Hi David: With 6 gig of ram, I'm assuming the i7 is a 920 - and clocking this one upwards is the answer to your problem. In order to get those frames up to say, 20 over the big cities, you're going to have to clock it up a notch or two. My 950 was good for 4.48 gig, and once I did that - FSX was almost there. The downside was she needed water cooling to keep it below 75C.

That being said - I'm sure you've been studying the tweaks that are around, and like me, we continue to see new fixes and opinions every day, and so this will just add to it. I said almost.. At 4.4 - even with the 580 - you're not going to get to Nirvana. You can come close, but it means that some of your settings need to be pulled.

 

Pulled from an earlier post - here's a sample setup, modified for your i7/580 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

EFFECTS_QUALITY=2

GROUND_SHADOWS=0

HIGHMEMFIX=1 // prevents graphics artifacts

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024

TEXTURE_QUALITY=3

 

BufferPools]

PoolSize=0 // <--- You can use 'no buffer' because the proc can't overpower the 580.

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

[Display]

SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=196 // <--- The calculated TBM for the 580 with frame limit of 24, tml=3 and TML=1024

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

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=24

 

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.18 <--- smoother. Default is 0.33

 

[Weather]

AdjustForMagVarInDialog=1

CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=6

CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3

DETAILED_CLOUDS=1

 

[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce GTX 580.0]

Mode=3840x1024x32 //<--- whatever yours is

TriLinear=1

 

[sCENERY]

DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1

IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5 <--- Big impact, can make 4, with AG at 3

LENSFLARE=0

MAX_ASYNC_BATCHING_JOBS=2

 

[TrafficManager]

AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=0

AirlineDensity=30 // If flying tubeliner - if not - make it 0

FreewayDensity=10 - 14 max..

GADensity=30 // If flying GA -if not - make it 0

IFROnly=0

LeisureBoatsDensity=0

ShipsAndFerriesDensity=0

 

[TERRAIN]

AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4 <--- big impact, make 3 or 4, not 5

DETAIL_TEXTURE=1

LOD_RADIUS=3.500000

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 <--- stops cloud flashing.

 

I almost forgot... 1). tighten your memory timings, 2). that 580 is still king of the hill. There's only one or two newer cards that may be better.. :lol:

 

Great info, thank you for this. I actually run an i7 950 but get too high temps and don't want to go watercool, so i settle for around 4ghz overclocked.

 

one question, I run tbm at 40 or 80, and a texturemaxload at 30 instead of 3. whats the difference with your setting of 3 and tbm at 196? locking frames is better for me instead of unlimited? I thought unlimited gave better performance in heavy scenery areas.

 

Thanks for the replies and suggestions:

 

I built this i5 750 machine a couple of years ago when that CPU was thought to be one of the best overclockers at that time. Not sure I want to do yet another "Major change in your pc's architecture". I love flying FSX but it can become a bit of a money pit for someone who is retired. I recently thought of going back to FS9 with some add-ons to make it look better but when I fired up my out-of-the box FS9 it looked "old" did not cut it for me.

 

Would moving FSX to a SSD make much of a difference?

 

I agree. I find myself upgrading then upgrading again in 6 months. Usually the graphics card. I recently bought an ssd and really see more smooth flying, not better fps. faster load times, less blurries, and smoother flying. I think it's worth it, imo. Luckily I spent a little more at the time and went with an i7 950 but am leaning to upgrading the motherboard and i7 to a 2500k maybe late this year in celebration of the PMDG 777.

I actually run an i7 950 but get too high temps and don't want to go watercool, so i settle for around 4ghz overclocked.

Do you use stock cooling, or an aftermarket air cooler? I was able to keep it ok at 4.2 - which - for a $35 Mugger II was well worth it. It was only after deciding to get 'er up to 4.5 that I went water - and then the SB came out, and it doesn't need water!!! Still use it, though - sits at 33C most of the time.

 

one question, I run tbm at 40 or 80, and a texturemaxload at 30 instead of 3. Whats the difference with your setting of 3 and tbm at 196? locking frames is better for me instead of unlimited? I thought unlimited gave better performance in heavy scenery areas.

 

The rule of thumb is - lock it externally and run unlimited inside. Well - I don't use unlimited, because I run three monitors using TripleHead2Go, and that's a fair load, so I set it at 30 using Inspector and found 24 to be ok inside, with a comparable adjustment to the TBM. It just varies (for me) too much when unlimited.

So - the figures - well, the EVGA 580 (1536MB) memory runs at 2004MHz, the Bus Width is 384 Bits, It's GDDR5 memory, I'm using the default 1024 as the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD and desired frames =24: that will give a TBM of 196. If I want 30fps it will bring the TBM down to 157. If, as you have in your cfg, we use a TextureMaxLoad of 30 instead of (the default) 3, then the Maximum Bytes per Frame is exceeded by a very wide margin - the GPU cannot handle it, as (the 580) Max Bytes per Frame is limited to 2,004 by bus width and frequency.

I hope that has answered you question, David. :Whew:

 

Edit: Of course - that's not to say you can't try it and see how it works: pulling the TBM down to offset it would help, but It's my thinking that you would probably get some kind of a conniption from the gpu.

I use 4096 for texture max load, what would my settings be? I don't run all textures that high just a few.

I went back into my settings and made sure they were set to the base settings in the ORBX manual (which they say are for a medium system). Instead of unlimited I locked the frames at 30 which seems smoother for my system compared to unlimited even though I can hit 50-60 fps on unlimited. Did several flights in and around Vancouver, into the mountains, and repeated the Victoria to Vancouver route using default Learjet and Baron. FPS stayed around 29-30 fps most of the time. Dropped down to the high teens some times. Tried it with the ORBX Weather 5 (bush flyers lucky dip) and got the same good (for my machine) results. Usually rainy weather destroys my fps but for some reason the ORBX weather seemed OK. Still need to try changing the LOD_RADIUS in the FSX.CFG file. Thinking of getting more ORBX areas now as well as Accu-Feel.

I use 4096 for texture max load, TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD, in [Graphics] what would my settings be? I don't run all textures that high just a few.

 

Well, if the tml (that's TextureMaxLoad - not TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD) remains at it's default of 3, then your TBM would be 39, for a 30fps limit - and that would work for you. If you chose 2048, 3, and 30 then the new TBM would be 78: likewise 1024, 3, and 30, then TBM=157

Bed-time, David. We can continue as you want tomorrow - the combinations are almost endless, aren't they. Playing with Inspector is another story on it's own .