Gosh, I think FS9 does just fine...Mark

Okay...getting back to my original question...Here's a list of suggested FS9 add-ons. Please vote on which ones you think I should invest in:Sky/Weather: Active Skyhttp://www2.hifisim.com/node/5 Ultimate Weatherhttp://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=1925#sreenshot_images Real Environment Prohttp://www.flightsimworld.com/downloads/viewfile/1375.html Terrain/Mesh: Ultimate Terrainhttp://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=utusa FS Elementalhttp://www.fselemental.com/about.htm FS Genesis USA meshhttp://www.fsgenesis.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc FS Global 2008http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/re/iboshop.cgi?showd,,10335 Flight Environmenthttp://www.flightenvironment.com/ Flight1 Ground Environmenthttp://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=ge2006

Okay...getting back to my original question...Here's a list of suggested FS9 add-ons. Please vote on which ones you think I should invest in:Sky/Weather: Active Skyhttp://www2.hifisim.com/node/5 Ultimate Weatherhttp://www.fspilotshop.com/product_info.php?products_id=1925#sreenshot_images Real Environment Prohttp://www.flightsimworld.com/downloads/viewfile/1375.html Terrain/Mesh: Ultimate Terrainhttp://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=utusa FS Elementalhttp://www.fselemental.com/about.htm FS Genesis USA meshhttp://www.fsgenesis.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc FS Global 2008http://www.aerosoft.com/cgi-local/re/iboshop.cgi?showd,,10335 Flight Environmenthttp://www.flightenvironment.com/ Flight1 Ground Environmenthttp://www.flight1.com/products.asp?product=ge2006

...The original poster asked this..."So, I'm wondering if I should continue upgrading it so it's comparable to FSX. Do you think this is possible?"

Gosh, I think FS9 does just fine...Mark

What ground textures are those?

My system was about 2200 dollars new, with everything down to the the monitor, gaming mouse, keyboard, power strip, and ethernet cable. Specs are Q9550 @ 3.4 (1600 FSB), 8 GB DDR2 1066, ASUS Rampage Formula X48 mobo, EVGA GTX280 stock speeds, X-Fi titanium fatal1ty sound card, 2 WD Caviar black 640 GB hard drives, 1 160 GB WD hard drive for storage and backup, Corsair 750TX power supply, antec 900 case, and Xigmatek S1283 CPU cooler. Monitor is a Samsung T220 at 1680 x 1050 x 32. OS is Vista Ultimate 64 bit SP2 and occasionally a flavor of linux. Also in the mix is a pair of hundred dollar speakers and Track IR4 with track clip.I should make a note, prices have come down quite a bit since I built my computer. You could build an i7 tower for under a thousand dollars if you do it right! NOWHERE did I say FSX was cheap.As for "quality" addons. I consider all the ultimate terrain series, all the orbx regions, REX, GEX usa/canada, FSgenesis USA mesh, and freeware mesh for the rest of the world to be "quality". Most of the time I am running Active Sky X and more recently, Ultimate Traffic 2 when not on multiplayer (75% commercial, 25% GA). I own most native FSX addon aircraft, including all the big sims (except ariane...).Most of my graphics settings are maxed out. The ones that aren't are completely off- like the in-game bloom, self shadowing (which looks stupid due to no AA), lens flare (which I think looks stupid too), and all default traffic (boats, planes, cars- not important to me, this is a flying sim). I use the bloom DLL that was released a few months ago. I have 8xQ AA and 8X AF enabled in nhancer. If I set either of those higher, I notice no visual difference. I guess it is worth mentioning I use Direct X 9. The cfg tweaks I use are what nickn suggests in his popular guide, except for the autogen trees value, which I manually set lower. I value my building count much more than the horribly out of proportion trees in MSFS. I don't have any exact values because I'm on my little EEE right now.As for traffic, I'm not going to argue there. I don't fly often with traffic as I spend about 95% of my time on multiplayer. When I do use traffic, it is with Ultimate Traffic 2. Depending on the plane I am in, WITH UT2 ENABLED, my FPS fluctuates between 25 and my locked value of 36. However, in multiplayer, even with 5 other planes in close proximity (and on my screen), my FPS stays pegged at 36.I don't believe that you have better immersion than me, but maybe different immersion. The only thing you have better is more traffic, which I don't care about anyways because I'm always on multiplayer. If you spend ALL your time taxiing at an addon version of KJFK with 100% traffic, your experience might be marginally better than mine. But as soon as you takeoff, everything changes.Speak for yourself. 36 FPS solid in downtown San Francisco isn't crap. Not by a long shot. Some of you guys are bragging you have FS9 locked at 30...IMHO, THAT is crap.Please, show me or explain to me how 36 FPS (silky smooth with FSX, absolutely ZERO stutters) in some pretty respected addons in one of the larger metropolitan areas on Earth is crap. If you'd like, we can compare screenshots of the SFO bay area... ;) Please, enlighten me.Now I fully realize about 90% of you guys who read this will completely ignore what I say and just stick to your OPINIONS about FSX's performance (see a really excited user). Wait, probably more like 98% of you. Maybe that last 2% will see the light, or at least read what I said.

What you've had to do here with your system makes my eyes glaze over... I just went out and bought a business edition Dell Duo Core, a video card with a gig of ram on it , loaded up FS9, and away I went. I don't have the time to go through the headaches you mentioned above to get my machine setup for FSX nor do I have the money. That money could be better spent on my flight club's real world Cessna 172 and Beech Sundowner.The day I can jump online buy a machine and a video card, load up FSX, and it just runs without tweaks and issues is when I'll take a look at it. If I want AI Traffic including boats etc it's available to me, if I want Bloom effects on no problem, if I want to have Lens Flare active I can. Like I somewhat stated above to each his own. I've done my time tweaking sims like FS5.1, FS98, FS2000, and FS9 when they came out. Today for a fraction of the cost, time, and headache we have a smooth running sim/virtual world right out the box able to run smoothly with some of the most technologically advanced aircraft add-ons in the real world today. I'm going to go with that option because I have a life outside of FS. As a real world pilot FS9 hands down gives me what I need to practice at home for real world flying and that's all anyone could ask for (especially for the price of admission)....

To the original poster (who should have a signature with a readable name applied to their account).I use the following to get a good result in FS9 for the world around me:Active Sky (ASV)Flight1's Ground EnvironmentNow for the record FS Elemental looks very promising and might be worth a look.Another thing you could look at is Flight 1's Ultimate Terrain. Th problem I had with UT USA was Hawaii was all screwed up with hotels in the sea after the mesh shift. There were some problems with Georender's small Washington airfields as well. You also have an issue where unless scenery developers were thinking about UT add-on scenery would appear wrong in the scenery. There's some great freeware work that was released prior to Ultimate Terrain that just won't work correctly in FS9 with UT installed. I opted to save myself the headache and stay with the default mesh. Don't get me wrong mesh is mesh but what UT does is shift the land in FS9/FSX to reflect real world positioning of the topography. Mesh just adds extra fidelity to the ground so mountains have more curves and bumps like their real world counterparts. If you don't mind staying away from Hawaii Ultimate Terrain for FS9 should work for you.***Do not have visibility settings maxed out in FS9 (and FSX for that matter) as the sim looks like crap under that condition. FS9 looks great with 60-70 miles visibility no more (very important).***

^ You completely ignored my question for you.And yes, the OP asked what addons he could use to make FS9 look comparable to FSX. The answer is still: none.

FS Elemental looks very promising and more than acceptable if your looking at FSX in comparison to FS9. It can't be understated that products already on the market make FS9 look very nice as well. FS9 needs not look exactly like FSX because their two different sims. You don't need FS9 to do nothing more than look the best it can and you will be amazed. Products like ASV, Flight1 Ground Environment, and FS Elemental more than fits the bill.FS9 can look just as good as FSX especially when you consider it's performance runs circles around FSX for a fraction of the cost and time put in on setup....Don't forget to take a look at Flight1's Ultimate Traffic in conjunction with the Freeware World of AI package. There's also a freeware GA traffic program out there as well. A populated world adds so much to the FS9 experiance. Nothing needs to be compromised with FS9 and you can also fly multi-player if you so desire. It's all up to how much you want to spend for a marginal graphical update when considering FSX or FS9.

FS9 can look just as good as FSXIt's all up to how much you want to spend for a marginal graphical update when considering FSX or FS9.

Again, you are going to have to provide some sort of proof for those statements... I'll back up my claims with screenshots and examples all day. You have yet to back up anything you say.Do you want to compare screenshots around San Francisco? Chicago? NYC?Oh, and if TIME is an issue, I'd be happy to look at any FSX user's config and computer setup (assuming I think it would even be worth trying to get FSX running on it) to see what I could do to improve your experience.

Proof is all around us. Feng has great pics of FS9 in the forums here showing visually what it's capable of, You Tube is full of stuttering FSX videos, and user testimonials between the two sims is documented on every FS based forum. I'm at work now so I don't have the liberty to go back and forth on this issue nor does it make since.

I'm at work now so I don't have the liberty to go back and forth on this issue.

That's convenient... :(So what was your point again? You essentially call FSX crap for reasons that are inaccurate. You won't back up your claim that it is crap. Then you won't even prove your point after someone calls you out on it... that is what I call crap- and the typical FS9 a really excited user.To reiterate my answer to the OP's ACTUAL question. You cannot get FS9 to look as good or better than FSX with ANY amount of addons. It is NOT possible.If someone here can successfully refute my point, I will be happy to admit I am wrong. I have nothing against FS9. I would happily recommend it to people with lesser machines. I even used it for thousands of hours and enjoyed every second!

KiwikatI don't think anyone seriously believes FS9 will ever looks BETTER or even as good as FSX, the two programs are essentially from different eras. The posts made are primarily praising the ease of use and reliability of performance in FS9.I came into flightsimming 1 year ago when i started training for my PPL I bought a copy of FSX and book that uses the program to augment your pilot training. I was fully expecting to use the program and enjoy it, and after many hours tweaking, hundreds of dollars spent on addons, and thousands on a new computer(specs in my Sig) I still could not get an experience that simulates real life general aviation. I found an old copy of FS9 in a bargain bin made some add-on purchases and haven't looked back.I am not a computer guru, I just want to load up a flight and go, I didn't even know what Bufferpools were before FSX(and still don't) and yet I have spent countless hours looking for their correct value, where's the fun in that?On my PC REX + an Orbx scenery is essentially fs11, it's stunning, but when I am on approach, turning final things get choppy and that kills the simulation for me.

-------------And yes, the OP asked what addons he could use to make FS9 look comparable to FSX. The answer is still: none.

William- I'm not sure I agree with your answer- "none". It's very true that FSX provides a higher level of scenery resolution/detail. However, that is within the confines of a single monitor- a 45

I don't think anyone seriously believes FS9 will ever looks BETTER or even as good as FSXI am not a computer guru, I just want to load up a flight and go, I didn't even know what Bufferpools were before FSX(and still don't) and yet I have spent countless hours looking for their correct value, where's the fun in that?On my PC REX + an Orbx scenery is essentially fs11, it's stunning, but when I am on approach, turning final things get choppy and that kills the simulation for me.

Then why don't people answer the OP's actual question?I think your situation is definitely one where someone needs to take a look at your cfg. Your computer has way more power than mine. I'd be happy to look at it sometime if you are interested.Alex, thank you for actually backing up your claim with a real example.I can't really compare my setup to yours though. I have one 22 inch monitor and no room for any others on my desk. You may have a point here, I don't know. Someone else with a triple monitor FSX setup would have to chime in.

Speak for yourself. 36 FPS solid in downtown San Francisco isn't crap. Not by a long shot. Some of you guys are bragging you have FS9 locked at 30...IMHO, THAT is crap.Please, show me or explain to me how 36 FPS (silky smooth with FSX, absolutely ZERO stutters) in some pretty respected addons in one of the larger metropolitan areas on Earth is crap. If you'd like, we can compare screenshots of the SFO bay area... ;) Please, enlighten me.

Congratulations, it only took you $2200 to get there! I doubt the topic starter and most of these people have a PC to that caliber, or have the ability to dump $2200 on a new PC! No need to call people 'a really excited user' that prefer FS9 over FSX, we've all purchased it, found out how it runs on our systems, and based our choices off of that. You can't sit there and tell me that FS9 with maximum sliders won't look better than FSX with sliders at either default or whatever that same system can handle.