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Move over To FSX After 10 years on FS9 - Am I missing something ?

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I have just moved over to FSX after using FS9 for nearly 10 years.

 

I do not want to start a tread that others have previously started, but after reading, researching on this Forum, online, tutorials I am really at a loss with FSX, and I considered myself to know a reasonable amount with what works in MSFS and what doesn't.

 

The issue is not new and covered many times before, moving from FS9 to FSX is such a drop in performance.

 

And I have not moved all the setting sliders to the rights as I had in FS9 and I have no AI traffic yet installed. 

 

I have only installed one airport add-on which is London Heathrow just as a test bed.

 

With everything on medium to low I only get 5-10 FPS, therefore totally un-flyable.

 

I know FSX is a lot hungrier than FS9 therefore maybe my PC is just not up-to the job.

 

My request here is not to start a debate on FSX V FS9, just an opinion if my rig should be able to run FSX with some AI and add-on scenery with medium settings.

 

My set up is as follows;

 

Windows 7 Home Premium 64 Bit

Intel i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz over clocked to 3.81 GHz

8 GB RAM

NVIDIA Geoforce MSI GTX 660

 

Some initial feedback on my set up would be helpful so I can decide weither or not to make the massive move to FSX or put the software back on the shelf !

 

Many thanks in advance.

 

Simon

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My computer has i7 2.8 Mhz not overclocked, 16 Gb of RAM, ATI 5000 series graphics card with 3 monitors and Windows 10 that replaced Windows 7 64 Home and with quite a bit of scenery on it. Your computer should be able to handle it since you have most of the settings set to low and medium. One thing I do, though is allow it several minutes to load the background stuff before I fly. When the hard drive light stops or slows down then I give it a go. One thing you might try is starting at some small rural field with less scenery as I have trouble with dense city scenery like New York, Los Angeles, and I suspect London and Paris too.

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Your system is fine for running FSX.

 

You might consider going through the FSX / P3D Config Guide.  It can help you a LOT with getting the best performance out of FSX.

 

I'd also recommend the Steam version of FSX as it does have marginally better performance.  If you already have the disk version installed, you can install both FSX and FSX:SE, however having a dual install can be problematic for some addons. For this and a few others reasons (mostly Beta Testing), I decided to reinstall Windows to clean all traces of FSX Disk version and run only FSX:SE.

 

Best of luck to you!


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

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London Heathrow addon is a hard one on frame rates to start with. 

What plane are you using for testing with?

 

Alan

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It's a Lynnfield CPU - anything pre-Sandy Bridge is pretty marginal for FSX, and Heathrow doesn't help one bit.

 

Cheers!

 

Luke

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Luke Kolin

I make simFDR, the most advanced flight data recorder for FSX, Prepar3D and X-Plane.

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Thank you all for your replies and suggestions.

 

I am only using the stock FSX aircraft at the moment, I tested using the A321 and 737 and all gave me very low FPS and an un flyable experience.

 

I will try the Avsim FSX config guide and see if that helps.

 

If not, as I do not have the money to build a new rig and then buy all my FS( add-ons for FSX I will probably have to shelve the move over just yet.

 

I should have said I fly airliners into all the main airports with a lot of AI traffic, that's the experience I want, so maybe FSX isn't for me yet with my current rig.

 

I wish you all a Happy New Year.

 

Simon

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When I ran FSX on my Core2Duo laptop, I found most add-on scenery was a big no-no, particularly high detail airfields.

 

Also some settings make much more difference to FPS than others, try disabling all road and water traffic. Autogen is the other big hog, tweak detail and radius settings for it. Finally, there's clouds, keep range to 60 miles max and tweak what quantity of then will be high detail 3D ones.

 

Once I did that FSX got playable frames on a machine much slower than OP's, even with some heavy add-on aircraft like PMDG. Try not to focus on the FPS counter too much once you've optimised your settings, as 15 fps in FSX feels a lot smoother than 15 fps in FS9.


ckyliu, proud supporter of ViaIntercity.com. i5 12400F, 32GB, GTX980, more in "About me" on my profile. 

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Good Morning,

 

After a few tweaks as per the AVSIM guide I am still only getting 10 frames at Heathrow without any AI traffic.

 

Most of the sliders are on min or normal and I have to ask myself, why change to FSX ?  I wanted the better graphics, I see no other benefit, and yet in order to run it I have to keep everything very low.

 

I am going to have a look into what CPU I can upgrade to as that may be an option, as most articles I have read suggest I7 cpu for FSX.

 

Thank you all for your help, I do greatly appreciate it.

 

Regards

Simon

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FSX is a much more powerful sim than FS9.

 

Heathrow is probably the most demanding airport in FSX and London is one of the most demanding areas. Your fps there I would expect would be the lowest you're ever going to see them.

 

Reduce your autogen to sparse, reduce water to Low 1x, turn cars and boats off and turn off Bloom and Shadows. These are the biggest fps killers. See what fps you get and then start moving the autogen up, then the water but personally I don't set it higher than Low 2x anyway.

  • Upvote 1

Tom Wright

Microsoft Flight Simulator (2020) | Intel Core i7 4770k @ 4.3GHz | 16GB DDR3 1600MHz RAM | GTX 1060 6GB | Samsung 860 EVO 500GB | Thrustmaster TCA Airbus Sidestick + Quadrant | Xbox Series S

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Simon,

 

You can't go wrong moving to a later generation i5 or i7 processor, however...

 

The primary difference between an i5 and an i7 is Hyperthreading, something which most FSX users should turn off if they are looking to increase performance.  It doesn't need to be turned off on an i5 processor because it does not the Hyperthreading,

 

What you currently have is a 1st Generation i5.  I ran FSX with the equivilent of the processor you're presently using (mine was an i7-930, which I later upgraded to an i7-960) for many years and I sold my computer to a FSX teammate who is still using it to this day. In fact, we fly and test FSX software (aircraft, scenery, tools, etc.) several times a week, and the computer in question is still performing great.

 

Other posters are correct, Heathrow is notoriously hard on frame rates - likely the toughest airport on frame rates in all of FSX ESPECIALLY if you're using the first version of EGLL from Aerosoft. The second version from Aerosoft is a little better, but the best Heathrow (for frame rates) is the one from UK2000 - it's still tough on frames, but it's easier on frame rates than the Aerosoft versions.

 

Certainly moving to an i7-4790K or i7-5000 or 6000 series is always a good idea, however if you wish to save money then I'll tell you that you don't HAVE to build a new computer to run FSX.  If you do build a new system, please be sure to get a H-110 Water cooler or equivilent, it's about $100 USD and you'll be very glad you did.

 

Before you go and spend the money on a new system, I recommend you download the SunSkyJet KPHL scenery. It's some of the best freeware scenery for a major airport (our team did an extensive Beta on this scenery). This is complex scenery of a large airport, and if you can get 14 fps or better at any gate at KPHL, then you're system is setup fine.and can likely handle most payware airports. If you're FSX setup is really tuned up, you might get frame rate better than 14fps.

 

There is a lot to know when grooming a first generation i5 or i7 processor to run FSX as smoothly as possible, but when you move to a 4th generation or later (notice I said "later" instead of "better" because for the cost verses benefit it's hard to beat the i7-4790K) most of that "setup" really no longer applies as processor can better manage itself rather than using tweaks/hacks as we did with the first generation i5/i7 processors.

 

If you decide to build a new system, and are looking to sell your existing one (not including the hard drive, which you should keep), please PM me.

 

Best of luck my friend.


Dave Hodges

 

System Specs:  I9-13900KF, NVIDIA 4070TI, Quest 3, Multiple Displays, Lots of TERRIFIC friends, 3 cats, and a wonderfully stubborn wife.

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Thank you all for your suggestions.

 

I decided to keep running FS9 with my system, and to put FSX on the shelf for a while.

 

I always fly from Heathrow as its my home airport and fly heavies, and AI at 100% is a must for me.

 

I am using UK2000 and i ried it in FSX with no AI and got 10 FPS.  My FS9 system with 100% AI and all the sliders on Max got 40 fps.

 

One day i may decide to move over.

 

Thank you all again.

Simon

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When I purchased FSX steam edition I thought the same thing. At the time I bought it, I was waiting for my new computer to be delivered, and thought, Oh what the hell! I'll put it on this ole Toshiba laptop just to see what is different. Since I've used FS98, FS2000, FS2002, and FS2004. A 6 year old Toshiba Sattelite an AMD E-300 with a Radeon HD graphics at 1.3 Ghz, 4GB of RAM. FSX Steam was very playable. Yeah, sliders were maybe just below mid way, but what killed performance were background apps that loaded during startup. Skype, my wive's coupon apps, hehe. and more. So now I have my Cybertronics with an AMD FX4300 with 8gb Ram, and spent the last week tweaking addons, textures, Nvidia settings, and Lovin FSX. Runs So much smoother than FS2004 ever did with everything up high. I did get a little pause on occasion on take off, but tweaked NVidia Control panel, and is wonderful. its probably something outside of FSX thats causing it as its Not your Computer speed, its not FSX. "If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth" . look at graphics card settings, what else is running? (AdAware antivirus killed my old sytem).

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Guest

 

 


I decided to keep running FS9 with my system, and to put FSX on the shelf for a while.

 

A wise decision. Unless you want to make a very heavy investment in the Hardware to run FSX its a smarter move to stick with FS9. It wouldn't be just a matter of upgrading your CPU. You would be building a entire new system to run FSX as well as you have FS9 running. And if you went that far you might as well just skip FSX and go straight to Prepar3D V3. Plus the cost of replacing all you addons with the FSX/P3D version. You would be getting a couple of thousand of your currency into it.

 

Yes, A wise decision :-)

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I've no wish to start another  FSX v X Plane debate but if you are starting from scratch again I would suggest taking a serious look at X plane

I'm a long time user of FS starting with FS2002 but was tempted to buy XPlane by the recent steam 50%  reduction sale and am very impressed with the vanilla Xplane compared to the vanilla FSX. Add the free scenery mesh, free object libraries and free EZdok equivalent camera plugin and and it starts to look very good.

Quality aircraft, airport, weather and scenery addons are still thin on the ground but starting to appear

 

It is of course  64bit so forget about OOMs (VAS readings per ProcessExplorer have reached 13GB plus) and difficult installations. Everything drops into a simple folder structure - not into every nook and cranny in Windows

 

FSX and the 500GBs of add ons that  I have will remain my sytem of choice but I will be keeping a close eye on X Plane developments

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I decided to keep running FS9 with my system, and to put FSX on the shelf for a while.

 

I installed FSX a couple of years ago but have kept FS9 on my system, as I find it is often a better option when flying airliners from major airports. Beautiful and all though FSX is (particularly with Orbx enhancements), high demand airliners and airports will not only slow the FPS (not something I routinely measure though if FSX is functioning smoothly) but, perhaps more importantly, will eat into the VAS usage causing OOMs. For this reason I tend to use FSX with its beautiful scenery rendition for low and slow VFR flights and FS9 for airliners, although FSX is still usable for high demand airliners on my 'mid-range' system with the sliders turned down.

 

I would agree with keeping FS9, but by following some of the advice given in other posts above, you might also be able to get FSX running ro an acceptable standard.

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