More Frames and a 30 % Speed Increase !

[NormanTaylor 0]

I have a nice system , tho never peaked out any of my CFG files , and I have seen Frames anywheres from 85 – 175 PLUS fps.

 

The BIG thing here, a decent system , and a remake of most textures.

 

Microsoft thought every one had a NASA type system, so they made textures 512 x 512 , you can download a free version of replacement textures or make your own.

 

Some I did on my a long time ago ( Around fs 2000 ) , Basically I made the textures 128 x 128 .

 

The time it takes to load 512 x 512 chunk of data and the time it takes to load the same thing only smaller bits of it , was amazing.

 

On to my system:

 

Dual Monitors 22 inch wide screens

2 HD 350 GB + 1 TB ( 1 TB USB Drive at the ready )

1 GB AT Video Card

8 GB RAM – 1600 MHz

Multiple Core 3.4 Ghz CPU

Asus Board

Saitek Cessna Flight Yoke

Saitek Pro Flight 52 Pro

Saitek Trim Wheel

50 watt Subwoofer System

Sound Blaster Sound Card

Saitek Gaming Keyboard

Generic Mouse

 

So yeah the system must be half way decent, now it took me a while to build this , all components were not bought over night.

 

A good idea is the web site ( cant find the name or url , sorry ) where you upload your fsx.cfg file, it makes some changes and ya download the newly configured cfg fiile – FREE

That alone added a nice speed increase for me.

 

 

I first got a system in 1976 , I taught myself to program back when , since there was no stores to buy software , I have a good understanding of how programing and general things work.

 

Flight Simulator likes 3 things

 

1 CPU Speed

2 Video RAM

3 System RAM

 

And not in that order....

 

 

Now tweak your system, and do NOT FORGET to defrag using a program that also sorts files , mine is made by O&O ( I think ) , make SURE you have no lil things on your task bar, the more you have well lets put it this way , they are opened programs. They TAKE your RAM away , by disabling them ( Called TSR or Terminal Stay Resident ) they chew bandwidth from your cpu / eat RAM...get rid of them.

Do as I have said , not the hardware upgrades but if you do what I said you could be looking at a 10 – 30 fps upgrade .

 

I am writing a program to close all open programs, I hope to release soon.

 

Try your best to get better hardware, buying used isn’t bad make sure its Used not abused .

 

 

In closing by adding some better hardware over time, make sure you have 250 GB FREE at all times ( Windows – All Versions require swap space of 250 gb .This is a decent amount of space to start with , if you don’t have a large drive, try putting FSX on another drive , keeping in mind all the software tips I gave you.

 

I’ve seen my frames shoot up to 175 Plus...yeah IM happy , now you can be too or at least a 30 % increase !

 

Good Luck , post here and let me know how it went.

 

Thank You

 

Norman Taylor - Ham Operatror

[MrBenevolent 0]

Hi Norman,

 

...I would have to say that whilst some of your points have valid application to FSX, some are a bit out of date and vague (the Bojote tweaking tools website...) and some are wildly inaccurate, e.g:

 

 

In closing by adding some better hardware over time, make sure you have 250 GB FREE at all times ( Windows – All Versions require swap space of 250 gb .

 

Swap/page file is directly tied to the amount of RAM in your system - generally the recommended value is about 1.5x the amount of system memory and assuming you let Windows manage the page file automatically it should reserve approximately that amount of space

 

...it certainly isn't ever going to need be 250Gb in a home system!

 

If you are looking for guidelines on how much free diskspace Windows likes in order to perform optimally, I believe a minimum of around 5% should be fine.

 

Also I am not quite sure what you are getting at regarding the texture size conversion?

 

Best tweak guide I have come across can be found right on this forum and is the result of an awful lot of experience and solid testing. If you are looking to get the most out of FSX, then you can't go wrong with starting there!

 

Cheers and welcome to the forum.

[Glynn 405]

Microsoft thought every one had a NASA type system, so they made textures 512 x 512 , you can download a free version of replacement textures or make your own.

 

 

Hello

Welcome to the forums Norman.

You have come to the right place to learn how to run FSX well, check out the hardware forum and especially this guide:

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370594-read-before-posting-software-hardware-guide-for-fsx/

 

The FSX default ground textures are actually DXT1 bmps's @ 1024 x 1024 16bit and any modern system with a decent GPU will handle those without any downsizing.

 

There is already a nice program (AlacrityPC) written by a long time flightsimmer that will shut down services and programs, but under Windows 7 64bit there is not much need anymore.

http://alacritypc.kensalter.com/

[bud7h7 1]

Swap/page file is directly tied to the amount of RAM in your system - generally the recommended value is about 1.5x the amount of system memory and assuming you let Windows manage the page file automatically it should reserve approximately that amount of space

 

Iain, those days are long gone. The 1.5x recommendation made sense years ago when ram was typically below 1GB. But with 8 GB installed for example, to set a 12 GB PF is entirely unnecessary. To this day my pagefile is set to 4096 MB.

Also, the pagefile is not "directly tied to the amount of RAM". The amount of RAM is simply the figure that Windows uses to base it's outdated 1.5x recommendation on upon installation.

 

Quoted from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654

 

When you set up a 64-bit version of Microsoft Windows Server 2003 or Windows XP, the operating system will create a page file that is one and a half times the amount of RAM that is installed in your computer. However, as the amount of RAM in a computer increases, the need for a page file decreases.

[MrBenevolent 0]

 

 

Iain, those days are long gone. The 1.5x recommendation made sense years ago when ram was typically below 1GB. But with 8 GB installed for example, to set a 12 GB PF is entirely unnecessary. To this day my pagefile is set to 4096 MB.

Also, the pagefile is not "directly tied to the amount of RAM". The amount of RAM is simply the figure that Windows uses to base it's outdated 1.5x recommendation on upon installation.

 

Quoted from http://support.microsoft.com/kb/889654

 

 

Well there you are then!

 

I guess that shows how long it has been since I even thought about my page file!

 

There was a time where pf tweaking actually bought performance and stability benefits as well as helping to manage limited HD space...

 

These days you are best just letting the OS get on with it.

 

 

Still - the crux of my point stands: it ain't ever gonna be 250gb, nor do you need that much free space on your disk for smooth running.

 

Cheers!

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

There is a lot of misinformation about the paging file aka unfortunately called "virtual memory" but probably the size you choose, as long as it is large enough, will have little impact on system performance.

 

This is what Mark Russinovich of sysinternals states: http://blogs.technet...17/3155406.aspx

 

"

There’s no end of ridiculous advice out on the web and in the newsstand magazines that cover Windows, and even Microsoft has published misleading recommendations. Almost all the suggestions are based on multiplying RAM size by some factor, with common values being 1.2, 1.5 and 2."

 

This is his advice:

"That it is set using "the commit charge peak" running your software with a value after a period of time where you know maximum load was attained). Set the paging file minimum to be that value minus the amount of RAM in your system (if the value is negative, pick a minimum size to permit the kind of crash dump you are configured for). If you want to have some breathing room for potentially large commit demands, set the maximum to double that number."

In my case it usually works out at about 1.25 times the installed RAM

Regards

PeterH

[Boeing or not going 578]

 

In closing by adding some better hardware over time, make sure you have 250 GB FREE at all times ( Windows – All Versions require swap space of 250 gb

 

Is this supposed to be a joke?

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

_{Sadly, its meant to be correct.}

_pH

[Kaly 22]

I have 8gb of ram and dont use a pagefile(should I?)

Have not seen adverse effects with this setting even whe doing video editing.

[NormanTaylor 0]

Well , I think I got the wires crossed here, sorry.

 

With 100 + fps on my system, I don’t need at this time, however I should have set up the post better , first off :

 

Hello all..Tanks for the welcome.... :-)

 

 

Now Ill explain a bit more , I wish I could write more but work bekons..

 

I fly a lot on Game spy , and the many , many times Ive been there guys ( and 2 girls ) get real cruddy frame rates . So I helped them with the the areas and points I posted , and they are getting much better frames Per Sec .

 

What spawned that post was the problems so many had while I hosted a fly in for example.

 

**Sawp File Size Should Have Been 25 – 35 GB , not 250 – I was tired & missed that LOL

 

The fella who runs the auto fix em up cfg web site is simply awesome...what intelligence went into the code for that site. One of my friends got about 8 more fps after getting his cfg pimped out there and he stopped running TSR's. , he could get more but he and most that seem lagged out are bottle necked somewhere , and are not geeks like some of us LOL who knows where to look for Bottle Necks.

 

I didn’t mean any harm to anyone by my post and am sorry if I offended anyone.

 

Once again , a bottleneck or lack of decent hardware , and the re sizing of Textures made HUGE FPS differences in that slow n older system a guy I knew was using...I posted my system , and upto + 175 fps , Im ok, and do not need to read a MS Article...Thx tho, I can pass that URL on to a person I know who could use that.

 

The article was a hi ya , I’m Norm..also a puter geek , aviation nut as well....I spend a lot of time flying , and not much time in any forums .ECH0CHOLINKS : FIDONETS about Flight Sim II By Mr Artwick , I have always tried to help , and see from from **SOME** Posts here – perhaps my help isnt wanted , and that’s OK..Ill fly and you folks can help the ones who ask...its my mistake to assume some one was in need of help , when no one is really..

 

Im sorry , kinda arrogant on my part.

 

Just the same , I thank you and apologize

 

Norman Taylor

 

Is this supposed to be a joke?

 

Not at all...just a typo

[MrBenevolent 0]

I have 8gb of ram and dont use a pagefile(should I?)

Have not seen adverse effects with this setting even whe doing video editing.

 

Unless you have manually gone in to your system settings and disabled the page file, Windows will be managing it for you automatically and you don't need to worry about it!

[MrBenevolent 0]

 

**Sawp File Size Should Have Been 25 – 35 GB , not 250 – I was tired & missed that LOL

 

 

 

Hey Norm,

 

I still don't see any conceivable situation in which thia configuration would be beneficial!

 

Even if you were running 32gb or more of RAM you wouldn't need or use a page file of that size

 

 

At best this setting will be utterly ignored...at worst I am wondering if it could even have a negative impact - certainly it is a waste of disk space!

 

If you have tests to prove me wrong on this, I would love to see them!

 

Cheers

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

Mr B

Its just a waste of disk space even very large paging files have little impact on performance unless they become corrupt or fragmented. I use 512 KB min and max on my system drive and 8GB min and max on a fast pre-defragmented (not SSD) 2TB HDD. [sSD's are not good because the PF is mainly written to, and that is their weak link].

 

WRT to FSX it will rarely use the paging file and if it does you would see a massive slow down in frame rates (like 1 - 2) possibly eventually followed by an error message like: "Your computer has run out of available memory", ref: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/892610. The trick is always to set the min and max manually, which reduces the possibility of fragmentation. It may be decided in the near future with IB PCs now coming with 16GB of RAM as standard that a paging file is largely unnecessary particularly running a 32-bit app like FSX in a 64-bit OS. Possibly because with 16 GB RAM there's plenty of headway for the OS (app) to cache files in the spare GB of RAM rather than accessing the PF.

 

We should also note that usually fps is an extremely poor indicator of performance FSX wise, what we need is smoothness as you can still get choppiness and stuttering when recording very high fps. I'd also love to know how anyone can see frame rates >60 fps ie which is the usual refresh rate of most LCD monitors?? If the gpu is sending more than 60 fps to the monitor it is having to waste gpu cycles in discarding the excess, that's why many gurus suggest limiting FSX fps with the internal limiter that way there are no excess frames.

 

At least the OP gets the benefit of AVSIM simmers and can develop his or her expertise by reading the advice posted here and on other forums.

pH

[MrBenevolent 0]

 

 

I didn’t mean any harm to anyone by my post and am sorry if I offended anyone.

 

.....

 

Just the same , I thank you and apologize

 

Norman Taylor

 

 

 

 

 

No harm, no foul, no apology required.

 

:)

 

Mr B

Its just a waste of disk space even very large paging files have little impact on performance unless they become corrupt or fragmented.....(/snip etc!)

 

Cheers FS.

 

Indeed, with FSX + all my add-ons running, I rarely see system RAM usage above about 50% of my 8Gb...

[TheDanger 182]

Best tweak guide I have come across can be found right on this forum and is the result of an awful lot of experience and solid testing. If you are looking to get the most out of FSX, then you can't go wrong with starting there!

 

Agreed. Kostas guide and NickNs guide here (though Nick is in process of updating the guide).

 

I use both. Try and see what works best for yourself.

 

I was hitting 300fps + with default flight - trike at Friday Harbour. Though this was FSX SP2 only - no scenery addons, no graphics tweaks etc

 

Now, after setting up as the above guides, I am at a steady 20 - 30fps and smooth in the NGX at KSEA with ORBX!