Smooth FPS in FSX, A MYTH?

[fullmetal02 23]

Most people respond with "mostly, 99%,usually" because with graphically intensive addons you will see occasional stutters. You have to tune your settings for what YOU consider to be acceptable performance.

 

There is no magic setting that works 100% of the time in FSX.

[CFIJose 5,485]

share?

They have many guides that can assist you when it comes to tweaking.

 

Check out Paul's guide on AVSIM.

[Dash8Q4 4]

There are many tweaks out there that can improve FSX performance. Search for bojote's fsx cfg config tool, Word Not Allowed's fsx guide. Depending on your hardware you could achieve smooth flying, forget about the number of frames, or you will never stop looking. Just feel the smoothness you get with different settings. Things that will bring your system to its knees will be the resolution of your display coupled with the amount of anti aliasing you set. Dont expect 30FPS in the NGX with orbx scenery and rex clouds at 2048 or higher. You will not get it. I found that using 1024textures increased the smoothness in my NGX at night with AS2012 textures on a 1440p resolution. Overclock your cpu. Get the cfg tweaks in there and dont use 4x sparse grid supersampling and you should be good to go.

There are many tweaks out there that can improve FSX performance. Search for bojote's fsx cfg config tool, Word Not Allowed's fsx guide. Depending on your hardware you could achieve smooth flying, forget about the number of frames, or you will never stop looking. Just feel the smoothness you get with different settings. Things that will bring your system to its knees will be the resolution of your display coupled with the amount of anti aliasing you set. Dont expect 30FPS in the NGX with orbx scenery and rex clouds at 2048 or higher. You will not get it. I found that using 1024textures increased the smoothness in my NGX at night with AS2012 textures on a 1440p resolution. Overclock your cpu. Get the cfg tweaks in there and dont use 4x sparse grid supersampling and you should be good to go.

[cmpbellsjc 2,960]

I remember few months back when People used to say get i7 2600k series and its smooth as anything but No.

 

A myth for some but not for all.

 

Funny thing is, I just built a new rig similar to yours, a 2700k, 8GB 2300mhz RAM, 2 10K RPM HD's, and a GTX670 and mine is smooth as silk with FSX usually 25+ at all major hubs with AI, AS2012 weather, the NGX and now also the PMDG 777 and I haven't even gotten to the overclock or defrag portion of my setup and tuning yet.

 

On my old rig which is still in my sig thing and my new rig, I think the whole key is the base setup of the OS, the way you tune Inspector and a few other things here and there. On my new rig I used NickN's comprehensive Win7 setup guide which goes from start to finish setting up the OS and FSX.

 

For me I run minimal tweaks in my FSX.cfg, don't use the 1/2 refresh rate VSync stuff and run the FPS set unlimited when flying the NGX or 777. I also dont use any bufferpool tweaks except for the Rejecthrreshold one. The only time I run locked 30 FPS is when flying simple G/A a/c that aren't too demanding because my FPS is way too high and the fluctuations in FPS cause stutters. When flying the NGX or T7 in demanding airports, unlimited works better for me since I get more FPS with less fluctuations and no stutters. It's almost as if all the scenery, the demanding a/c and AI are like the FPS limiter.

 

Tonight I did my first long haul in the 777 from FSDT KDFW to FlyTampa's OMDB and was always 30 FPS or higher at both airport with quite a bit of AI around me. Smooth as silk the whole way, no pauses or stutters the whole time.

 

I tried the 1/2 VSync refresh rate thing, locking at 30, etc, etc., but when flying a/c such as the NGX or T7 at huge hubs with lots of AI, for me unlimited FPS are the only way to fly. Using the other way for me results in stutters and blurry textures. Plus I dont use any textures that are larger than 1024 on my rig, be it clouds, water, sceneries, etc. Any scenery I buy that has larger than 1024's gets resized back to 1024 and mip mapped. A lot of work, but been running that way for 5 years trouble free with great performance on both my new rig and old one as well.

 

Also, when I run FSX the only two programs running on my rig are FSX and AS2012. I dont have a lot of other stuff going on in the back ground like audio players, web browers, etc. Just the basics of what I need to fly my plane.

 

Good luck in your quest for performance. With the rig you got now and a good overclock and setup you should be able to get great performance, you might just need to try a few different that are out of the norm.

[Guest]

People have different tolerances. If you're picky it's a myth, but if you are a glass is half full kind of person you can have a relatively smooth experience.

 

Exactly what I wanted to say. Talking about smoothness and FSX is impossible to do on a forum because everyone has their own view on what is smooth. You can ONLY discuss smoothness when all participants of the discussion are sitting behind the same computer. If you really want to talk about it, you should first define what's smooth but even that is (almost) impossible.

 

Things would have been easier when everyone talked about fps only, but we all know smoothness is about fps (alone). Comparing fps is objective, you can measure it. You can't measure smoothness.

 

Anyway, I am the kind of guy who things smooth fps in FSX is a myth. Whenever I am simply flying and NOT looking at performance (two totally different things ^_^ ) I have to say I generally have smooth performance, but there ALWAYS will be a little stutter here or a hickup there... ALWAYS. So if you really want an answer to the question, I'd say it's a muth.

[gizmosellsbunnys 106]

Eye candy gets better the hardware you need to run requires more cpu speed. Its never ending cycle of incremental improvements on hardware and software. Want smooth flight with shutters down to a minimum and its balacing act. Smoothness matters more than fps.

[JimmiG 244]

Comparing fps is objective, you can measure it. You can't measure smoothness.

 

Actually, you can measure smoothness, but it's a lot more complicated than measuring the FPS. FPS is just the average number of frames the system puts out over 1 second. Smoothness is the "evenness" or pacing of those frames - If you get 20 FPS, it might mean that you get a new frame exactly every 0.05 seconds, but it could also mean that the sim freezes completely for 0.3 seconds, then fires a cascade of frames in rapid succession, then freezes again etc. This is (lack of) smoothness. By capturing every frame, for example by using a high-speed camera, the distribution of new frames over time can be analyzed and graphed.

 

About being picky - I remember when I started simming in the 90's. At the time, 5 FPS was often considered the lower limit, 10 FPS was kind of OK, and 15 FPS was the sweet spot.

[gandy 18]

Smoothness matters more than fps.

 

 

+1 on that as to many people fly the fps counters.

 

There is only a few times we should ever use the fps counter, if we are tweaking, testing some new addon or we have a problem and the sim is not running the way it has been.

[Kuragiman 227]

As a man who fought FSX for 3 months straight when I got it and my new PC, I can tell you with confidence, SMOOTH FPS is very possible, with the right settings, CFG Tweaks and proper Nvidia Inspector settings.   Of course having a new 4.0+ ghz machine is your best friend.  I run at almost 4.8ghz and was still getting choppy, stuttering ugly performance.   I now run with Max sliders, SweetFX, PMG 737NGX, REX, VoxATC with 40% Traffic, FTX Global and several payware airports and get 30 FPS 'MOST' of the time.     Depending on the airport, I can watch my FPS drop down to 20FPS but I learned to stop caring about FPS and started caring about SMOOTHNESS.     Once you learn to stop trying for 150 FPS and start going for 'SMOOTH' displaying of the simulation you will be born again.

[spilok 1,134]

Check out JETLINE SYSTEMS.  These are computers built with FSX in mind.  The owner of JETLINE is an aviation enthusiast and an FSX user.  His company builds these systems to the highest standard using the very best components to bring out the best in FSX.

.

I've had mine for over 3 years and I've been a smooth flyer ever since.  No doubt I will continue to be a customer.  I've tried so many systems over the years, but the JETLINE comes ready to go (they actually load FSX on it before sending it to you.) 

 

Just check out their website and decide if this is and option you would consider for yourself.

 

http://www.jetlinesystems.com/

 

Stan

[rsperge 182]

FSX will never ever run smooth, all depends what addons you are using, and where you are flying.  30 Frames is just a myth in FSX, remember FSX is a 2006 program that was coded wrong from the get go.

 

Stutter and stutters you will will always have at least sometime during a flight.   Airline traffic, car traffic, autogen, and weather conditions, will bring youir sim to a halt.  You must adust wherever you are flying in the sim.

 

People who say they get consistenly get 30 frames, ask them where they are flying and what kind of settings they are running.  You will always have some kind of hee cups in fsx.

 

Don't be so concerned about frames, target smoothn ess as your goal, and that comes with tweeking, and cutting back sliders as well,

 

If you have been flying fsx like me, its just a plain old headache with FSX!!!

[Groovin_DC-10 50]

I guess it depends on one's definition of smooth.

Smooth is what I would use to describe FS9 at high fps. 

 

FSX I would say quite smooth.  With minor tweaks, Inspector settings, traffic, and in-game settings, you can get performance that is pretty smooth (steady 22-30fps, 30 most of the time), maybe an occasional sudden dip to 15-20 for a split second depending on the situation.

 

With FS9 locked at 60fps and running within 30-60fps to me feels way smoother than FSX at 25-30fps, even if FS9 is doing occasional dips to 22 in heavy conditions.  It feels silky smooth compared to FSX.

 

I use both FS9 and FSX and I like them both equally.  But until we have PC's that can run fsx steady at a much higher fps, I'd have to say FSX can run quite smooth, but not as smooth as I would like it to be.

[Parping Couplet 117]

In order to enjoy the 777, I returned to FSX and, with everything I need installed, and it's a lot, but with minimal add on scenery - install and uninstall it on a need to fly basis, it's actually running really well with minimal tweaks.

 

We all tend to load up the sim with everything we have/can fit on our hard drives. My new install philosophy is paying big dividends. YMMV.

[ShawnG 1,823]

I'm going to go all zen and philosophical on you here.

 

The object is not a frame rate. The object is an experience. If you focus on a frame rate, you cannot have the experience. If you focus on the experience, you don't need to worry about the frame rate.

 

I'd say that smooth fps at all times in all situations in the engineering or scientific sense is a myth. However it is very possible to fly in all areas with all addons and have a great experience if you stop worrying about the odd stutter or hitch and focus instead on the flight.

 

I tuned my system so it could run at acceptable smoothness in the most demanding area I have in my sim, which is Vancouver +. When i'm there, I'm sure it runs in the low 20's. But i don't care because I have never opened the frame counter to find out. Most other areas are locked at 30.

[Noel 4,500]

 

 

So now I am starting to believe that getting smooth FPS(WITH ALL ADDONS) is nothing more but  a myth..As Fsx sits on old technology.

 

If it were only that simple  :rolleyes:

 

Too many factors go into the total experience.  Not just 'ALL ADDONS', but how each and every one of them is set up individually, to and including FSX itself in thru sliders and custom settings.  Then there is the cloud bit depth.  Then there is traffic and how it is configured.  Next it is video driver settings for the most complex (and visually pleasing) advanced AA settings.  What is the zoom factor you're looking out of the VC with?  If it's 50% that's a lot more in the FOV than 100% to process, for example.  

 

One of the reasons FSX has enjoyed such decent shelf life is that there is enough there to push even the strongest machines and very likely this will not change since desktop processing progress seems to have slowed down quite significantly.  So really, always, the key is as everyone says is balancing what your system can do against what you like to see in your simulator.  So it's really just plain too simplistic to  conclude 'getting smooth fps is nothing more than a myth'.  I think quite the contrary.  As long as your system is decent and you understand and set it up to respect the fact there is a lot of upside scalability built in to FSX, smoothness is quite possible and even likely.  I can tell you I have superb smoothness & good FPS.  I think it's also true to recognize FSX cannot use all the potential power built in to modern hardware as you mention.  We look to P3D or something still under development, such as XPlane 64 or something yet to come to help move us towards better use of modern hardware.