Hi all,

 

I am about to write some words and would be happy if you comment, either positive or negative or leave it, as you wish. I am with the flightsimulator world for several years, started off back in the nineties with FS 5.1. Now, after updating my rig consequently, I decided to finally put away FS9 and give FSX a chance. I do not look back, switching back to FS9 is no option for me anymore. But still I am not happy with my FS experience those days. If I fly, I always find room for improvements, there is always something that somehow does not completely fullfill my needs, even if its only a missing AI paint or a little glitch in a scenery. Like this, I keep playing around with my FSX build and still I do not see any end or any satisfying improvement. It already took me ages to get my mind away of thinking in FPS and accepting that a smooth and fluent FSX does not necessarily mean the FSX with the highest FPS. I read in forums, I read tons of advice pages, tipps and tricks, tweaks and you name it, only to realize in the end that besides some really crucial tweaks (highmemfix), my FSX is better off with none of them. Same goes now for the DX10 fixer. It always struggled me that I have to keep my water settings low, that low that the surrounding terrain is not reflected ending up in 2005-style water depiction especially in areas where the world is not flat. The DX10 fixer now allows higher water settings with reflections, but guess what, the tweaking and looking for bad performance reasons is basically restarted again. Not to speak about all the remaining little details that are still not fixed by the DX10 fixer. So, where am I now?

 

That's the question guys. Where are we? We have now thousands of nice addons, from the easy, small freeware addon tool to the full blown worldwide coverage scenery addons such as FTX Global. We can chose more or less free between the DX10 mode working now thanks to the fixer or stay with our tuned and tweaked DX9 setup. But still, looking around the forums, there is plenty! of improvements to be done. But why? What's wrong here? Lets use the most obvious culprit of the FSX world to address this in more detail: PERFORMANCE.

 

I am still not happy with it. And I still do not absolutely get the point, where I do wrong. My machine should be able to crank several things up, should be able to cope with REX clouds and all this fancy stuff. At least if I compare my build with others in the forums. But I KNOW that it won't. I use FSGRW and the HDE v2 clouds in their 1024x1024 variant and already suffer from reduced performance. Why? Why do people use obviously all those nice addon tools and not complaining about the performance? Is it me? Are my expectations far to high and all others are happy with a 10-15 FPS experience? Same goes for PMDG planes and AI Traffic. No chance for my build. I already have my FPS down to 15 or less if I perform a easy approach with my QWSIM Avro into EGLC when the weather is not completely clear and some AI sitting there. HOW can it be, that people manage to fly with a PMDG T7 from a full AI stuffed Heathrow in bad weather to Dubai as an example? It would be a slideshow on my machine. It seems that somehow my perception of what is a fluent, smooth FSX experience differs from many others as I always run into limitations far before anyone else. So what's wrong here? Do I miss something?

 

Just to make sure I am not talking rubbish: I currently run my FSX on a clean Win 7 64bit installation with 2x4GB DDR3 2133MHz RAM, an OC i5-3570K running at 4.5GHz together with an OC GTX-670 on a FullHD display. I use mainly the settings recommended by NickN on his threads, not very aggressive nVidia Inspector settings. However, to give you some numbers: whatever VFR flight I perform, the FPS are ok. Flying around in the Carenado Cessna, even with a busy airport underneath, I get my 20-30FPS. It's the heavy planes that bother me. It's the stuff going further away from FSX basics. QWSIM Avro, VC view in Zurich and FPS are down to 15. Simply sitting there. No movement, nothing. As mentioned, approach into EGLC, FPS down to 10. Why? What's wrong? Why do other users not complain? Is it me? Is it my build? How can it be, that other users MUST have at least 100% more FPS in the same scenario (otherwise they would complain, no?) with their FSX setup? I mean, there is no 9GHz i5 available, there is also not single GPU card available with the power of 2x670 OC. So, I must do something wrong, but what?

 

To make a long story short: I think that our FSX experience is somehow not representative. I really believe that not a single FSX user has the same perception of what's going on on his machine and not a single FSX user is happy with exact the same setup. Simply impossible. We are now in 2013 and we still do not have a FSX guide, a FSX setup or a FSX computer parts list that results uniformely in a fluent, smooth FSX experience. Ridiculous. If I look back, however, I realize that it was always like this. Me as a longterm FS user thinking about the past realize that there was ALWAYS tweaking, adjusting, installing and re-installing, changing hardware and all other rubbish to get the most out of my FS experience. Sad but true. Maybe, the problem I have nowadays is: I start to realize that one. I start to be impatient and obviously I lost my enthusiasm about tweaking and tuning. I am getting old. I dream of a Flightsim that provides me smooth and fluent gameplay with nice graphics and still the only thing I have to do is click on "install FS" and run it. Is it me? Am I wrong? I do not know in the end...

 

regards

Chris

Yes, I understand you! I run FSX with 28FPS in PMDG 777 at Heathrow no problem, but I use PB=0, Highmemfix=1, water set to 2 x low, I don't need land and trees reflect into water. I use traffic set to 0, no boats, no cars, no nothing, I don't need them, I fly on VATSIM, I only use 1024 texture.

 

I never had one single OOM, not even after 14h flight!! 

 

O, and I use high Inspector settings, my FSX is crystal clear!! 

I personally see it that we simply choose to have a hobby which is at it's very core, complex.

 

Everything about this hobby is complex.   As you pointed out, if we all had identical machines and hardware it would be a lot less complex; but as things are, we have a hobby where something that works for one person may be detrimental to the next person. We have no real consistancy or uniformity.

 

So the task of getting 'tuned' (which is what we are all ultimately doing, by tweaking) is an art and it becomes the personal responsibility of the individual user.   We can't really get anything more than some basic ideas from the likes of a "FSX Guide" or "Bible".    We have to test and try everything ourselves and 'filter' out those that are not good for us, and keep the few ideas that were beneficial.

 

Its............... complex! :lol:

 

Everything about this hobby.  It's not like we are using a simply flying game on a games console, where everything sits on the same benchmark.

 

But all that accepted, I disagree that any of this is sad or ridiculous (both adjectives that you used).   It is just the nature of this hobby.

 

From the figures you quote though, it does sound like something is specifically wrong on your system.   The FPS and performance you describe for each scenario, seem very low compared to what I would see, and I have a similar system to yours.

Turn down the settings - it's as simple as that. The ability to save different configurations in FSX is there for a reason. Flying low and slow in a simple aircraft requires different settings than flying in a fast and complex jet. There are many variables that have an impact on performance. The complexity of the addon and the complexity of the scenery- Flying over the Shahara will give you better FPS than flying over New York with full AI.

Actually, I'm pretty impressed with what has been done with a $30 simulator. My FSX is very clear and smooth with an older mid range pc. I run around 30 fps with no problems. I did all the tweaks by a banned individual and use Nvidia inspector.

I also think it's just the nature of the realm we choose to simulate. Think of other games, skyrim for instance. Extremely detailed game, and a massive map when it comes to games of that genre. But that map pales in comparison of what FSX simulates, the whole world. Other games have to simulate a fraction of what our game does. I also play iRacing, all that needs is the track, car, and run the physics of the car. With aviation, we need the airports, the traffic, cities, towns, terrain, oceans, clouds, winds, ect ect. The earth is a very complex thing to simulate. There is so much going on. I think that's part of the reason it's difficult to get good performance.

Lower your expectations. FSX wasn't made for the overtaxing that most people (including myself) put it through. So either back down on texture quality, autogen variety or other settings or live with 15 FPS at airports.

Here's a list of frame killers, Chris: doc  pdf

 

I'll revise this from time to time..

 

pj

Thanks 4 all U do PJ.

I used to use those settings in the old days. I got my current machines so I could up those settings and bought some hi-def planes and scenery to go with it. But, using more aggressive settings did improve performance somewhat. I think we grunts out here in the sticks are watching too many Utube videos ie:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMMsEhEwLaM  and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87s1LfhP8PQ and we can only dream. Those guys must know something about getting great smoothness, but just aren't telling the rest of us....is this another one of those CONSPIRACIES...???

No more HD planes/scenery for me until we can buy a can of "SMOOTHNESS"....hey?

It's not hard to get it as smooth as their videos. It's just an illusion. Through out the process of rendering the captured video, it will slightly smooth any imperfections they had with fps while recording. I know because I tried it myself.

 

There are no secrets. They don't know more than already known to the public regarding tweaks and other crap that makes fsx run better.