Hi guysMathijs Kok from Aerosoft GmbH has published a short but certainly interesting article about FSX performance. It is available to download in PDF File format at the Aerosoft forum here.I was happy to see that both Nick Needham and Mathijs Kok seem to be "on the same page" more often than not with regards getting FSX running optimally. Furthermore the important concept of "tweaking your settings based on what you are doing in FSX" is covered in detail.Enjoy!

Hi guysMathijs Kok from Aerosoft GmbH has published a short but certainly interesting article about FSX performance. It is available to download in PDF File format at the Aerosoft forum here.I was happy to see that both Nick Needham and Mathijs Kok seem to be "on the same page" more often than not with regards getting FSX running optimally. Furthermore the important concept of "tweaking your settings based on what you are doing in FSX" is covered in detail.Enjoy!

Hey Sharrow,It is a good doc and I am completely on the same page about tweaking the sim for your puropses. The only sceneries I ever have enabled are ones relevant to that flight. If I don't need it for that flight why load it...***BUT*** he also left out the fact he is getting 50FPS on a 4650 with no AA or AF in the card at all. All application controlled which is a factor that when left out of that doc makes it almost useless. Most simmers run 4x/8x or 16x AA and 16x AF. If Mathijs was to enable the same levels of AA/AF that most simmers do his entire doc goes out the window along with his 50FPS IMHO. I think this is why he has also said repeatedly that a 4650 is the best card for FSX. I would wager a guess that with full driver set AA/AF that 4650 would be at its knees. According to Mathijs you only need AA/AF in the driver for screenshots which tells me he and I do not see eye to eye. I have also NEVER heard Nick tell us that we do not need AA/AF in our drivers. Quite the contrary...Still a great doc and appreciate the time it took to put it together but leaving out the AA/AF info is like giving someone a recipe but leaving out the main ingredient... It is a game changer in my opinion.The whole doc can be: "Why I get 50 FPS and you don't: I Don't use AA or AF in my driver" That sums it all up...-P

I just gotta laugh at some of the posts in that linked thread. People saying, "When do you think FSX will sustain over 60 FPS?" And, "I can't wait to get a consistant 80 - 90 FPS in FSX!"Ignorance at the maximum. If your monitor refresh rate is only 60Hz, your screen is only being redrawn 60 times a second. There is no reason to have more than 60 FPS max in FSX. Totally useless.

The whole doc can be: "Why I get 50 FPS and you don't: I Don't use AA or AF in my driver" That sums it all up...-P

+1 - I noticed that he was using app controlled AA (you can see massive jaggies on his first pics and so on)Toss in 8x-16x AA and down go your FPS. Plus he had some blurry scenery as well. I guess if you enjoy those things......

I just gotta laugh at some of the posts in that linked thread. People saying, "When do you think FSX will sustain over 60 FPS?" And, "I can't wait to get a consistant 80 - 90 FPS in FSX!"Ignorance at the maximum. If your monitor refresh rate is only 60Hz, your screen is only being redrawn 60 times a second. There is no reason to have more than 60 FPS max in FSX. Totally useless.

Maybe YOU should read through this article ... http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.htmlConclusion We as humans have a very advanced visual system. While some animals out there have sharper vision, there is usually something given up with it (for eagles there is color, for owls it is the inability to move the eye in its socket). We can see in millions of colors (women can see up to 30% more colors than men, so if a woman doesn't think your outfit matches, she is probably right, go change), we have highly movable eyes, and we can perceive up to and over 60 fps. We have the ability to focus as close as an inch, and as far as infinity, and the time it takes to change focus is faster than the fastest, most expensive auto-focusing camera out there. We have a field of view that encompasses almost 170 degrees of sight, and about 30 degrees of fine focus. We receive information constantly and are able to decode it very quickly.So what is the answer to how many frames per second should we be looking for? Anything over 60 fps is adequate, 72 fps is maximal (anything over that would be overkill). Framerates cannot drop though from that 72 fps, or we will start to see a degradation in the smoothness of the game. Don't get me wrong, it is not bad to play a game at 30 fps, it is fine, but to get the illusion of reality, you really need a frame rate of 72 fps. What this does is saturate the pipeline from your eyes to your visual cortex, just as reality does. As visual quality increases, it really becomes more important to keep frame rates high so we can get the most immersive feel possible. While we still may be several years away from photographic quality in 3D accelerators, it is important to keep the speed up there.Looks like 3dfx isn't so full of it. Joshua Walrath

Maybe YOU should read through this article ... http://www.daniele.ch/school/30vs60/30vs60_1.htmlConclusion We as humans have a very advanced visual system. While some animals out there have sharper vision, there is usually something given up with it (for eagles there is color, for owls it is the inability to move the eye in its socket). We can see in millions of colors (women can see up to 30% more colors than men, so if a woman doesn't think your outfit matches, she is probably right, go change), we have highly movable eyes, and we can perceive up to and over 60 fps. We have the ability to focus as close as an inch, and as far as infinity, and the time it takes to change focus is faster than the fastest, most expensive auto-focusing camera out there. We have a field of view that encompasses almost 170 degrees of sight, and about 30 degrees of fine focus. We receive information constantly and are able to decode it very quickly.So what is the answer to how many frames per second should we be looking for? Anything over 60 fps is adequate, 72 fps is maximal (anything over that would be overkill). Framerates cannot drop though from that 72 fps, or we will start to see a degradation in the smoothness of the game. Don't get me wrong, it is not bad to play a game at 30 fps, it is fine, but to get the illusion of reality, you really need a frame rate of 72 fps. What this does is saturate the pipeline from your eyes to your visual cortex, just as reality does. As visual quality increases, it really becomes more important to keep frame rates high so we can get the most immersive feel possible. While we still may be several years away from photographic quality in 3D accelerators, it is important to keep the speed up there.Looks like 3dfx isn't so full of it. Joshua Walrath

HelloNicely written article but of no use to the average simmeras previously mentioned he is using very low AA and AF set in the gameTurning mesh resolution down , simple clouds , ect ect Fair play he has to convince the masses that FSX will run on marginal hardware, His job depends on FSX sales.Lost me after the ATI bit

I don't take much stock in many of these "How To" guides.Why?Because FSX runs differently on different systems.There is no baseline performance, let alone a "cure all" for blurries, max FPS, etc.I have mine setup using the Frame Limiter 2.0 (set at 30 FPS; Unlimited in the sim). I fly heavy iron with complex systems (PMDG, Level-D, Captain Sim) and can maintain near close to 30 FPS constant on my 22" LCD with a native resolution of 1680 x1050 with in-game AA and AF (8X) enabled on a ATI 4850. I have my autogen set to "Sparse" -- Which apparently goes against Nick N's recommendation -- And this is what works best for me. I have the eye-candy of other effects (clouds with REX) and can maintain that smooth 30 FPS in major hubs and urban areas e.g. Los Angeles, New York, etc. This is what *I* want and this is what *my* system can handle. That's all that should really matter to any simmer, IMHO.

These articles are laughable.I remember when I had an E6850 with an 8800 Ultra. I was easily able to reach 40-60 fps just about everywhere.All you need to do is disable AG. Who wants to do that?All in favor of lowering your settings please raise your hands. That's why most people who want the eye candy spend the money on a new system. There are no shortcuts.

I just gotta laugh at some of the posts in that linked thread. People saying, "When do you think FSX will sustain over 60 FPS?" And, "I can't wait to get a consistant 80 - 90 FPS in FSX!"Ignorance at the maximum. If your monitor refresh rate is only 60Hz, your screen is only being redrawn 60 times a second. There is no reason to have more than 60 FPS max in FSX. Totally useless.

even if you have a monitor limited to 60hz (as most LCDs are) there is value in being capable of maintaining higher framerates. The extra headroom means that you never have to see a drop below 60 which - if you run vsync - can be a problem. It never hurts to have extra performance headroom...

HelloBut on an LCD monitor limited to 60fps you will never see over 60fps no matter what your GFX card is pumping outno way whatsoever of seeing 72fps on a typical LCD screen

What makes you think the refresh rate of an LCD screen has anything to do with the frames per second of the games displayed upon it?That has not been true since the advent of LCD/TFT and while it was most certainly true of raster-display CRT monitors all this kind of comment does is betray the lack of understanding of the visual display process of LCD technology. I think some blatant falsehoods take on the mantle of truth by dint of oft-repeating. But that's no excuse for repeating them.

This is what *I* want and this is what *my* system can handle. That's all that should really matter to any simmer, IMHO.

The most sensible statement about fps that I've seen for ages :(Mathijs paper should be seen in the context of some of the discussions on the Aerosoft forums - he has frequently been accused of lying with regards to the performance he gets with various Aerosoft addons. This paper describes how he gets that performance.With regards to Nick's installation and performance tuning guide, I'm very grateful to him for putting it together - I am a frequent reinstaller of FSX, and I find it so much easier when I use his guide as a baseline. I then tweak the settings so they meet my needs (I happen to prefer Frame Limiter locked to 20 FPS, with more processor budget to spend on autogen).

What makes you think the refresh rate of an LCD screen has anything to do with the frames per second of the games displayed upon it?That has not been true since the advent of LCD/TFT and while it was most certainly true of raster-display CRT monitors all this kind of comment does is betray the lack of understanding of the visual display process of LCD technology. I think some blatant falsehoods take on the mantle of truth by dint of oft-repeating. But that's no excuse for repeating them.

HelloGo on then please educate me

HelloGo on then please educate me

No. Educate yourself. It's not difficult to use a search engine in Google and find the information, verify it, then come back here and tell us all about it. If you must get someone to get your answers for you, then please post the question in the correct forum, and I will think about answering you. For everyone else it is sufficient for the purposes of this topic that the error has been highlighted, the mistake corrected. The myth busted.

No. Educate yourself. It's not difficult to use a search engine in Google and find the information, verify it, then come back here and tell us all about it. If you must get someone to get your answers for you, then please post the question in the correct forum, and I will think about answering you. For everyone else it is sufficient for the purposes of this topic that the error has been highlighted, the mistake corrected. The myth busted.

The only myth that seems to be getting busted around here is that you are not a very polite person.I've about had it.