I know that NYC is not fps friendly. I'm between 20-25 fps with my e6850 @3.49 and 8800ultra (182.50 DRIVERS)I would like to get 30-40 fps.I was wondering if the i7 with very dense setting (not cars etc) I love the scenery, can achieve 30-40 fps?If you're overclocking please let me know. Post specs.Thanks so much.Jose

I believe the i7's overclocked to 4.0+ can do it, with default scenery and default aircraft. Not sure about 40FPS with say the PMDG MD11 or F1 Mustang though

I believe the i7's overclocked to 4.0+ can do it, with default scenery and default aircraft. Not sure about 40FPS with say the PMDG MD11 or F1 Mustang though

I'm running an i7 940 o/c'ed to 3.3. In order to use payware a/c such as the Aerosoft F-16 or Classic Hangars FW-190, or IRIS F-14A/B Tomcat, I can run dense but have to keep my frameslocked at 20, which is smooth with no stutters. I can run higher FPS (25-30) with other a/c such as the Carenado Cessna's, but airports such as KSEA will have a slightstutter. Before o/c'ing, at 2.93, I was having a lot of stutter issues, but even the tiny amount gained by o/c'ing to 3.3 eliminated most of the stutters. A little tweaking on the FPS settingand it was much better. :( 20 FPS may sound low, but it's smooth on my machine enabling me to fly the heavier detailed a/c with no stutters out of most airports. With stock FSX aircraft, I can get 40 fps with no problems. I'm running SP1, SP2, and Acceleration.

I dont think you should use FPS as the main factor. If your set up and tuned properly the FPS you are now getting now should be perfect. A well tuned 20 fps is far better than a stuttering 40 fps. With that being said: Yes I can hit 40 at times with the settings you presented and more or less stay between 23-30 while taking off. I however use the FPS limiter and keep my system locked at 30 while having the FPS set to unlimited in the sim. I run max scenery and very dense autogen almost all the time with the exception of areas that have the too many tree problem. I then turn down autogen to dense for those areas. When Im flying GA aircraft my choice is my Carenado Mooney and when flying heavies my choice is the Level D 767-300 or the Coolsky Super 80. I dont know if that gives you the info you were looking for but maybe it helped some.Jim

I dont think you should use FPS as the main factor. If your set up and tuned properly the FPS you are now getting now should be perfect. A well tuned 20 fps is far better than a stuttering 40 fps. With that being said: Yes I can hit 40 at times with the settings you presented and more or less stay between 23-30 while taking off. I however use the FPS limiter and keep my system locked at 30 while having the FPS set to unlimited in the sim. I run max scenery and very dense autogen almost all the time with the exception of areas that have the too many tree problem. I then turn down autogen to dense for those areas. When Im flying GA aircraft my choice is my Carenado Mooney and when flying heavies my choice is the Level D 767-300 or the Coolsky Super 80. I dont know if that gives you the info you were looking for but maybe it helped some.Jim

I'm still in tweaking stage with my sliders. If you're talking Default Manhattan sure 20fps with my current settings is possible with a LevelD 767 and now when I come to talk about the love of Manhattan X from Aerosoft she takes a little fine tunning...plane pending to make frames go right but even in the low-mid teens while in something like a Nameth MD500 it's given me that feeling of actually flying among the buildings. Even in something like a Canerado plane in the area or the Cirrus from Eaglesoft.

Thanks so much for all the replies.I'm doing well with my spitfire, sf260, and carenado airplanes.I'm a VFR pilot but really enjoy flying IFR approaches with traditional instruments.I'm really enjoying FSX. I have waited many years to see a sim that just comes alive. Not since Flight Unlimited II & III have I been this happy.My issue is not stutters. I'm silky smooth between 20-25 in Manhattan and other dense areas. I just want 30-40 because when I fly in other areas the sim is even smoother between 30-40. I'm really happy, but concerned that if I invest in an i7 965 or the 975 that I'll ruin my sim experience.I just want my Tahiti X scenery and Manhattan and other dense area to run between 30-40.I want to thank AVSIM and its members for all the great support over the years.Most customers who have not experienced FSX the way that I'm doing now, have no idea of what this sim can do.FSX, FEX, GEX, and my realair and carenado airplanes really have made this sim a joy.JoseCFII

I get 36 FPS in downtown NYC with scenery complexity maxed and autogen buildings maxed with my Q9550 at 3.4 GHz. If you can't do that on an i7, you are doing something terribly wrong.

Thanks so much for all the replies.I'm doing well with my spitfire, sf260, and carenado airplanes.I'm a VFR pilot but really enjoy flying IFR approaches with traditional instruments.I'm really enjoying FSX. I have waited many years to see a sim that just comes alive. Not since Flight Unlimited II & III have I been this happy.My issue is not stutters. I'm silky smooth between 20-25 in Manhattan and other dense areas. I just want 30-40 because when I fly in other areas the sim is even smoother between 30-40. I'm really happy, but concerned that if I invest in an i7 965 or the 975 that I'll ruin my sim experience.I just want my Tahiti X scenery and Manhattan and other dense area to run between 30-40.I want to thank AVSIM and its members for all the great support over the years.Most customers who have not experienced FSX the way that I'm doing now, have no idea of what this sim can do.FSX, FEX, GEX, and my realair and carenado airplanes really have made this sim a joy.JoseCFII

The feeling I get with the i7 is that you can just keep throwing stuff at 'er and she keeps on chuggin'. That's the only way to explain it imo. I am really amazed at the performance of this thing! No o'c here as that's always been a no-no for me. If I wanted a faster CPU I would have bought it ;)I found an interesting thing while running FSX the "virtual" cores are idle and all four "physical" cores are running close to equal, which is a good sign! But apparently the "virtual" cores are not being taken advantage of. I have no idea if that would even make a difference or not. All I know is this thing runs FSX great now.I suppose it all depends on factors like weather, clouds, aircraft (complex add-on, etc) about who is getting what fps..

My systemvista64 i7920 Oc @3.8Ghz Nvidia Gtx 285 gpu1 - The reason your i7 only using the 4 physical cores is cause you dont have affinity mask = 255 set in your fsx.cfg file. Since my system is running at hot 3.8Ghz its much better and stable for me to turn hyperthreading off. Meaning i am only using 4 cores as well. If i use all cores my system becomes unstable @3.8Ghz.2 - I am using Fpslimiter set to 40 fps, and GameBooster. I recomend both tools for any one using i7 and vista.3 - Gigabyte motherboards are the best for any novice who wants to OC himself like me, cause my custom pc builder refused to OC well for me. Gigabyte Bios is very usefriendly4 -FSX definatly, definatly gains Fps the faster the clock speed, but then tools like fpslimiter can help to tame the raw power to avoid stutters. If you dont want to use fpslimiter, turning off core zero for fsx use also makes things smoother.

The feeling I get with the i7 is that you can just keep throwing stuff at 'er and she keeps on chuggin'. That's the only way to explain it imo. I am really amazed at the performance of this thing! No o'c here as that's always been a no-no for me. If I wanted a faster CPU I would have bought it ;)I found an interesting thing while running FSX the "virtual" cores are idle and all four "physical" cores are running close to equal, which is a good sign! But apparently the "virtual" cores are not being taken advantage of. I have no idea if that would even make a difference or not. All I know is this thing runs FSX great now.I suppose it all depends on factors like weather, clouds, aircraft (complex add-on, etc) about who is getting what fps..

What are your specs?

My systemvista64 i7920 Oc @3.8Ghz Nvidia Gtx 285 gpu1 - The reason your i7 only using the 4 physical cores is cause you dont have affinity mask = 255 set in your fsx.cfg file. Since my system is running at hot 3.8Ghz its much better and stable for me to turn hyperthreading off. Meaning i am only using 4 cores as well. If i use all cores my system becomes unstable @3.8Ghz.2 - I am using Fpslimiter set to 40 fps, and GameBooster. I recomend both tools for any one using i7 and vista.3 - Gigabyte motherboards are the best for any novice who wants to OC himself like me, cause my custom pc builder refused to OC well for me. Gigabyte Bios is very usefriendly4 -FSX definatly, definatly gains Fps the faster the clock speed, but then tools like fpslimiter can help to tame the raw power to avoid stutters. If you dont want to use fpslimiter, turning off core zero for fsx use also makes things smoother.

This is why I love reading info on AVSIM.Thanks for this tip.

I get 36 FPS in downtown NYC with scenery complexity maxed and autogen buildings maxed with my Q9550 at 3.4 GHz. If you can't do that on an i7, you are doing something terribly wrong.

Maybe that's all I need. The Q9550 will fit perfectly in my striker extreme.What video card, drivers, an OS are you using?If I replace my E6850 with the Q9650, am I going to increase the fps by 10fps due to the 4 cores? If this is the case, then there will be no need to upgrade motherboard,ram, and to an i7.Now, I do understand that the i7 is smoother, but my feeling is that FSX runs smoother due to the faster ram and not necessarily due to the i7. The reason I say that is because FSX is very smooth on my system. If became smooth after I upgraded from 2 to 4 gigs of ram.I can try out the Q9650. Newegg does offer a 7 day return policy.

What are your specs?This is why I love reading info on AVSIM.Thanks for this tip.Maybe that's all I need. The Q9550 will fit perfectly in my striker extreme.What video card, drivers, an OS are you using?If I replace my E6850 with the Q9650, am I going to increase the fps by 10fps due to the 4 cores? If this is the case, then there will be no need to upgrade motherboard,ram, and to an i7.Now, I do understand that the i7 is smoother, but my feeling is that FSX runs smoother due to the faster ram and not necessarily due to the i7. The reason I say that is because FSX is very smooth on my system. If became smooth after I upgraded from 2 to 4 gigs of ram.I can try out the Q9650. Newegg does offer a 7 day return policy.

I have my 920 chip overclocked to 3.66 mghz with a high end ATI card and 3gigs DDR3 of memory using XP. It does fine with settings at medium/high in both dense and less dense settings. It still struggles with clouds though. I use Active Sky Advanced and the most performance friendly cloud textures from Active Sky's Graphics program - but I still see huge drops in performance when clouds start building up.

I get 36 FPS in downtown NYC with scenery complexity maxed and autogen buildings maxed with my Q9550 at 3.4 GHz. If you can't do that on an i7, you are doing something terribly wrong.

Sure, Max autogen and scenery complexity at 40 fps is easy depending on your other settings and the resolution you run at. Saying, "If you can't do that on an i7, you are doing something terribly wrong", is really too broad of a generalization. Especially considering the range of other hardware involved along with the graphics settings both inside as well as outside the simulator. Not to mention the altitude and distance you are from the scenery and what other add-ons are involved. FSX with very high settings and a high level of AI with weather can drop even a well oc'd i7 to it's knees...unfortunately.

I agree and know that there are many factors that can cause the fps to slow down in FSX.That's why I want to know who is getting 30-40 fps in Manhattan using an i7 and scenery dense setting and a carenado plane or even the default cessna 172.I'm getting 20-30 using FEX lower res clouds, cloudy and rainy, and small aircraft. If someone using the i7 is doing 30-40 with similar setting, then the answer is obvious.I could be looking at a 1K upgrade, just to get Manhattan X to run between 30-40.Thanks again.

Maybe that's all I need. The Q9550 will fit perfectly in my striker extreme.What video card, drivers, an OS are you using?If I replace my E6850 with the Q9650, am I going to increase the fps by 10fps due to the 4 cores? If this is the case, then there will be no need to upgrade motherboard,ram, and to an i7.Now, I do understand that the i7 is smoother, but my feeling is that FSX runs smoother due to the faster ram and not necessarily due to the i7. The reason I say that is because FSX is very smooth on my system. If became smooth after I upgraded from 2 to 4 gigs of ram.I can try out the Q9650. Newegg does offer a 7 day return policy.

I'm using a EVGA GTX 280 at stock speeds. Vista 64 ultimate is the OS. Personally, I see no NEED to upgrade to an i7, not with the performance I'm getting with my OC'd 9550.There will be more than a noticeable difference from the 6850 to the 9650. Just make sure to overclock it to 1600 FSB. Get a good heatsink too if you don't have one yet.Definitely upgrade to at least 4 gigs of ram too.

Excellent!I have 4 gigs of ram.I have a very good cooler.I'll try the 9650 with 1600 FSB.Thanks.