Hello,

 

don't get me wrong people, I love FSX, and I've been more or less using it since it was released in 2006 but...

 

How is that today's most powerful computers can't barely maintain 30 frames around big airports? And you have to work hard for that (best hardware money can buy, dx10 fixers, tweaking, more tweaking, some luck... and a little bit of tweaking probably next day). Just when you need maximum precision, when you're landing, everything drops! Try landing Carenado's C90 at LEBL with Aerosoft Barcelona X installed and you'll know what I mean.

 

You can always lower your graphics settings, using default scenery and aircraft only, killing AI flights, staying away of big airports, clearing the weather... but where's the fun in that? A fully addon loaded FS9 would be much better and keep happily 60FPS...

 

Am I the only one who thinks that that shouldn't be happening at all, that frame-rate should be flying nowadays (no pun intended!) when using a piece of software that was created between 2003 and 2006...? 

 

What worries me most is that these new "updated" versions don't seem to be improving much on it. I admit I'm not using Steam Edition or P3D, but following AVSIM's forums nobody seems to be able to have solid 60FPS with decent addons. Not much seems to have changed...

 

 

I don't know, just my two cents about it... 

 

 

Greetings from Catalonia

(And please, excuse my English, really trying my best with it)

How is that today's most powerful computers can't barely maintain 30 frames around big airports?

 

Because FSX was programmed to be CPU dependent, worse than that, it likes clock speeds, which haven't really moved in 10 years.  You might also want to run FSX out of the box, i can pretty much max everything that way.

 

 

 

What worries me most is that these new "updated" versions don't seem to be improving much on it. I admit I'm not using Steam Edition or P3D,

 

See above, FSX:SE made no changes to the base code.  P3D has made a difference with the integration of DX11, but underneath it all it's still plane (pun intended) old FSX.

 

You might want to try X-Plane or DCS; maybe wait for DCS:W2, both are technical more advanced and both lack the number of addons FSX can provide you with.  DCS is also purely military at the minute.

To the OP, I'd like to call you by name, but that seems to be missing from your post.  Using Carenado aircraft can cause "fps abuse".  I won't get into the rather lengthy conversations that I have seen of late with respect to their products but honestly, ask yourself what you REALLY want to do in the sim.  I have literally tried both sides of the fence in FSX.  At one time, I stayed firmly planted with flying GA aircraft and loaded up on tons of ORBX scenery, tweaked my system to the max and got some good results...until I flew around a heavily urban area and then tore my hair out.  After my fourth computer upgrade in 5 years, I changed my focus to flying tubeliners...why?...because that's what I wanted to learn.  The scenery excitement wore off after a while and I asked myself why I am not learning.  Since then, I toned down the scenery installs, bought and installed REALLY good, and reliable (and fully functional) aircraft from PMDG and I couldn't be happier.  I still get a decent scenery experience, but more importantly, I am learning how to fly.

 

-Jim

Also remember, very few people are now running stock FSX.  My laptop blitzes stock P3D, but then add ASN, REX 4, EZDOC, VoxATC, MyTraffic 6, FTX Global Base/Vector/EuroLC/FTX regions, high detail airports, and I'm back down to levels where I need to carefully slider manage, and that's before I've even got to the aircraft, which have progressed in complexity far beyond anything that was around in 2007.

 

So, as Ian said, we are pushing an old architecture to the absolute limit, possibly beyond it's limits, and barring a significant advance in clock speeds, only a new architecture (either through advances in P3D, or moving to another sim) is going to have any appreciable difference.

You do realize that the product was abandoned many years ago by MS, right? You can't expect updates and improvements. It is what it is. There's no point in fussing about it as there is absolutely no one to listen with any ability to do anything about it.

Would help if Intel would start giving us faster CPU's. These 5-15% performance jumps between CPU generations is getting a bit tiresome.

Because FSX uses DX9, and with all the complicated scenery and airplanes today, DX9 is not a good way to display that. You need to overclcok your cpu to approaching 5ghz to make up for that. If DX11 or higher get put into P3D it will be a big benefit

 

How is that today's most powerful computers can't barely maintain 30 frames around big airports?

 

1. FSX is heavily CPU dependent, so modern GPUs are asleep most of the time.

2. CPU manufacturing has hit a brick wall where performance improvements are concerned.

3. Multiple monitor super high resolution setups don't help.

There are some issues with FSX, but with every cpu & gpu upgrade, I've noticed a really nice fps improvement. You just need the right hardware, drivers, the right add-ons, and some FSX tweaking.

 

I've learned FSX's limitations and I've also learned to live with it's limitations, such as the occasional micro pauses. What I can't understand is, why are some devs still producing sceneries that reduce fps, increase VAS, or scenery that can look better without useless extras?

 

I'm also wondering why on earth are devs not considering X-Plane 10?

 

It's a 64bit platform with lots of potential. We need to start asking our favorite devs to at least consider X-Plane ASAP.

 

Jose

 

 

Would help if Intel would start giving us faster CPU's. These 5-15% performance jumps between CPU generations is getting a bit tiresome.

 

They can't, that's why they have been effectively static for almost 10 years now.  Look at the people running 7Ghz, they are using serious (and ridiculously expensive) systems, some costing north of £10,000.  Heat is the major issue around increasing clock speeds.  

 

Most reports are that Moore's law is coming to an end, Intel is even delaying the 10nm chips until 2017, IBM have produced a 7nm, but these are a long way from consumer products.

 

For home users, 4.9Ghz is achievable and somewhat realistic (probably at the cost of your CPU life)

I have to agree with Ian (WotanUK) in post #2 above.  Out of the box FSX runs great.  But then you start adding eye-candy scenery and aircraft things start going downhill from there.  This is why a lot of people stated FSX-SE was super fast when they first installed this product.  Now it too is getting bogged down by new scenery, aircraft, AI, and weather programs.

 

Best regards,

I'm also wondering why on earth are devs not considering X-Plane 10?

 

Chicken and egg.  It won't get the people until it gets the content, but it won't get the content until it gets the people.  

 

It's improving, but just look at the level of traffic on their respective forums, XPX ones are almost uniformly quieter, particularly the Steam ones (where a lot of younger/newer users are likely to be).

 

There are very few (if any) structural reasons to choose FSX over XPX (the only ones that come to mind are the interface that only a mother could love and the love it or loathe it flight model), but it is short of high quality content in a number of areas (ATC, weather engines and arguably really top level AC).  Build it and they will come, but someone has to make the first move.  Hopefully PMDG will be the catalyst needed to kick start a revolution in XPX content....

Would help if Intel would start giving us faster CPU's. These 5-15% performance jumps between CPU generations is getting a bit tiresome.

 

Nah, efficiency is much more important.

 

On the upside, an I series CPU overclocks much, much better than a Q series CPU did. So if you need the clock speed, you can simply command it via overlocking. You won't even need to worry about heat and power consumption anymore.

 

 

I'm also wondering why on earth are devs not considering X-Plane 10?

 

For aircraft at least, X-Plane and MSFS share about the same commonality as English and Chinese do for languages, i.e. they're meant for the same purpose but that's about it.

 

Even cross-developing for FS9 and FSX is kind of a headache and these are "just" a jump in version numbering apart.

 

 

If DX11 or higher get put into P3D it will be a big benefit

 

P3D is DX11

There's certainly a correlation between reduced performance and add-on installs. The more add-on I install, the slower the performance, but my experience is only in loading time.

 

The Citation Mustang will only give me low 20s fps initially in NYC, even with a clean install. Add some airports and ASN and I there's a reduction in FPS, but not by much. The sim still runs smooth, but sluggish.

 

This is where a faster processor and gpu helps gain some performance and smoothness.