Like some others, I "used to" get great graphics performance on my i7 2600K 4.73ghz box (see signature bar for hardware config) - when all at once I encountered TERRIBLE PEFORMANCE landing at Flightbeam Studios' KSFO-X airport in my PMDG 737NGX at night. Stuttering, momentary freeze-ups, just awful, similar to when I had loaded Aerosoft's US Cities -San Francisco pack on top of Flightbeam Studios' KSFO-X.

 

I began to run down all of my settings in FSX and found there are a MYRIAD number of places to alter settings, from FSX.cfg on up to some of the aftermarket products. One suspect was the Add-on Manager update from FSDreamteam which I received as an update pertaining to Ground Services X.

 

Within the add-on manager there are any number of FSX settings that are written to the FSX config file.

 

 

The following website provided some good suggested settings for the higher end systems, including upticks in the Buffer Pools based on Video Card Ram. I maxed my buffer pools, set frames to unlimited (instead of locking at 30) and made a number of other alterations based on the website's recommendations.

 

JOY.

 

No more stuttering during night landings at KSFO-X.

 

Here's the link. Remember my usual admonition: Backup BEFORE (making any changes) and AFTER (if you're happy with the outcome).

 

http://www.simforums.com/forums/setting-up-fsx-and-how-to-tune-it_topic29041.html

UPDATE: 4/21/2012

 

Turned off HYPERTHREADING in system BIOS (apparently FSX 'ignores' the Hyperthreads - though the system 'reports' 8 cores (when Hyperthreaded) only 4 "real" cores are present.

 

I found and moved the FSX.cfg to a different location, restarted FSX (thus re-creating a brand-spanking new FSX.cfg file-

 

Went to ******* "Bojote" Alueve's venetubo.com online tuning site and ran the online tuning tool. Tuned for 4 Cores and nVidia GTX 580 video card.

 

Downloaded the new FSX.cfg from Bojote's site, copied to the APPDATA\Microsoft\FSX folder (overwriting the newly-created FSX.cfg with the 'tuned' newly-created FSX.cfg file)

 

System issues resolved - the 'shimmering' lights at night time (God knows where they came from) were (happily) GONE

 

Frame rates inside the NGX virtual-cockpit on the ground at Atlanta at night about 21 fps via FRAPS (not recording - just displaying Frame Rate)

Frame rates with external view on (no cockpit image) is very high, as high as 60 fps (which is my monitor refresh rate). When airborne inside cabin FPS 24+ fps, perfectly acceptable.

 

I have frame rate UNLOCKED everywhere on my system, though the latest nVidia Inspector DOES offer the opportunity to lock it.

 

Had to disable "sync system clock with FSX" within FSUIPC, was causing the scenery texture files to reload during flight- NOT A GOOD THING. After disabling that, no more sudden pause while scenery reloads and progress bar moves across the update window... including this here in hopes of helping someone else.

 

With FSX shut down, re-ran the EZ-DOK Configuration tool to update the scenery and aircraft.

 

I elected to NOT RUN the Virtuali add-on manager tool (it only operates if you click the SAVE button - even though the tool appears when you choose add-on manager). I think this 'improved' add-on manager for FSX may not be the can of corn it might seem to be (translation: I would be VERY reluctant to let FSDreamteam modify my FSX.cfg file for me). YMMV.

 

All I know is that I'm happier now than I was a few days ago. I had to move the DeltaVA Avcars2 program back to my FSX system from the satellite PC because WideClient was killing my frames. DeltaVA's ACARS appears to not be compatible with SIMCONNECT. I can still run Squawkbox4 and AivlaSoft's EFB as satellite software on a 2nd PC, no hit on frames. If I run Squawkbox thru WideClient instead of Simconnect on PC #2, the FPS get MURDERED (about 50%) if I use WideClient and start Squawkbox and choose "CONNECT". As soon as I disconnect SB4 from the Vatsim network, FPS jump back to normal. Note that this is NOT a problem if I do not start WideClient but simply use SimConnect for my hookup to VATSIM (Squawkbox 4)

 

 

So I removed WideClient from PC2, moved ACARS to main PC -- I'm happier, "for now" (may figure this out and go back to PC2 with ACARS later).