After years of tinkering with settings and add-ons I am now, more often than not, achieving stable fluid performance over most flight scenarios.

The secret?  Ditch the bad stuff and accept your systems limitations.  We have a great hobby and should embrace the experience of a realistic, smooth flight.

Many add on's are not optimised well and my system just isn't up to high demand payware.  So I have taken the measure of a carrying couple of tweaks and only using high performing (not necessarily old) add on software.  These include:

• FSX FPS set at unlimited internally and set at 30 FPS through Nvidia Inspector
• DX10 enabled (lovely cockpit shadows) and Steves fixer installed along with recommended Nvidia settings
• No AI aircraft or traffic
• Bloom, glare and ground shadows off

High performing add on's - all steady 30FPS on my system:

• Anything from ORBX (Global, vector and most available countries installed (PNG a must))
• ASN16 weather plus REX texture direct enhanced with soft clouds
• Flight 1 GTN 750
• Military - Superbug (amazing performance despite the in depth simulation) / Milviz F-100 / Lotus simulations L-39
• Airliner - Majestic Q400
• Business jet - Flysimware lear 35
• Light aircraft - Just flight Arrow 3/4 /  A2A Comanche / Carenado Skymaster, PC-12, Do228

Regretful purchases  - My rig just isn't enough:

• I Fly 747
• Anything Carenado or Alabeo with G1000

 

All of the above is not necessarily the developers fault but rather my poor computers aging spec - [email protected] / Nvidia GTX780 / 8GM ram.

Any thoughts out there for additional high performing payware?

Your "poor computers aging spec - [email protected] / Nvidia GTX780 / 8GM ram"?  I'm still on a Core2Quad Q9650 @ 3.6GHz / Nvidia 560Ti SC / 4GB RAM.  And it still runs 32-bit Windows XP!  Now that is a poor, aging computer!

I agree with everything you said.  I'm sure I would have a much better sim flying experience if I turned of Ultimate Traffic 2, but after years of FS9 and then FSX with just a little GA traffic and the few fake airlines that MS included as AI air traffic, I just don't want to give it up.  I also fancy pretty well detailed airports and that can put a real strain on my aging computer.  It's all about balance.  Smooth simulation vs eye candy.