Any addon aircraft that flies below 30 fps is subject to flight model choppiness, not just the Legacy. We just take the trouble to inform potential customers that this is the case. If you can maintain around 28 fps and there are no spikes or sudden drops that is just about ok, but for better flying smoothness there is always the option of reducing traffic, scenery and autogen.

 

Airline or passenger jets and turboprops are typically also subject to the same thing but since many of their features tend to be procedural rather than pure flying by the seat of your pants, a drop in frame rate is considered by some as not so critical. Personally I find any FSX aircraft that performs below 30 fps as not very satisfactory and always turn other detail down.

 

Almost all computers made in the last five years with a reasonably decent graphics card can easily achieve this goal if scenery and other details are kept to sensible levels. One thing I have always done, but it doesn't work on everyone's system, is to right click FSX.exe in the task manager/running applications and set FSX priority to one notch above normal. Some "experts" say this is a bad thing to do but I disagree. What this does is focus more computer resources on the simulator engine in FSX at the slight expense of things like the in-sim map or menus but on several systems I've had this enormously smooths performance and prevents spikes in frame rate.

 

All the best,

 

Rob - RealAir Simulations

Hi Rob,

 

Perhaps you could offer a typical reduced settings? I put my cars traffic to zero, autogen density to normal, but I left the scenery complexity to the extremely dense, should I also reduce it as well? I was not sure about the scenery complexity slider.

 

Thanks

Hi Rob,

 

Perhaps you could offer a typical reduced settings? I put my cars traffic to zero, autogen density to normal, but I left the scenery complexity to the extremely dense, should I also reduce it as well? I was not sure about the scenery complexity slider.

 

Thanks

 

It depends what kind of scenery you are flying in, whether it contains autogen or custom buildings (like airport terminals). There is no formula and sometimes the best thing is to start with no weather, no traffic, no autogen and very low scenery detail to establish the highest frame rate. Then add scenery and other detail in increments until you find the sweet spot which is reasonable amounts of detail vs reasonable frame rate.

 

Keep in mind that moving to a different scenery area will change the frame rate radically according to the way it is designed. On some systems redicing your display within FSX to 16 bit might gain you a few fps. If you do a search here and on google, you will find hundreds of threads about frame rate optimisation. It's a bit of a black art as many here will attest!

I don't get steady 30 FPS either, but still I like the Legacy a lot! I didn't even read the flying guide, and I'm really happy about this purchase. The plane flies like heaven IMHO. But I find it fair enough, that Realair warn their customers about it, so noone can blame them for the aircraft not performing properly.

 

Flo

Any addon aircraft that flies below 30 fps is subject to flight model choppiness, not just the Legacy. We just take the trouble to inform potential customers that this is the case. If you can maintain around 28 fps and there are no spikes or sudden drops that is just about ok,

 

Difficult to achieve that. I can in some circumstances for example default scenery or scenery complexity and autogen very low with some planes. But two planes I have PMDG 737NGX and milviz Baron B55 never seem able to maintain stable 30 fps. Still I have the feeling of a smooth performance. Is really fps that important ? I might point out that I mainly have more normal flying in mind and not aerobatics.

 

I don't get steady 30 FPS either, but still I like the Legacy a lot! I didn't even read the flying guide, and I'm really happy about this purchase.

 

So what do you get ? Slightly lower than 30 or 20ies or mostly 30 with occasional drop in fps ?

 

I wouldn't worry too much about the Legacy and performance. For one thing it uses the default GPS and not

 

Might point out that I have RXP 530 WAAS GPS installed. Does that mean an even harder hit on performence ?

One thing I have always done, but it doesn't work on everyone's system, is to right click FSX.exe in the task manager/running applications and set FSX priority to one notch above normal. Some "experts" say this is a bad thing to do but I disagree. What this does is focus more computer resources on the simulator engine in FSX at the slight expense of things like the in-sim map or menus but on several systems I've had this enormously smooths performance and prevents spikes in frame rate.

 

Thanks for the idea. Robert, does this have to be changed each time the sim is run, or is it set and forget?

 

Kind regards,

I have a low end computer but am very satisfied with my 26-28 fps. No noticable choppiness or any other adverse issues. Runs great.

Thanks for the idea. Robert, does this have to be changed each time the sim is run, or is it set and forget?

 

Kind regards,

 

Hi Stephen,

 

You can set up a .bat file with a switch to force FSX to run at high priority, but I am not sure what the command is for one notch above normal, which is the safest option. If you google search "setting windows programs to run at higher priority" you'll get some useful results. One thing to watch is that setting further than one notch up (ie high or very high priority) some of the background tasks which some addon software uses (for example maps) can take longer to load since less RAM is now being assigned to them.

 

The other thing that happens is the time taken between menu opening and closing, or switching from full screen to windows screen can be a little longer. Aside from these I have never seen anything bad happening. For me this tweaked surpasses all other tweaks in terms of smoothing out fps. I usually set priority just after the FSX main flight load screen appears and I do this each time I start FSX.

 

A bat file will make things more convenient but you have to make sure it doesn't make FSX run in very high priority or "realtime" as that can crash the sim. Please also note that this tweak doesn't work for everyone, but it works for me with an Nvidia card.

 

All the best,

 

Rob - RealAir

So what do you get ? Slightly lower than 30 or 20ies or mostly 30 with occasional drop in fps ?

Sorry for letting you wait so long for a reply, I just couldn't make it before now. My FPS are usually somwhere between 15 and 30, depending a bit on where I fly. Sometimes my frames even drop below 10, which actually don't mind as long as I'm not on a fast approach. I haven't yet found anything to complain about the Legacy, no matter what my FPS are, maybe except for approaches, but less than 10FPS on approach is kind of a PITA in any aircraft.

 

Flo

Thank you Robert for taking the time to lay it out, as if you don't have a hundred things to do that are more important.

 

Kind regards,

I have a low end computer

 

I5 a low end computer ?? What is then mine ?

 

My FPS are usually somwhere between 15 and 30, depending a bit on where I fly. Sometimes my frames even drop below 10, which actually don't mind as long as I'm not on a fast approach. I haven't yet found anything to complain about the Legacy, no matter what my FPS are, maybe except for approaches, but less than 10FPS on approach is kind of a PITA in any aircraft.

 

That is about the same I have and feel. I suppose the degradation in the flight model is something that isn't clearly noticeable. I have two planes which seem to be more hard on frames than others (PMDG 737NGX and Milviz B55)

and I havn't noticed that they behave badly and feels more unrealistic in behavior than others.