FSX+FS9 questions

[Turbine777 13]

Heya peops, I have FSX and loves it of course but just ordered FS9. I never really toyed around with it since I lost one of the discs before the 2nd install came around, then I dropped below radar for a while and came back to FSX. Anywho, I kind of need it to test my liveries when I make them for FS9'ers, and figured it would be nice to have both anyway. I have a couple questions though, being new to both installs on one box.

• Do I have to do anything specific for the install running both FSX and FS9? I remember reading someone with issues on an install order or something, but can't find the post.
• With FSX there is SP1 & SP2, what is there for FS9?
• Any good sites for .cfg edit hacks you can link would be great!
• Lastly, I don't want to go too crazy just yet with addons for it, but what is the ONE addon I shouldn't miss? (I already got the REX for it and a couple Fly Tampa's).

I appreciate the advice. I've spent so long getting use to the FSX quirks, fixes and tweaks, install order, the thought of a new one (new to me) gives me a migraine ;-)Oh also, don't say the obvious "PMDG's" haha, I will eventually, but no more downloads for me, I'll get the boxed versions (and no it's not about price difference).Thanks,DanEdit: Haha, just thought of something, please don't let this be another hijacked thread about which is better blah blah blah...

[CapP 0]

Good to ask some advice before installing fs9! I did it a while ago but I ran into a lot of trouble with my fsx install. I read on several forums that installing both fs9 and fsx is not a good idea. Problem is, when you encounter an error you never know if it is because of something you changed or only because you have fs9 installed too. After a few days of trouble I decided to uninstall fs9, re-install my windows and fsx. In short: I would not recommend it!

[downscc 1,327]

I am running both FS9 and FSX, always have and on several different computers. I have never had a problem that you be attributed to the dual installation. I can't imagine how there could be a problem, you just can't run them at the same time. Installation order isn't an issue, I'm not sure that I've paid attention to it but have probably installed FS9 first.There is a FS9.1 patch you can google.

[Leffe 4]

Heya peops,//[*]Lastly, I don't want to go too crazy just yet with addons for it, but what is the ONE addon I shouldn't miss? (I already got the REX for it and a couple Fly Tampa's).Thanks,DanEdit: Haha, just thought of something, please don't let this be another hijacked thread about which is better blah blah blah...

Hi Dan!....Welcome aboard.Yeah that wasn

[Turbine777 13]

Thanks Leffe, I have a lot of addons (mainly airports) that work for both, but ordered a couple specific for FS9. As for Widgets, the price is insanely low for what it does, so will gladly through Fermin my buisness again. Thanks for assist.Thanks Dan, I couldn't think of anything on the tech side of things that would cause a problem or why it would make any difference, but as Pieter said, those weird anomalies can get you guessing. Luckily I've gotten very seasoned with FSX so should notice who the culprit is if I run a muck.Thanks guys

[des182001 1]

Thanks Leffe, I have a lot of addons (mainly airports) that work for both, but ordered a couple specific for FS9. As for Widgets, the price is insanely low for what it does, so will gladly through Fermin my buisness again. Thanks for assist.Thanks Dan, I couldn't think of anything on the tech side of things that would cause a problem or why it would make any difference, but as Pieter said, those weird anomalies can get you guessing. Luckily I've gotten very seasoned with FSX so should notice who the culprit is if I run a muck.Thanks guys

I have had both FSX and FS9 installed at various times on different rigs with no conflicts. As for programs I would get:-REX for cloud, sky, water, airport, and lighting textures. (you already got it)-FSglobal 2008 for terrain mesh. it covers the whole world for a good price and works with both FSX and FS9.-Ground Environment Pro. Changes the default ground textures.-FSUIPCMake sure as stated above you patch to 9.1. I think it still on FS2004's website, it fixed some annoying CTD issues and added a lot of missing objects,mostly bridges. Most addons won't let you install them if it's not 9.1, I know that PMDG won't for sure.

[geoffbeck 0]

Hi Dan I would also recomend going to google type in fps patch fs9 and download the file. It removes a lot of the un-nessasary landclass like road signs, burger bars, power masts etc and the frame rate goes up by around 15-20%. its free and well worth it. I have had better results with this than altering the cfg alone.Taken from Mango's FS9 Tips and Tricks guideLoad textures farther away to reduce blurries:Find these lines in FS9.cfg and change them to read:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.900000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4Load textures fasterFind and edit:TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=I use 400. You can try a higher or lower setting to see what gives the best performance on your system. The default setting is very conservative so don't be afraid to try high values. You'll likely get stuttering if you set it too high.Improve the appearance of detailed Mesh:Find and edit this line in fs9.cfg (default for this is 19):TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21This will allow FS2004 to draw detailed Mesh more accurately.Does anyone see the great need for this?? What is the bug??Workaround for the Autogen performance bug:In FS9.cfg, find this line and edit it to read:TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS=0Go into your FS9 folder, then the Autogen folder, and rename the filedefault.xml-to-default.bakCheers, would be grateful for a couple of replies as im trying to go about tweaking mine but without my FS9 crashing! ThrottleUp Dec 8 2008, 07:10 PM Mine:-------------------------------------------------------------[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=40TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400TextureMaxLoad=10[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=90.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.5TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=232-------------------------------------------------------------Hope this helps Geoff :(

[Turbine777 13]

Thanks a lot guys. I appreciate the tips and recommendations very much.I can't say that I'll use FS9 all that much, since I run about 17 addons on FSX wihout too much issue (7 are active all the time, others are either airports or something I would need to activate for short periods). I do however really want to give it a fair shake and don't want to just run it naked without any addons to get an opinion from. I think I've got enough to get a good taste of it. Here's what I have ready for FS9:

• A2A Redux lights (already owned the MEGAPACK works with both FSX & FS9)
• ASA (Same, already owned and works with both)
• VRoute (Ok, not a visual, but works with both and already owned ;-)
• PFE (yep, already owned and works with both)
• FSUIPC Registered (Already owned)
• REX2
• GEP
• FS Genesis
• Ultimate Terrain USA (That's good for now)
• Some aircraft that work for either, and others I can easily convert myself, also some airports.

That will at least give it the same visual addons that I use with FSX, as for aircraft? I may get the MD11 but waiting for a reply about something. If I end up using it more than expected I'll definitely be getting FSPassengers for it since I can use the same database as my FSX, and of course FSWidgets, but again, I think I have enough for now. Thanks again, I'm still waiting a for FS9 to be delivered but am ready when it comes, and yes I forgot to mention I have all the patches for FS9 and the addons specific of it. Kind of funny, the addons set me back a bit, but FS9 was only $14 haha.Dan (Des), I decided to go with FSGenesis over FSglobal 2010 (yep, they have 2010) since it was cheaper and has better res. The main reason of course is because I have it on FSX and like it better hehe.Thanks Geoff, I've been reading tons of websites today and it seems like fs9's cfg is more tweakable than fsx. I think I'm going to first try these settings first and really see what REX/FS9 can do :)[DISPLAY]TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.9TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.9TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=8[Weather]CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=12 (Not sure this goes this high, but from other posts I've read, it will, and gives a great overcast look).Thanks again, I'll let ya know how it all goes, and at the very least, will atleast be able to test my fs9 liveries now in style :(

[Gavin 99]

DanI'd recommend the freeware TU-154m for FS9 if you like to learn complex aircraft: http://www.fs-proteam.com/products.html?op...pw_patt=catalogOh and for sure the PMDG MD-11 :-)SDS Yak 40 is good fun too: http://www.suprunovdesign.ru/sd_fsim/aircr...yak40v2gold.htm It's the only aircraft that I fly VC only in.

[vscimone 16]

There have been some reports of problems when installing FS9 AFTER FSX... it sometimes hoses the FSX installation.

[Tabs 2,790]

Actually the other way around - I've experienced this multiple times the last few days setting up my new system - the FSX installer/uninstaller can trash the FS9 registry entries. Get FSX set up and only then install FS9, if you ever have to uninstall FSX though after this, you're SOL, it'll trash FS9 as well.

[fencer 16]

Actually the other way around - I've experienced this multiple times the last few days setting up my new system - the FSX installer/uninstaller can trash the FS9 registry entries. Get FSX set up and only then install FS9, if you ever have to uninstall FSX though after this, you're SOL, it'll trash FS9 as well.

Shoot ! I'll never reinstall FSX ! :( Bruno

[Turbine777 13]

Very good to know Ryan and Vin, many thanks. I do re-install often and would see that soon enough. Appreciate the warning. I'll be sure to back up both installs before adding/removing anything.

DanI'd recommend the freeware TU-154m for FS9 if you like to learn complex aircraft: http://www.fs-proteam.com/products.html?op...pw_patt=catalogOh and for sure the PMDG MD-11 :-)SDS Yak 40 is good fun too: http://www.suprunovdesign.ru/sd_fsim/aircr...yak40v2gold.htm It's the only aircraft that I fly VC only in.

Thanks for the tip Gavin, I am a fan of the TU's actually so this will find a nice spot in my virtual fs9 hangar. Of course the MD-11 will as well. Waiting for a responce from support@Pmdg, then will be clicking buy most likely soon as I do :)I actually went to best buy today in hopes they had it for fs9, or at least the 747 fs9 version, but only the 747X version... I shed a tear

[Turbine777 13]

Actually the other way around - I've experienced this multiple times the last few days setting up my new system - the FSX installer/uninstaller can trash the FS9 registry entries. Get FSX set up and only then install FS9, if you ever have to uninstall FSX though after this, you're SOL, it'll trash FS9 as well.

Hey Ryan, Curious, have you ever tried to create a snapshot (back up) of the registry, then uninstall FSX, replace the registry with the previous backup, then just manually delete the fsx entries? Not sure it would work, but I might try that the first time I have to (which I will most likely). Also, do you think the problem is with the actually uninstaller? If I change the uninstaller.dat entries do you think it would still get all screwed up? Or is it deeper than that you think? Such as windows in general. Of course I wouldn't recommend playing with the registry to anyone, but am fairly comfortable experimenting with it. (I probably have more windows installations because of my lust for learning because of it though).Thanks,PS: Also is your new build in your sig? Didn't you have the i7 920 before? If so did you switch to the i7 860 for better OC'ing reasons? I think I read somewhere you prefered (or used) the turbo feature rather than overclocking.

[Tabs 2,790]

Dan,The problem is that I don't know where ALL the FS9 registry entries are - there's a lot more than just the usual ones you see under HKLM. I've tried restoring the HKLM ones before but that didn't work. What we need is something that can monitor all registry entries made by the FS9 installer and first run of the program...I had a Core 2 Quad Q6600 before the new system. The video card I kept, I'm waiting until March to see what Nvidia does to counter the ATI 5 series, I'll buy whichever is best then. I decided against the 920 just because of the increased motherboard and RAM cost. All the benchmarks I read were very close between the 920 and 860 and I do like the 860's much better turbo feature. I do want to try OCing the 860 but I'm having heat issues right now - pretty baffling to me considering I bought a top 10 cooler for the i7 platform. I'm seeing temps near 70C under 100% load with Prime95 at the stock speed for the 860, which is way too high. Reseated the heatsink several times to no avail - not sure what's going on.