We've helped a few realize FS9.75

 

And THAT is awesome. Thanks!

I honestly do not disagree with any point you made here.

 

 

Thanks.

 

 

Same thing with Dreamfleet. I worked with Bill Leaming (of Eaglesoft fame) to further develop an exiting Gulfstream IV but we didn't get the chance to finish it because of his busy schedule and mine. I know full well what it takes to bring a product to market and then support it past that.

 

Gulfstream doesn't allow (payware) models of its planes.

 

Yeah, but testing and support are just the very tip of the iceberg.

 

 

 

There's so many more important things out there in life than fussing over which platform is better.

 

Like developing for it...erm...heh.

 

 

Gulfstream doesn't allow (payware) models of its planes.

I know, (many discussions with ES about it) there was a freeware offering out there that only needed a VC update. We never finished it.

We've helped a few realize FS9.75

 

I've done everything mentioned in this thread.  So why does my FS9 version read 9.70215?

.....and why do they call them "airports"?  They're found on the ground, not in the air.

Speaking only for myself... my FS9.5 is perfectly satisfactory.

I am waiting for some wise-&@($* to label his effort FS9.99 and leave himself no headroom whatsoever for further development!

Speaking only for myself... my FS9.5 is perfectly satisfactory.

I am waiting for some wise-&@($* to label his effort FS9.99 and leave himself no headroom whatsoever for further development!

I guess, that I now can be called a very wise-&@($*

 

With the Grovin' tweak----9.99 on my machine.  Perhaps not on yours.

First off I never bothered to switch. The community has spent years tweaking getting a version to run right then a new version comes out only for us to start all over again. The only version that ran well on first install was Flight so MS at least know the importance of this with the lesson learned from FSX. To answer your questions above FS9 today is everything and more concerning your questions. There's 'NO' OOM issues anymore if you use Windows 7 64Bit, the thing basically runs well right out the box these days on hardware that's 3 years old and up, and we're all here to help you if you have problems. On your computer the sky is the limit with framerates and visually FS9 can be made to look like FSX with only two exceptions (water reflections and high res city texture tiles). I believe we'll have the city textures tiles fixed at some point. I've given up believing those that say what's not possible in FS9. REX/Activesky proved we can have the sky and weather environment looks of FSX, FlyTampa proved we can have detailed airports on the same level as FSX add-ons, Feng proved the overall look of FS9 can rival FSX, and Carenado proved we can have GA aircraft with all the eye candy of FSX models in FS9. So to directly answer your questions if I hadn't already:1. I don't know if there are new tweaks or ways to setup that alleviate the issues we had years ago?New hardware has alleviated tweaking in FS9 (which should have been the case with FSX these days). The only thing I can think of is you'll need to extend terrain detail in the FS9.cfg file.2. Am I better maxing fs9 rather than compromising on FSX?Yes...3. Have blurries / popping textures been eliminated?Yes...4. What frames do fs9 ers aim for as a benchmark to fluidity these days?Sky is the limit. All I see is fluid these days so I haven't bothered to look at framerates in a while. Today it's best to run FS9 with the framerate limiter maxed out, you couldn't do that years ago. You'll get better performance than me (whatever that means concerning an i7 machine). As a marker for you my system is a Dell T3400 Duo Core 2 x 2.66 1333 FSB.5. I see a sticky in this forum re texture issues that can , when gone through, cause significant gains in performance. Do they work?Yes they work as many can attest to. I get great performance without this and I know this could benifit my setup. The great thing is I don't have a large enough problem to make me spend time hunting textures down versus flying. If this were FSX there's no doubt I would have had this applied along time ago with marginal results.6. Do you all have both installed or are you solely fs9?I've tried FSX many times on friends computers that actually had a setup to envy . I haven't bothered switching because I don't have the time to muttle through setting it up. FS9 runs great and outside of the two FSX features I mentioned above looks like FSX. I need a sim that's a great performer over a visual extravaganza. Visuals are great but as the Rolling Stones once said, "You can't always get what you want but if you try sometimes you might find you get what you need" which says it all about FS9 and the goal of simulating GA and Airliner flight.My forays into Northwest's Level-D simulators a few years ago put FS9 into perspective for me. I saw the visuals real pilots were training with and FS9.75 is light years ahead of that (their training sims had FS2000 visuals). After flying the 744, DC9, A320, I felt perfectly fine with what we had with FS9 which still holds true today. When the time comes where Microsoft ditches their idiot Steve Ballmer and get's back to business I believe Flight Simulator will make a come back. Too many people in the aviation industry are ###### about Steve's move. Only a complete 'idiot' would discontinue something major aviation vendors like Lockheed were looking at (we can see stupidity on display with Windows 8) but that's a topic for another day...

Hi Dillon, great post, I am seriously thinking of switching back to FS9. Could you post some recommendations for; Airliners, weather and scenery, my life will be heaven just flying and not endlessly tweaking.

Mike,
these are some (unfortunately I have lots and lots more...) of the add-ons I use in FS9 that really makes it a wonderful sim:

Weather:
Active Sky Evolution (weather generator)
REX Environment Extreme (textures)

Groundtextures:
GE Pro

Landclass:
Ultimate terrain for different regions

Airports (just to mention a few):
Everything from FSDreamteam
Everything from Fly Tampa
UK2000
KPHL by Sunskyjet (freeware)
Aerosoft has many great sceneries for eg german airports, ESSA, EHAM, etc

Airplanes (airliners):
PMDG MD11
PMDG 747 (not as good as the MD11 but still great)
Maddog
Qualitywings BaE RJ100/80
iFly 737
Dreamfleet 727
LevelD 767 with the payware vc textures

This is just right off the bat!

 

Also, I have an nVidia card so I use the nVIdia inspector for all the settings. Usually I tweak the fs9.cfg according to some recommendations but I just re-installed everything on my computer and realized that the only tweaking I've done is the four lines mentioned here in this thread. FS9 looks gorgeous and is 100% stable!

Hi Dillon, great post, I am seriously thinking of switching back to FS9. Could you post some recommendations for; Airliners, weather and scenery, my life will be heaven just flying and not endlessly tweaking.

 

Please be aware that much of this thread has turned into a tweak-fest (actually a rehash of tweaks and counter-tweaks previously mentioned throughout the years).  Actually, nothing new was revealed here - it was just "new" to some readers.  Don't expect to load FS9 without tweaking in order to obtain the mythical FS9.5 to the evidently new FS9.99 (whatever those are).

I know, (many discussions with ES about it) there was a freeware offering out there that only needed a VC update. We never finished it.

 

Pack up the source files and upload them somewhere before it goes to waste for good?

Bjoern, on 24 May 2013 - 07:56 AM, said:

Pack up the source files and upload them somewhere before it goes to waste for good?

 

Already done years ago.

 

Hi Dillon, great post, I am seriously thinking of switching back to FS9. Could you post some recommendations for; Airliners, weather and scenery, my life will be heaven just flying and not endlessly tweaking.

The other two have been answered and like I told you in another thread read through this one and you'll find the answers you need to get FS9 up and running looking close to FSX. Do get Contrails Pro as well...

 

Concerning Airliners, what type of flying do you like to do (Long/Short range, commuter, Modern or classic, etc)?

Do get Contrails Pro as well...

 

 

I'm not sure that I agree with Dillon on this one.  I was one of the "early" purchasers of Contrails Pro and it immediately came off of my machine.  It is the worst frame rate "hog" I have ever seen.  It always cut my fps at least in half.  Even with the update revisions I could never really enjoy it without single-digit performance around many of my add-on scenery.

 

If you look at the reviews from one of the sellers, you'll see that I'm no alone.

gwillmot, on 24 May 2013 - 10:15 AM, said:

I'm not sure that I agree with Dillon on this one. I was one of the "early" purchasers of Contrails Pro and it immediately came off of my machine. It is the worst frame rate "hog" I have ever seen. It always cut my fps at least in half. Even with the update revisions I could never really enjoy it without single-digit performance around many of my add-on scenery.

 

If you look at the reviews from one of the sellers, you'll see that I'm no alone.

I've never had this problem and my machine is at least 3 years old. Machines of today will have no problem in this area for the simple fact FS9 runs well no matter what you throw at it. FS9 and framerate problems on a Windows 7 64bit machine today can't be used in the same sentence unless one has their setup configured totally wrong. What Contrails does is put in the FS skies what we see in the real world. I didn't like Contrail Pro's trails up close so I found myself disabling them on the aircraft I'm flying (easily done in Contrails utility) which diminished my flyby viewing at 30,000+ feet and I found myself in the VC more so than the external view (from this I surprisingly found QW757 has it's own contrails programmed into the aircraft). Not that I fly externally at all but the default contrails looked cool in fly by view at altitude. With them disabled what's the point. What's cool is within the VC at cruise I didn't see allot of traffic around me and it didn't hit me until I took a flight to Orlando from KMSP. Looking out the window I saw the contrails of jets in the distance more so than the actual planes. The default contrails don't display realistically at a distance from the aircraft (they'd disappear at a distance you should still be able to see them) and they were not long enough. With Contrails Pro you see the trails at great distances away and their realistically long as they should be. Now my skies look as they do in the real world both at altitude and one the ground.

 

Again to be clear no one should have framerate issues at this point with any add-on in FS9. What can bring your performance down now is flying over New York with detail scenery and AI (known problem with FS9 in general for the volume of traffic coming from all the international airports so close in proximity to each other), older airport scenery with large textures, doubled up AI routes, or corrupted AI textures.

FS9 ahhh, I kind of miss it. It worked great my first simpit. Easy to run multiple screens and undocked gauges at an acceptable fps. Coupled with all the known tweaks/addons/ then Ifly737 I really didnt see a need for FSX. I still have FS9 installed and truth be told I haven't completely wrote it off.

I've never had this problem and my machine is at least 3 years old. Machines of today will have no problem in this area for the simple fact FS9 runs well no matter what you throw at it. FS9 and framerate problems on a Windows 7 64bit machine today can't be used in the same sentence unless one has their setup configured totally wrong.

Again to be clear no one should have framerate issues at this point with any add-on in FS9.

 

Here's my observation about your posts, Dillon.

 

1.  It seems like you've never had a problem with anything the past few years. 

 

2.  FS9 does NOT run well no matter what you throw at it.  Take cumulus clouds for example.  There have been / are many examples in this forum stating as such.  Add high AI traffic areas and complex scenery and you just might see some problems (even you say so much, hence contradicting yourself)

 

3.  Not everyone has Windows 7 (I have WinXP) and a 64-bit operating system (mine is 32-bit)

 

4.  Every machine/software package/operating system/video card combination reacts differently, hence you can't claim "there is no reason".  YOU may be lucky enough to have the "perfect" set up, but the rest of us just might not be so lucky.

 

5.  Your last statement is so preposterous that I can't even respond to it.

 

Mr. Dillon - Remember, the only "Mr. Know-It-All" was played by Bullwinkle of "Rocky & Bullwinkle" fame.  If that's really you in your Avatar, you might not "get" the reference.  Look it up.

 

You've been around this forum long enough to know that there is no "silver bullet" for all the woes that can strike FS9.  Please try to be more empathetic with those of us who HAVE had problems with Contrails Pro and any other hardware/software being used with FS9.  If you've hit the lottery and won FS9.75, fine.  Remember - MOST don't win the lottery and all aren't guaranteed a win at the "Wheel of Tweaks".

 

He's gone!