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pilot2003

FSX low fps ! :( Please help me tweak it !

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Some pretty bad advice being given here, I am sorry to say.

 

First, your system is extremely weak, so you will not be able to get much out of FSX, that is true.

 

"Put TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096"

No, don't! You are only going to need more system recourses to run higher resolution textures!


"Set frame rate limiter to 30, not 20."

The frame rate limiter inside FSX is bugged. Apart from limiting your FPS, it also supresses your FPS. Which means, that running an FPS limiter, causes your frame rate to run lower. According to NickN from Flight1, and FPS limiter will not make your FSX smoother. This has also been my experience, mostly. Unless you can achieve super high FPS, which might introduce jumps and microstutters, put your frame rate limit to UNLIMITED

 

 

Now, DirectX10. Despite many assertions made, DX10 does not run better than DX9. The reason people report DX10 as the better performer, is because they have not tweaked their DX9, or tweaked it wrong. Therefore, DX10 will seem to perform better. It's all relative. However, if you manage to run your DX9 properly, you'll get signifantly higher FPS than in DX10.

 

One tweak I do not see posted enough is switching off bufferpools inside your fsx.CFG. Now, it is definitely true that switching off bufferpools might cause system instability. You might get artifacting and crashes. Artifacting is especially noticable when running planes that are not demanding on your system, such as the Trike. But since you are running PMDG planes, this should not be happening. Secondly, another potential issue is crashing and system instability. This will espically happen if your system is extremely unbalanced. It is quite hard to predict how your system will react to switching off bufferpools, but the only way to see, is just to try it out.

So what results should switching off bufferpools get you? Around 25-50% increase in FPS.

 

How to do get it to work:

 

Go to your fsx.CFG and add

 

[bufferPools]

PoolSize=0

 

Again, test and see if you get stability issues, but a significant FPS increase will definitely happen.

 

The problem with this tweak is, it will not take effect in DX10 mode! That's the reason why DX9, assuming it's now properly tweaked by switching off bufferpools, will run better than DX10! Do not use this tweak, and DX10 might run better. That's where the difference is. So in other words: people who report DX10 as the better performer, haven't switched bufferpools off. So there is not necessarily a definitive answer to "Does DX10 run better than DX9?". It just depends on how you tweak it. 

 

I see you have posted a double fsx.CFG. Maybe you did this by accident, but if not, every entry exists twice. I advice you to delete your fsx.CFG. FSX will not build a new one when you restart it. Now you can start tweaking.

 

The only tweaks you are really going to need are:

HIGHMEMFIX=1, switching off bufferpools, and a proper affinity mask setting. Please search on the internet what the proper value is for affinity mask for your specific CPU. I am not sure about the proper setting. Note that setting it wrong might cause problems, because the tweak commands FSX to run at a specific core of your CPU. 

 

 

Now, your NVIDIA Inspector settings.

 

You have set VSync to 1/2 refresh rate. I am assuming you have a 60 Hz monitor. Running at 1/2 refresh rate therefore means FSX is trying to run VSync at 30 Hz or 30 FPS. Considering you are not even able to achieve 30 FPS, and probably never will on that system, that tweak is completely useless. It's better to switch if off, because it might even cause stuttering. Let's say you were able to run 30 FPS in 95% of the scenarios, it is advicable to put VSync 1/2 refresh rate to ON, because in that case it will in fact get rid of all the stutters. But since you are not being able to achieve such performance, leave it off.

 

Spare grid supersampling

 

The higher you set this, the crispier FSX will look (less shimmering). I see you have set this to a whopping 8x. Assuming you did not know how demanding SSGS is, I am going to tell you that most of the systems nowadays will not be able to run this at all! It will even bring state of the art NVIDIA Pascal video cards to their knees in some cases.

 

One advice would be to completely forget about NVIDIA Inspector with that system. It is mostly meant for eye-candy, and your FPS is too low for VSync to work properly. I advice you to set everything to default, and forget about it, it will only REDUCE performance for you.

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I agree with almost all of Arjen's assertions with perhaps the exception of bufferpools.  Considering your video card is a workstation card with 1GB of memory that would not be wise.  You can certainly try and see....

 

The 8x SSGS is an absolute killer.  I agree - ditch the Inspector and DX10 for your setup or get a better vid card.

 

Ilya


Ilya Eydis, PPL, ASEL

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Some pretty bad advice being given here, I am sorry to say.

 

First, your system is extremely weak, so you will not be able to get much out of FSX, that is true.

 

"Put TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096"

 

No, don't! You are only going to need more system recourses to run higher resolution textures!

 

 

"Set frame rate limiter to 30, not 20."

 

The frame rate limiter inside FSX is bugged. Apart from limiting your FPS, it also supresses your FPS. Which means, that running an FPS limiter, causes your frame rate to run lower. According to NickN from Flight1, and FPS limiter will not make your FSX smoother. This has also been my experience, mostly. Unless you can achieve super high FPS, which might introduce jumps and microstutters, put your frame rate limit to UNLIMITED

 

 

Now, DirectX10. Despite many assertions made, DX10 does not run better than DX9. The reason people report DX10 as the better performer, is because they have not tweaked their DX9, or tweaked it wrong. Therefore, DX10 will seem to perform better. It's all relative. However, if you manage to run your DX9 properly, you'll get signifantly higher FPS than in DX10.

 

One tweak I do not see posted enough is switching off bufferpools inside your fsx.CFG. Now, it is definitely true that switching off bufferpools might cause system instability. You might get artifacting and crashes. Artifacting is especially noticable when running planes that are not demanding on your system, such as the Trike. But since you are running PMDG planes, this should not be happening. Secondly, another potential issue is crashing and system instability. This will espically happen if your system is extremely unbalanced. It is quite hard to predict how your system will react to switching off bufferpools, but the only way to see, is just to try it out.

 

So what results should switching off bufferpools get you? Around 25-50% increase in FPS.

 

How to do get it to work:

 

Go to your fsx.CFG and add

 

[bufferPools]

PoolSize=0

 

Again, test and see if you get stability issues, but a significant FPS increase will definitely happen.

 

The problem with this tweak is, it will not take effect in DX10 mode! That's the reason why DX9, assuming it's now properly tweaked by switching off bufferpools, will run better than DX10! Do not use this tweak, and DX10 might run better. That's where the difference is. So in other words: people who report DX10 as the better performer, haven't switched bufferpools off. So there is not necessarily a definitive answer to "Does DX10 run better than DX9?". It just depends on how you tweak it. 

 

I see you have posted a double fsx.CFG. Maybe you did this by accident, but if not, every entry exists twice. I advice you to delete your fsx.CFG. FSX will not build a new one when you restart it. Now you can start tweaking.

 

The only tweaks you are really going to need are:

 

HIGHMEMFIX=1, switching off bufferpools, and a proper affinity mask setting. Please search on the internet what the proper value is for affinity mask for your specific CPU. I am not sure about the proper setting. Note that setting it wrong might cause problems, because the tweak commands FSX to run at a specific core of your CPU. 

 

 

Now, your NVIDIA Inspector settings.

 

You have set VSync to 1/2 refresh rate. I am assuming you have a 60 Hz monitor. Running at 1/2 refresh rate therefore means FSX is trying to run VSync at 30 Hz or 30 FPS. Considering you are not even able to achieve 30 FPS, and probably never will on that system, that tweak is completely useless. It's better to switch if off, because it might even cause stuttering. Let's say you were able to run 30 FPS in 95% of the scenarios, it is advicable to put VSync 1/2 refresh rate to ON, because in that case it will in fact get rid of all the stutters. But since you are not being able to achieve such performance, leave it off.

 

Spare grid supersampling

 

The higher you set this, the crispier FSX will look (less shimmering). I see you have set this to a whopping 8x. Assuming you did not know how demanding SSGS is, I am going to tell you that most of the systems nowadays will not be able to run this at all! It will even bring state of the art NVIDIA Pascal video cards to their knees in some cases.

 

One advice would be to completely forget about NVIDIA Inspector with that system. It is mostly meant for eye-candy, and your FPS is too low for VSync to work properly. I advice you to set everything to default, and forget about it, it will only REDUCE performance for you.

i'll do some benchmarks with DX9 Last time i got the same fps at both modes ! No difference at all with all those tweaks ! :) And I Did set SSGS to 4x i gained about 1-3 fp^s :)

I agree with almost all of Arjen's assertions with perhaps the exception of bufferpools.  Considering your video card is a workstation card with 1GB of memory that would not be wise.  You can certainly try and see....

 

The 8x SSGS is an absolute killer.  I agree - ditch the Inspector and DX10 for your setup or get a better vid card.

 

Ilya

I'll def Try to get one Hahahahahahaha

Thank you for your help ! :D

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I agree that less is more on a weak system.  SGSS on a low end GPU is a killer..

if you are running FSX at less than 20 fps, you need to lighten the load  :wink:

 

As for affinitymask,  do not use this for a dual core CPU, only for a quad or higher.


Bert

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Honestly pal, you need a new computer. Those specs are just far too low, I believe infact they are below the recommended requirements for FSX Steam


Let me guess.... you want 64bit. 

Josh Daniels-Johannson

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No offense ! But You don't get the point at all !

With the old CFG with all those addons i used to get 12-22fps WITH PMDG 737 NGX AND ORBX EU ENG

With the new one i get 7-9 !

Isnt' the answer obvious?  You can either get 12-22 fps with blurs or 7-9 without; you cannot, however, get 22 ps without blurs.  Don't waste your time tweaking, with your system it's not going to be fruitful.  Even if you manage to squeze 1 - 2 fps, is that going to be worth your time?  Instead, I recommend turning your sliders all the way down until you achieve an effective FPS; then again, that will probably result in blurs. Again, with your system, you're not going to achieve clarity and fps...find a balance...


Matt King

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Honestly pal, you need a new computer. Those specs are just far too low, I believe infact they are below the recommended requirements for FSX Steam

 

Oh yeah i totally agree ! 

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
  • MINIMUM:
    • OS: Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or later
    • Processor: 2.0 Ghz or higher (single core)
    • Memory: 2 GB RAM
    • Graphics: DirectX®9 compliant video card or greater, 256 MB video RAM or higher, Shader Model 1.1 or higher (Laptop versions of these chipsets may work but are not supported. Updates to your video and sound card drivers may be required)
    • DirectX: Version 9.0c
    • Network: Broadband Internet connection
    • Storage: 30 GB available space
    • Additional Notes: Broadband internet connection required for multiplayer features
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First of all, you don't seem to be willing to lower your settings. Maybe I am wrong, but I think you don't get the point. You don't seem to understand that it is not possible to run high-quality graphics on a system that is roughly 10 years old (if not more). You seem to be a little hostile to the advice given here. 

 

One thing about "Minimum system requirements"

 

Minimum system requirements tell you the system specs that are minimally needed to run a game at low settings. If you pulled all your scenery, traffic, and weather sliders all the way over to the left, and disabled all your NVIDIA Inspector settings, you would be getting 30 FPS+. See? Your system specs are sufficient in running FSX. The only thing is, you will have to sacrifice something a lot.

 

When you said you reduced your SGSS settings from 8x to 4x, I laughed a little because you don't seem to realize how weak that system is, and how much of a killer 4xSGSS is! I have a system that was considered "state of the art" back in 2012, and it barely runs 2xSGSS in cloudy conditions, let alone 4xSGSS! Do you see what I mean? 

Also, flying without NVIDIA Inspector settings, is really not that bad in my opinion. I flew with internal anti-aliasing and texture filtering for years back in 2010. What do you value higher? FPS or image quality? Your choice.

 

 

 


i'll do some benchmarks with DX9 Last time i got the same fps at both modes ! No difference at all with all those tweaks ! :) And I Did set SSGS to 4x i gained about 1-3 fp^s :)

 

DX9 and DX10 should indeed perform pretty identically, or DX10 even a little better, assuming the bufferpools tweak is NOT used in DX9. Bufferpools do not take effect in DX10.

 

You mention the tweaks do not work for you. Note that HIGHMEMFIX=1 does nothing to performance, it only serves to improves stability.

As someone else said, AffinityMask=xx should not be used, because your CPU is only a dual core. 

 

If you don´t like the blurries, increase your FFTF to the default of 0.33, instead of the 0.15 you have set right now. Higher is less blurries, lower is more FPS. Also a choice you have to make. 

 

The only tweak that should significantly improve your FPS, is the bufferpools tweak. I had a similar system as yours back in 2010, and this tweak worked the same for me. Could you please post another copy of your fsx.CFG, so I can see how your tweaks are currently applied?

 

 

One important advice. DO NOT upgrade that system. Boldly said, that system is obsolete and worthless, upgrading it will only put it out of balance and might introduce system instability. Secondly, you will have to deal with compatibility issues. Look at your RAM, it is of the DDR2 type, most modern RAM sticks are DDR4! I am assuming you are pretty young, so you´ll probably only have a budget for a low end system. But building a modern low budget system is still a better idea than upgrading an obsolete one!

 

My last advice, I repeat, get rid of all your NVIDIA Inspector settings. That system is not even close to being able to run those settings! Only use default anti aliasing and texture filtering on that system!

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In the meantime before buying a new system you could do the following.

 

-Delete your current FSX.cfg file make a new one.

-Keep DX10 on.

-Don't apply any tweaks to the FSX.cfg file.

-Disable anti-aliasing in FSX, as well as the Fixer. It will really hurt performance on your system.

-Turn every slider to the left, uncheck every box. You can keep Anisotropic Filtering set. Modern GPUs have no problem with it.

-Turn each slider one notch to the right and test your framerate every time you change something. Gradually do this for all until you reach something flyable.

 

It may not look pretty, but it's something.

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First of all, you don't seem to be willing to lower your settings. Maybe I am wrong, but I think you don't get the point. You don't seem to understand that it is not possible to run high-quality graphics on a system that is roughly 10 years old (if not more). You seem to be a little hostile to the advice given here. 

 

One thing about "Minimum system requirements"

 

Minimum system requirements tell you the system specs that are minimally needed to run a game at low settings. If you pulled all your scenery, traffic, and weather sliders all the way over to the left, and disabled all your NVIDIA Inspector settings, you would be getting 30 FPS+. See? Your system specs are sufficient in running FSX. The only thing is, you will have to sacrifice something a lot.

 

When you said you reduced your SGSS settings from 8x to 4x, I laughed a little because you don't seem to realize how weak that system is, and how much of a killer 4xSGSS is! I have a system that was considered "state of the art" back in 2012, and it barely runs 2xSGSS in cloudy conditions, let alone 4xSGSS! Do you see what I mean? 

 

Also, flying without NVIDIA Inspector settings, is really not that bad in my opinion. I flew with internal anti-aliasing and texture filtering for years back in 2010. What do you value higher? FPS or image quality? Your choice.

 

 

 

 

DX9 and DX10 should indeed perform pretty identically, or DX10 even a little better, assuming the bufferpools tweak is NOT used in DX9. Bufferpools do not take effect in DX10.

 

You mention the tweaks do not work for you. Note that HIGHMEMFIX=1 does nothing to performance, it only serves to improves stability.

As someone else said, AffinityMask=xx should not be used, because your CPU is only a dual core. 

 

If you don´t like the blurries, increase your FFTF to the default of 0.33, instead of the 0.15 you have set right now. Higher is less blurries, lower is more FPS. Also a choice you have to make. 

 

The only tweak that should significantly improve your FPS, is the bufferpools tweak. I had a similar system as yours back in 2010, and this tweak worked the same for me. Could you please post another copy of your fsx.CFG, so I can see how your tweaks are currently applied?

 

 

One important advice. DO NOT upgrade that system. Boldly said, that system is obsolete and worthless, upgrading it will only put it out of balance and might introduce system instability. Secondly, you will have to deal with compatibility issues. Look at your RAM, it is of the DDR2 type, most modern RAM sticks are DDR4! I am assuming you are pretty young, so you´ll probably only have a budget for a low end system. But building a modern low budget system is still a better idea than upgrading an obsolete one!

 

My last advice, I repeat, get rid of all your NVIDIA Inspector settings. That system is not even close to being able to run those settings! Only use default anti aliasing and texture filtering on that system!

 

Alright will do pal ! :) Thank you very much for your advice ! :) I'll move to X-Plane 11 ! I Noticed a really big difference !

I'll just get used to it And Deal with it ! :) I Get pretty food eye candy on Xplane 11 with about 30 fps with some pretty complex planes ! FSX is pretty outdated !

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Some pretty bad advice being given here, I am sorry to say.

 

First, your system is extremely weak, so you will not be able to get much out of FSX, that is true.

 

"Put TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096"

 

No, don't! You are only going to need more system recourses to run higher resolution textures!

 

 

"Set frame rate limiter to 30, not 20."

 

The frame rate limiter inside FSX is bugged. Apart from limiting your FPS, it also supresses your FPS. Which means, that running an FPS limiter, causes your frame rate to run lower. According to NickN from Flight1, and FPS limiter will not make your FSX smoother. This has also been my experience, mostly. Unless you can achieve super high FPS, which might introduce jumps and microstutters, put your frame rate limit to UNLIMITED

 

 

Now, DirectX10. Despite many assertions made, DX10 does not run better than DX9. The reason people report DX10 as the better performer, is because they have not tweaked their DX9, or tweaked it wrong. Therefore, DX10 will seem to perform better. It's all relative. However, if you manage to run your DX9 properly, you'll get signifantly higher FPS than in DX10.

 

One tweak I do not see posted enough is switching off bufferpools inside your fsx.CFG. Now, it is definitely true that switching off bufferpools might cause system instability. You might get artifacting and crashes. Artifacting is especially noticable when running planes that are not demanding on your system, such as the Trike. But since you are running PMDG planes, this should not be happening. Secondly, another potential issue is crashing and system instability. This will espically happen if your system is extremely unbalanced. It is quite hard to predict how your system will react to switching off bufferpools, but the only way to see, is just to try it out.

 

So what results should switching off bufferpools get you? Around 25-50% increase in FPS.

 

How to do get it to work:

 

Go to your fsx.CFG and add

 

[bufferPools]

PoolSize=0

 

Again, test and see if you get stability issues, but a significant FPS increase will definitely happen.

 

The problem with this tweak is, it will not take effect in DX10 mode! That's the reason why DX9, assuming it's now properly tweaked by switching off bufferpools, will run better than DX10! Do not use this tweak, and DX10 might run better. That's where the difference is. So in other words: people who report DX10 as the better performer, haven't switched bufferpools off. So there is not necessarily a definitive answer to "Does DX10 run better than DX9?". It just depends on how you tweak it. 

 

I see you have posted a double fsx.CFG. Maybe you did this by accident, but if not, every entry exists twice. I advice you to delete your fsx.CFG. FSX will not build a new one when you restart it. Now you can start tweaking.

 

The only tweaks you are really going to need are:

 

HIGHMEMFIX=1, switching off bufferpools, and a proper affinity mask setting. Please search on the internet what the proper value is for affinity mask for your specific CPU. I am not sure about the proper setting. Note that setting it wrong might cause problems, because the tweak commands FSX to run at a specific core of your CPU. 

 

 

Now, your NVIDIA Inspector settings.

 

You have set VSync to 1/2 refresh rate. I am assuming you have a 60 Hz monitor. Running at 1/2 refresh rate therefore means FSX is trying to run VSync at 30 Hz or 30 FPS. Considering you are not even able to achieve 30 FPS, and probably never will on that system, that tweak is completely useless. It's better to switch if off, because it might even cause stuttering. Let's say you were able to run 30 FPS in 95% of the scenarios, it is advicable to put VSync 1/2 refresh rate to ON, because in that case it will in fact get rid of all the stutters. But since you are not being able to achieve such performance, leave it off.

 

Spare grid supersampling

 

The higher you set this, the crispier FSX will look (less shimmering). I see you have set this to a whopping 8x. Assuming you did not know how demanding SSGS is, I am going to tell you that most of the systems nowadays will not be able to run this at all! It will even bring state of the art NVIDIA Pascal video cards to their knees in some cases.

 

One advice would be to completely forget about NVIDIA Inspector with that system. It is mostly meant for eye-candy, and your FPS is too low for VSync to work properly. I advice you to set everything to default, and forget about it, it will only REDUCE performance for you.

After losing Nvidia inspector i lost a couple of frames ! :) I Did set 2x SSGS Now and i'm getting about 12-22 ! :D FPS Perfect !

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No offense ! But You don't get the point at all !

With the old CFG with all those addons i used to get 12-22fps WITH PMDG 737 NGX AND ORBX EU ENG

With the new one i get 7-9 !

Forget it..........


Intel 10700K @ 5.1Ghz, Asus Hero Maximus motherboard, Noctua NH-U12A cooler, Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 3200 MHz RAM, RTX 2060 Super GPU, Cooler Master HAF 932 Tower, Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU, Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit, 100TB of disk storage. Klaatu barada nickto.

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Forget it..........

Sorry Pal ! :D I Was in denial about how fsx works and how old of a game it is :) Sorry about everything i said ! 

And Lucky you ! Look at those specs you have ! :D 

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Sorry Pal ! :D I Was in denial about how fsx works and how old of a game it is :) Sorry about everything i said ! 

And Lucky you ! Look at those specs you have ! :D 

 

No problem my friend. I hope everything works out OK.........Doug


Intel 10700K @ 5.1Ghz, Asus Hero Maximus motherboard, Noctua NH-U12A cooler, Corsair Vengeance Pro 32GB 3200 MHz RAM, RTX 2060 Super GPU, Cooler Master HAF 932 Tower, Thermaltake 1000W Toughpower PSU, Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit, 100TB of disk storage. Klaatu barada nickto.

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Now, DirectX10. Despite many assertions made, DX10 does not run better than DX9. The reason people report DX10 as the better performer, is because they have not tweaked their DX9, or tweaked it wrong. Therefore, DX10 will seem to perform better. It's all relative. However, if you manage to run your DX9 properly, you'll get signifantly higher FPS than in DX10.

Not according to Phil Taylor, who helped write the FSX code. In one of his blog posts (https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ptaylor/2007/10/03/acceleration-and-sp2/) he said:

 

"I should note, for instance, that the DX10 code path performs better under load than the DX9 code path, and this means the DX10 features are more useable. And DX10 does look better, both in the cockpit and in the world."

 

Later in the post, he gives an example of a 20% improvement with DX10 over DX9.

 

I don't personally notice much difference between the two but would not go back to DX9 for two reasons - VC shadows and the new cloud shadows add-on. Both significantly add to the immersion for me.


 i7-6700k | Asus Maximus VIII Hero | 16GB RAM | MSI GTX 1080 Gaming X Plus | Samsung Evo 500GB & 1TB | WD Blue 2 x 1TB | EVGA Supernova G2 850W | AOC 2560x1440 monitor | Win 10 Pro 64-bit

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