the extra 2 gig !!!! honest guys its true, known fault on the asus forums with no fix either.Out came mboard in went the gigagyte board prob solved. All four sticks of mem recognised END OF OUT OF MEMORY pop ups and ctd s. So guys this offering that pmdg in the opps page could really do with a sort of update for prospective Vista users in the future i feel it aint VISTA its the version thats at fault.It is mentioned true but should be a little more bold text. As i have said VISTA is memory hungry 4 GIG of 5300 0r 6400 is entry level for fsx and PMDG 747-400 to work together. This find is off my personnel experiences i aint know computer tecko my mate sees to that department basically. but believe me guys the queen runs as good as she did in my XP days.just so much better graphics ect. Yeah as in previous posts above the machine aint the one i started this crusade with far far from it, but lets not cry in our beer the guys at PMDG did say you will need top end equipment to run sucessfully we were given the time as they developed the queen. "FOR WARNED IS FOR ARMED " .hope this post was of some help guys if your toiling with what to do over operating system. neville (egnt newcastle int )England

[Guest Neville van Eerten]

The generic MS fix please?Neville

[veldthui 0]

>The generic MS fix please?>>NevilleIt was a Vista patch from Microsoft that had something to do with memory management. P Taylors blog would be able to tell you the exact one.John Veldthuishttp://www.virtualpilots.org/signatures/vpa475.png

[DF9AA 0]

Hi,I have redone everything - complete re-install of the PC - and . . . it works !I my opinion a CLEAN registry is the SECRET behind Vista . . . before I had nearly 11000 ( ELEVENTHOUSAND ) wrong or invalid entries in the registry !! There are tools available which checks and clears the registry very effectivly ( i.e. uniblue regbooster )Had my first BER-JFK flight with no problems whatsoever - a few little gimmicks :At assigned alt the a/c sometimes jumps +/- 500 ftFor nearly 1 1/2 hours I had no connection to ASX ( not a 747X problem ? )FSRealtime would not connect , but I feel that time is not a problem any more with FSX ( FS9 used only 52 mins for the hour, but FSX is more or less ON TIME - just a fraction too slow)and most importantthe FMC is much more precise - fuel calculation you can trust !Karl-Heinz - EDDI/THF " Tempelhof "" The mother of all airports " - Sir Norman Fosterhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpg

[Guest JacobKoziarz]

Q6600/8800GTS/4 Gig RAM Vista 64, FSX/SP1/SP2 - it doesn't work for me - many many different bugs...So many different results here - that it looks like it's really a combination of hardware that controls this.

[Richard McDonald Woods 168]

I have been using B747-400X and Vista 32 since its release. Initially I had a number of performance problems, but I have found that performance can be greatly improved with 2 actions. Unfortunately, not being a technical sort, I have not determined which actions gave the best improvements. My current performance is quite acceptable.My 2 recommended actions are:1. Turn off all unnecessary programs e.g. all those not required that are shown on your task bar.2. Read Koroush Ghazi's excellent Tweaking Companion for Windows Vista. It is free, or