I got myself a new computer recently. While its hardware certain;ly is not top of the line, I cna finally play games like Battelfield: Bad Company 2, Far Cry 2, Fallout 3 and Star Wars: The Force Unleashed at full details with smooth performance like I've never seen it in any of these games. And what about FS? Well, in FS2004, I get between 20 and 30 FPS out of the PMDG 747 at Aerosoft's EHAM scenery (previously I got between 6 and 9) at night in the middle of a storm. And what about FSX? I have found that if all is default, I easily get 30FPS, and when not in the immediate vicinity of a busy airport (like KORD) I can even get 50 FPS. I have installed Aerosoft's EHAM and the PMDG 747, and after some fiddling with the settings, I manage to get around 10 FPS. This is with MyTrafficX 5.2, UTEX, GEX and REX installed, besides of course EHAM and PMDG 747. Right now, quite some sliders are to the full right, except texture resolution, mesh resolution, mesh complexity and all sliders in the traffic tab, plus some other ones scattered around. i think about half of the sliders are full right.To be honest, I can fly the planes in FSX and have the performance I am used to from FS2004 on my previous computer, which I think is grand leap forwards in terms of performance, but it's not "great". I have ben thinking of two options:- Enable DirectX 10. However, I have read off incompatibilities and such, and would like advice. if I do this, what can I expect, and how big will the incompatibilities be? I'm of course mainly interested in the products I own: MyTrafficX 5.3, GEX, UTEX, REX and many Aerosoft sceneries, plus some addon aircraft. In FSX I'd probably be flying the CS727, LDS767, PMDG J41, possibly the FeelThere ERJv2, but that'd be it probably. Aircraft like the PMDG 747 work better for me in FS2004 and are more enjoyable in FS2004 as the situation now stands.- ******* Altuve's BufferPools mod. I am worried about this one. With the information I have written here, cna anybody advice me on if this tweak will be useable for me? I mean, so that I will not irrepairebly crash FSX...If anybody else can suggest something that would be nice. As it is I'm already optimistic, but if anybody can help and make it even better, I'll be even happier.

With DX10 on a lot of users claimed better performance. Twasn't so with my setup...Anyway your FSX planes have to be native otherwise they won't work in DX10.Some settings I recommend - water 2x low, bloom off, self shadowing off.AI plane traffic no more than 60% if on default, 50% for addon packages.AI cars and trucks no more than 20% default or 10% if you have UTX.Autogen set to very dense, scenery complexity to very denseI recommend DX9 anyway

- Enable DirectX 10. However, I have read off incompatibilities and such, and would like advice. if I do this, what can I expect, and how big will the incompatibilities be? I'm of course mainly interested in the products I own: MyTrafficX 5.3, GEX, UTEX, REX and many Aerosoft sceneries, plus some addon aircraft. In FSX I'd probably be flying the CS727, LDS767, PMDG J41, possibly the FeelThere ERJv2, but that'd be it probably. Aircraft like the PMDG 747 work better for me in FS2004 and are more enjoyable in FS2004 as the situation now stands.- ******* Altuve's BufferPools mod. I am worried about this one. With the information I have written here, cna anybody advice me on if this tweak will be useable for me? I mean, so that I will not irrepairebly crash FSX...

Some like DX10 but it can give problems indeed with various addons (don't know about yours). But I have found that with the bufferpools tweak and the fps-limiter I managed to get better performance with DX9 than I ever had with DX10. DX10 might give better performance out of the box (and with SP1 and SP2 obviously) but with the right setup and tweaks DX9 runs better on my computer.The bufferpool thingie isn't a mod but a tweak: you have to add something to your fsx.cfg and if you don't like it, just take it out again, Simple as that. It can't crash FSX irrepairebly. However, if you mean the shader mod (which is also from bojote and which really is a mod) then it's another story. I don't use and I've read a lot of posts from people who got into big problems with it. I'd stay away from that one unless you are very sure what you are doing.There are various version of the bufferpool tweak, but I use the 'old' original one: add this to your fsx.cfg:[bUFFERPOOLS]PoolSize=0I use 0 and it does wonders for me. Others use 500 or 5000 or 500000000 (on my old rig with Vista I used something like 500000000000). You simply have to experiment what works for you! I don't use any other tweak.

- ******* Altuve's BufferPools mod. I am worried about this one. With the information I have written here, cna anybody advice me on if this tweak will be useable for me? I mean, so that I will not irrepairebly crash FSX...

The only person that will know if its usable for you is you. This tweak will not cause any harm to FSX or "irrepairably" crash FSX.

Thanks for the answers so far! In the thread where ******* explained the bufferpools tweak, it was mentioned you absolutely have to understand what you are doing, which is why I got worried. But it's good to know I can use it safely, and take it out when it's not good for my setup, so thanks!

How do you turn DX10 "on" or "off"?. I have very recently installed Win 7 (64) from XP (32), so understand that DX10 is now an option. I have barely begun to re-install all of my add-ons and have not got to the stage of tweaking FSX yet- too much time spent at work!Thanks, Bruce.

it was mentioned you absolutely have to understand what you are doing, which is why I got worried.

Getting worried is actually a good thing :) means you'll read (and try to understand) the proposed changes. Remember, that my objective was not to write a step by step guide for people to follow, but rather an informative one for people to understand.Try the suggestions and see if in your particular case / setup you notice any improvement, you can also try the alternative suggestions given by others here.

Indeed I tried adding the UsePool=0, but so no change whatsoever, had exactly the same performance as before, taxiing around Aerosoft's EHAM with the PMDG J41. I will try the suggestions of 500 etc., but in all honesty, I am a bit taken aback by this. I understand that with each 0 added after the 5, you create more bufferpools, but should it be a "5" always, or can ie be also a "4", for instance. So, cna I do 400, 4000 etc, or must it be 500, 5000 etc? If so, why? Trying to get my head around this thing... I guess I'll also try out DirectX 10, you never know, can you?