Don't miss this one: a NEW FSX optimizer

[Guest Nick_N]

The primary goal of this application is to smooth out flightRegardless of what one sees in the frame counter in the way of a spike here and there, if flight is smoother and the frame counter spends most of its time around the locked frame mark then its working If flight isn't smoother or the same as before the app was used then the system is either not tuned correctly, overtaxed to begin with, had enough overhead to begin with (i7) or for some reason the app is not working. There appears to be Vista and multi monitor issues with this. Neither I have answers for at this time.If the user does not see any difference in smooth flight there is no reason to use this app.XP/Vista and multi-monitor amy present issues.. They had problems with MM when Vista first came out and it took them quite a while to issue a OS update for itThose seeing 1/2 frame rates with MM running.. try setting frame rate limiter BAT frame lock to 50 or 60 instead however that sort of defeats the purposeThis may not work with MM because of how FSX addresses the frame buffer. Those with MM systems should chime in and let people know their results and how they may have overcome any issues

[Mango 0]

It limits to 30 for me when i set 60 - Vista 64 and dual monitor.

[Noel 4,501]

Hey Noel Many thanks for the thanks :) i had'nt posted this app sooner as im a DX10 flyer (i can hear nick tutting while reading this ;) ) and was only seeing the odd spike on my system due to having it well balanced,like i said i had used it in other games to smooth things out but as i was'nt seeing the problem in FSX i didnt think twice about posting it Doh!.....so thanks to yourself for asking the question that sparked off my replyIm happy that the 665 ppl who have sofar downloaded it from my RS acount are getting something out of this and more thanks to the ppl who have replyed with there thanks and finding ,Thank You :)last thanks goes to Nick N for putting this through it paces and posting his results,without him im Sure FSX would still be gathering Dust on a shelf for so many of us and we'ed all still be running Fs9 !if there was vote for most useful community member in the Avsim poll im sure he'ed win by a landslide so a very BIG thank you to Nick N for all his hard work not just on this but for everything else FS wiseOk im going to upset my apple cart and try this in DX9 mode ;)CheersSteve AKA Gizmo

Cool, Steve AKA Gizmo! Yes, this is a wonderful reminder of how networking in forums helps improve our shared hobby. I don't quite know how to explain NickN. He is far and away the most dedicated and giving resource person in the aviation sim world. The funny thing was--I was logging on to reply to my own query after 20 days or so with no replies: "Well, I guess there is no such utility." The evening I logged on to check this out your post was there. I'm also a little amazed the dev team hadn't had this idea themselves. Anyway, it seems improving most users' experiences and meaningful ways, plus it's easy and I'm not seeing a downside. The other party who I have tried to google, the author, Marko Rudolph, seems to be a pretty obscure party. I haven't dug too deep, but his name doesn't generate too many meaningful hits: "Your search - marko rudolph FPS_Limiter - did not match any documents. " There are some hits for sure but nothing concrete. This dude did the work and what a good job he did. Again, it has value in other applications from what I've googled.My system was working quite well too. But this thing has polished it up to virtual perfection now. And I don't have Vista 64 set up special: it's stock, with UAC disabled, that's it. It's still running super with the BP fix and FPS_Limiter. If I gaze into close up scenery moving by, as in on the taxiway, there is a very subtle, very minor hesitation every now and then, but it's very very mild now. Perhaps with Vista more optimized even this may go. I can't see it tho, unless I focus closely on stuff like that. Yes, thanks again! You brought it to us Steve!

[BimmerCop 332]

Hi guys! This seems like an awesome utility but for some reason, I am not getting the results others are getting. For instance, I set FPS to UNLIMITED with FSX. After setting FPS Limiter to 30fps and running the batch file, FSX will NEVER go beyond 10FPS while in full-screen mode. If I switch to windowed mode, it will then run at 30fps.What am I doing wrong? Thanks for any help...EDIT: HA!!! I saw a couple of previous posts regarding MM setups and yes, I have a triple monitor setup. hmmmm Could it be that running FPS limiter, it splits the 30fps between 3 monitors, and thus I end up with 10fps? I'm gonna do a test now, by upping the FPS on the FPS Limiter. If this is the case, then I would have to set FPS Limiter at 90fps?

[BimmerCop 332]

Yup, I can confirm this... If you have a multi-monitor (MM) setup, you need to multiply your target FPS times the amount of monitors you have and that's what you are going to enter as your FPS into FPS Limiter. In my case, I have Vista Home Premium x64 with (3) Dell 2405FPW monitors, and I had to enter 90fps (30fps x 3) into FPS Limiter, so that FSX would lock to 30fps.As far as performance is concerned, I strongly think that it works even though it is going through some sort of FPS splitting between monitors. My textures are crystal clear and the sim is running extremely fluid. No complaints on my part.

[Noel 4,501]

Yup, I can confirm this... If you have a multi-monitor (MM) setup, you need to multiply your target FPS times the amount of monitors you have and that's what you are going to enter as your FPS into FPS Limiter. In my case, I have Vista Home Premium x64 with (3) Dell 2405FPW monitors, and I had to enter 90fps (30fps x 3) into FPS Limiter, so that FSX would lock to 30fps.As far as performance is concerned, I strongly think that it works even though it is going through some sort of FPS splitting between monitors. My textures are crystal clear and the sim is running extremely fluid. No complaints on my part.

Hey that's great. Nice to know some are having success with MM. Could you do me a huge favor? Can you post a single screen shot of a 2D panel on a widescreen monitor? I am using a 4:3 Samsung but may change to a widescreen, and wish to see what 2D main panels might look like on a widescreen display. I've seen VC's, which look fine.Thanks,Noel

[GeorgeT93 1]

I haven't tried this yet (it's 3:15am here, and I've got to get to bed *some* time lol), but it's got me excited to try it out. I just put together a new system on a budget (Q9550, 9800GT 1GB, 4GB RAM, XP Pro 32 SP3), and just finished my install and initial configuration tweaks tonight. I've got it looking pretty darn good, but I am getting some 'hitching'. If I set FSX's frame limiter to Unlimited, I'll average around 28 with my current settings, but if I set the in-game fps limit to 24 it seems to average 18-20 fps. I'm really looking forward to trying this utility out and see how it works for me tomorrow. Great find OP, and very glad to hear that it seems to be working for a good number of folks. :)-George

[GSalden 4,657]

If you have a multi-monitor (MM) setup, you need to multiply your target FPS times the amount of monitors you have and that's what you are going to enter as your FPS into FPS Limiter. In my case, I have Vista Home Premium x64 with (3) Dell 2405FPW monitors, and I had to enter 90fps (30fps x 3) into FPS Limiter, so that FSX would lock to 30fps.My setup consits of two 26"monitors connected to a DualHead2Go.In my case I do not have to multiply the target framerate times the amount of monitors....

[Bert Pieke 7,585]

Hey that's great. Nice to know some are having success with MM. Could you do me a huge favor? Can you post a single screen shot of a 2D panel on a widescreen monitor? I am using a 4:3 Samsung but may change to a widescreen, and wish to see what 2D main panels might look like on a widescreen display. I've seen VC's, which look fine.Thanks,Noel

Here you go.. it is not perfect, but I can live with it. If it really bothers you, you can grab the edges with the mouse and pull them in a bit, as in the second screenshot.You can save this view and load it up later..

[BimmerCop 332]

Hey that's great. Nice to know some are having success with MM. Could you do me a huge favor? Can you post a single screen shot of a 2D panel on a widescreen monitor? I am using a 4:3 Samsung but may change to a widescreen, and wish to see what 2D main panels might look like on a widescreen display. I've seen VC's, which look fine.Thanks,Noel

Hi Noel! Ok, I will do that today. On widescreens, there is some slight stretching but it's not a deal breaker. I for the most part fly with the Level-D 767 and the panel looks very good on my Dell 2405FPW which is a 24" widescreen (16x10 ratio). But I have 3 of these and my next purchase is the Matrox TripleHead2Go Digital, so eventually I will be flying using the virtual cockpit.On a side note, and maybe NickN and others can help me on this question as well. I have Windows Vista Home Premium x64, and my sim pc is for simming ONLY. I do NOT use it for anything else. Should I use Windows XP x64 instead of Vista on this machine? Will FSX run a bit better? Thanks for any insight on this.

If you have a multi-monitor (MM) setup, you need to multiply your target FPS times the amount of monitors you have and that's what you are going to enter as your FPS into FPS Limiter. In my case, I have Vista Home Premium x64 with (3) Dell 2405FPW monitors, and I had to enter 90fps (30fps x 3) into FPS Limiter, so that FSX would lock to 30fps.My setup consits of two 26"monitors connected to a DualHead2Go.In my case I do not have to multiply the target framerate times the amount of monitors....

Yup, you have 2 monitors but with DH2Go, FSX sees just 1 big monitor. :-)

[MSW 0]

The FPS Limiter seems to have smoothed out the small stutters fairly well, however, I am now experiencing occasional 1 sec hesitations. Is there something else that I need to adjust?. I have set up everything according to Nick's tweaks and FSX settings.Bufferpool= 35000000 according to Nick's guideXP Pro w sp3, 8800GTS 640 mb, C2 duo 6700 oced to 3.35 ghz, 2 gb ram dual path ddr2, FSX w acceleration

[sargeski 16]

The FPS Limiter seems to have smoothed out the small stutters fairly well, however, I am now experiencing occasional 1 sec hesitations. Is there something else that I need to adjust?. I have set up everything according to Nick's tweaks and FSX settings.Bufferpool= 35000000 according to Nick's guideXP Pro w sp3, 8800GTS 640 mb, C2 duo 6700 oced to 3.35 ghz, 2 gb ram dual path ddr2, FSX w acceleration

The poolsize for your reported hardware maybe a bit high. Try without the bufferpool tweak then try with settings in the range of 4 to 25MB. Your actual FSX settings may also be affecting your result if your sliders are still set to high.

[BimmerCop 332]

Guys, I just did a nice quick hop from TJSJ to TNCA, using FSX-ASX-GEX-REX-RC4-LD4-LVLD763-FS2CREW-WOAI, and I have two words to say: I'M SPEECHLESS!!!!The fluidity of the sim was surreal and the visuals were AMAZING! Using this tool PLUS all of NickN's guides to properly setup my FSX and Vista 64 setup, yielded the BEST experience I've ever had with FSX.Once again, THANKS to the OP for posting this awesome tool and NickN for all of his superb guides. BTW, I started another thread asking about whether it was better to use Vista 64 or XP 64, and I think I'm sticking with Vista 64. Like others have said, when it comes to operating systems, YMMV.Now, I just need to get my TripleHead2Go Digital adapter and I will be having a blast! :-)

[Guest Nick_N]

The FPS Limiter seems to have smoothed out the small stutters fairly well, however, I am now experiencing occasional 1 sec hesitations. Is there something else that I need to adjust?. I have set up everything according to Nick's tweaks and FSX settings.Bufferpool= 35000000 according to Nick's guideXP Pro w sp3, 8800GTS 640 mb, C2 duo 6700 oced to 3.35 ghz, 2 gb ram dual path ddr2, FSX w acceleration

That stutter would indicatea. Something running in the background causing itb. A slider, probably autogen or scenery complexity, is too high Do keep in mind that bufferpools is a try and see setting. Every card I have worked with (I dont use 512/640MB cards) is set to either 70MB-100MB and it does make a difference flying over large amounts of trees however there are some cards that simply do not play nice with the value pushed up.. mostly 512 cards I see the same 1sec stutter with 100% AG slider around very large tree environments which is typical with this sim.. Reducing to very dense (1 notch) the stutter is gone. The tree situation is very poorly designed. They place no autogen on those tiles so the sim automatically defaults to 4000 trees on each tree tile which is over the top outrageous especially for hardware back in 2006 when FSX was released. Limiting trees in the config file is a BIG mistake as that throws off the sim priority. Best to simply bite the bullet and drop the AG slider a notch in those situations. Unfortunately we can not annotate those tree tiles because if we do that would mean the sim would not show pines where pine forest should be and the reverse for other trees. We can annotate a lower amount of trees on those tiles and solve the entire tree perf problem but that would mean we would lose the sim ability to change them as they appear in different places in the world... we are still considering options for possibly fixing the issue with GEX EU. At this point we are not sure if it will make it into release or not.

[Noel 4,501]

Here you go.. it is not perfect, but I can live with it. If it really bothers you, you can grab the edges with the mouse and pull them in a bit, as in the second screenshot.You can save this view and load it up later..

Thank you Bert I would have to say the widescreen may actually add more than it takes away. Thank you for that Bert I think I will start looking at widescreen displays. I've always assumed smaller pixel pitch was a good thing, but I'm not too sure how meaningful that becomes in the real world.