"Thanks Ryan. That was my thinking too, which was why I suspected ASN. But even with ASN shutdown it still occurs."

 

"Just tested it now, and there was absolutely no flicker. That was with ASN generating thunderstorms."

 

"Nope, no flicker. Both yesterday and today it was just the first time I fired up FSX."

 

 

 ... and only with the RA Dukes?

Never saw anything in testing ... No idea

 

I've seen flashing cursor in XP10 - totally different sim lol !

I get the feeling that Dovetail expected all purchasers of FSX : Steam Edition to uninstall their "old" version of FSX prior to purchasing the new one. Either that, or they spectacularly failed to anticipate the registry complications.

 

If that were the case they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of detecting FSX-MS on your system and setting up a unique set of registry values to prevent overwriting those associated with your existing FSX installation. How else could they have done it? Surely you can imagine the backlash it would have generated if after installing FSX-SE users were unable to install anything into FSX-MS anymore because all the reg values had been hijacked directing concurrently run installers towards FSX-SE instead? It looks to me like they did anticipate registry complications and dealt with it in the only way possible while still allowing FSX-MS installer compatibility for FSX-SE users who didn't have pre-existing versions of FSX installed.

So why are some people claiming problems with double installations?

Because current installers are programmed to find the FSX-MS reg keys rather than the new FSX-SE keys that didn't exist when the installers were made.

Seems to me that FSX has become quite the floozy these days! FSX, FSX SP1, FSX SP2, FSX + Acceleration, FSX Gold, PD 1, 2, 3, - FSX Steam.

 

 

Making Dev's hair turn grey or pulling their last hair strand out for all that hassle.. Jeez!  All anyone needs is PD or FSX Gold.. why make your own life harder by also buying the steam one is beyond me. Save that money for an add-ons, or a movie on a rainy day. I know steam is exposing FSX/Flight sim to new users, and that's great. FSX in all it's forms has to be one of the greatest success stories for Microsoft... It's STILL printing money for them.

 

Back to V2 - I looked in the fsx buttons config, and noticed (or missed) that there is no hot key for inertia separators. I take off with them on to keep from vacuuming the runway (even though there is no penalty for that), and once air born, Turing them off. It's a wicked little twist I get when I do, as you can only do one at a time. Anyone know how to set that up to close/open them both at the same time?  I can see that if those are the real location of the RW one, I would use one finger to close them both in RW.

If that were the case they wouldn't have gone to the trouble of detecting FSX-MS on your system and setting up a unique set of registry values to prevent overwriting those associated with your existing FSX installation.

 

Urm, I'm not sure it is actually doing that! ...... Yes it places a new registry entry called "Flight Simulator X Steam Edition" but it also places the same Flight Simulator / 10.0 registry entry that MS FSX also places.

 

So proof of the pudding is, if you install MS FSX and run an addon installer that detects your FSX location via registry (as almost all do), it will install into, eg.  C:\.....Microsoft Games / Microsoft Flight Simulator X.

 

If you then install FSX:SE, and ran the same installer, it will then auto-locate and install to eg.. C:\.......Steam\SteamApps\Common\FSX.

 

(It would then be impossible to install in to MS FSX, unless (i) you use an installer that allows manual browsing to the desired location, or (ii) you used a tool like TweakFS Registry Utility to manually change the FSX registry back to the eg.. C:\.....Microsoft Games / Microsoft Flight Simulator X location).

 

So as far as I've been able to tell from 3 weeks of constant nosing about with FSX:SE, it does steal at least part of MS FSX's registry entry.

 

What FSX:SE does do to prevent parallel install issues, is detect whether you already have a FSX.CFG and a SCENERY.CFG file on your system, in which cases it changes the install names of these two files to FSX_SE.CFG and  SCENERY_SE.CFG. 

Well if you search the registry for Microsoft Flight Simulator X you'll probably find 300 registry entries that have something to do with it but I think the key that's "supposed" to be used (based on the fact that it's the key the Flight1 registry repair tool modifies) is HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Flight Simulator\10.0\SetupPath which translates to HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\microsoft games\flight simulator\10.0\SetupPath in the 64bit registry. Reportedly FSX-SE (I don't have it) generates a new key at HKLM\SOFTWARE\DovetailGames\FSX\install_path or HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\DovetailGames\FSX\install_path (64 bit) in the event it detects FSX-MS installed, otherwise it uses the same keys FSX-MS does.

Installer builders don't always look for the same key though and there's some debate over which one should be used, no doubt there's probably an installer out there that can't tell the difference between FSX-SE and FSX-MS but I think some standardization is really what's called for rather than finger pointing directed towards one sim publisher or another. It does seem a little like DTG took this all into their own hands without consulting anyone and things probably could have gone a bit smoother if they'd liaised with a few addon developers prior.

There's a discussion on reg keys taking place at FSdeveloper since FSX-SE came about, not sure if anyone there really agrees with one another but there are plenty of "findings" to read about:

http://www.fsdeveloper.com/forum/threads/registry-keys-fsx-fsx-se-p3dv1-p3dv2.432633

Yes, so plenty of different registry components, but whilst there's any degree of sharing (which there undoubtedly is), there'll be problems where both sims are installed.

 

I guess it was always going to be a tricky one, because is some respects, FSX is FSX;   the product that DTG / Steam are vending is Microsoft FSX; it's just licenced to DTG, and of course has had some improvements made (with more promised).     So in one sense, it is the same software and thus you can see why it would have at least some common registry components.

 

But then the other side of the coin, is that from the simmers perspective, it's not the same software, and thus (and particularly from the developers' viewpoint), it would have made life a lot easier if it had been installed into registry as a 100% different piece of software.

 

I agree, it does need some concensus and communication between DTG and the main 3rd Party devs.

 

In many ways, there may have been less problems if DTG had stated as part of FSX:SE's requirements that "it should be installed on a machine that alongside an existing installation of MS FSX".

 

What I do know is that FSX:SE is a great sim.   I have it installed solely on my main machine, and have MS FSX on a different (similarly spec'd) machine, and there's no competition.    

What I do know is that FSX:SE is a great sim.   I have it installed solely on my main machine, and have MS FSX on a different (similarly spec'd) machine, and there's no competition.    

 

Craig, is that a side by side comparison where the same addons, tweaks, utilities etc are installed or are you comparing a several years-old FSX-MS with a virgin install of FSX-SE? As we all know, over time some installed programs tend to get sluggish (as does windows itself) for all sorts of reasons like file fragmentation (even with de-fragging) and getting cluttered up with other stuff. 

 

One wouldn't expect a completely like for like comparison but it's interesting to know if the relative performance is connected as much with a fresh install as anything else, or you really seeing better performance solely due to something inherent in the Steam version?

I was one of the weird ones - FSX original was better for me... A lot of people say SE yields better perf

Agree fresh install gives the appearance of better performance.. DT has said a thousand times they are only re-selling FSX, with the least amount of changes to amend for gamespy, and what not. Its the same program. But placebo works just as good sometimes.

I have lost count of How many time a fresh install has made my FSX/P3d appear to run better and sorted my problems ,that start to reappear when I start reinstalling my add on,s

peter

Craig, is that a side by side comparison where the same addons, tweaks, utilities etc are installed or are you comparing a several years-old FSX-MS with a virgin install of FSX-SE? As we all know, over time some installed programs tend to get sluggish (as does windows itself) for all sorts of reasons like file fragmentation (even with de-fragging) and getting cluttered up with other stuff. 

 

One wouldn't expect a completely like for like comparison but it's interesting to know if the relative performance is connected as much with a fresh install as anything else, or you really seeing better performance solely due to something inherent in the Steam version?

 

Both are fresh installs, Rob.

 

Both machines are i7 2600k's but one has a HD 7850 2Gb in it, and the other a HD6870 2GB.  Both FSX.CFGs are standard apart from [bufferpools=0] and [AffinityMask=84] (+ the MS FSX one has [HIGHMEMFIX] too).       They don't have the same scenery or aircraft addons installed though; the MS FSX install has more addon aircraft installed, and the FSX:SE install has  fewer aircraft but more scenery.

 

I'm not claiming any scientific base to my comment;  I find that when you even suggest a valid comparison, some people get all edgey and start taking things too seriously, holding you against virtual walls by the scruff of 'yer neck demanding proof!  

 

I spat my dummy out the last time that happened, so don't go in for comparison exercises any more.     If you express a viewpoint around sim (or addon) choice, people assume an agenda.   Not intending to sound arrogant but I couldn't give a monkey's arm whether anyone believes or denies the far greater performance I get from FSX:SE.   It makes no difference whatsoever to me, in my enjoyment of FS.  All that matters is that it performs as it does.   

 

So here, it was a just a viewpoint that FSX:SE feels smoother, more responsive, faster menu and dialogue box responses, a little visually brighter, and is definitely providing higher FPS for me, than MS FSX.      Like I've said from the outset, some or all of this may be to with my using a AMD/ATI GPU card.   I can't prove that either; it's just a theory.   :smile:

Both are fresh installs, Rob.

 

Both machines are i7 2600k's but one has a HD 7850 2Gb in it, and the other a HD6870 2GB.  Both FSX.CFGs are standard apart from [bufferpools=0] and [AffinityMask=84] (+ the MS FSX one has [HIGHMEMFIX] too).       They don't have the same scenery or aircraft addons installed though; the MS FSX install has more addon aircraft installed, and the FSX:SE install has  fewer aircraft but more scenery.

 

I'm not claiming any scientific base to my comment;  I find that when you even suggest a valid comparison, some people get all edgey and start taking things too seriously, holding you against virtual walls by the scruff of 'yer neck demanding proof!  

 

I spat my dummy out the last time that happened, so don't go in for comparison exercises any more.     If you express a viewpoint around sim (or addon) choice, people assume an agenda.   Not intending to sound arrogant but I couldn't give a monkey's arm whether anyone believes or denies the far greater performance I get from FSX:SE.   It makes no difference whatsoever to me, in my enjoyment of FS.  All that matters is that it performs as it does.   

 

So here, it was a just a viewpoint that FSX:SE feels smoother, more responsive, faster menu and dialogue box responses, a little visually brighter, and is definitely providing higher FPS for me, than MS FSX.      Like I've said from the outset, some or all of this may be to with my using a AMD/ATI GPU card.   I can't prove that either; it's just a theory.   :smile:

 

God forbid that I was challenging you! Just asking for info. Your contributions have been extremely useful, so thank you.

 

Best Wishes,

 

Rob