Some tweaks are good for some systems. Some are not. What I have noticed is that even the experts agree that FSX's performance is system specific.

 

Years ago Dario and I discussed Sparse Grid Supersampling as the best way to avoid shimmers. Now, all of a sudden NickN has a guide advising that it should be considered, based on today's hardware.

 

Tomorrow it might be a different story, based on hardware.

SGSS is not a tweak in the sense I meant it. It is AA method that can be enabled on a driver level. There is nothing wrong in testing different AA methods and choosing the one that gives you the best performance/looks combination you like. It doesn't affect how the FSX works in any way as AA only stresses your GPU more or less depending on the method you choose. Reason why SGSS wasn't a valid option few years ago was that GPUs lacked performance to handle it fluidly. It is still heavy, but viable option with best GPUs. I don't use it, but 16Q.

 

With tweaks I meant all the silliness people are stuffing in their FSX configs. Some of them have even totally wrong values, that don't actually do anything or people put in actual default values or worse yet something that is far over the line just based on something he or she has read from the forums without understanding what setting really does or why it has the values FSX designers have set it originally. Now, that is silly.

 

IMO one of the rare cfg tweaks that are useful is bufferpools=0 if your graphics card can handle it. I also use succesfully driver level FPS limiter, like I said before.

BP=0 is another example of a tweak that didn't work with yesterday's hardware, but will work with today's high end cards. What this tells me is that even though some may look at tweaks as problematic, with the right hardware, they could be a solution to a problem.

 

BTW: AA settings, IMO, are a tweak to make FSX look better or perform better.

BP=0 is another example of a tweak that didn't work with yesterday's hardware, but will work with today's high end cards. What this tells me is that even though some may look at tweaks as problematic, with the right hardware, they could be a solution to a problem.

 

BTW: AA settings, IMO, are a tweak to make FSX look better or perform better.

Yes, and like I said it is pretty much only useful tweak there is. Any other tweak affecting the graphics handling in FSX is pretty much useless or are a cause for possible instability, OOM errors and whatever. I'm pretty certain, that even with several times the computing power we have now, not a further cfg tweak is going to make things any better. Reason lies in the FSX coding and how software is threaded for the CPU. I see future completely other way with FSX. After few years, if we are still flying with FSX, we can throw almost all this tweak stuff away as horse power of our CPUs and GPUs can handle ingame locked frames and textures are thrown to GPU fast enough even with memory buffers thus rendering BP=0 tweak useless.

 

My FSX is pretty much rock solid and I get at least satisafctory performance with bunch of addons without any silly cfg tweaks. And believe me, I've tested different "tweaks" a lot and threw almost every single of them out pretty soon. Only "tweaks" I have in cfg is texture_max_load to enable large textures and then bufferpools. I think that's pretty much it.

 

And you can call AA settings what you will, that is not something I meant with FSX tweaks. It doesn't affect in anyway how FSX is running on your computer, just how your GPU renders the graphics FSX sends to it.

Hey guys,

 

it's all back up and running..I binned the whole thing and started again..re-seated and re-lap'd the CPU; cleaned and re-seated the RAM..Did a slow format of both SSD's and ran long and boring Memtest's. Then sat up all night tweaking LOL..

 

Just posted my FSmark11 results..no stutters anymore..Only gone up to 4.5Ghz (1.39v) so far..Bored of teweaking now..want to fly!

 

Boy I love this system! Not even using BP=0 yet (fsx.cfg is Bojote flava obv)

 

My other settings, after getting the Bojote treatment, are all as per Word Not Allowed's most excellent distillation of his favourite (and probably the definitve - bar BP=0 - not for everyone) tweaks..Leaving it at that now. So smooth locked at 30 I want to cry :Cry:

 

Obviously new platforms and steppings of existing CPU's will all have different results with the different boards; GPU's; RAM and the tweak settings one applies. It's always going to get different results..As Dario said right at the start: heat has so much to do with the smoothness of any application, esp graphically intense ones..If your cooling is crap and you are running way hot, your frames will be slower, as your CPU is not as efficient as it could be: fact.

 

I don't agree the LGA2011 platform is detrimental to FSX..I have an O/C 2600K sat right next to me that isn't nearly as smooth on exactly the same settings (faster clock on the 2600K: 4.7 as opp to 4.5 with the 3930) and cfg tweaks as my new rig..It's not just the CPU and GPU, it's the RAM too..I've tested it last night at various XMP and non-XMP profiles at the same clock speed..The faster RAM=better performance (duh)

 

Anyway, thanks for all the replies guys, I'm a happy camper once again and can recommend the combo of CPU/GPU/RAM I have (all reasonably priced imo)

 

cheers

 

j

 

EDIT: Also, thanks for the hardware advice guys..I know my way around modern systems; I've run an IT support company for the last 10 years LOL..My questions were more about what would make FSX grunt like that; I'm no way an expert on FSX tweaking!

quadraspleens last post...

Glad you got it working! You probably had something wrongly installed and refitting cleared your problems. Reason may be one SATA-cable poorly attached and that's it.

 

I don't think your problem was a heat question, if you are running your rig with decent cooler. SBEs should take nearly somwhere around 85C without any throttling though this is a lot less than it was with Nehalems and Gulftown (I took my Nehalem to over 100C to get it throttle down) and if your cooler was badly installed, it would shown bad performance straight after your install. Throttling, of course, can cause instable performance in any application.

 

I can't wait to get my hands on to 3930K. Not just for FSX but overall. Those SBE 6-cores are amazing processors!

Hey Grunt..Much worse than that; shoolboy error. Not telling

 

 

oh ok, then..in my feverish pyramid of confustication that I got myself into, like a kid in a sweetshop with all my new fancy hardware, after one of my re-clocks I forgot to turn off speedstep in BIOS and power management in Windoze. result? I am a loser. :Monkey:

 

Again, thanks for all the suggestions! Off to run more FSmark tests with different settings

 

j

Yes, and like I said it is pretty much only useful tweak there is. Any other tweak affecting the graphics handling in FSX is pretty much useless or are a cause for possible instability, OOM errors and whatever. I'm pretty certain, that even with several times the computing power we have now, not a further cfg tweak is going to make things any better. Reason lies in the FSX coding and how software is threaded for the CPU. I see future completely other way with FSX. After few years, if we are still flying with FSX, we can throw almost all this tweak stuff away as horse power of our CPUs and GPUs can handle ingame locked frames and textures are thrown to GPU fast enough even with memory buffers thus rendering BP=0 tweak useless.

 

My FSX is pretty much rock solid and I get at least satisafctory performance with bunch of addons without any silly cfg tweaks. And believe me, I've tested different "tweaks" a lot and threw almost every single of them out pretty soon. Only "tweaks" I have in cfg is texture_max_load to enable large textures and then bufferpools. I think that's pretty much it.

 

And you can call AA settings what you will, that is not something I meant with FSX tweaks. It doesn't affect in anyway how FSX is running on your computer, just how your GPU renders the graphics FSX sends to it.

Grunt,

 

I'll post this today so that we can revisit this a decade from now. You will still need a BP tweak a decade from now when running FSX. BP=0 is here to stay.

 

Please let's not debate this. It's ok if you disagree. I'll also add this tweak or fix: HIGHMEMFIX=1 Depending on where you fly and what type of aircraft you use, we will need the above tweaks with FSX. Let's come back to this in a decade.

 

Jake, glad it's smooth again. Now go backup your system and forget about benchmarks. :Peace:

Grunt,

 

I'll post this today so that we can revisit this a decade from now. You will still need a BP tweak a decade from now when running FSX. BP=0 is here to stay.

 

Please let's not debate this. It's ok if you disagree. I'll also add this tweak or fix: HIGHMEMFIX=1 Depending on where you fly and what type of aircraft you use, we will need the above tweaks with FSX. Let's come back to this in a decade.

 

Jake, glad it's smooth again. Now go backup your system and forget about benchmarks. :Peace:

Sounds fine to me :lol:

 

S***, I'm over 45 by then :Waiting:

 

Although I'm pretty sure FSX is long gone in the 2020's like all older microsoft flight simulators are now except 9. We may not even have 32-bit compatibility by then, but sure, let's check it out. FSX performance has advanced tremedously with new hardware, with or without tweaks, and I can't see why that would change. In 2020, if we're still flying with FSX it doesn't matter if you get 189 FPS without BP=0 or 209 FPS with it. Who cares. Your overall computing power surpasses every tweak you can imagine for this ancient program. This has happened throughout the computer history every time and FSX is no exception. Probably no one wants to fly with FSX in 2020's but that is another question :Peace:

Sounds fine to me :lol:

 

S***, I'm over 45 by then :Waiting:

 

Although I'm pretty sure FSX is long gone in the 2020's like all older microsoft flight simulators are now except 9. We may not even have 32-bit compatibility by then, but sure, let's check it out. FSX performance has advanced tremedously with new hardware, with or without tweaks, and I can't see why that would change. In 2020, if we're still flying with FSX it doesn't matter if you get 189 FPS without BP=0 or 209 FPS with it. Who cares. Your overall computing power surpasses every tweak you can imagine for this ancient program. This has happened throughout the computer history every time and FSX is no exception. Probably no one wants to fly with FSX in 2020's but that is another question :Peace:

I'll be 57. If someone was going to come up with a sim to repalce FSX, they would have done it already. It ain't easy. Just ask the X-Plane developer. FSX will be around for a while. :Party:

I'll be 57. If someone was going to come up with a sim to repalce FSX, they would have done it already. It ain't easy. Just ask the X-Plane developer. FSX will be around for a while. :Party:

Yes, I'm sure that FSX is here at least for few years. But we have high probability that we won't have XP/Vista/Win 7 compatible OS by 2020, even if we are with max 64bit by then and retaining 32-bit compatibilty on some level. So, majority of users will change their platform and don't keep ancient FSX compatible computer along with their main stuff, and FSX dies inevitably but as surely as universe does. Hell, we may be using solely clouds by 2020, who knows.

 

Like MS flight simulators of 90's, FSX will have it's best before date long before 2020. If we don't get civilian simulator surpassing FSX before that we have will have software in our hands which graphichs, physics and engine all together is completely outdated and it doesn't match anything we see on our computers otherwise. It will be like playing FS 5.0 today or any other 90's game of which most feel just silly and clumsy, but of course have lots of nostalgia value, but no more.

 

I don't want to see FSX as an ultimate civilian simulator. But if it is that, I will switch back to military sims during next few years which seem to be still good and alive.

I thought I read that the OP was no using Affinity Mask settings and left HT on?

 

At my highest OC and most stutter-free set up I run AF=1344 and have HT off. HT made no discernible difference in performance and it seemed to help heat things up and cause stability issues at higher OC's.

I run 4.7 or 4.8 GHz pretty consistently and both my GPUs OC'd. Neither the CPU nor the GPU reach 65C during high load scenarios.

 

As for LGA2011 being inherently stutter-prone... Not sure where that comes from. :Thinking:

Some tweaks are good for some systems. Some are not.

That's the word, right there. Period.

It's silly to say that none of the tweaks around work at all for anyone (no offence Grunt) but equally, I think that super-tweaks, like BP=0 aren't for every system or configuration. They need to be used in specific situations and with limited hardware, as far as I can see...

But some tweaks, like HIGHMEM and the SHADER_30 tweaks should be mandatory imo..Lots of these were "discovered" by huge amounts of experimentation by a core of very dedicated and disgruntled users, and after conversations with the creators of FSX, and have been shown to have a huge difference on pretty much any system..I've just seen it with my own eyes. On first install, and with no tweaks, FSX, even on my system, runs like a dog compared to things like MS Flight; Wings of Prey; Any FP shooter, you name it..It's crap code, and no mistake, BUT, I've heard it said in more than one place, that it is still far and away the best far-horizon full-world modelling sim of any type out there, by some margin. Why do you think LM bought ESP and turned it into Prepar3D? Because, to develop something as complete and comparatively efficient as FSX/ESP would cost millions and millions of dollars. BUT, it is still very old core code, and wasn't tweaked to take advantage of current hardware. Some tweaks DO work, for everyone.

 

Anyway, I'm running with HT on and AM1366. I also use FTF of 0.2. HIGHMEMFIX and SHADER_30 are also on, and I switch between BP=1 with RT of around 135000 and BP=0, depending on how I feel and what the weather is like. It is currently peeing down with rain, freezing cold and windy, and it is supposed to be spring. I am going BP=0 all the way today...

 

DJ, My bloody Drobo has packed up so my usual backup location is dead. My old rig is currently being picked over like a vulture on a corpse by me while I scavenge off it, so I can't back up until tomorrow, at which time I can snaffle an external drive from work and do it :)

 

Take it easy guys..I'm off to install lots of scenery :Hypnotized: :Hypnotized: :Hypnotized:

 

J