FSX-MS Windows 10 Pro and FSX smoothness

[PinkJackal 86]

this was an nVidia driver issue which is now fixed, I didn't saw this problem, so no need for compatibility mode!

[SteveW 1,792]

When I installed FSX on Win 10, I had an issue with no airplane showing in the free flight screen.  When I shut FSX down, Win 10 prompted me to allow the "compatibility troubleshooter".  I gave it permission to do so, and it settled on Vista SP2.  In summary,  I didn't select this mode, but Win 10 through the troubleshooter did it all on it's own.  It may not work for everyone, but it was pure gold for my system.

I had an enquiry about this recently, deleting the fsx.cfg cured it. I'm wondering if your system had some other problem in the compatibility subsystem, preventing it interpreting the fsx.cfg correctly. Compatibility modes fiddle with stuff like commas and periods for decimal points under the hood. If you now set the compatibility mode back to off for FSX.exe, does it again exhibit the problem you described?

[curt1 79]

I had an enquiry about this recently, deleting the fsx.cfg cured it. I'm wondering if your system had some other problem in the compatibility subsystem, preventing it interpreting the fsx.cfg correctly. Compatibility modes fiddle with stuff like commas and periods for decimal points under the hood. If you now set the compatibility mode back to off for FSX.exe, does it again exhibit the problem you described?

The black screen problem in the free flight screen was commonly reported by many using Win 10.  Since I installed FSX on a brand new pc, I had no reason to doubt a faulty fsx.cfg.  With all due respect to your request, I'm afraid to even tinker with it as you suggested....I might unknowingly cause a problem flipping modes at this point.

[SteveW 1,792]

Not to worry, it was only a matter of interest. I suspect it could work OK now without the compatibility mode set, which essentially isn't required on FSX in Win10 or otherwise. Changing compatibility modes for compatible apps can cause other issues, so worth bearing in mind. All the best Curt.

 

 

The black screen problem in the free flight screen was commonly reported by many using Win 10.  Since I installed FSX on a brand new pc, I had no reason to doubt a faulty fsx.cfg.

By the way, you misunderstand me, to be clear I wasn't suggesting the cfg to be faulty, only the interpretation through the compatibility subsystem, but not to worry.

 

From the enquiry I had, the PC may have been rebooted first then he thought, "I'll delete the cfg", but the problem was already cured. It could be that the machine had not finished installing updates and the error crept in during a partly updated system. I had another system which had an update, some USB drivers functioned in an unusual manner, soon after another update all went as normal.

 

In the event of the GPU drivers being updated, since I've got NVidia I always run the control panel app and use the Restore button to delete the profiles, and start new ones. I've found some problems going to certain versions in the past, and the Restore button always cured them.

[NovemberUniform 156]

I have an Samsung SSD Evo 250gb just for FSX

I've turned off every option and apps in settings for win 10 as I don't need them

I've excluded FSX folder from Win antivirus

I've run FSX.exe as admin

I've set up nVidia Inspector as I did for win7

 

The problem is that I can maintain 30FPS with no problem in FSX but when I'm turning or I see the airport, stutter occurs, and I'm talking about default airport as I have vanilla FSX!!!

 

Hi Albert,

 

I see exactly the same stuttering now with windows 10. No problem keeping the locked 30fps but ~ every two seconds there is this small but noticeable lag - even with default aircraft in remote scenery. I must admit, I did no fresh install of windows 10 but rather chose to upgrade from windows 7 to try and find out with minimal effort.

 

I did not have the time to investigate much. I still use FSX as the problem is not a complete show stopper for me. But before on windows 7 everything was nice and smooth.

 

I used Word Not Allowed's FSX tweaking guide to setup FSX and windows 7 (and now windows 10) including all of your mentioned points from the quote above.

 

Would be nice to find out what the cause for this is...

[Bjoern 1,153]

Have you tried my anti virus suggestion?

 

Using Defender as protection against viruses seriously impaired FSX performance. Things are much better with Antivir. It's free to boot, so why not give it a try?

[NovemberUniform 156]

I disabled anti virus and firewall completely but it did not improve anything. My feeling is, the issue comes from video driver settings. Although they are exactly the same as before on win7. Maybe nvidia inspector works different on windows 10. I don`t know. I think about degrading back to win7.

[PinkJackal 86]

 I think about degrading back to win7.

I did exactly that! 

I'll wait for win10 to receive more updates and maybe I'll try it again next year.

For now I'm more into XPX, i think it's a great sim, especially with the new upcoming planes!!

[virtualstuff 751]

I did exactly that! 

I'll wait for win10 to receive more updates and maybe I'll try it again next year.

For now I'm more into XPX, i think it's a great sim, especially with the new upcoming planes!!

Well we have the first major upgrade from windows 10 rolling out V1511

[GullWings 0]

Hey Chaps,

I just learnt a good lesson about how to treat tweaking on boxed FSX Acceleration (or Gold)!

I had just added another 16Gb of DDR3 RAM to my i7-8700k, as I needed the extra memory for other titles such as DCS.

Anyway, after first flying FSX after this, I noticed my FPS had gone to s..t, like unflyable (getting down 7 FPS around airports, !!! i.e. basically made it unusable !!!

I freaked out, as I had prior to this, very smooth flying with DX9 on my Win 10 Pro 64 bit system when it had the 16 GB RAM. I even had custom DX9 NIP applied to FSX for my GTX750Ti and it all did NOT help a bit.

PS: My FPS was set as at 30 max inside FSX.

So, I wiped out my FSX.CFG, let the sim re-build it, and added just the HIMEM tweak. That's all.

Nothing else, while I left all my FSX settings' sliders stay as they were before.

I restarted and FPS was still  BAD, but with now needles/spikes, screen tearing, flashes, you name it, so even WORSE NEWS!

I then added JUST THIS to ...

[BUFFERPOOLS]
UsePools=0

RELIEF!!!!!

FPS now sits at my fixed 30 with max dips down to 15 at complex airports like KSEA. There is some flashing/small needles, but it's really OK 99% of the time.

My lesson learnt (al la Froogle's video on 'tweaking')…

Add one tweak at a time, then benchmark performance of each with the same plane, same scenery, same everything!

This way you get real results.

I contend FSX had to 'learn my new system', (the 2 extra physical sticks of RAM), then gain AFTER THAT benefit from directing all vertex rendering to the GPU.

Hope this helps!

GW

Edited July 5, 2019 by GullWings
Spelling

[Fielder 3,644]

Thanks, Gull, I seldom if ever had  "needles/spikes, screen tearing, flashes", until I tried a new plane I purchased and suddenly intermittent all of the above.

But using your advised settings below, they seemed to all have gone away. If they don't stay away, I'll report back. But so far I think it may have cured those back to where it used to be. 🙂

[BUFFERPOOLS]
UsePools=0

 

Edited July 14, 2019 by Fielder

[GullWings 0]

Fielder et al,

Another story of woe and partial fixes for someone who still resists giving up on FSX because of their collection of payware, WX & AI Add-Ons, ORBX scenery ($$$s), hours of building custom cameras and XML gauges, FLTs, etc, etc …

Having 'relatively tamed' the FPS and graphics, I was confronted on approach to LOWI with a 'blast from the past', i.e. the dreaded "8 minute FSX freeze" !!!  I waited it out, as I recalled how, if the sound kept going, it would come back.

I then applied an AF to exclude Core 0 / Thread 0 given my i7-8700's 6 Cores (with HT on)

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=4092

That's seemed to work for now too. Phew!

What's next......Microsoft® Flight Simulator 2020 (Azure cloud-based real time AI, scenery, shading and WX)?

I must be starting to dream of a time I can actually bring myself to saying goodbye to FSX

[RayHff 6]

I found this info and it worked for me.......................

 

When FSX was run the first time, a cache was also created under the C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\FSX folder.   It contains a sub-folder called Shaders (some systems may have an additional folder called Shader10) in which instructions and codes that are frequently accessed by FSX are stored.  Every time FSX is run, contents of the cache will be optimized further to improve overall system performance.

C:\Users\"your name"\AppData\Local\Microsoft\FSX
 
However, this cache is prone to be messed up when settings of fsx.CFG are changed or system is toggled between DX9 and DX10, etc.

One symptom of this cache problem is the introduction of stutters in areas where no stutters were experienecd before.  The other is the failure of proper rendering of graphic capabilities, such as abnormal anti-aliasing.

To fix the issue, go to the folder mentioned above and delete everything inside the folder.  The cache will be refreshed and rebuilt the next time FSX is run.

Rebuilding reduces performance and introduces stutters while the folder is caching, so you do it when necessary. and only then.

 Anytime you change graphic cards, drivers, or update the sim it is advisable to rebuild the shader file. Other than that, leave it alone.

 

Edited July 20, 2019 by RayHff