FSX-MS FSX Overall Smoothness on High Spec Laptop/ P3DV4 consideration

[Nikita Kardash 1]

I have MSI laptop with Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-7700HQ CPU @ 2.80GHz, turbo boosted to 3.4 GHz, Nvidia GTX 1070, 16GB RAM .FSX SE Windows 10

I did not weak it and and reduced my overall quality to medium. I have Nicks Invidia inspector settings except I do not usde FPS limiter and have turned off VSync. My frames are set to unlimited. How come on a good spec laptop that can run all games on ultra, FSX it runs very "medium". I have PMDG 737/747v3/ 777 and Aerosoft 321. Aerosoft run excellent. Followed by 777 than 747 and then 737ngx. I have this awful micro stutter before ATC Sounds are playing and occasional microcomputer while on the ground and in the air. When my specs this should not be!! Is it worth switching to P3D v4 since it utilizes the high CPU and GPU specs? I am not even using super fps intensiveness add ons. 

 

Thank you

[Maarten Otto 18]

Because you demand to much. I run FSX-SE on a windows tablet (Surface pro 3) and get 40 fps in VC of the QW 757.  But I have spend days if not weeks on tweaking the damned thing. NEVER AGAIN. 

 

But if you can't run FSX then please forget about Prepared.

[Nikita Kardash 1]

11 minutes ago, Maarten Otto said:

Because you demand to much. I run FSX-SE on a windows tablet (Surface pro 3) and get 40 fps in VC of the QW 757.  But I have spend days if not weeks on tweaking the damned thing. NEVER AGAIN. 

 

But if you can't run FSX then please forget about Prepared.

Is Prepar3dV4 much better than FSX SE in terms of illuminating stutters and lag on modern day Rig? Because its expensive and to buy PMDG add ons is so much more expensive than for FSX SE

[Chock 17,769]

57 minutes ago, Maarten Otto said:

if you can't run FSX then please forget about Prepared.

That's not the case at all. Yes it is true that P3D has a lot of shiny new features which enhance it and which FSX (either the original version or the Steam version) does not have, such as dynamic lighting and cloud shadows etc. But that does not mean P3D will tax a computer more than FSX would.

You have to remember P3D utilises the GPU for a good deal of stuff, whereas FSX barely uses the GPU at all, so the load is spread more on a computer with P3D. This is why one sees FSX struggling on PCs which can run stuff like Skyrim and Call of Duty at high frame rates and good graphic settings. If a computer can run games such as those at decent speeds, there is a more than good chance that P3D will run better on that machine than FSX does, for exactly the same reason - it is using the GPU.

Sure, you might not be able to have every whistle and bell and every slider turned up to maximum in P3D, but even if you don't, the chances are it will look better than it would otherwise do so with those features running and only using the CPU. A good example of that is if one gets Steve's DX10 Fixer and the additional cloud shadows add on for FSX. These look great, but they are nevertheless running in a sim which uses the CPU for most stuff. Turn on the cloud shadows in P3D they don't have anywhere near the same impact on frame rates, because it is using all of the computer's hardware to do the work.

With regard to cost. Yes P3D costs more than FSX-SE, but you have to remember that it is a brand new program, whereas FSX is quite old, even the Steam version of FSX is now getting on for three years old. The Deluxe version of FSX cost about 65-70 quid when it came out, the Steam Edition of FSX is of course a lot cheaper than that these days, in fact it is currently 9.99 in a Steam sale at the moment (normally 20 quid), whereas, depending on whether you qualify for the Academic license for P3D or not, you might pay either about 40 quid for P3D Academic, or 160 quid for the Pro version. But, let's put that in context, when FSX first came out in 2006, the Deluxe version cost about 65 quid. If you calculate what 65 quid would be equivalent to today owing to inflation, then it is around about 95 quid, which means that in relative terms, the P3D Academic license is about 30 quid cheaper than the FSX license was when it first came out, and even if you buy the Pro license version of P3D, it still works out at only about 60 quid more than the equivalent price of FSX Deluxe if we take into account inflation, and that is for a sim which is considerably more capable and which as noted, employs modern hardware more efficiently.

Another cost is of course add-ons, and there is no denying that one might be having to kiss goodbye to some beloved FSX add-ons if switching to P3D, but to be frank, ever was it so with flight simming, after all, most of us have got over the fact that our FS95 add-ons have long since had to be consigned to the bin. And yes, there is also the fact that P3D add-ons cost a bit more than FSX ones do, owing to the inherently greater cost devs have to pay to make them, but this is set to change when FSW is released, and then we will be in the happy position of having two 64 bit ESP-based sims to play around with, one of which will doubtless be a bit cheaper to throw an add-on at. Moreover, there is nothing preventing us from using both of them (I certainly intend to), like there is nothing preventing us from using FSX and P3D if we want to. Personally, I've no intention of stopping using FSX for a long time despite the fact that I've got P3D and XPlane 11 and AeroFly FS2 etc, which I'll also be using.

[Nikita Kardash 1]

4 minutes ago, Chock said:

That's not the case at all. Yes it is true that P3D has a lot of shiny new features which enhance it and which FSX (either the original version or the Steam version) does not have, such as dynamic lighting and cloud shadows etc. But that does not mean P3D will tax a computer more than FSX would.

You have to remember P3D utilises the GPU for a good deal of stuff, whereas FSX barely uses the GPU at all, so the load is spread more on a computer with P3D. This is why one sees FSX struggling on PCs which can run stuff like Skyrim and Call of Duty at high frame rates and good graphic settings. If a computer can run games such as those at decent speeds, there is a more than good chance that P3D will run better on that machine than FSX does, for exactly the same reason - it is using the GPU.

Sure, you might not be able to have every whistle and bell and every slider turned up to maximum in P3D, but even if you don't, the chances are it will look better than it would otherwise do so with those features running and only using the CPU. A good example of that is if one gets Steve's DX10 Fixer and the additional cloud shadows add on for FSX. These look great, but they are nevertheless running in a sim which uses the CPU for most stuff. Turn on the cloud shadows in P3D they don't have anywhere near the same impact on frame rates, because it is using all of the computer's hardware to do the work.

With regard to cost. Yes P3D costs more than FSX-SE, but you have to remember that it is a brand new program, whereas FSX is quite old, even the Steam version of FSX is now getting on for three years old. The Deluxe version of FSX cost about 65-70 quid when it came out, the Steam Edition of FSX is of course a lot cheaper than that these days, in fact it is currently 9.99 in a Steam sale at the moment (normally 20 quid), whereas, depending on whether you qualify for the Academic license for P3D or not, you might pay either about 40 quid for P3D Academic, or 160 quid for the Pro version. But, let's put that in context, when FSX first came out in 2006, the Deluxe version cost about 65 quid. If you calculate what 65 quid would be equivalent to today owing to inflation, then it is around about 95 quid, which means that in relative terms, the P3D Academic license is about 30 quid cheaper than the FSX license was when it first came out, and even if you buy the Pro license version of P3D, it still works out at only about 60 quid more than the equivalent price of FSX Deluxe if we take into account inflation, and that is for a sim which is considerably more capable and which as noted, employs modern hardware more efficiently.

Another cost is of course add-ons, and there is no denying that one might be having to kiss goodbye to some beloved FSX add-ons if switching to P3D, but to be frank, ever was it so with flight simming, after all, most of us have got over the fact that our FS95 add-ons have long since had to be consigned to the bin. And yes, there is also the fact that P3D add-ons cost a bit more than FSX ones do, owing to the inherently greater cost devs have to pay to make them, but this is set to change when FSW is released, and then we will be in the happy position of having two 64 bit ESP-based sims to play around with, one of which will doubtless be a bit cheaper to throw an add-on at. Moreover, there is nothing preventing us from using both of them (I certainly intend to), like there is nothing preventing us from using FSX and P3D if we want to. Personally, I've no intention of stopping using FSX for a long time despite the fact that I've got P3D and XPlane 11 and AeroFly FS2 etc, which I'll also be using.

Thank you for the great post. I will take that into consideration, so you think before GTX 1070 is pretty good card and P3D uses GPU as well, it will eleminate those microstutters?

[Chock 17,769]

Without trying it on a computer with your specs, there is no way I can confirm that, but what i can certainly confirm is that I have P3D V4 running on a PC with way less fancy specs than yours, where it gets around 30 fps in the VC and 50 fps on external views on the sim's default slider settings.

[Nikita Kardash 1]

2 minutes ago, Chock said:

Without trying it on a computer with your specs, there is no way I can confirm that, but what i can certainly confirm is that I have P3D V4 running on a PC with way less fancy specs than yours, where it gets around 30 fps in the VC and 50 fps on external views on the sim's default slider settings.

Does that include add ons like PMDG planes and sceneries? I have seen many youtube videos For either FSX and P3D and it looks like they have everything maxed out with crazy weather settings  flying PMDG 777 out of aerosoft crazy FPS airports and they are fluid smooth frames and they have worse rig than many? How is that possible I do not understand.

[Chock 17,769]

Well, not having any PMDG jetliners in P3D (since I've not got around to buying any P3D vesions of them yet) I can't say for sure with those, but since I know those run okay on my FSX, especially the 747-400, I've every reason to suspect they'd run a bit better in P3D V4. I do know that my payware Aerosoft Consolidated PBY Catalina runs better in P3D than it does in FSX-SE, that's for sure.

To answer the other question: How that is possible with youtube videos, is because many people 'cheat' when they record flight sim videos for youtube. So don't believe everything you see... What I mean by that, is if you look at (for example) this video I did in FSX-SE:

It was recorded using FRAPS, and you can see that it has Steve's DX10 fixer on it and the cloud shadows add on too, with the cloud shadows enabled in it, not only that, there are also a number of payware aircraft parked up as scenery using WAMA and that is an add-on airport too (UK2000 Woodford) and this can make one's computer work quite hard with FSX, because it ain't using the GPU.

However, normally, the FSX settings the sim was on would make that quite smooth on frame rates because I also use Fiber Accelerator and Live Booster in FSX, but, when the computer is also streaming that video at 30 frames per second at full screen size and recording that to the hard drive as I fly the aeroplane around, it adds some jerkiness to the video when recorded.

What I could have done to prevent that, was run the sim at half speed (or even quarter speed), and recorded it with FRAPS, then doubled (or quadrupled) the speed of the recording and it would have appeared smoother and would make you think I'd done it all with the sim running normally. Not only that, with the sim running at a slower speed, it would probably have made the high speed aileron rolls I was doing easier to come out of perfectly, since I'd have had more time to centre the stick. I can guarantee you that a lot of youtube videos where you see people's sims on insane graphics settings are made like that.

[Nikita Kardash 1]

6 minutes ago, Chock said:

Well, not having any PMDG jetliners in P3D (since I've not got around to buying any P3D vesions of them yet) I can't say for sure with those, but since I know those run okay on my FSX, especially the 747-400, I've every reason to suspect they'd run a bit better in P3D V4. I do know that my payware Aerosoft Consolidated PBY Catalina runs better in P3D than it does in FSX-SE, that's for sure.

To answer the other question: How that is possible with youtube videos, is because many people 'cheat' when they record flight sim videos for youtube. So don't believe everything you see... What I mean by that, is if you look at (for example) this video I did in FSX-SE:

It was recorded using FRAPS, and you can see that it has Steve's DX10 fixer on it and the cloud shadows add on too, with the cloud shadows enabled in it, and this can make one's computer work quite hard with FSX, because it ain't using the GPU. However, normally, the FSX settings the sim was on would make that quite smooth on frame rates because I also use Fiber Accelerator and Live Booster in FSX, but, when the computer is also streaming that video at 30 frames per second at full screen size and recording that to the hard drive as I fly the aeroplane around, it adds some jerkiness to the video when recorded. What I could have done to prevent that, was run the sim at half speed (or even quarter speed), and recorded it with FRAPS, then doubled (or quadrupled) the speed of the recording and it would have appeared smoother and would make you think I'd done it all with the sim running normally. Not only that, with the sim running at a slower speed, it would probably have made the high speed aileron rolls I was doing easier to come out of perfectly, since I'd have had more time to centre the stick. I can guarantee you that a lot of youtube videos where you see people's sims on insane graphics settings are made like that.

Ah now i get it! I guess does not matter how good your pc/laptop is, it will never be good enough to make FSX be silky smooth maxed out with add-ons.

[Chock 17,769]

Well, I wouldn't say we'll never be able to run stuff at full throttle because we can't predict the future, but one thing we can predict with certainty is that with a 32 bit application such as FSX, which can only allocate 4Gb of memory and which cannot utilise the GPU to any great amount, it's unlikely to be the case that shoving an FSL A320 in there with 4K textures at a payware version of Heathrow Airport with tons of fancy AI airliners flying around all over the place and add-on cloud textures etc, is ever likely to end well and certainly P3D V4 is going to be in with a better shot at pulling that kind of thing off, as indeed would any other 64 bit sim which can use the GPU more, such as AeroFly FS2, XPlane 11 and eventually, FSW.

 

[Nikita Kardash 1]

1 minute ago, Chock said:

Well, I wouldn't say we'll never be able to run stuff at full throttle because we can't predict the future, but one thing we can predict with certainty is that with a 32 bit application such as FSX, which can only allocate 4Gb of memory and which cannot utilise the GPU to any great amount, it's unlikely to be the case that shoving an FSL A320 in there with 4K textures at a payware version of Heathrow Airport with tons of fancy AI airliners flying around all over the place and add-on cloud textures etc, is ever likely to end well and certainly P3D V4 is going to be in with a better shot at pulling that kind oif thing off.

Yeah sadly( You would with such large community someone would just build a new Sim with new engine that can handle utilize your Computer to the max. X-plane 11 is getting there but I think its too different an it will take time to switch over to that platform, even though there are some great payware planes for that one.