GTX 9800 GTX + Phenom II Quad

[Guest dakrisht]

Hey Everyone,I was able to get about 17-19FPS tonight while flying in and around LAX - touch and go at Burbank, Van Nuys, Santa Monica - just night flying in and around Los Angeles.I have an nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX and reading the forums, replaced my 'latest' drivers with the 180.48 recommended here. I'm also running an over-clocked AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.5Ghz.I'm probably going to push the chip to 3.7Ghz as soon as my heatsink arrives and feel that might improve performance a little...Is 17-19FPS the best I can expect with this config? I'm sure at FL320 over Montana I can get 40-50FPS (if not more) but what about city flying especially if landing in a busy city (LAX, JFK, MIA, Heathrow, Paris, etc.) ???What does FSX need to for great frame rates? 2GB GPU? ;)Was thinking of maybe going SLI and getting another GeForce 9800 GTX?Admittedly, the 17-19FPS I got tonight was not bad, turns were smooth and etc... Just wondering if a) I'm using the best drivers for my setup :( what more can I do to increase performance from my system and FSX c) tips and opinionsI'm running DX9 on Win XP SP3 32-bit with a 10k RPM HDD.Thanks everyone!((wanted to add, running FSX on 1920x1080, everything is on Best settings except for ground vehicles, ferries, general aviation traffic, airliners traffic, anti-aliasing is on, etc...)

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Hey Everyone,I was able to get about 17-19FPS tonight while flying in and around LAX - touch and go at Burbank, Van Nuys, Santa Monica - just night flying in and around Los Angeles.I have an nVidia GeForce 9800 GTX and reading the forums, replaced my 'latest' drivers with the 180.48 recommended here. I'm also running an over-clocked AMD Phenom II X4 940 @ 3.5Ghz.I'm probably going to push the chip to 3.7Ghz as soon as my heatsink arrives and feel that might improve performance a little...Is 17-19FPS the best I can expect with this config? I'm sure at FL320 over Montana I can get 40-50FPS (if not more) but what about city flying especially if landing in a busy city (LAX, JFK, MIA, Heathrow, Paris, etc.) ???What does FSX need to for great frame rates? 2GB GPU? ;)Was thinking of maybe going SLI and getting another GeForce 9800 GTX?Admittedly, the 17-19FPS I got tonight was not bad, turns were smooth and etc... Just wondering if a) I'm using the best drivers for my setup :( what more can I do to increase performance from my system and FSX c) tips and opinionsI'm running DX9 on Win XP SP3 32-bit with a 10k RPM HDD.Thanks everyone!((wanted to add, running FSX on 1920x1080, everything is on Best settings except for ground vehicles, ferries, general aviation traffic, airliners traffic, anti-aliasing is on, etc...)

First things I cut back on to increase performance isWater at 1X low, Freeway traffic at zero, bloom off, and using the fps limiter app at 30 with FSX running at unlimited fps.Search in the main FSX forum for the fps limiter if you do not have it installed.Also, some have reported that disabling the exit definitions in their AI aircraft to stop the moving Jetways helps around big airports.Obviously, overall traffic settings also matter a great deal.A second video card will not buy you any performance in FSX, but more CPU cycles will.

[Guest dakrisht]

First things I cut back on to increase performance isWater at 1X low, Freeway traffic at zero, bloom off, and using the fps limiter app at 30 with FSX running at unlimited fps.Search in the main FSX forum for the fps limiter if you do not have it installed.Also, some have reported that disabling the exit definitions in their AI aircraft to stop the moving Jetways helps around big airports.Obviously, overall traffic settings also matter a great deal.A second video card will not buy you any performance in FSX, but more CPU cycles will.

Thanks, Bert.Yeah, I've read that a second GPU doesn't do much for FSX. I know it's a very resource-intense game, but I'm running a chip which is faster than the entry-level Intel Core i7 (my colleague in the next office has one, we've been benchmarking for two weeks). I'm going to OC it to 3.7Ghz and see if that will help me out, but that's as much as I can get without frying my CPU - maybe 3.8Ghz but that's not very stable.I also read a post on Tom's Hardware that the nVidia 9800 GTX beats a lot of cards in terms of FSX performance (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-9800gtx-review,1800-4.html) so I don't think buying a new GPU will help.I'll try the water settings and FPS limiter as well as install the nHancer with the FSX profile...

[Guest dakrisht]

Thanks, Bert.Yeah, I've read that a second GPU doesn't do much for FSX. I know it's a very resource-intense game, but I'm running a chip which is faster than the entry-level Intel Core i7 (my colleague in the next office has one, we've been benchmarking for two weeks). I'm going to OC it to 3.7Ghz and see if that will help me out, but that's as much as I can get without frying my CPU - maybe 3.8Ghz but that's not very stable.I also read a post on Tom's Hardware that the nVidia 9800 GTX beats a lot of cards in terms of FSX performance (http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/nvidia-geforce-9800gtx-review,1800-4.html) so I don't think buying a new GPU will help.I'll try the water settings and FPS limiter as well as install the nHancer with the FSX profile...

Wow, so I installed the Acceleration Pack which came with my FSX Gold Edition, lowered the Water to Medium, Freeway traffic to 1 and set the FPS limiter to "Unlimited"Taking off from LAX (towards the ocean) I noticed a whopping 60-70 FPS jump (it would go from 58-73 constantly)! That was pretty amazing.When I made a right turn back towards Los Angeles, my frame rates were in the 42-55 FPS range! (constantly jumping between 38-63).I don't know what happened but now it runs amazing, maybe there was a patch/fix in the Acceleration Pack?As soon as I can OC to 3.7Ghz, I'll give it another test...Not using the FPS Limiter BTW...

[Guest Alphahawk3]

Wow, so I installed the Acceleration Pack which came with my FSX Gold Edition, lowered the Water to Medium, Freeway traffic to 1 and set the FPS limiter to "Unlimited"Taking off from LAX (towards the ocean) I noticed a whopping 60-70 FPS jump (it would go from 58-73 constantly)! That was pretty amazing.When I made a right turn back towards Los Angeles, my frame rates were in the 42-55 FPS range! (constantly jumping between 38-63).I don't know what happened but now it runs amazing, maybe there was a patch/fix in the Acceleration Pack?As soon as I can OC to 3.7Ghz, I'll give it another test...Not using the FPS Limiter BTW...

I would take Bert's advice and try the FPS Limiter App...it does wonders. I have an i7 920 and I don't know about your CPU but it has to be comparable. But...and I am not condemning your choice of Video Card....if the Phenom II is comparable to the i7 920 or above that VC will not handle all your CPU can send it. I tried one..9800GTX+ 1ghz. While I am very satisfied with FSX and FTX scenery I use.....my 9600Gt cannot handle it all.....I was able to try the 9800 and it is not much better. I am going to get the 285 or better. Check out some posts by NickN about the recommended VC for the i7 series. I don't know if those recommendations apply to the Phenom II but it is worth reading anyway. Regards