As topic says, what the heck is required by FSX Acceleration to run smooth?

 

This is my setup:

 

asus z68

intel i5-2500K @ 5.0 gHZ

8GB 1600MHZ

GTX 560Ti SLI

Windows 7 64bit

 

I use:

REX 2.0

UTX Europe

Active Sky

ENB series

 

I usually fly the PMDG 737NGX and I know its a FPS killer but what kind of computer do I have to own to make FSX run smooth? I mean a modern CPU running at 5.0 gHz is not enough? The fps drops when decending to the point that ground textures become visible. Such as tree's and houses. Clouds is not really an issue.

 

My FSX settings are attached to this post.

It's really frustrating when you spend alot of time and effort to get a proper computer. All drivers are up to date so don't try to get me on that one :)

If I may so, your post above comes across with a bit of a bad attitude ..........

 

You're asking for help, yet have forgotten to include the word 'please' even once. And your statement "All drivers are up to date so don't try to get me on that one" again just smacks of someone barking out an abrupt post, wanting help, but offering not even a basic amount of courtesy.

 

FSX can be frustrating, but no-one here owes you any help; so if you want some, show some respect and you'll get it.

 

As a starting point, I would say that you are expecting maybe a bit too much, coming from a GTX 560Ti. Not a bad card, but not a 580. REX and Active Sky can use up a lot of juice on both your CPU (not an issue with 5.0Ghz) but also your GPU. Add the NGX into that mix and you have a big draw on resources. The 560 is a medium end card and so, to use those types of addons, you will need to pull your sliders down a bit. Putting Autogen to Normal should help. Also what is your AI Traffic set at..... more than 20% ? ......with those addons running, and your settings, AI will make a big difference.

 

I notice this is your first post at AVSIM, so if you are new to FSX, bear in mind that it is NOTHING like other PC games! ..... it is very resource intensive and you cannot run it on high settings, with addons like AS and REX, and the NGX and get 50FPS.

 

Certainly if you have cash to spend, your 560 is your current bottleneck.

Drop the Water setting down to the first available 2.0 setting. I think it's about half way along the slider. Anything after that is a massive frame hitter. Also, put the Testure resolution to 1m instead of 7cm.

Make sure you run your fsx.cfg through the Bojote website. It adds a few changes to your cfg file that improve things a lot. Stuff that helps with memory usage and your cpu threading.

 

Here's the link: http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

 

Get rid of any road traffic and reduce your aircraft traffic down to a reasonable level. I have UT2 and run it at 50%

 

See if any of that helps. You should be screaming along with a 5ghz clock speed...

 

I have 2 x 560ti cards too but I don't enable sli. I just use them to give me three screens. The middle for fsx and the outside two for navigations progs etc.

 

Finally, have a good read around on here for settings advice. The bojote thing did wonders for me though...

Am just abit frustrated, its nothing personal against avsim or its users. I am sorry for that!

 

Are you saying that my 560Ti is a bottleneck to FSX? That actually suprise me, I guess FSX cannot benefit from SLI. But my 560Ti is far from using its max capacity when playing FSX.

It go maybe 40-50%

The water setting that Chris suggested can make a big difference, so def try that.

 

Yes, your 560Ti is a bottlenexk in the case of FSX. Not that there's anything wrong with the 560Ti, just that FSX is mainly CPU-bound, so utilization %s don't show the full story. But although CPU-bound, faster GPUs with more VRAM and nm can make a big difference.

 

Good luck, and welcome to the joys of FSX!

And definitely do as suggested and turn down UT2 to at least 50% traffic in both sliders. UT2 at 100% is a complete overkill of airplanes and it will easily without a doubt shave 10-15fps off immediately when injecting with traffic maxed out and the added workload to the ATC (that will never shut up) will hurt even more as you fly longer.

The water above 2x low kills fps traffic will depend on what scenery your running also tweaking a bit here and there its a pain the @ss : http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html like Chris mentioned is a good start and don't give up.

Are you saying that my 560Ti is a bottleneck to FSX?

 

I wouldn't say that at all. And I must disagree with Stick, a better card than what you have would give you minimal boost in frametrates, and certainly not worth $400-500 for that.

 

As others said, lower traffic (huge framerate killer) and try low 2x water.

I know it is highly frustrating to do a $1000 upgrade, load up FS and see a 7 FPS increase. I ask myself why am I spending 450 on a vid card only to have the CPU carry so much of the graphics load?

And the fact that a cpu upgrade or overclocking yeilds such modest performance gains when graphic intensity is raised just tells me the CPU is doing things that the GPU is better suited for.

What I'd do is add one thing (for starters) to a default fsx.cfg...

 

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

Once you've got that you're going to want to play with the sliders a bit. For your setup BE SURE you're running an nvidia inspector profile:

http://downloads.gur...nload-2612.html

 

Using these methods:

http://www.simforums...topic36586.html

 

Slider-wise, most looks good. Knock water back to 2x Low. Put scenery and autogen up to max or one notch below max. Set cars to very low (maybe 7-10%), lower if you run UTX scenery.

 

Be sure to run DX9 as well.

 

You'll find with an nvidia Inspector profile and actually raising some sliders you'll be off to a better start.

 

Once you've got the profile running you'll notice some issues in clouds (usually multiple layers with REX/FEX type addons).... you may have to try different AA methods... see this post in the hardware forum for more info on that:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/368216-my-new-toy/page__st__25#entry2323814

The reason it's a bottleneck is that it can't handle the large amount of data that the 5 gig proc can throw at it. A better card, such as the 580 - or newer - would allow BufferPools = 0, giving optimal data transfer to that card, provided your TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD, TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT, TextureMaxLoad and desired frame rate are set right. These figures can be calculated and changed, but do depend upon the bandwidth of the card itself.

Here's a sample setup, with the garbage removed for some clarity. I use Ryan's mid-range Inspector settings, plus lock the os at 30, and fsx internally at 24. This gives me smooth under almost every condition. For the IFR.cfg I cut back detail, LOD and traffic, but add three layers of very dense cumulus overcast.

 

// VFR.cfg Mar 17, 2012

 

[GRAPHICS]

AC_SELF_SHADOW=0

AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1

AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0

//ForceFullScreenVSync=1

EFFECTS_QUALITY=2

GROUND_SHADOWS=0

HIGHMEMFIX=1

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024

TEXTURE_QUALITY=3

 

BufferPools]

UsePools=0

//PoolSize=8388608

//RejectThreshold=524288 // 262144 // 131072

//PoolSize=0

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

[Display]

SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=196 <--- Your TBM should be ~133

TextureMaxLoad=3 // 6 //30 // 30 ONLY when running 'unlimited' frames.

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=24

WideViewAspect=True

 

[Main]

DisablePreload=1

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.18

 

[Weather]

AdjustForMagVarInDialog=1

CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=8

CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3

DETAILED_CLOUDS=1

 

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580.0]

Mode=3840x1024x32

TriLinear=1

 

[sCENERY]

DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1

IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5

LENSFLARE=0

MAX_ASYNC_BATCHING_JOBS=3

//SmallPartRejectRadius=4.0

 

[TrafficManager]

AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=1

AirlineDensity=29

ChangeTime=4.000000

FreewayDensity=14

GADensity=29

IFROnly=0

LeisureBoatsDensity=17

ShipsAndFerriesDensity=12

TransitionTime=4.000000

 

[TERRAIN]

AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5

DETAIL_TEXTURE=1

LOD_RADIUS=4.500000

MAX_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=21

MESH_COMPLEXITY=100

MESH_RESOLUTION=22

MIN_DETAIL_TEXTURE_LEVEL=21

SWAP_WAIT_TIMEOUT=2

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=907

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1376

TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=28

WATER_EFFECTS=6

Yeah and you'll have scenery like this in no time... (disclaimer... AI traffic is completely off in this pic)

 

I have a curious question...

 

IS there a system that could be built, with chips, cards, etc available now, that WOULD run FSX with all the sliders maxed out, and REX, GEX, NGX, and all the other X's running? And still run smoothly?

 

Not that I am looking to build it (I wish!), but I'm genuinely curious as to what it would take...

No.

 

I don't think it will ever happen either... the code is so out of date that it can't take advantage (in the most efficient way) of components today.

 

A big maaaaaybe to P3D and iff they continue to development it...

Thanks Ryan... I had a feeling that was the answer.