Need advice on improving FSX performance

[Ivan Kovacevic 0]

Hello folks,Here's a quick list of what I've got at the moment: CPU: Core i5-750 slightly overclocked to 190 x 21 = 3990MHzRAM: 2x2GB Mushkin Blackline 2000MHz CL7 (running at 1900MHz CL7)GPU: nVidia GTX460 Overclocked 725MHz Core (plan on clocking further to ~900 when I water cool it)System HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 1TB short stroked to 320GB, also contains FSX Monitor: a 24'' Samsung 1920x1080 monitor. The CPU is currently liquid cooled, and I'll soon submerge the GPU as well. Now, this setup lets me fly most of the complex addons (PMDG, Maddog 2010, etc...) with complex scenery (FlyTampa, FSDreamTeam...) and reasonable framerates/stability (I get a minimum of 30 when online).The problem arises, though - when I try to fly with scenery such as Aerosoft San Francisco X, or similar highly detailed cityscape addons - I seem to get a lot of stuttering (that matches HDD activity and peaks of CPU usage).Now, my question is - what would be the best investment to improve the performance that small bit to make it flyable in high density areas (I'm one of those nut cases who find 28FPS or below unflyable). Three ideas I have are: Replace an i5 with an i7-860. <-- expensive, might not make a differenceAdd 4GB of RAM <-- not as expensive, but will almost certainly limit overclocking abilities of the CPUGet an SSD for FSX <-- expensive, rather young technology - not all kinks ironed out yet. Get a regular HDD for FSX only <-- relatively cheap, but I don't know how much benefit it's gonna do.If anyone has any experience with solving a similar dilemma I'd really appreciate the input.

[Dexter1979 101]

Hello folks,Here's a quick list of what I've got at the moment: CPU: Core i5-750 slightly overclocked to 190 x 21 = 3990MHzRAM: 2x2GB Mushkin Blackline 2000MHz CL7 (running at 1900MHz CL7)GPU: nVidia GTX460 Overclocked 725MHz Core (plan on clocking further to ~900 when I water cool it)System HDD: Samsung SpinPoint 1TB short stroked to 320GB, also contains FSX Monitor: a 24'' Samsung 1920x1080 monitor. The CPU is currently liquid cooled, and I'll soon submerge the GPU as well. Now, this setup lets me fly most of the complex addons (PMDG, Maddog 2010, etc...) with complex scenery (FlyTampa, FSDreamTeam...) and reasonable framerates/stability (I get a minimum of 30 when online).The problem arises, though - when I try to fly with scenery such as Aerosoft San Francisco X, or similar highly detailed cityscape addons - I seem to get a lot of stuttering (that matches HDD activity and peaks of CPU usage).Now, my question is - what would be the best investment to improve the performance that small bit to make it flyable in high density areas (I'm one of those nut cases who find 28FPS or below unflyable). Three ideas I have are: Replace an i5 with an i7-860. <-- expensive, might not make a differenceAdd 4GB of RAM <-- not as expensive, but will almost certainly limit overclocking abilities of the CPUGet an SSD for FSX <-- expensive, rather young technology - not all kinks ironed out yet. Get a regular HDD for FSX only <-- relatively cheap, but I don't know how much benefit it's gonna do.If anyone has any experience with solving a similar dilemma I'd really appreciate the input.

What you need is to spend your money in a time machine... travel 50 years into the future... buy an extreme system... and go back in time... Even the latest 6 cores CPU from Intel can't deliver smooth FPS over detailed sceneries with all sliders to the right and running programs like REX 2 and Ultimate Traffic 2 at 100%... but... if you still want to upgrade your system spend extra cash to switch from an i5 system to an i7 system...Let's hope that the new MS Flight solve all performance issues... Dexter...

[bussgarfield 0]

Hi Ivan.Try here.http://fsps.737ng.gr/Booster.htmlI can recommend this piece of software and it is now permenantly installed on my computer.Don't worry about the 737ng bit in the link - it is for general use for FSX.I don't know anything about over-clocking but this software has certainly worked for me - increased frame rates and an overall improvement on smoothness.You get two free demos to try before you buy. If it works, then it is a lot cheaper than a computer upgrade.By the way, 28FPS is acceptable in my book !!!!!. I was acheiving 48FPS today - 3 X 22" wide screen monitors running off 3 Nvidia 9800 GT graphic cards, 3166 dual core CPU and 8GB DDR2 ram.Gary

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

IvanHere's my 2c worth.The GTX 460 is a great card but it may be throttling your system it is better suited to machines running in the 2500 - 2800 MHz range. If you could "borrow" a GTX 480 I think that you would see an improvement. On my modest machine (i7 860 plus GTX 460) I eliminated the stutters by installing FSX on a SSD (no other software) - SSD drives are not in their infancy - the technology is solid and they work very well with FSX. SATA3 SSDs still need more work!You can even buy a PCIE SSD and they have stunning performance. You could also try a SATA3 (if your mobo supports it) new VRAP which also seem to eliminate some stuttering.Your RAM is fast and more than adequate for FSX (providing you are running a 64-bit OS eg Win 7)so going to 8GB would only give minimal (if any) improvement.RegardsPeterH

[Ivan Kovacevic 0]

Peter, I was thinking about the same thing, since that is indeed the 'little brother' card in the new GTX 4xx lineup, however - if the G-card was the bottleneck, I thought overclocking it to 900MHz (from 725) would make a difference, at least a small one. It didn't :D. It gave me 20 more FPS in Unigine Heaven tesselation benchmark, but made absolutely no difference in FS. That lead me to conclude that FSX might not be taking full advantage of the card to begin with. I think the real bottleneck is my hard drive. Unfortunately, SSDs are still quite expensive in my country (as are VRaps even though they are old technology) so I'm kinda stuck with regular HDDs. For example, the 128GB Kingston V+ is almost 300EUR.And yes, I am running W7x64 Ultimate. Speaking of which, the W7 performance rating is stuck as 5.9 because of HDD performance :D Memory is 7.9, CPU is 7.5 and GPU is 7.5 - but HDD IOPS is 5.9 lol.

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

IvanGood luck with this one!!RegardsPeterH

[dazz 69]

The only thing it's doing apparently is applying some well known tweaks to the FSX.cfg like reject_threshold and reducing the number of trees and buildings per cell of autogen.lol, you can always keep a copy of the cfg file of the demo and apply the tweaks yourself later

Hi Ivan.Try here.http://fsps.737ng.gr/Booster.htmlI can recommend this piece of software and it is now permenantly installed on my computer.Don't worry about the 737ng bit in the link - it is for general use for FSX.I don't know anything about over-clocking but this software has certainly worked for me - increased frame rates and an overall improvement on smoothness.You get two free demos to try before you buy. If it works, then it is a lot cheaper than a computer upgrade.By the way, 28FPS is acceptable in my book !!!!!. I was acheiving 48FPS today - 3 X 22" wide screen monitors running off 3 Nvidia 9800 GT graphic cards, 3166 dual core CPU and 8GB DDR2 ram.Gary

[Ivan Kovacevic 0]

I'm not too keen on using those 'one click fix' solutions, for two reasons:1) They probably do increase FPS, but at a huge cost on visual quality. They don't have an intelligent human brain to decide what looks good and what doesn't. 2) I've already applied every FSX cfg edit known to mankind. :D

[Ivan Kovacevic 0]

Has anyone actually tried (compared) performance while running FSX on the system HDD as opposed to a separate hard drive?

[csharpe 20]

Aerosoft San Francisco TweakAn easy way to circumvent the "Extremely Dense" issue with this specific scenery while leaving your slider set to "Extremely Dense" is to find your "\Aerosoft\USCitiesX-SanFrancisco\Scenery" folder and add the ".off" extension to the 3 file that contain the word "extreme":SanFrancisco_3D_001_Extreme.BGL.offSanFrancisco_3D_002_Extreme.BGL.offSanFrancisco_3D_003_Extreme.BGL.offThis should allow you to fly in and out of the area without having to adjust your sliders, and the scenery will still show excellent detail for VFR flying.

[ryanbatc 13,037]

You already have a powerful system. What might work best is to get FSX installed on a SSD. Something like this (if 120GB is enough space)http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820231378It should decrease load times and perhaps assist with the stutters.

[Kosta 122]

I'd go an SSD. You have a computer where everything which is way more expensive, will not yield much more speed, and I'm talking really really more speed. If you'd get 980x and 580, you would probably see some increases, let's say even maybe some 20%, but that wouldn't be worth the expense.Anyway, I think the best investment would be SSD in your case. It ain't that bad as you describe it.And wait for the Sandy Bridge... you can use your SSD there.