FSX-SE I LOVE Dovetail, and Steam, and ... FSX!

[jcomm 5,882]

But many still think it's "placebo"... So, I now added that guy, John Placebo, to my Best Friends list, because, placebo or not, truth is, FSX was never so smooth to me :-)

[Dazkent 113]

I would be very interested to know what exact changes Dovetail have done in order to get the sim to run smoother

 

 

 

 

 

[KingGhidorah 209]

I can't believe I just visited Jcomm's profile to see if there was a real user named John Placebo added to his friends list.

[Pete Dowson 558]

Are you able to install FSX-SE on the same hard drive with FSX?  How does that work if your using the same add-ons.  Say Aerosoft Airbus or ORBX?  Thanks!

 

Rather than have two copies of all of my scenery (Gigabytes of it!) I use the same installed files for both. The FSX scenery CFG file and the FSX-SE CFG are just copies of each other. Both have all sceneries listed with their full paths, no assumption of being withing FSX or FSX-SE. That even includes all the default FSX layers, so that traffic files and textures for FTX and so on are shared.

 

Pete

I would be very interested to know what exact changes Dovetail have done in order to get the sim to run smoother

 

Well, just the recompilation using VS 2013 would help enormously as the code optimisations the compilers apply will target the sort of hardware we have nowadays, rather than that in 2006!

 

Pete

[Douglas729 1]

 

 

Hmmmm "gliding" certainly tempts me :-)

 

FSX loves gliders but I'm only aware of the Discus X b versions and the free Soar_DG 808S. If you need to go fast push v for slew and use the joystick to relocate at 75 miles a minute.

[Novation 534]

I can't say FSX-SE runs any better than my boxed version, and I've still had to add a few tweaks to the cfg to bring performance up to acpectable levels (mostly via a Poolsize threshold limit) and stay at my 30fps lock.  I still get worse performance in FSX over P3Dv2x in all scenarios, and that is running P3D with far more going on visually, with cloud shadow etc, so I now only use FSX to muck about with, and use P3D as my primary sim. I still prefer the way FSX (DX9) displays clouds and water however.

[JJiB 0]

Rather than have two copies of all of my scenery (Gigabytes of it!) I use the same installed files for both. The FSX scenery CFG file and the FSX-SE CFG are just copies of each other. Both have all sceneries listed with their full paths, no assumption of being withing FSX or FSX-SE. That even includes all the default FSX layers, so that traffic files and textures for FTX and so on are shared.

 

Pete

 

Well, just the recompilation using VS 2013 would help enormously as the code optimisations the compilers apply will target the sort of hardware we have nowadays, rather than that in 2006!

 

Pete

 

Sounds good but also complicated.. I bought the SE, but don´t like the "live hook up" with some Big B server, and also had some probs installing side by side with FSX, so I removed it, FSX-SE.

 

How to do this, have both installed?

[Don Quixote 76]

My experience with FSX-SE has been the same. I've now spent a year in XP10, then another year with P3DV2 with the occasional visit to DCS. Prepar3D had become my sim of choice, with its beautiful cloud shadows and HDR, and it performs well on my mid-range hardware (i5-750 3.4GHz, GTX770) after some careful tweaking.

 

However, I've bought FSXSE on a whim, and decided to do a little performance comparison, including boxed FSX, FSXSE and P3DV2 (that was shortly after the release of FSXSE).

 

I was very convinced that P3D would come out on top because it has multi-core support and DX11. And it did easily perform better than the boxed FSX, which, even with only FTX Global and Vector installed, ran far less smooth than my installation of P3DV2 with lots of addons. Applying some of the "essential" Tweaks did not improve things much either.

To my surprise, FSXSE (again with only FTX Global and Vector) ran considerably better than the boxed version, to the point where it was as smooth as P3DV2, even though the latter had higher overall framerates. At that point I abandoned the comparison and went back to Prepar3D.

 

After the last update to FSXSE was released curiosity got the better of me again and so the comparing started again... and this time I could not deny that it did run well, very well indeed - the framerates nearly matched those of P3DV2, and there was considerably less variance (= a smoother experience). To be clear, that wasn't the result I had hoped for, as I have already invested a considerable amount of cash into P3D-only-licenses of addons. So I blamed the differences on the fact that FSXSE was not burdened by the same amount of addons. I've now installed 90% of them into FSXSE and disabled the rest in P3DV2 to make the field even (addons include FTX Global, Vector, Open LC EU, FSGUX, UTX series, Rex Textures, FSGRW weather, A2A and Realair aircraft, Accu-Feel, DX10 fixer and many others).

 

That was about a week ago. Since then I've completed flights with the same aircraft, on the same routes in both sims, and I'll be damned if FSXSE doesn't run smoother overall than P3DV2. Again, this is not so much a question of framerates but more of how much they vary. I've not done "scientific" comparisons with numbers to back up the statements, so much of it may be placebo. But what I can say for certain is that when flying in FSXSE, I never worried about anything except my flying skills, whereas P3DV2 very frequently made me want to adjust my settings to achieve a smoother performance.

 

All this doesn't change the fact that P3DV2 does have features which are lacking in FSX (HDR, cloud shadows, and most importantly, autogen that does not pop up). On the other hand, I was able to turn up my autogen settings a notch higher in FSXSE and to enable road traffic, which was unthinkable in P3DV2. Therefore there isn't a clear winner in the looks department.

I've also ran a test where I disabled all the fancy graphics in P3DV2 (shadows, HDR etc), but it still did not run as smooth as FSXSE. Why, I have no idea.

 

> short version: Performance-wise I'd rate the simulators in this order. FSXSE > P3DV2 > FSX. I don't know what DTG have done to FSX, but it does work for me.

Keep in mind that this is just my personal experience, which may vary considerably from others due to hardware differences etc.

[BMagann 11]

I don't think it is a placebo effect at all. SE does run more smoothly. I just wonder how much more smoothly it will run after after six months. FSX always ran better after a clean install, which is what SE is. The installations, uninstalls and general usage seemed to degrade FSX and I wonder if it will do the same to SE.

 

Having said that I will definitely go with the SE installation once ASN and the PMDG planes can be used, and uninstall the boxed version. I can't think of a single reason not to at this point.

[Novation 534]

I've also ran a test where I disabled all the fancy graphics in P3DV2 (shadows, HDR etc), but it still did not run as smooth as FSXSE. Why, I have no idea.

 

 

Something not right there for sure. P3D is far more hardware efficient than either version of FSX and its easy to exceed FSX performance even with the extra bells and whistles, let alone with them turned off.

[Don Quixote 76]

 

P3D is far more hardware efficient than either version of FSX and its easy to exceed FSX performance even with the extra bells and whistles, let alone with them turned off.

 

That's right, P3D does achieve higher framerates when compared to FSX(SE) - but, on my system anyway, there is also greater variance, meaning that there are more frequent "dips" in the framerate in P3DV2 which can make the flight feel less smooth. In FSXSE, while the overall framerates are (usually!) lower, there are fewer of these dips and consequently the result is a smoother flight. But as mentioned before, this can vary from system to system due to different hardware, software configurations etc.

[Novation 534]

 

 

But as mentioned before, this can vary from system to system due to different hardware, software configurations etc.

 

Understood... but, this (bold) part seem to be used as the ultimate get-out clause (or someone reasoning their inexplicable, magic performance/smoothness).

 

Unless there are some issues, things 'should' scale within a margin of error - the rest is BS... not having a go at you BTW, but YMMV is an overused concept.

[mhazy 0]

Hi

---------------------------------------------------------

forget below, its all fixed now, what was it?  no idea works brilliant, ah computers.

mhazy

---------------------------------------------------------------
Well im a fsx se lover so smooth, but....
I run just the outside views on 3 screens, and prosim737 on a seperate screen with nd and pfd in a jetmax setup
Ok heres what I found
FsxSe outside view or vc on any aircraft view very smooth.
But prosim instruments have a 4 sec lag then update every four seconds so very glitchy
After different tests turning on and off bits an bobs I found that it seem to be updating to steam every 4 seconds
During the glitches steamse runs smooth no jitteres or updates.

I decided to run same setup on prepar3dv2 an perfect, prosims update and glitches had stopped although it still is not as smooth as se
So it seems that if you run a program outside of fsxse you will find its subject to glitch or jitter.
Anyone any ideas?
I think it updates to steam for playing online every 4 secs
Mike

[Don Quixote 76]

Unless there are some issues, things 'should' scale within a margin of error - the rest is BS...

 

 

I can't argue with you there, there is no rational explanation as far as I can see. I can only offer my personal observations, which are very subjective of course. While being prejudiced somewhat against Steam, DTG and FSX, I still found that FSX-SE runs smoother than P3DV2, while using roughly the same settings and addons. That leaves three possibilites, a ) flawed perception on my part, or b ) some problem with my system that only affects P3DV2 but not FSXSE, or c ) actual differences in how efficient the simulators work on any given hardware. The experiences of some other users, as posted in this thread, could be used to rule out a and b, but of course that's far from conclusive...

[fogboundturtle 2,708]

Hi Don,

 

From my personal experience, FSX:SE does not run better than P3D V2 at the same settings. P3D v2 allows me to have an much higher texture resolution and mesh without the frame rate being affected. Not only that but I never crash to desktop and I don't remember the last time I got an OOM. I also have a tools that monitor CPU usage while I play and P3D v2 uses less CPU. It certainly not as efficient as x-plane 10 but it is certainly much better than FSX:SE.