Hey guys,

without any warning my main storrage HDD with more than 200 GB of fully tweaked FSX installation died yesterday. I´ve now got a new WD 1 TB drive ready in use. Thank god my Windows was on it´s own SSD so the system is unaffected. Currently some specialists trying to get at least my 100GB of pictures from teh last 3,5 years saved...Wish me luck!

 

Anyway, onto the main thing: Now I have to rebuild the whole FSX from the ground, and this time I plan to do it more structured than before (it was quite a mess).

 

First question now is: Whall I reuse my FSX Professional Edition or get me a new copy of FSX Acceleration as I do like to fly some fighter jets from time to time? And is the activation procedure as cumbersome as I remember it (activation would only work when started in save mode)?

If you want to fly a lot of Dino Cantaneo planes you should consider FSX Gold (aka includes Acceleration)

 

As for activation I've never had issues.

Hi,

I presume you mean Deluxe and not Professional.  The difference in price between Gold, which includes Deluxe with all the Service packs as well as Acceleration, and Acceleration alone has been minimal the last times I've checked.  I consider Acceleration a must-have so I recommend Gold.

As far as a mess I'm not sure what you're referring to but previously my installations were a mess when it came to installed scenery.  So many things were thrown into the Addon Scenery folders that checking for possible conflicts wasn't easy.  Now I have a system to make things easier.  As an example, in the existing Addon Scenery folder I have new folders; Asia, Europe, North America, etc.  Within these new folders I have other new folders.  For Example under North America there might be Nevada, Alberta, Baja California etc.  And then finally the specific scenery folder that contains the "Scenery" and "Texture" sub-folders.  This is the general scheme and how fine the divisions are depends on how much scenery I'm likely to add to one geographic area. I can easily compare the default to the addon scenery by enabling or disabling in the Scenery Library.   And scenery removal/replacement is a breeze.

Jim F.

I would use Gold.  Don't know what you mean when you say the activation process is cumbersome.  Every time I've ever installed FSX, it was a simple as typing in the numbers from inside the box.  You definitely shouldn't have to be in safe mode to do it.

 

 

When I install the original FSX, before proceeding with Acceleration install, I always try to create a desktop shortcut.  If the desktop shortcut gets created with the well known "airplane" icon, that's good, but if Windows instead insists on associating it with the default "unkown" icon, that indicates to me that the installer didn't add something into the Registry like it should have, and perhaps the inability of Windows to associate the correct icon with the shortcut is simply a symptom of other problems. I immediately do a Repair installation on the very thing I just installed, before installing Acceleration.  This seems to correct whatever quirk this might be.   I've seen this most every time I've installed FSX.  I don't fully trust the FSX installer to do it right the first time!

I would use Gold. Don't know what you mean when you say the activation process is cumbersome. Every time I've ever installed FSX, it was a simple as typing in the numbers from inside the box. You definitely shouldn't have to be in safe mode to do it.

 

 

When I install the original FSX, before proceeding with Acceleration install, I always try to create a desktop shortcut. If the desktop shortcut gets created with the well known "airplane" icon, that's good, but if Windows instead insists on associating it with the default "unkown" icon, that indicates to me that the installer didn't add something into the Registry like it should have, and perhaps the inability of Windows to associate the correct icon with the shortcut is simply a symptom of other problems. I immediately do a Repair installation on the very thing I just installed, before installing Acceleration. This seems to correct whatever quirk this might be. I've seen this most every time I've installed FSX. I don't fully trust the FSX installer to do it right the first time!

Well, last time I had to activate FSX (some 3 years back) it gave me some irritating messages about the server would not answer or something else. I don't really remember the correct phrase. When I booted in save mode it all worked at the first try.

 

And no, I mean "Professional Edition". At least that's what's it called in Germany. I think I'll get the Gold Edition with everything inside.

Well, last time I had to activate FSX (some 3 years back) it gave me some irritating messages about the server would not answer or something else. I don't really remember the correct phrase. When I booted in save mode it all worked at the first try.

 

And no, I mean "Professional Edition". At least that's what's it called in Germany. I think I'll get the Gold Edition with everything inside.

 

Gold has everything in it, I have Deluxe which comes with the possibility of ATC control. Gold will definitely help you out a bit more, its a little bit easier to install as it comes with the service packs, however aside from the new missions, a few new default planes, and the fact it comes with some service packs on it, its really not that different from your "professional" copy. The only issue I have encountered when I just recently installed FSX was that my key had been used 3 times for re-install/activation and so I had to call Microsoft and get a renewal for free, the whole process took about 5-7 minutes.

Gold has everything in it, I have Deluxe which comes with the possibility of ATC control. Gold will definitely help you out a bit more, its a little bit easier to install as it comes with the service packs, however aside from the new missions, a few new default planes, and the fact it comes with some service packs on it, its really not that different from your "professional" copy. The only issue I have encountered when I just recently installed FSX was that my key had been used 3 times for re-install/activation and so I had to call Microsoft and get a renewal for free, the whole process took about 5-7 minutes.

 

Ok, Gold has been bought. It´s a new copy, so I think the Code hasn´t been used before. 

 

That problem has been fixed. Onto the next question: What to take for AI traffic? I´m a huge Ai traffic fan, I used to sit arround at big airports and just see them take off and land. I used pretty much all the "World of AI"-packages. Do you agree?

Ok, Gold has been bought. It´s a new copy, so I think the Code hasn´t been used before. 

 

That problem has been fixed. Onto the next question: What to take for AI traffic? I´m a huge Ai traffic fan, I used to sit arround at big airports and just see them take off and land. I used pretty much all the "World of AI"-packages. Do you agree?

 

Ok lets keep 1 thing in mind...

 

AI = Frame Killer, now that's not to say that with an appropriate balance you can't achieve good frame rates, its just something to keep in mind, I think most people prefer to set AI to 10-20% for lower frame rate impact.

 

Freeware is definitely going to be WOAI, they are excellent and of course free.

 

Payware I have heard that Ultimate Traffic 2 is the way to go, here is a link to the product: http://ut2.flight1.net/, the quality of AI in UT2 is reported to be much better than WOAI, and this program does not use AI Traffic Files as well, if you are willing to drop money on AI for realism I would suggest UT2, if not then WOAI all the way!

Ok lets keep 1 thing in mind...

 

AI = Frame Killer, now that's not to say that with an appropriate balance you can't achieve good frame rates, its just something to keep in mind, I think most people prefer to set AI to 10-20% for lower frame rate impact.

 

Freeware is definitely going to be WOAI, they are excellent and of course free.

 

Payware I have heard that Ultimate Traffic 2 is the way to go, here is a link to the product: http://ut2.flight1.net/, the quality of AI in UT2 is reported to be much better than WOAI, and this program does not use AI Traffic Files as well, if you are willing

 

to drop money on AI for realism I would suggest UT2, if not then WOAI all the way!

 

 

I don´t know whether you´ve checked my profil but Ive written there the system specs: My CPU is rated at stable 4,5 GHz, 8 GB RAM and a good GTX 560 SC grafics card. I had pretty good frames, mostly on the limited 30 FPS. AI was set to arround 60% (I dont really know it correctly). 

I don´t know whether you´ve checked my profil but Ive written there the system specs: My CPU is rated at stable 4,5 GHz, 8 GB RAM and a good GTX 560 SC grafics card. I had pretty good frames, mostly on the limited 30 FPS. AI was set to arround 60% (I dont really know it correctly). 

 

I did forget to mention that the AI was set to 10-20 autogen AI, as in cars, trucks, and stuff. Airline AI some people have it set as high as 50-70%. I personally fly only in multiplayer so I have 95% of the AI turned off. Just be wary that even with a really good CPU and a high clock speed with plenty of fast RAM, AI will still hit your frames hard if you set it too high.

I did forget to mention that the AI was set to 10-20 autogen AI, as in cars, trucks, and stuff. Airline AI some people have it set as high as 50-70%. I personally fly only in multiplayer so I have 95% of the AI turned off. Just be wary that even with a really good CPU and a high clock speed with plenty of fast RAM, AI will still hit your frames hard if you set it too high.

 

Yeah, it took quite some time to figure the settings out... What I remember, the ship and road traffic was set to 0 and airport vehicles to minimal. Then arround 60% of AI and it worked most of the time. I understand that there will always bad frames regardless of the pc-power. That´s just because FSX is aging (arround 8 years now) and it was badly coded even by the standards of 2006.

Update:

 

I´m back at home at my PC, teh new Gold Version with Acceleration is here and I can´t install! As my HDD crashed, I can´t deinstall FSX (cause any links to the now dead drive where FSX is installed onto won´t let me deinstall). And installing is impossibe too! Everythime I started the installer, it sold me after some seconds: "Substitution" is no valid short file name. Then it closes. I deleted the FSX-folder in AppData but no avail.

 

Someone any idea or shall I ask Microsoft?

Hi,

If the specialists that tried to retrieve data from the HD had access to you're computer containing the SSD I would first discuss the issue with them.  The appearance of the word "Substitution" sounds like it was part of a temporary fix just to prevent errors from being reported when trying to assess the full extent of the problems.

I have no way of knowing if this would work for you but I recommend installing both Windows and FSX on the biggest SSD you can afford.

About a year ago I installed FSX on a 64GB SSD.  When I saw how quickly it booted I immediately starting watching sales for a larger SSD for both Windows and FSX.  I found a 256GB, installed Windows and FSX on it.  Any other applications which had a noticeable start up tiime went on the 64GB SSD and infrequently used programs went on my HD.  This is my system.  Now if I had to choose I'd go back to dial-up before loosing an SSD.

This was my 2nd install of Win 7 within 3 years and my 4th activation of Gold, the last 2 about 5 months apart, and had no problems.  I have a hunch that activation problems occur when it's attempted on systems having different motherboards within a short period of time.

Jim F.

 I understand that there will always bad frames regardless of the pc-power. That´s just because FSX is aging (arround 8 years now) and it was badly coded even by the standards of 2006.

 

No disrespect - but another way of looking at it, is that FSX scales amazingly well with added hardware power.. just try to run it on a 4770k with a GTX 770 video card.  It runs really well!

 

What users tend to "forget" is that they load up the system with add-on everything and crank up all the settings, until they notice a performance impact...  and then they blame it on bad coding  :unsure:

Sorry if I steal a bit this thread,but I'm at the same boat just now after a major hardware update.

 

Fs X installation was never so smooth as this time, I gave installers full administrator rights and did everything patiently using my seven years old deluxe and acceleration ceedees. Activations were no problem at all, even though this was maybe third or fourth time I installed FSx.

 

Before starting to install any tweaks or addons I flew couple of test flights with fps unlimited settings. The values rocketed sky high, from 150 to 350 fps with the default trike and 70-250 with F-18 Hornet. As a default installation the FSx would be like any other game nowadays.

 

Interesting to see, how low In fps I will eventually end up.