Dear Simmers,

 

I've been reading a lot of information regarding tips and tricks to get the most out of FSX. To be honest it gets very confusing as there's too many opinions differing from each other. I recently got a very nice built but it seems my specs aren't enough to get the most out of FSX without doing additional tweaking or tuning. My CPU:

 

- PROCESSOR:Intel Core i7-990X BX80613I7990X Processor Extreme Edition - Six Core, 12MB L3 Cache, 1.5MB L2 Cache, 3.46 GHz (3.73 GHz Max Turbo).

- MOTHERBOARD: GIGABYTE G1.Assassin Intel X58 Motherboard - ATX, Socket B (LGA1366), Intel X58 Chipset, 2200MHz DDR3, SATA 6.0 Gb/s, RAID, 7.1-CH Audio, CrossFireX/SLI Ready, Gigabit LAN, USB 3.0.

- VIDEO CARDS: 2 (two) GTX-570, 2.5 GB each.

- MEMORY: 12GB, DDR3, 2000 MHZ.

- HARD DRIVE: Western Digital WD1002FAEX Caviar Black Hard Drive - 1TB, 7200RPM, 64MB, SATA 6G.

- Windows 7, 64 Bits

 

Now the question is, which of the following tips should I follow to get the most out of FSX based on the above specifications. As previously mentioned, there are too many opinions and maybe some of the ones I read are out of date.

 

1.- Bojote's Tweak Vs. Buying Xtreme FSX PC V2: Is Bojote's tweak enough for boosting performance? Is it worth spending money on Xtreme FSX? Which one will give more FPS´s?

 

2.- Downloading Shader Model 3 from Bojote Vs. Buying Mogwaisoft Shade: Do I need both? Is there any difference between them? What is the purpose of the shader? Will I get more FPS?

 

3.- Overclocking the CPU: Will I really boost performance by overclocking the CPU up to 4.5GHZ. Will the CPU get overheated? Is this really necessarily?

 

4.- Disk Defrag: I've heard of the O&O Defrag. Some say is good, some say is useless. Would any defrag work? Should I defrag the whole dics or just FSX's folder?

 

5.- FPS Limiter 0.2: Can someone please explain what is this? Will this limit the FPS outside the FSX? Should I set the FPS in the FSX to "unlimited"?

 

6.- NVIDIA Inspector:What is it with this tool? I really don't understand the following statement (taken out of this forum): " Make your CPU do all the work that it can. Use "Nvidia Inspector" for AA settings ..ect NOT FSX. Turn off AA in FSX and drop Filtering to Trilinear."

 

I'm really not an expert in this topics. Even though I've been using FS for more than 15 years, I've never tweaked nor tuned anything in the program. I just thought that by buying a computer with such specs would make the simulator run completely smooth, but with my add ons and graphic settings sometimes the FPS comes down to 10 (which is unacceptable for the money I spent).

 

Please help me on this.

 

Thanks

1) I personally use Bojote's Tool, and I am definitely blown away by the performance increase. I do not know about, or have I heard about Xtreme FSX PC V2. Quite Naturally I'd lean towards the Freeware tool.

 

2) Bojote's Shader doesn't have a striking visual difference, Shade however, changes the whole lighting of your game and is clearly noticeable!

3) One of the biggest gains of FPS is from overclocking! Yes, a HUGE performance increase. You shouldn't have to worry about overheating as long as you have an adequate cooler, and monitor temps frequently.

4) I don't see any striking performance differences after defragmentation, or maybe it takes so long that by time I check back FSX, I've forgot how it was before defraging. But, it doesn't hurt to try, some people seemingly yielded overall increases in performance.

5)Yes, this is definitely the best thing to do. Set your FSX Frame rate limiter to Unlimited, and use an external limiter to control your frames, I have mine locked at 60FPS. Locking frame rates stop a huge stuttering issue Simmers had in the past, and a number of other benefits. The built in limiter actually doesn't do a bad job limiting frames, but for some reason I have noted a performance loss using it. With the external you get best of both worlds.

6)This Link takes you to the holy grail of information with the NVIDIA Inspector tool.

Thank you so much "DEADLYINERTIA". I will definitely follow your advice.

 

Anyone else would like to share something?

 

BTW, is there any other major "tuning" that I haven't mentioned? These will do the major performance boost?

START with this:

 

http://www.simforums.com/Forums/topic29041.html

 

and then try Bojote's tool for possible fine tuning. If you skip the first you will not get the best out of the second

 

Vic

This thread belongs in the hardware forum, so I am moving it there but leaving a link to it's new location.

 

Kind regards,

Anyone else would like to share something?

B

 

Yup; Don't buy two 570's - FSX can't see the second one, so it sits there, eating processor time and consuming power - much better to get a single GTX 580 - one of the top cards.

 

1.- Bojote's Tweaks.. Really three or four additional parameters inserted into the FSX.cfg file, and these are fairly standard now, plus one - BufferPools, which requires more explanation than you need at this moment! The tweaks can be done automatically from his site, or you can get good recommendations from a number of knowledgeable folks here on the Avsim site. Some are becoming obsolete, as these were developed over three years ago.

 

2.- Downloading Shader Model 3 from Bojote Vs. Buying Mogwaisoft Shade:

 

Shader 3 is not necessary with the performance you're going to get IF you oc to 4.5+. It can be a fairly complicated setup, easy to mess up, and if it goes wrong - it goes very wrong, with many folks rebuilding their entire machines, let alone reinstalling FSX. It has it's secrets, and the advantages are only really felt when using an ATI/AMD gpu.

 

Mog Shade is a small app which you run outside of FSX, selecting a colour scheme, which is then installed into FSX.

It's nice: something to play with. Not really recommended - especially if you're an FSX newbie.

 

3.- Overclocking the CPU: Will I really boost performance by overclocking the CPU up to 4.5GHZ. OH YES! Will the CPU get overheated? No. Monitor it. You might spend $40 on a good air cooler if you wish. Is this really necessarily? Overclocking at 4.5 and above is the single most effective way of generating the performance that will give you the experience you're looking for. Running at 4.9 GHz - I am very, very happy with FSX. Ask Spirit Flyer (Stephen) how he likes his 5.0 gig machine!

 

4.- Disk Defrag: I've heard of the O&O Defrag. Some say is good, some say is useless. Would any defrag work? Should I defrag the whole dics or just FSX's folder? Defrag all hard disk drives regularly. Don't defrag an SSD. O&O Defrag is fine. UltimateDefrag is fine: DiskKeeper is fine. Don't forget backup.

 

5.- FPS Limiter 0.2: Can someone please explain what is this? Will this limit the FPS outside the FSX? Should I set the FPS in the FSX to "unlimited"? It's now obsolete, as Nvidia now supports frame control through their 300 series drivers, combined with Inspector's 1.9.6.xx series. They do a great job.

 

6.- NVIDIA Inspector:What is it with this tool? Inspector is the recommended interface between you and the gpu driver. It has more functionality than the default application. Just install it, then come back here, where we can walk you through the setup, and direct you to some very good alternate sites, such as PMDG's general forum.

 

OK?

Hi, I can agree with you that there is a lot of different advice out there. And many give you to complete opposite answers. A lot is down to the fact that the community constantly find out new ways to improve on performance or how different ways of doing things affects performance. But many people are just repeating tweaks they think are good without knowing why. And some of them have become obsolete or changed with new knowledge.

I'll try my best to give my answers to your questions.

 

1. None of them. Yes, that's right. Have a look at Kostas post first. His guide is good, althou it still has a few things in it that is not fully correct. Less tweaking is more. You should have a reason to put in a tweak, not just put all tweaks in there and hope they do good.

 

2. None. You have nVidia graphics card(s). Shader model 3 is applicable to ATI/AMD cards.

I also noticed you have two GPUs. FSX does in general not benefit from SLI. There are exeptions put normally it gives an performance decrease.

 

3. Yes. You might have a 6 core CPU with hyperthreading, and think that should give you high FPS in FSX as it has 6 cores. Wrong. The FPS you will get is simply determined by your processors IPC + Clockspeed, not by how many cores you have. IPC is different between different CPU families. A Sandy bridge CPU will have higher IPC than your own processor. And an AMD processor will have lower IPC compared to your processor. The extra cores you have, can be used to get faster loading of textures and terrain within FSX as well as shorter load times. Hyperthreading can help with this as well. But more cores will not give you higher FPS. Clockspeed will. That is just how FSX has been designed. I have posted a very detailed recent study about it here.

With your CPU you are most likely to be best off leaving Hyper threading switched off in order to get the higest overclock=highest FPS. But if you use a lot of photo scenery you could be better off with leaving Hyperthreading on and get a lot better texture loading but also lower FPS.

One thing you most likely will be tweaking is the Affinity Mask. You can still use affinity mask=14 on your 6 core CPU (with hyperthreading off). That will give you slightly better FPS than affinity mask=62 that you will most likely be reccomended. But 62 will on the other hand give you faster load times and faster texture loading in exchange for the slightly lower FPS.

 

4. Disk defragmentation can help a bit with stutters and possible a bit with texture loading if your HDD is slow. It will not give you higher FPS.

 

5. Do not use an external limiter in FSX. It might have been the best known thing in the past. But there is a fairly recent discovery to really get rid of stutters. Use the half refresh rate V-sync tweak within nvidia inspector. It is mentioned and linked in Kostas guide and I also looked in to it in my study. It really, really makes wonders to stutters. The only downside is that you have to be able to maintain 30 FPS locked within FSX. (Or 20FPS locked if you go for the 1/3rd rate Vsync)

 

6.

This Link takes you to the holy grail of information with the NVIDIA Inspector tool.

This is a good link apart from that it has not been updated with the half rate V-sync tweak above.

 

Enjoy

Lars

leaving Hyperthreading on and get a lot better texture loading

 

I can't for the life of me reproduce your results. I have tested this slewing thing countless times and my texture loading seems unaffected by HT. This is my CPU usage after repeatedly slewing far away and letting it catch up with texture loading. Can I please ask you how's your CPU usage like in your tests?

 

I can't for the live of me reproduce your results.

Hi Dario

 

It's never good if results cant be reproduced. What scenery are you using?

 

Do you get any longer texture loading between HToff AM=14 and AM=6?

 

I can see you have AM=85 there with HTon. Looks as quite familiar, if anything possible a slightly low utilization on the T&t loaders but not sure. Away from my computer so cant check all my screenshots for comparison now either.

Hi Dario

 

It's never good if results cant be reproduced. What scenery are you using?

 

Do you get any longer texture loading between HToff AM=14 and AM=6?

 

I can see you have AM=85 there with HTon. Looks as quite familiar, if anything possible a slightly low utilization on the T&t loaders but not sure. Away from my computer so cant check all my screenshots for comparison now either.

 

Thanks Lars, that was with no AF at all, I'll try 14 vs 6

Remember to fully exit FSX between tests. That way the textures are definatly flushed from the GPU memory.

Remember to fully exit FSX between tests. That way the textures are definatly flushed from the GPU memory.

 

can you please run a quick test and post your CPU usage with HT on?

can you please run a quick test and post your CPU usage with HT on?

What AM are you interested to see with HT on?

Did you see any difference with 1 vs 2 T&t loaders?

 

I'm working away so I cant do it now unfortunatly.

Well Guys thank you very much for taking the time to answer my questions. As usual there are different opinions that I will try to put together to get the final answer I'm looking for: Where should I start?

 

1.- OVERCLOCKING: As I'm able to see this is the MOST recommended action to get the performance I'm looking for. Everybody agrees (or at least the posters here) that overclocking will do the major increase in performance compared to any other tuning available. As I'm completely new on this, would you please inform to which value should the CPU be overclocked? I've heard of 4.5+, but is there actually an exact value? My other concern is temperature control. My case (coolermaster full tower) has three big fans (one on each side and one on the top) but I'm not sure if this is enough to keep the temps where they should. The case doesn't have any display on it, so where should I monitor the temperature? Which is the temperature limit to watch?

 

2.- TWEAKING: On my first post I asked about Bojote's tool Vs. Buying Xtreme FSX PC V2. I can see that Bojote is a very nice "overall" tool for tweaking, but Lars ("SAAB340") shared a very complete and updated link from someone called KOSTAS. Has anybody else followed these advices? It seems that Bojote hasn't updated his tweaks long time ago but Word Not Allowed did a very recent post 2 weeks from now and seems to have more updated information. (http://forum.avsim.net/topic/370594-read-before-posting-software-hardware-guide-for-fsx/).

 

3.- FPS LIMITING: Now this point get very controversial. I have two set of opinions:

 

- Yes, this is definitely the best thing to do. Set your FSX Frame rate limiter to Unlimited, and use an external limiter to control your frames, I have mine locked at 60FPS. Locking frame rates stop a huge stuttering issue Simmers had in the past, and a number of other benefits. The built in limiter actually doesn't do a bad job limiting frames, but for some reason I have noted a performance loss using it. With the external you get best of both worlds. This Link takes you to the holy grail of information with the NVIDIA Inspector tool.

 

- Do not use an external limiter in FSX. It might have been the best known thing in the past. But there is a fairly recent discovery to really get rid of stutters. Use the half refresh rate V-sync tweak within nvidia inspector. It is mentioned and linked in Kostas guide and I also looked in to it in my study. It really, really makes wonders to stutters. The only downside is that you have to be able to maintain 30 FPS locked within FSX. (Or 20FPS locked if you go for the 1/3rd rate Vsync).

 

I really don't know what to do here. Use external limiter or not?

1. Do you only have the stock CPU cooler? If you do you'll need to change it to an aftermarket one to achieve a good overclock.

Try googeling an overclocking guide for your processor. And read up a bit about overclocking, that's how I learnt to do it. There isn't any set value on how high overclock you need, but the higher the better. FSX will happily eat any CPU speed you give it.

When overclocking you'll have to increase the voltage to your CPU. That will cause the CPU temperature to go up. In the end it will be a combination of your CPU cooler and the quality of your own CPU that will limit what overclock you'll be able to get.

Core Temp is a good program for CPU temperature monitoring.

 

2. Word Not Allowed is moderator in this hardware forum. Loads of people have used his guide.

 

3. Why don't you try yourself? Word Not Allowed recommends the locking to 30 FPS within FSX and using half refresh rate V-sync with nvidia inspector. I agree with that.

People might be saying that locking FPS within FSX cost performance. But what is performance? Only FPS? Stutters? Texture loading? As long as you can maintain the locked 30FPS this will give you the smoothest stutter free experience you'll get. The rock solid 30FPS looks great!

Locking with an external limiter will give you worse texture loading. And it might give you a higher FPS but it won't be as smooth and therefore look worse.