fsx-se Are people making the switch to FSX Steam?

[MarkW 1,493]

So here is my experience switching over to FSX-SE.  I used the Pete Dowson method of referencing my FSX install as highlighted earlier in this thread.

 

1) The scenery switch is very easy to do and works.  Exceptions are sceneries from FSDreamteam that need to be installed separately into FSX Steam.

2) Some aircraft work.  I had success with Captain Sim, Majestic and some freeware using this referencing method.  Needed to reinstall PMDG, Aerosoft, LevelD.  FSLabs Concorde will not work at all until the developer makes it compatible.

3) EZCA, worked but I need to upgrade to the latest version.

4) LINDA, works.

5) HiFiSim - I have not been able to get it working yet...but I know it will just something I have done.

6) REX - I pointed it to my Steam install but it seems like it did not install any new textures.  My water looks terrible.

7) FSInn - Works but need some messing around with the registry.  I posted on the Vatsim FSInn forum a link to the instructions I used to get it working.

8) Nvidia Inspector.  Not working yet, I think I need to reinstall the video driver in order to get NI to point to the FSX-SE exe file.

 

So it took a bit of time to get everything working, memory management as advertised is better and the sim seems smoother but I do have long pauses as my HDD is terribly fragmented now with all of the changes I made.  I will be running a defrag once I get everything working properly.

[Pete Dowson 558]

5) HiFiSim - I have not been able to get it working yet...but I know it will just something I have done.

 

HiFi Sim, as in Active Sky you mean? ASN works okay -- have you updated to the latest version?

 

6) REX - I pointed it to my Steam install but it seems like it did not install any new textures.  My water looks terrible.

 

I use the FSX textures installed by REX there. I don't change them anyway, one I've chosen my favourite set.

 

8) Nvidia Inspector.  Not working yet, I think I need to reinstall the video driver in order to get NI to point to the FSX-SE exe file.

 

I'm sure the profile selection for nVidia works simply by reading the process name when the target program is running. And this is FSX.EXE still, not FSX-SE.EXE, so it should select the correct presets exactly as it does when it sees FSX.EXE in any case. It doesn't need to know where the programs are.

 

Pete

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[MarkW 1,493]

 

HiFi Sim, as in Active Sky you mean? ASN works okay -- have you updated to the latest version?

 

 

I use the FSX textures installed by REX there. I don't change them anyway, one I've chosen my favourite set.

 

 

I'm sure the profile selection for nVidia works simply by reading the process name when the target program is running. And this is FSX.EXE still, not FSX-SE.EXE, so it should select the correct presets exactly as it does when it sees FSX.EXE in any case. It doesn't need to know where the programs are.

 

Pete

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Thanks for the info.  I was not really sure where REX installs the textures so I re-installed into FSX-SE.  Activesky, yes I mean ASN and I am using the latest Beta.  It recognizes that I have both FSX and SE installed but somehow does not "connect".  Something in my setup I am sure that I need to fix.

[Bjoern 1,157]

I wonder I FSX can handle symbolic links. That way, you could replace any folder in FSXSE with a symbolic link (not shortcut!) to your FSXMS folder and basically have a side-by-side installation with minimal hard disk space cost.

 

 

When I started out with FSXSE, I've tried this method to get FSXSE out of the cumbersome SteamLibrary folder. Moved the "FSX" folder from there to the root level of the drive, renamed it and just put a symbolic link to that folder into the Steam library. Steam did not complain, FSXSE started. Even updates worked.

 

Symlink HowTo: http://lifehacker.com/5496652/how-to-use-symlinks-in-windows

 

 

 

- Edit:

 

Just tried it with my SimObjects folder. Moved it from "D:\SteamLibrary\...\fsx" to "D:\"

Created a symlink with

mklink /j "D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FSX\SimObjects\" "D:\SimObjects"

Booted up FSXSE and loaded a default plane. Worked like a charm.

 

 

- Edit2:

 

You can safely delete Symlinks without deleting the linked folder, by the way.

 

 

- Edit3:

To illustrate what FSX or Steam will "see" when they have to work with a symlinked folder: If you open a folder via symlink, the path to the folder in which the symlink resides will not change in the Explorer address bar.

So if you've e.g. symlinked your entire FSX folder and open up your FSX folder from inside "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\", you'll get "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FSX" as the current directory despite the content of the FSX folder being somewhere else on the drive.

[tf51d 284]

Activesky, yes I mean ASN and I am using the latest Beta. It recognizes that I have both FSX and SE installed but somehow does not "connect". Something in my setup I am sure that I need to fix.

 

On the settings page there is a bar of options on top make sure the FSX-SE option is selected, not FSX-Box. It's easy to miss.

[odourboy 1,290]

I wonder I FSX can handle symbolic links. That way, you could replace any folder in FSXSE with a symbolic link (not shortcut!) to your FSXMS folder and basically have a side-by-side installation with minimal hard disk space cost.

 

 

When I started out with FSXSE, I've tried this method to get FSXSE out of the cumbersome SteamLibrary folder. Moved the "FSX" folder from there to the root level of the drive, renamed it and just put a symbolic link to that folder into the Steam library. Steam did not complain, FSXSE started. Even updates worked.

 

Symlink HowTo: http://lifehacker.com/5496652/how-to-use-symlinks-in-windows

 

 

 

- Edit:

 

Just tried it with my SimObjects folder. Moved it from "D:\SteamLibrary\...\fsx" to "D:\"

Created a symlink with

mklink /j "D:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FSX\SimObjects\" "D:\SimObjects"

Booted up FSXSE and loaded a default plane. Worked like a charm.

 

 

- Edit2:

 

You can safely delete Symlinks without deleting the linked folder, by the way.

 

 

- Edit3:

To illustrate what FSX or Steam will "see" when they have to work with a symlinked folder: If you open a folder via symlink, the path to the folder in which the symlink resides will not change in the Explorer address bar.

So if you've e.g. symlinked your entire FSX folder and open up your FSX folder from inside "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\", you'll get "SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\FSX" as the current directory despite the content of the FSX folder being somewhere else on the drive.

 

 

Great post!

 

My personal concern with using symbolic links here (perhaps totally unfounded) is accidentally  blowing away shared 'core' folders when uninstalling SE or boxed FSX at some point.

 

 

So here is my experience switching over to FSX-SE. I used the Pete Dowson method of referencing my FSX install as highlighted earlier in this thread.

 

1) The scenery switch is very easy to do and works. Exceptions are sceneries from FSDreamteam that need to be installed separately into FSX Steam.

 

Once you've reinstalled an FSDT scenery, does it work in both sims or is a 'one or the other' only? Assuming it works in both, I imagine that once the installer has done it's magic, you can probably share a single copy of the actually scenery folder between both sims.

[MarkW 1,493]

One issue has cropped up that I need some help with.

 

Per Pete's suggestions I have referenced the FSX Simobjects folder in my fsx-se.cfg file.  Problem is that when I install aircraft into Steam, which is required for aircraft like PMDG or Aerosoft to work, they don't show up in the aircraft screen.

 

I have tried to add reference to the Steam Simobject Aerosoft folder but it does not seem to fix the problem.  Note that it did work for PMDG because I just installed the aircraft in both FSX and FSX-SE and I could do the same for Aerosoft but before I do that I wonder if there is a simpler way to do it.

 

Relevent parts of the cfg below:

 

 

FSX-SE.cfg file.

 

[Main]

SimObjectPaths.0=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Airplanes

SimObjectPaths.1=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Rotorcraft

SimObjectPaths.2=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\GroundVehicles

SimObjectPaths.3=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Boats

SimObjectPaths.4=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Animals

SimObjectPaths.5=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\Misc

SimObjectPaths.6=F:\Flight Simulator X\SimObjects\UT2 Aircraft

SimObjectPaths.7=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A320CFM

SimObjectPaths.8=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A320IAE

SimObjectPaths.9=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A319CFM

SimObjectPaths.10=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A319IAE

SimObjectPaths.11=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A321IAE

SimObjectPaths.12=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A321CFM

SimObjectPaths.13=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A320_321 Base

SimObjectPaths.14=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes\Aerosoft Airbus A318_319 Base

[odourboy 1,290]

Mark, rather than having all those separate steam paths (SimObjectPaths.7 to .14) did you try a single path like this:

 

SimObjectPaths.7=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes

 

That would seem to me to be the way to go.

[MarkW 1,493]

Mark, rather than having all those separate steam paths (SimObjectPaths.7 to .14) did you try a single path like this:

 

SimObjectPaths.7=F:\Steam\steamapps\common\fsx\SimObjects\Airplanes

 

That would seem to me to be the way to go.

 

Yes but I get an error message that FSX has detected multiple aircraft with duplicate name so that is when I went to the individual folders.

[kdfw__ 542]

How do I side by side install orbx pnw scenery?

 

Seems installer allows fsx or fsxse but not both.

[MarkW 1,493]

How do I side by side install orbx pnw scenery?

 

Seems installer allows fsx or fsxse but not both.

 

Just reference the full path to ORBX in your scenery.cfg located in C:\Windows\Program Data\FSX-SE folder.  You can do this with almost all of your scenery (FSDT is an exception).

[Capt Speirs 52]

So here is my experience switching over to FSX-SE.  I used the Pete Dowson method of referencing my FSX install as highlighted earlier in this thread.

 

1) The scenery switch is very easy to do and works.  Exceptions are sceneries from FSDreamteam that need to be installed separately into FSX Steam.

2) Some aircraft work.  I had success with Captain Sim, Majestic and some freeware using this referencing method.  Needed to reinstall PMDG, Aerosoft, LevelD.  FSLabs Concorde will not work at all until the developer makes it compatible.

3) EZCA, worked but I need to upgrade to the latest version.

4) LINDA, works.

5) HiFiSim - I have not been able to get it working yet...but I know it will just something I have done.

6) REX - I pointed it to my Steam install but it seems like it did not install any new textures.  My water looks terrible.

7) FSInn - Works but need some messing around with the registry.  I posted on the Vatsim FSInn forum a link to the instructions I used to get it working.

8) Nvidia Inspector.  Not working yet, I think I need to reinstall the video driver in order to get NI to point to the FSX-SE exe file.

 

So it took a bit of time to get everything working, memory management as advertised is better and the sim seems smoother but I do have long pauses as my HDD is terribly fragmented now with all of the changes I made.  I will be running a defrag once I get everything working properly.

I hope all this is worth it. I just don't see the point yet, I want to. I've got 5 bucks riding on this.  :rolleyes:

[kiwiflyer45 123]

I am one of the FS9 holdouts who is now moving into FSX-SE. I am finding some quirks but on the whole I am very impressed. I will still continue to use FS9 as well, as it has evolved way beyond what many of you will remember and graphically there isn't a lot of difference between my massively tweaked FS9 and FSX-SE. But yes, I admit it. If I could have got FSX to run like the steam edition does I would have made the switch long ago. For me it's definitely a winner

[kdfw__ 542]

Just reference the full path to ORBX in your scenery.cfg located in C:\Windows\Program Data\FSX-SE folder.  You can do this with almost all of your scenery (FSDT is an exception).

thanks.

 

changed to full path and orbx stuff now appear in fsx-se.  however, it's missing quite a bit of non-tree autogen in the orbx area and some airports have elevation problem for some reason... 

[Pete Dowson 558]

Per Pete's suggestions I have referenced the FSX Simobjects folder in my fsx-se.cfg file.  Problem is that when I install aircraft into Steam, which is required for aircraft like PMDG or Aerosoft to work, they don't show up in the aircraft screen.

 

You could have just added another SimObjects line to point to the FSX aircraft, but you would then get problems with duplicate default aircraft in the Steam folder. Easy enough to delete the default aircraft folders, of course, to avoid this conflict, but I didn't do this because I use a separate folder for the few FSX-installed aircraft I need, "MyAircraft", and copy their folders into that. (I only fly a 737NG because that's what my cockpit is. It suits no others).

 

Pete