Hi,Here I am posting on Christmas morning. Shows I've got my priorities right, no?! (Flightsim first!). Happy Christmas to all...Just wondered if anyone has any tips to make FSX less 'jerky' - on the ground it's especially bad, a bit better in the air. The PC is quite high-spec (below) and I get good frame rates - rarely less than 30 in FSX even at crowded airports with heavy cloud, but taxiing along the runway is pretty horrible to watch. My CPU usage gadget shows PC has plenty of resources unused while flying.I fly mostly FS9, but in FSX I fly with few addons, pretty much 'out-of-the-box', so I don't think it can be a 3rd. party issue. FS9 runs very smooth. I have set up both FS9 and FSX with NickN's nVidia Enhancer/Inspector settings (GPU and sim). The PC only runs FS9 and FSX - former consistently smooth, latter consistently 'juddery' - don't think it's due to any external programme running. I have FSX+Acceleration pack installed.This is a new installation of FSX on Win7 x64 that has also just been reinstalled this week on a clean SSD - both FSX and FS9 on a separate SSD (not in default folder).Maybe someone who uses FSX more than I do might be able to help pinpoint why the sim is not smooth..Thanks,Martin

Martin,And a Merry Christmas to you, too.This is probably not for everyone but when I wanted a new system I contacted Michael at www.fs-gs.com. He specified all the components and then, after I had assembled and tested, helped me set the system up for FSX Gold. I don't get super high FPS in dense areas but the screen is always smooth. Even at JFK with the default 737 and weather, FPS may drop to the teens but it's always smooth so FPS doesn't seem to matter anymore. For the kind of money we spend on our systems, the few extra dollars I paid Michael were a wise investment. A bonus, you only pay after you're satisfied.

So many possibilities. It took me weeks to set up my current system to play well with FSX and I could not get rid of the micro stutters for ages.There are some good set up guides ove on the Simaviation FSX forum by NickN which would be a good start.Perhaps turn down some of the settings a little. until it is smooth, then as you gradualy increase them, you may get a clue as to what is causing it.I replaced the cloud textures with some smaller ones, which whilst not so good, did sem to help. Now it's running smooth, I may at some point put the original ones back.I did notice that road traffic seemed to cause a few stutters on my system and have had it switched of for ages.Too much AI traffic can have the same effect, so I have a few more static aircraft now and silghtly reduced the AI trafic.FSX needs to be tuned, your system needs to be tuned, you need to get the videocard settings right, look at what is runing in the background that can interfere (particularly virus checkers and scanners) and try to eliminate each as the casue of your stutterering.There are a number of FSX.cfg tweaks too. Just search the forums for stutters and microstutters.Unfortunatley, these are very system related and what works for one, often doesn't for another.IAN

Install FSX_LimiterSet FSX frames to UNLIMITEDLock limiter frames at 30Have funDave

Hi there and Happy Holidays to everyone here at Avsim! What Dave was referring to is called FPS Limiter 0.2 or version 2. I have it, and it does work wonders along with Bojote's and Nick's tweaks. I did have to put the default Cumulous clouds back in FSX even thought I use REX Xtreme, however the clouds no matter how small in texture size still hurt if Cumulous is selected. Default is much smoother. I use cirrus most of the time without too much FPS hit. Hope this helps. :) Enjoy the holiday everyone! Warm regards, Jeff

Martin,And a Merry Christmas to you, too.This is probably not for everyone but when I wanted a new system I contacted Michael at www.fs-gs.com. He specified all the components and then, after I had assembled and tested, helped me set the system up for FSX Gold. I don't get super high FPS in dense areas but the screen is always smooth. Even at JFK with the default 737 and weather, FPS may drop to the teens but it's always smooth so FPS doesn't seem to matter anymore. For the kind of money we spend on our systems, the few extra dollars I paid Michael were a wise investment. A bonus, you only pay after you're satisfied.

Ditto on www.fs-gs.com They set my system up almost 5 years ago and I havent had to make any changes since.

Ditto on www.fs-gs.com They set my system up almost 5 years ago and I havent had to make any changes since.

5 years? So you never changed anything once you got your i7?

Martin,try turning your AA down from super-sample to adaptive multi-sample AA.Works for me.Adam

Hi Martin,I think you can rest assured you have ample machine to deliver excellent performance defined as: image quality + freedom from microstutters + freedom from video hangs & jumps, all at acceptable frame rates (generally somewhere over 20 or so) w/ very good to excellent scenery complexity, using lots of 3rd party addons, complex aircraft on occasion withstanding.Bless NickN's for his dedication and excellent setup guides, but truthfully I've not found them to be needed too much (ie, I achieved excellent performance w/o most of them, and at at least in the past he was predisposed to saying if you don't follow everything exactly, all bets are off). I do use nHancer using 8xS for excellent IQ. My machine is probably around 65% of the raw ponies as yours, but your added horsepower will improve on only two of the four parameters in the performance definition: frame & texture update rates will be better, but not smoothness or freedom from video hang/jerks. So to cope, I may need to make some changes in FSX setup, for example run Autogen at Dense instead of far right on the slider, and maybe tune down certain parameters based on what aircraft and scenery I am in. But overall as in my specs, I run pretty full on in summer, but in winter and in other seasons w/ heavy weather I may need to dial back cloud density to High instead of Very High or whatever far right is. There are scenarios where I need to run autogen at Normal, for example w/ PMDG 747 at KJFK in weather.By far the most useful tools for me came from *******, Bejote's tips, and just a few of them mattered most. I don't care for his shader tweaks personally, but some other fsx.cfg entries have been most useful in getting the IQ and freedom from microstutters dialed in.To address the what I call 'video hangs & jumps', FPS Limiter was a tool I postulated would matter greatly for my issues, and a very nice person responded to a query I made for such an "external" frame rate limiter, and indeed this polished up the final issue of hang n jump. I understand for some this utility is not particularly useful, and i believe it, as it primarily address that issue, hangs n jumps. Here was my post on this discovery: http://forum.avsim.net/topic/245251-dont-miss-this-one-a-new-fsx-optimizer/So I'd say start first w/ Bejote's tweaks. Not sure how his auto configurator works, as I know it way underestimated by best performance when I tried it early on. Perhaps it's been improved. Try there first and see what happens. I use the No Buffer Pools setting. Try FSX Limiter.exe as well. I'm thinking after you'll be fine. If not, post again.Elevating the priority level of FSX seems to help as well: I run it often at High Normal; w/ the PMDG 747 plus FSPassengersX I have to return this to Normal, else some problems ensue at the end of a flight.Noel

..Elevating the priority level of FSX seems to help as well: I run it often at High Normal; w/ the PMDG 747 plus FSPassengersX I have to return this to Normal, else some problems ensue at the end of a flight.Noel

I actually found that lowering the priority level of fsx seemed to help more.I usually run fsx on low or lower than normal.You could try both as well.Unfortunately fps limiter does not help much here. -

Ditto on www.fs-gs.com They set my system up almost 5 years ago and I havent had to make any changes since.

+3I used them 2.5 years ago when I built my new system in my sig and would definately use them again when do my next upgrade. For me it was well worth the money to get it setup and tuned right the first time and in one day, rather than spend months on a merry go round of trying different tips and tweaks.For those who want to do it on their own NickN's and *******' recommendations are most likely the best way to go.

Another vote for the limiter. Some prefer the outboard limiter. Myself, I have tried both, and mine runs better using the built inMSFS limiter. Try setting the max frame rate for slightly less thanwhat the machine usually does. IE: if you average 30, try 25 instead.The exact number will vary to the hardware. Don't set the frame rateto unlimited. You want some overhead available. That would be a start anyway..

Thanks for the input. I will read and consider all carefully - I have heard good things about the FSX limiter before so will give that a try - I did try setting frame rates within FSX but to no effect; could give it another go first.Will report back on any progress.Martin

Ok, I set target frame rate to 30 instead of unlimited - which improved things quite a bit. Then I also set my nVidia Inspector for FSX to multi-sample from super-sample and now FSX runs almost as smoothly as FS9 - certainly more than acceptable.Many thanks for the help (and also of course to those who replied, but whose advice I didn't in the end follow up!).Martin

Thanks for the input. I will read and consider all carefully - I have heard good things about the FSX limiter before so will give that a try - I did try setting frame rates within FSX but to no effect; could give it another go first.Will report back on any progress.Martin

Martin, are you referring to the external spot view? Or the view from within the cockpit?For the external view, make sure you use the "locked spot view" or it will be jerky.