Just wanted to know what other people think.I mean I can run other software like Crysis2,Modern Warfare3,Skyrim,on ultra high settings and get very good fps,and fluidity.And the graphics are superb.Why is it so hard to achieve this inFSX.It seems like everybody is forever tweaking or has one problem or another!Reagrds.

Hi,If I am correct it is because our Flightsim is still based up on the same software engine as the earlier versions were. MS should have rebuilt FS completely to match modern standards but they never did. So much of it still runs as it did in former days, with all negative sidekicks we encouter every flight. Maybe Flight!, apparatently a new version of Flightsim, has been rebuilt. But should we want FS to run as the games you mention, it needs a complete overhaul..... Hence we are stuck with tweaks...My 2 cents.

When MS designed FSX, they expected CPUs to remain as single cores and get much faster. It was never designed for multicore PCs and the evolution of faster chips has not been as quick as expected.It's partly that FSX is based on the old (getting on for 10 years) FS9 engine as well. Also, its a 32 bit program.I think videocard (and driver) technology has also moved forward since FSX was created and it can't really take advantage of all of the advances made.FSX development was stopped when ACES were closed down, though SP1 did fix some performance issues and SP2 added some multicore support, these were just sticking plasters.We'll have to wait for Flight to be launched before we have an MS simulator that can take advantage of todays technology.IAN

With today's technology FSX SP2 or Acceleration will run great. You will have no issues with fluidity with just FSX installed. What will slow down your FSx is the add-ons. Choose them wisely.

I would add that, at the time of release, most potential buyers of the sim did not have advanced systems, so the development team was forced to make design choices that limited the game. For example, graphics processing is carried out by the CPU, not the GPU, simply because back then most users did not have advanced graphics cards. If FS X had been programmed for advanced components, it just would not have sold many copies.As for tweaking, this is really only necessary for those who insist on pushing sliders as high as possible. For the rest of us, no tweaks are needed at all if we maintain default slider settings, or balance increases on some visual elements with lower settings on others. This is nothing new and Flight Simulator has been this way for over a decade.And also FS is often blamed for what are really hardware or system limitations. The game is quite happy to push massive amounts of data to the hardware, but if bus, memory (including VAS), processor, etc. are insufficient for that quantity of data, then the result will not be pleasant. Many people will hastily blame FS for what is really a problem with hardware or OS.Best regards.Luis

I mean I can run other software like Crysis2,Modern Warfare3,Skyrim,on ultra high settings and get very good fps,and fluidity.And the graphics are superb.Why is it so hard to achieve this inFSX.It seems like everybody is forever tweaking or has one problem or another!

One big reason for the contrast in reliability is that FS has been an ongoing development for many years. It is easy to produce a game, get it fully working, release it and move on to the next. FS has never been like that -- except for CFS3 which had little relation to the rest of the sequence. On top of this FS is designed as an open system which can be added to and enhanced enormously by third parties.Take away all the addons and you have left a stable program that runs well, and that is scalable using its own sliders and so on to suit most hardware.You can make similar comparisons between PCs and Apple computers. PCs use an open system, with an infinite number of possible configurations and mixes, just like FS, whilst Apples are pretty well fixed and defined by Apple Inc. -- much like the games you refer to, they don't allow for the variations which give the possibility of problems or tweaking.RegardsPete

With today's technology FSX SP2 or Acceleration will run great. You will have no issues with fluidity with just FSX installed. What will slow down your FSx is the add-ons. Choose them wisely.

This is a very important point that people often overlook.Most other games you play don't have custom addons like FS has. I mean you can buy things like expansion packs, but you can't buy a new character that has a whole different set of abilities and textures from the rest. You can't buy an environment pack that completely changes the sky, clouds, and ground. You can't buy a completely separate weather engine. Etc.A vanilla install of FSX would probably run at 100+ fps on the average new gaming rig nowadays (It ran between 60-100 fps on my laptop from 4 years ago). The problem is that nobody here is running a vanilla install of FSX.

I think another reason may be that FSX potentially has a very high level of detail and that detail can stretch out into the distance whereas some of the titles you mention have high detail very close in but that degrades greatly out into the distance. I think these titles do take advantage of video rendering in the GPU driver that FSX isn't so good at.Noel

Simple.. FSX is the worst coded game ever

I think another reason may be that FSX potentially has a very high level of detail and that detail can stretch out into the distance whereas some of the titles you mention have high detail very close in but that degrades greatly out into the distance. I think these titles do take advantage of video rendering in the GPU driver that FSX isn't so good at.Noel

Are you kidding me? Skyrim looks awesome in the distance while FSX looks absolutely horrendous

Simple.. FSX is the worst coded game everAre you kidding me? Skyrim looks awesome in the distance while FSX looks absolutely horrendous

I agree. The codebase is terrible. Good thing Microsoft got rid of that Aces team for FS11. Hopefully it will get programmed by competent coders

This is a very important point that people often overlook.Most other games you play don't have custom addons like FS has. I mean you can buy things like expansion packs, but you can't buy a new character that has a whole different set of abilities and textures from the rest. You can't buy an environment pack that completely changes the sky, clouds, and ground. You can't buy a completely separate weather engine. Etc.A vanilla install of FSX would probably run at 100+ fps on the average new gaming rig nowadays (It ran between 60-100 fps on my laptop from 4 years ago). The problem is that nobody here is running a vanilla install of FSX.

I also think this is key. When I installed FSX on my current rig, performance was amazing. I could fly the default f18 at full speed at 500ft and the scenery would be clear as a bell with FPS between 60 and 100. Now that I have installed all my add ons, it is not uncommon to see fps in the teens at complex airports with complex airliners and lots of clouds.This situation is no different than what I experienced with FS9. On my old rig that was built for FS9 (in 2005), I regularly saw FPS in the teens under the same conditions. IMHO, once the proper tweaks are applied and the proper hardware is purchased, FSX is more stable than FS9. It has been for me, at least. A lot of people still have not applied the right tweaks. I still see people complaining about menu crashes (UIAutomationCore.dll fix) and scenery/aircraft disappearing (highmemfix=1). For the most part, these are essential for stability and they are very simple to apply.

Could you please elaborate on the highmemfix?

All of these items in the above posts are certainly valid rationale for the user difficulties we all face. Most of those issues can be controlled using high-powered computers and graphics cards. But, the item (not mentioned above) that causes me more headaches is the fact that FSX was not designed with robust error trapping code.In a past life I was a programmer on large government military systems. We had to develop significant error trapping capabilities so that the software could identify problems and provide the user or programmer with tools to fix the problems. FSX has no such error trapping functions (or very little). The application is so complex and the number of addons so numerous that identifying why errors occur is nearly impossible.When my FSX installation crashes I want to know EXACTLY why it crashed (stopped working, CTD, freezes, etc). I want to be able to identify corrupted files, bad airport implementations, aircraft design problems, and the like and I want tools to "reach out and touch" the problem and either fix if myself or send along an error description to a developer.One of the ways, as a designer, you provide this type of error trapping is to enforce strict rules on how 3rd-party addons are implemented. There must be an API that stands in the way of bad programming practices or bad quality control procedures. There must be rules that all developers follow and consequences for violating those rules. Does this sound draconian? You bet. Before you complain, think about how many times you have had to uninstall and re-install your FSX application. How's your frustration level now?Frank

One of the ways, as a designer, you provide this type of error trapping is to enforce strict rules on how 3rd-party addons are implemented. There must be an API that stands in the way of bad programming practices or bad quality control procedures. There must be rules that all developers follow and consequences for violating those rules. Does this sound draconian? You bet. Before you complain, think about how many times you have had to uninstall and re-install your FSX application. How's your frustration level now?Frank

That's what they're trying to achieve with MS flight

Sho me the money! We'll see. If Flight is as hard on the user as FSX was, fo get about it!