Looks Really Great, but I Can't Buy It

[CaptKornDog 281]

For me, at least, it's not a photoscenery issue.  I don't use any.  My most-recent install in FSX has 3 or 4 FSDT sceneries and that's it in terms of scenery add-ons.  (Since I wound up reinstalling FSX several times and trying to tweak with limited results, I didn't bother installing the remainder).

 

Even tried getting an FSGS consultation back in the day, and after one email was basically blown off for my particular situation.

[Brian_A_Neuman 198]

Is setting the texture resolution done in the FSX.cfg file or in the scenery.cfg file?

[signmanbob 592]

Woah, how did you get Aero to stay on with FSX?

 

Do you mean Aerosoft Manhattan?  I was just trying it out to see if it would be possible to use it along with the NGX.

It's just the way Ryan set up FSX for me, it runs very good now.  

[CaptKornDog 281]

Do you mean Aerosoft Manhattan?  I was just trying it out to see if it would be possible to use it along with the NGX.

It's just the way Ryan set up FSX for me, it runs very good now.  

 

Think he means the Windows Aero scheme, since it does a number to performance on some folks' FSX.

[Tabs 2,790]

Oh no! :huh: If you are having problems with FSX, call Dr. Ryan. He makes house calls!

 

Guys, honestly before this gets too out of hand (I've already received a bunch of tickets yesterday and today asking) - I can't sit here all day long personally setting up everyone's machines and FSX environments for them. What I did with Bob took almost 3 hours. I detailed what the issue was in his case and I think I've given people the information and tools to figure out what's going on with their own setups. If you have a specific question I'll be happy to answer it as best I can but it was not my intention here to announce that I will do "house calls" for anyone having any issue.

 

We have the TeamViewer account mainly to help with troubleshooting issues with our own products where it's just far easier and faster for me to come do something to a customer machine in a few minutes rather than going back and forth with them typing instructions out. Often the people I do this with aren't very computer literate in the first place and they don't understand what to do from typed instructions anyway. The vast majority of these sessions are over in minutes - it was never intended to be a way for me to go do full system setups for people. I've thought about offering that service for a fee actually, but I just don't know that I'd ever have the time given everything else I'm doing here.

[VeryBumpy 272]

LOL, somehow I saw that ^ ^ ^ coming. Can you come over and fix my car noise that I hear over big bumps too?

[Mean Aerodynamic Chord 269]

Think he means the Windows Aero scheme, since it does a number to performance on some folks' FSX.

Yes, exactly that.

 

How did you do it?

[Tabs 2,790]

LOL, somehow I saw that ^ ^ ^ coming. Can you come over and fix my car noise that I hear over big bumps too?

 

Believe it or not I know next to nothing about car maintenance haha. If I did I'd have saved quite a bit of money over the years. 

[RiceySpicey 586]

Woah, how did you get Aero to stay on with FSX?

Run "Services" and restart "Desktop Windows Manager" after starting FSX. If your running VSYNC in windowed mode then this is a great thing to do each time FSX starts

Is setting the texture resolution done in the FSX.cfg file or in the scenery.cfg file?

Its done in the fsx.cfg file - use 1024, 2048 or 4096 if you system is good enough

[mcbellette 145]

If he'll take me up on the offer, I'd be glad to try my hand over TeamViewer at finding better settings on his machine that might alleviate what he's seeing.

 

What is "TeamViewer"?

[CaptKornDog 281]

Run "Services" and restart "Desktop Windows Manager" after starting FSX. If your running VSYNC in windowed mode then this is a great thing to do each time FSX starts

 

 

 

Probably could even run a batch or script that could do it, either in conjunction with an autostart program or manually.

[signmanbob 592]

Guys, honestly before this gets too out of hand (I've already received a bunch of tickets yesterday and today asking) - I can't sit here all day long personally setting up everyone's machines and FSX environments for them. What I did with Bob took almost 3 hours. I detailed what the issue was in his case and I think I've given people the information and tools to figure out what's going on with their own setups. If you have a specific question I'll be happy to answer it as best I can but it was not my intention here to announce that I will do "house calls" for anyone having any issue.

 

We have the TeamViewer account mainly to help with troubleshooting issues with our own products where it's just far easier and faster for me to come do something to a customer machine in a few minutes rather than going back and forth with them typing instructions out. Often the people I do this with aren't very computer literate in the first place and they don't understand what to do from typed instructions anyway. The vast majority of these sessions are over in minutes - it was never intended to be a way for me to go do full system setups for people. I've thought about offering that service for a fee actually, but I just don't know that I'd ever have the time given everything else I'm doing here.

 

Ryan, since everyone knew that you were helping me anyway, I thought that needed to get out in the open.

You have very valuable knowledge of setting up FSX in an optimal way and trouble shooting its short comings. I think it would be very reasonable to charge for what you were able to do with the mess I had of FSX.  I have spent a LOT of money on my computer, just trying to get FSX to do what you came and made it do in a few hours.

I can't tell you how much I appreciated what you did for me.  I did one flight after another today and FSX was more solid and stable than I have ever seen it since I first purchased it when it was released.

It starts up quickly, loads quickly, shuts down properly, has no flashing textures on the buildings, graphics are silky smooth and best of all, no OOMs.

I think it would be, not only a big help to PMDG customers, but very beneficial to PMDG to provide this kind of support as a professional service.  When FSX runs good, people are excited to buy addon products for it. After all, PMDG is the standard of sim development and getting FSX right is especially applicable now, because of the other sim that is coming together so well, and doesn't have the setup and tweaking problems that FSX has.

I expect in order to recover PMDG's sizable investment into this 777 for FSX, it will have to sell this product for many years to come. That means that FSX is going to have to remain a good experience for people who use it for many years into the future, to keep simmers from migrating away from it. PMDG has the ability and resources to accomplish prolonging the useful life of FSX simply by helping their customers get it right, like you did for me.

If this is not practical, then you should get your team together and write a real guide or manual as a downloadable .pdf file and sell it from your website to cover the cost of making it.

After all, PMDG does stand for Precision Manual Development Group. What better manual could be written than one that would extend the practical life of FSX for many more years.

What is "TeamViewer"?

 

It is a small program specific to PMDG support, that you install and it gives Ryan the ability to physically get into your computer and make changes as if he were sitting next to you in front of your computer. It is very amazing to watch.

[RiceySpicey 586]

Probably could even run a batch or script that could do it, either in conjunction with an autostart program or manually.

 

Yeh you can Im sure - I dont actually know how to do that though so I always have to do it manually. Do you know how to make it run automatically when FSX starts?

[some1 65]

Regarding the texture max load setting, yes it does not actually affect the aircraft. We tested that and removed the recommendation in the SP2 documentation. The aircraft itself will always display at whatever "native" resolution the textures are in provided you have the global texture resolution full right and the high resolution VC box is checked. I'm not even sure that setting affects airport sceneries - I think it may be solely the "environment" type stuff like clouds, water etc.

To clarify further: this setting affects only textures with mipmaps. It doesn't matter if it's aircraft's texture or scenery, but since 99,9% aircraft addons don't use mipmaps, aircrafts are not affected by this setting.

[CaptKornDog 281]

What's the general opinion of using alternate shaders and external frame rate limiters nowadays also?  Last time I seriously looked at this, many people were back and forth.  (Again, I pretty much gave up trying to keep up because of all of the inconsistent opinions and results).  Process killing programs, too, for that matter (GameBooster, Alacrity, etc.).

 

And, I agree, it would be nice to somehow have ALL of the factual data/tweaks captured somewhere, the latest and greatest info, that has been proven to improve say....maybe 2 or 3 standard deviations of the general FSX public.  PMDG doesn't necessarily have to, but anyone in general.  I know several have created installation guides, nVidia Inspector and the like.  PMDG manuals include some of this information too.  I'd certainly have a read of something like this and perhaps try it again...and who knows, maybe it'll lead to another sale if I buy the 777 with a semi-useable FSX.  But if even FSGS had doubts on improving my system, not sure where that leaves me.