So i just got a new new CPU (i5 3570k) and i thought i would test it in FSX. I loaded the PMDG 737NGX and JFK airport and I was getting 10-15fps in the cockpit view. I have definitely seen other people getting higher performance than this, with these processors so what could be my problem? The detail level in FSX was "very high", but the scenery was default so the fps seems quite poor to be honest. I also tried overclocking to 4.2ghz, but no improvements there. Any help appreciated.

 

PC specs:

 

i5 3570k @4.2 ghz

MSi Z77 motherboard

ATi Radeon HD 5850 @860/1200

GX 650W psu

8GB ddr3 ram

7200rpm HDD

Try this:

 

1. Set water to HIGH 2x or lower

2. Disable light bloom

3. Disable AI traffic

4. In your FSX.CFG make sure you have:

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

[GRAPHICS]

HIGHMEMFIX=1

 

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

 

Also your video card is not the most powerful one, but it shouldn't hold you back THIS much. With my above settings you should at least be seeing 25 FPS.

thanks for your reply, but I had previously already applied most of those .cfg tweaks and so they didn't really help. Turning off AI traffic gives a few extra frames, but I really like the AI traffic so I want to keep it on. Also my video card is not the best, but it does not even get up to 50% usage while playing so that should not be the issue. I thought that I could try overclocking the processor a bit more, but would that really help when the processor is not really in full use even at this stage?

 

Anyways thanks for your input!

Set FFTF to 0.1. This gave me about 3-4FPS when I initially began tweaking. Also, have you followed Word Not Allowed's Guide?

Have you tried using the Shader 3 mod which helps performance on Ati cards? Its available in the Avsim file library.

You should definately see difference with those tweaks. The HIGHMEMFFIX and AFFINITYMASK don't do much to performance, but with the BUFFERPOOLS tweak you should see a huge performance increase, make sure you have set it the right way.

 

First open your FSX.CFG with Notepad, then on top of all tweaks add EXACTLY the following lines like so:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

Otherwise try:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

UsePools=0

 

 

I am seeing a 25-50% FPS increase with this tweak, it is known as the holy grail for FSX performance.

You should definately see difference with those tweaks. The HIGHMEMFFIX and AFFINITYMASK don't do much to performance, but with the BUFFERPOOLS tweak you should see a huge performance increase, make sure you have set it the right way.

 

First open your FSX.CFG with Notepad, then on top of all tweaks add EXACTLY the following lines like so:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

Otherwise try:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

UsePools=0

 

 

I am seeing a 25-50% FPS increase with this tweak, it is known as the holy grail for FSX performance.

 

 

Arjen, is the same thing putting in the line BP=0 okay?? under the [bufferpools] header section

You should definately see difference with those tweaks. The HIGHMEMFFIX and AFFINITYMASK don't do much to performance, but with the BUFFERPOOLS tweak you should see a huge performance increase, make sure you have set it the right way.

 

First open your FSX.CFG with Notepad, then on top of all tweaks add EXACTLY the following lines like so:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

PoolSize=0

 

Otherwise try:

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

UsePools=0

 

 

I am seeing a 25-50% FPS increase with this tweak, it is known as the holy grail for FSX performance.

 

Yes, I have it exactly like above, but no increase in fps. Also I have tried the shader mod 3.0 for ATi graphics cards, but didn't see that helping either. I guess there is nothing really left to do and I'll have to use another plane than the PMDG, since I find 10fps unplayable :(

 

Set FFTF to 0.1. This gave me about 3-4FPS when I initially began tweaking. Also, have you followed Word Not Allowed's Guide?

 

I had FFTF at 0.33 and changed to 0.1, but no changes in performance there.

ATI is a problem with FSX. So is the AffinityMask setting, get rid of that. Make sure you use an external frame limiter program, set the FPS to UNLIMITED inside FSX and use

 

[bUFFERPOOLS]

UsePools=0

 

Your sim will be much better. It will improve with an nVidia video card. There are more tweaks that will add a few more FPS and fluidity, but these are the major FPS hogs.

Arjen, is the same thing putting in the line BP=0 okay?? under the [bufferpools] header section

 

Never tried this but I think no. People just sometimes write "BP=0" because they are to lazy to right the word BUFFERPOOLS. :LMAO:

But no, put it exactly like I said.

 

As Namco said, setting FPS to Unlmited inside FSX is also very important, try that first without an external FPS limiter. Make sure light bloom is disabled, and water is on HIGH 2X or lower. Disable AI traffic for now.

Make sure your LOD_RADIUS is no higher than 4.5. Set mesh complexity no higher than 80. In other words, simply put all your scenery settings around 1 notch from full right. Disable scenery shadows also.

Look in task manager how much memory is being used too. Run a registry cleaner, scan for viruses. Check if your videocard and processor are running at the speed they should.

 

If this all doesn't work PM me and I will take a look via teamviewer, I still think something in your FSX.cfg is not right.

Oh well, might of gained like 2fps with these tweaks. RAM memory usage is about 3gb and VRAM at about 700mb while playing FSX. Only one of the 4 cores is fully used and the rest are at about 30-40% usage. Nothing seems to work and I have tried several tweaks like external frame limiter and shader mods, but no luck :I

It looks like your video card settings are low... I can see jaggies on the airport, be sure to turn up your AA and AF (aa 8x at least) and AF to 16x... Sometimes setting higher gpu values helps

Is it worth checking the specs of your psu to make sure that it is supplying enough voltage to the various components, ie cpu, video card, making sure there are enough amps at the 12v rail? Something like speedfan or MB monitor or similar could help.

I would also test with a "clean" fsx.cfg following a clean boot (google to see what this entails) to make sure a non-windows process is not affecting the slow down.

Have you tweaked any RAM settings in the BIOS?

Good luck with this one.

PeterH

Is it worth checking the specs of your psu to make sure that it is supplying enough voltage to the various components, ie cpu, video card, making sure there are enough amps at the 12v rail? Something like speedfan or MB monitor or similar could help.

I would also test with a "clean" fsx.cfg following a clean boot (google to see what this entails) to make sure a non-windows process is not affecting the slow down.

Have you tweaked any RAM settings in the BIOS?

Good luck with this one.

PeterH

 

I don't think it's the PSU since games like battlefield 3 run just fine. I've also made sure that there are no extra processes running while fsx is running. I have not changed any ram settings like timings from the BIOS.

 

 

It looks like your video card settings are low... I can see jaggies on the airport, be sure to turn up your AA and AF (aa 8x at least) and AF to 16x... Sometimes setting higher gpu values helps

 

How would you suggest changing these settings with an ATi card as there is no program like "Nvidia Inspector" that I could use. Changing AA from Catalyst Control Center did not seem to have any effect and there is only one option in FSX.

I can see jaggies on the airport, be sure to turn up your AA and AF (aa 8x at least) and AF to 16x.

That's not going to increase performance. It will increase quality at the expense of performance. best get performance to par before upping AA settings.