Hey guys,I recently upgraded to a 2600K and two GTX460's (I know that fsx doesn't really take advantage of SLi but I also use my pc for gaming, fsx and my games are on different HDD's) and got all excited about how it was going to change fsx for me, so I installed everything asap and loaded it up for the first time and I was thrilled. Realair's Turbine Duke sitting at Rotterdam airport with UTX, REX 4096 clouds, 35+ fps. However my happiness was short-lived because as soon as I started flying and got some altitude my fps went down the drain. So I figured I rushed the installation of fsx so I should reinstall everything but this time following Nick's great guides. Now here comes the problem, eventhough I followed Nick's guide to the letter it doesn't matter if I change settings for which affect CPU (Autogen, Scenery complexity, Traffic, LOD Radius, UTX settings) or GPU (AA, Water, Shadows, Clouds from 8/8 to 0/8, changing cloud resolutions) it still manages to vary wildly from 40 fps all the way down to single digits which makes it totally unflyable. I also tried Bojote's tweaking tool and it gave me the same results, fps were a bit better but as soon as I get some altitude, say 1500ft, it starts stuttering like mad. Even a brand new fsx.cfg hardly makes a difference and I get the infamous autogen scenery spikes even with a fresh fsx.cfg.The thing that puzzles me the most is that on the ground I can get a steady 30 fps, but as soon as I get higher it goes all the way down to single digits sometimes.I hope someone here can give me some tips because I'm getting really frustrated with this.Kind regards,Vincent

Hey guys,I recently upgraded to a 2600K and two GTX460's (I know that fsx doesn't really take advantage of SLi but I also use my pc for gaming, fsx and my games are on different HDD's) and got all excited about how it was going to change fsx for me, so I installed everything asap and loaded it up for the first time and I was thrilled. Realair's Turbine Duke sitting at Rotterdam airport with UTX, REX 4096 clouds, 35+ fps. However my happiness was short-lived because as soon as I started flying and got some altitude my fps went down the drain. So I figured I rushed the installation of fsx so I should reinstall everything but this time following Nick's great guides. Now here comes the problem, eventhough I followed Nick's guide to the letter it doesn't matter if I change settings for which affect CPU (Autogen, Scenery complexity, Traffic, LOD Radius, UTX settings) or GPU (AA, Water, Shadows, Clouds from 8/8 to 0/8, changing cloud resolutions) it still manages to vary wildly from 40 fps all the way down to single digits which makes it totally unflyable. I also tried Bojote's tweaking tool and it gave me the same results, fps were a bit better but as soon as I get some altitude, say 1500ft, it starts stuttering like mad. Even a brand new fsx.cfg hardly makes a difference and I get the infamous autogen scenery spikes even with a fresh fsx.cfg.The thing that puzzles me the most is that on the ground I can get a steady 30 fps, but as soon as I get higher it goes all the way down to single digits sometimes.I hope someone here can give me some tips because I'm getting really frustrated with this.Kind regards,Vincent

You already saw and followed some of the best advice you can get but, for starters, did you oc your 2600K (as you should)? Most 'tweaks' do not work with every system. I think a lot of these tweaks were made for older systems. If you have a modern system, I would do away with the tweaks. The one 'tweak' you should add to your FSX.cfg is HIGHMEMFIX=1. I would rename your fsx.cfg, restart the sim, and let the config rebuild. Then add the one tweak I suggested above. Of course, move your sliders as recommended by Nick.The "infamous scenery spikes" are caused by memory being used up and the system is having a hard time reading and writing. Did you defrag your HD? If you don't have an SSD, you need to defrag your HD after installing FSX as the installation program absolutely scatters FSX files all over the HD in no order whatsoever. The same for any Windows installation. It appears your config sliders are moved too far to the right. All the way to the right is NOT good in FSX and you'll suffer more than enjoy FSX. For you to enjoy FSX with all the sliders to the right would require a complete reprogramming of FSX that would use system resources better. Microsoft ACES Team started doing that until they were abolished. Stuttering is a problem of too many resources being used in a scenario. It could also be caused by the system needing a defragmentation and maybe a poor installation of the video card drivers (less likely). I have my 2600K oc'd to 4.8GHz and have not seen single digits yet but have had BSODs and CTDs. In my case it was the memory config in my BIOS that caused the crashes. I have since ran the Intel Burn Test and the system is completely stable (fingers and legs crossed...). I see a tiny bit of stuttering but nothing serious and the scenery graphics are mostly smooth and absolutely awesome.You also didn't show your system specs and I would recommend you include those in any future posts. Many flight simmers, like me, have included our specs in our signatures so others can see and maybe diagnose a problem. I would also like to know what OS you are using as that is very important for FSX too.Best regards,Jim

Thank you Jim for your quick reply. I deleted my old fsx.cfg and let it rebuild a new one, this time I didn't change anything except the WideViewAspect=True, Hideinfotext=1 and Disablepreload=1 and it worked like a charm. Just finished a short hop from Schiphol (EHAM) to Groningen (EHGG) and it was smooth as butter compared to before with a near constant 30fps.I do have my cpu stable at 4,6 and I have defragmented my HDD so I guess all the tweaks I had were doing more harm than good. Guess I'll stay away from those for now or try one and if it doesn't help delete it immediatly.Thank you very much for giving me some advice, I also updated my signature like you said to make it a bit easier for others to help.Now off to try some more aircraft!Regards,Vincent

Thank you Jim for your quick reply. I deleted my old fsx.cfg and let it rebuild a new one, this time I didn't change anything except the WideViewAspect=True, Hideinfotext=1 and Disablepreload=1 and it worked like a charm. Just finished a short hop from Schiphol (EHAM) to Groningen (EHGG) and it was smooth as butter compared to before with a near constant 30fps.I do have my cpu stable at 4,6 and I have defragmented my HDD so I guess all the tweaks I had were doing more harm than good. Guess I'll stay away from those for now or try one and if it doesn't help delete it immediatly.Thank you very much for giving me some advice, I also updated my signature like you said to make it a bit easier for others to help.Now off to try some more aircraft!Regards,Vincent

Glad you were able to fix w/one of my suggestions. The highmemfix=1 in the Graphics section is the only one I've seen really work. I recently flew my Level-D 767 and the textures on the outside had disappeared except for remnants of the tires and pieces of the landing gear. Somehow I had forgetten to add the "tweak". After adding it, the aircraft could be seen in all its glory. You have a nice system and I think you will enjoy FSX as long as you don't get too critical of a very, very old program.Best regards,Jim