Hi,I never even considered the FEX SHD textures (4096) or textures from anyone this size, simply because of the hit. Although I havent tried them, my experience says no. I was reading forums and many are using them and seem to be delighted! In addition to the bloated textures, some are even flying the frame killer heavies. They post pictures and discuss how awesome these textures are. How can they do this? I run a qx9650 OC'd to about 3.5 and use an 8800GT-OC board. I am very happy with the performance, but it took quite a bit of work to get FSX and my computer leveled out to a point where it was smooth.I still fly frame friendly planes from Carenado and RealAirSimulations and sometimes I can force myself to deal with a little stuttering when flying Eaglesofts s22-turbo (glass). I just cant believe that these folks get any smoothness whatsoever. If they are, I want what they have! I loaded up some 1024 clouds (previously 512) and did my testing again. To be perfectly honest, I could not tell the difference. The only difference I did see was a little stuttering. So, being the smooth freak I am, I went right back to the 512 textures. I guess I am just to particular. I know I don't have all the necessary info as they also could be running @1024x758 with no Auto-Gen, cloud distance minimum, water at [NONE] and no AI Traffic. Or maybe it is monitor refresh rate, coupled with the operating frequency of the brain, allowing a perceived smoothness (no offense intended). RegardsBob G

FSX is quit perverse in this way sometimes. It seems that the more you 'feed' FSX, the better it runs. Case in point - I was reading through some of Nick Needhams posts on FSX tuning, and one point he mentioned is that FSX ran better the higher the autogen slider was (I'm generalising his comment but you get the idea). So I tried increasing autogen and found FSX to run smoother for me. It seems as with everything in life, it's all about Priorities in FSX.Search out Nick_N's posts, they will explain alot.

i used the 4096 textures for a while. the frame hit was negligible except in extremely heavy weather or with high AA settings. as you suggest, it's effect on performance is highly dependent on many variables. a card like the 8800gt can pump out and incredibly high amount of polys and texture detail, take one look at any modern fps that isn't using a legacy engine like fsx and you'll see that having textures of this size is no problem technically.there is a noticeable visual difference to my eye, but i will usually use 1024 or 2048 nowadays just to avoid having to worry about weather conditions affecting the frames and save the 4096 for when i'm trying to make fancy screenshots. i also run with lower autogen and traffic settings than most so perhaps that is why the hit doesn't seem so significant on my system. this is a compromise since i prefer using maximum cloud coverage and distance, and also i use ASA so there are several extra layers of clouds instead of 3 which is where a lot of the performance hit comes when the weather gets dicey. i'd imagine with default weather the hit is even less.cheers,-andy crosby

FSX is quit perverse in this way sometimes. It seems that the more you 'feed' FSX, the better it runs. Case in point - I was reading through some of Nick Needhams posts on FSX tuning, and one point he mentioned is that FSX ran better the higher the autogen slider was (I'm generalising his comment but you get the idea). So I tried increasing autogen and found FSX to run smoother for me. It seems as with everything in life, it's all about Priorities in FSX.Search out Nick_N's posts, they will explain alot.

Hi,Yes I have read Nicks posts concerning this, and I have yet to see that on my system. That is so hard to digest although.....Here is something to chew on. If I run 256x256 clouds, FSX reboots everytime without fail. First thought was that I had a corrupt file(s), so I tried other vendors same size clouds. Same issue.You talk about being flakey, this is it. thanks for chiming in!Bob

I'm with you Bob. I run the same "frame rate friendly aircraft" and once in a while decide its ok to use the ES Cirrus if I'm flying in rural areas (I can still get around 20)I also use the Mustang but not nearly as often as I'd like. I get a massive performance hit in the VC not to mention crashes with the G1000.... I am surprised people can fly 30 fps (a figure I personally consider a good rate and perfectly flyable) in larger cities with the mustang, pmdg md11, leveld 767, etc. I think they have their system clocked to 4.0 or above. I think 4.0 is a sweet spot for FSX and one can really crank the autogen and stuff in large cities with payware tubeliners. Your system is way faster than mine but I fly predominately in rural areas, or smaller cities, and rarely in class B cities. Still I only get about 15-20 fps depending on weather - however I set very high settings in FSX, because I like the eye candy, it feels more realistic to see entire forests rather than a few sparse trees. For me it's all or none hehe.

I'm with you Bob. I run the same "frame rate friendly aircraft" and once in a while decide its ok to use the ES Cirrus if I'm flying in rural areas (I can still get around 20)I also use the Mustang but not nearly as often as I'd like. I get a massive performance hit in the VC not to mention crashes with the G1000.... I am surprised people can fly 30 fps (a figure I personally consider a good rate and perfectly flyable) in larger cities with the mustang, pmdg md11, leveld 767, etc. I think they have their system clocked to 4.0 or above. I think 4.0 is a sweet spot for FSX and one can really crank the autogen and stuff in large cities with payware tubeliners. Your system is way faster than mine but I fly predominately in rural areas, or smaller cities, and rarely in class B cities. Still I only get about 15-20 fps depending on weather - however I set very high settings in FSX, because I like the eye candy, it feels more realistic to see entire forests rather than a few sparse trees. For me it's all or none hehe.

Well I am getting 24-25 at KSEA and almost everything cranked up. Not all the way but close. I too would love to have the Mustang, but I just wont give up the smoothness for it. Well I am oc'd to about 3.5 but getting to 4.0 with this motherboard is not happening. The bios has improved over the last six months but I made a bad choice on motherboards. Many folks have oc'd to 4 with this processor on air, but I will need a new MB before I will be able do it. I too like the eye candy and if keeping it means I cant fly something with glass then I will wait.RegardsBob

Each system has it's own sweetspot and it's up to you to find it. I have several very lengthy threads over at Simviation working with NickN to overclock and tweak seveal systems. I finally have it where I want it. for me, my system is a q9650 liquid cooled clocked to 3.88 - XP64 - 4G Mushkin ram running 1721 8-8-8-24-1T - GTX 280 video card. I have frames locked at 30 - no bufferpools. Most sliders on the high end except water at 2Low. Autogen very dense. Airline traffic at 55% but other traffic at 15%. Run ASA/GEX/UTX/FSG/WorlofAI/FEX 4096 textures. Always use TRackIR.Flying around LAX in heavy weather I stay right around 29.9 with no stutters.I was able to get to 4.0 stable with bench tests but it was not stable with my configuration of FSX. Kept testing until I found MY sweet spot with that CPU and that memory is at 3.88I can't stress enough that you really need to do a fresh install of FSX and add-ons and follow NickN's guide to tweaking the system first and then FSX. If you follow it to the letter you will get results - skip just one step - all bets are off.I was amazed also while testing and getting frustrated with low frames and sliders when Nick suggested kicking the AG up a notch or two and my frames went UP *AND* the sim got smoother.FSX in not intuitive when it comes with tweaking. Every system has different parts and what works for one will be garbage on another. It will take a while but, believe me, when you get it, it is well worth the trouble!Vic

Well I am getting 24-25 at KSEA and almost everything cranked up. Not all the way but close.

That's pretty good at KSEA with your hardware and lots of things cranked. There are a lot of tweaking things you can do, though, to improve the smoothness.I can tell you that I am one of those people that runs a Core2 at 4.0 ghz, and my rig can flat out handle the PMDG MD-11 in the big cities. But even so, I have a special config saved for flying it there, a config that has one less notch of autogen, and a little less AI. I found in my tests that those steps were necessary to maintain smoothness in all situations; However, I still do have autogen and AI, and to me, that's the key...that is what I built my rig with the expectation of doing, and that is what it does, thankfully. I would agree with anyone who says that FSX is a tough program to optimize, which is one of the problems with it.

I agree with the testing. I used Nicks tweak guide to the letter and it definately works well. FSX is a weird bird for sure. I still believe that there is some code in place with this monster that has not been let out of the bag. There is just no real explanation for "your results may vary" if you basically have the same hardware and OS. There is something in the FSX code that is not right and has not yet been made public. It is almost like it wasnt completely finished. A bug is one thing but this sim has a mind of it's own. I have even witnessed recreated almost exact flights from take off to landing. Same altitudes even the same head panning. At least as close as possible. Even with this type of testing I have seen different results on different flights. There is something that just aint right. Call me what you want, but this sim has a mind of its own. Don't get me wrong, as this is one hell of a sim and the I take my hat of to them for such an accomplishment, but there is I dont think they really had enough time to test is thoroughly. You have code talking to code talking to code, and all working together seamlessly completely aware of each other. Sounds a little like Science fiction.RegardsBob