Ok before anyone tells me... i am afraid I do know Nvidia is better but i suffer from Asus RMA process.

 

I used to have a nice Asus 580 Matrix but I went through the nightmare of the Asus RMA process that went over 4 months, culminating in Asus losing my card - after sending it back to me in pieces on their third attempt to "fix it".

 

Then they did me a "favor" and replaced it with their new ASUS HD7950-DC2T-3GD5 Radeon HD 7950 3GB 384-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX Support Video Card....(what a mouth full)

 

I do have it on three screens and enjoy that a lot.

 

On a new OS install I want to tune it better for FSX.

 

I have looked over Word Not Allowed's tuning and just wonder the best methods for tuning my card (until I get another Nvidia card).

 

I did some research and found this advice and wonder if it still holds true with the newest drivers and the newer cards like mine.

 

http://fsxtimes.wordpress.com/2011/08/31/my-fsx-tuning-part-2-display-card/

 

Thanks!

Definetely use the "Poolsize=0" in the fsx cfg.

Thanks and I will post some things I have found (and tested) over the last few days. I can stick at 30fps good so far but need to do more testing.

 

Maybe these settings can help others.

 

I flew last night with all of these tweaks and had a great smooth flight.....finally.

 

I run CCC 12.10 @ 5040 X 1050

 

i use Asus GPU Tweak and max my fans to 100% before flying. And use TuneUp 2013 on Turbo before loading FSX.

 

I have almost all sliders maxed out.

 

In the fsx.cfg:

 

I use TextureMaxLoad=18 due to getting black squares on the terrain. I keep going up by 3 but have not totally eliminated them all. But it is much better.

I add this tweak here because no one told me in my question about why this happens in my posted elsewhere.

 

I added new lights since the 3 screen eyefinity blows lights way up. I used lights from the Avsim Library.

 

And adjusted them in the cfg

 

 

[Display]

TextureMaxLoad=18

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.5

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=0.5

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=0.6

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=0.5

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.9

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=0.9

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=0.9

RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=0.9

 

I use these:

 

 

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40

UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=30

WideViewAspect=True

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

[bUFFERPOOLS]

Poolsize=0

 

 

[Main]

FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.15

 

I was getting odd screens when I panned. like the lower part of the screen was not as fast as the top. Resulting in split second wave patterns on the ground and the windscreen looking split. This fixed that:

 

 

[GRAPHICS]

ForceFullScreenVSync=1

 

I use:

 

HIGHMEMFIX=1

SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1693500672

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096

 

 

[TERRAIN]

LOD_RADIUS=6.500000

 

My next test is the settings posted by our friend Tom:

http://fsxtimes.wordpress.com/2011/11/21/130-radeon-settings-for-hd6970/

 

 

Also I am getting some light popping in the sound so testing this tweak tonight:

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1500

I can't comment on the light tweaks you've applied there, but I would try raising texture bandwith multi from 40 to something higher and just for test purpose try and set the fiber frame time fraction to 0,10, it works like a charm for me but maybe not for you....

Great setup you have there by the way!

Thanks David,

 

Just did a short hop around PAKT and something dropped my frames by 10+ so going to make some quick adjustments (including yours) and hop back in.

 

The only things I changed from last night are the trees and a couple of CCC settings, oh and raised my TextureMaxLoad=from 15 to 18.

 

I would try raising texture bandwith multi from 40 to something higher

 

What number do you suggest?

 

The tree fix did not cure my sound pops. So I have removed it.

Your texture max load in the graphics section should be 4096, then there is a texture max load in the display section, on my cfg it is set to 6.

I have texture multi bandwith set to 120, some people go as high as 400 and some say they see no difference when changing that value. Every system is different so give it a try.

You can try higher values because of your more powerfull system.

I suggest you use Bojotes configuration tool then have a look at Word Not Allowed's guide.

Use the new cfg file as a starting point, then fine tune from there....

You will get there it's just a matter of finding the right settings.

I have a much less powerfull system and I have no stutters at all, textures load quick and my fps never go below 20 in the most difficult situations.

 

 

Cheers,

 

...Another thing that helps fsx performance and very few tell you about is that you should keep the running processes as low as you can by disabling the unnecessary ones.

 

Thanks David!

 

I will say - I had 2 bad blackscreen crashes last night. The kind were you have to hold the power button to restart.

 

I thought oh no bad OC. So I took out my radiator and cleaned it, then removed the cooler over the processor cleaned the old compound and replaced it with new. Ran Prime95 for a couple of hours. Installed the new Beta CCC after an uninstall and driver sweep.

 

Then it hit me. I am testing in the Carenado 206. I have Saitek Panels and this is the same thing that was happening before. I think the 206 does not like panels. Sure enough I tested on some other planes and had not problems.

 

I am heading out of town this morning but will try those recommendations when I return.

 

Thanks

You should always do your tests with a more complex addon such as the pmdg 737ngx and at a big addon airport with lots of clouds, some traffic and autogen.

Once you know you are good to go with those then you will be good with everything.

On the safe side...are you using the Vista uiautomationcore with Windows7?

 

I would sell that 7950 for what ever you can get out of it and get an EVGA Nvidia product 660TI,580,680.. 1st place, they never would have got away with swapping and AMD for an Nvidia video card. Ive had a couple EVGA cards go bad and have a replacement in 4 days max.

My experience is with FS9 rather than FSX, but perhaps it still applies...

 

-> I use RadeonPro (beta from guru3d forum) as it gives access to tweaks that are not easy to get from CCC. You will still need the CCC to set up eyefinity but after that I uninstall it and set everything with RP.

 

-> on windows 7 x64 ultimate, I have found the catalyst 12.10 to be unstable in and out of FS. 12.11 beta6 is good. The other beta versions have bad gauge fickering (for me).

 

Good luck. With a bit of tweaking etc I have my sim running better with my 7970 than it ever did with my previous NV 580 card. Also, eyefinity is pretty sweet!

 

Geoff