Well folks,I have come to the sad conclusion that I am sidelined now until I can afford to purchase new hardware. I have applied the tweaks, and like many simmers have to settle for the hangar and are grounded (or back to using FS9). This is a repeat of FS 2000, performance wise only (except the new eye candy is pretty cool). And I believe that that development team was removed prior to the FS 2002 effort, which we all know, was one of the biggest improved versions of FS.My hardware (2.5 GHZ P4, Parhelia (128 MB) triple head, 1GB RAM) is doggie with FSX. And with all the nice features of FSX, going back to FS9 just to have a better FPS, probably indicates that I need a break after going pretty full force since FS 2000.I am very disappointed that Microsoft / Aces took three years (an unusually long development cycle)knowing full and well that FPS and performance is number one on all flight simmers list, totally ignoring this and adding more bloatware and patches to an old obsolete engine.I can only speculate that they (Microsoft / Aces); (a) didn't have enough resorces to do a full re-engineering and re-write development cycle, (:( they had enough resources, but not with the skill levels necessary to complete the re-write in three year time window, or © they had enough resources, the top notch people, but poor management (marketing and development) (not understanding how important FPS is to the core operations of the sim). One of these three is my guess.I am not holding my breath for a patch that will have any real significant impact on my hardware. But you never know. There are those that are optimistic that it will perform a miracle, but I believe (a) they won't release a patch at all until DX10, or (:( there will be a patch, but it won't be a significant improvement on my system.I have to now figure out a new strategy, (Vista, DX10, Dual / Quad Core) which BTW doesn't really help such an obsolete engine.Do I just purchase a FX-57 AMD, a fast single core, and beef up the video card with Triple-To-Go? What about just a single card but getting a 37 - 42 inch LCD type HD TV with VGA capabilities and replace my three 21" monitors? So many decisions, with this lag in performance, I have to spend (again) reading and following this forum to see what will be the best cost effective hardware to purchase. I really wish Microsoft / Aces would have developed and optimized FSX for the XBOX 360. Then we spend $479 (399 for the box and 80 for FSX) and then go flying instead of the depressing and disappointing task of tweaking, tweaking, (well that didn't do any good) and then just shutting it down because the sliders and settings are so minimul the immersion factor really suffers. I know this will only last until I get a new system. But now what hardware will give me good immersion, with third party add-ons, and still deliver 25 - 30 FPS CONSISTANLY, never going below 20, especially on taking off, final approach and landing?There are MANY, MANY simmers in the same situation as myself. Time to save, but it will be worth it, because FSX, (except for current performance issues) is really AWESOME.I'll be following and asking questions over the next few months, especially hardware wise.Thanks to this forum, as it really provides a great service to the flight sim community.Barry

Hey Barry, I would not necessarily place the blame on Microsoft because they listen to the community to a degree and the community would hang them if they changed the core of FS. Yes FS desperately needs to dump the old parts in favor of a new and better engine but most simmers will not let this happen because they don't want their old add-ons to be obsolete. In my opinion this is foolish, so many people here are complaining about poor performance but in many ways it is their fault because they insist on backwards compatibility. I think we have reached a time where we have to get rid of the old in favor of something better and I will happily give up my old add-ons in favor of a new engine. Don't get me wrong, I have some favorite add-ons too that I would hate to lose but we are really hurting ourselves with this constant demand that everything old has to work with new versions. Many parts of the FS X engine are older than my car and probably older than many of your cars as well, not a good thing in this industry. I would also like to offer a bit of advice to you and others. I don't really mean this first part for you, this is just commentary in general. It really bothers me to see the amount of complaining here about FS X, people are complaining and they might not even need to be. It really saddens me to see so many people say such nasty things about Microsoft and this sim and they may be placing the blame in the wrong place. I currently have FSX running on an AMD XP2400, 1 gig of memory and an FX5900XT running at AGP 4X. Yes, it is an old system but I can run FSX fairly well. I have a newer system but I have not had the chance to get it running on it yet. Anyway similar problems were had when FS9 came out and after some time it was found out that the majority of performance issues had to do with the users systems and not FS itself and that is the case here as well. If I can be happy with the performance I get on this system that tells me that others can too with systems far better than mine. One main problem that people may suffer from is one that I often have and that is the inability to keep the sliders from the far right. This sim as with the ones before it are meant to be scalable, that means that as your system improves you can improve the quality of the sim. It does not mean that you should set them all to the right to start with, as so many try to do and then complain about how poorly the sim runs. This takes some self control but some of these settings can be lowered a few notches without major degradation in the quality of the sim. Another potential problem is drivers, not just for your video card but all of them because there could be something that slows down your system enough to drag FS X into very low frame rates that could be fixed with a new driver. Remember that the newest driver may not always be the best one. The main drivers to check into would be the video card, sound card, mother board and modem or network card. Settings are another potential problem, not just your video card either because there are many things that could impact your sim. One of the first things to do is remove any over/under clocking from your system when starting out with a new sim, this is a "just to make sure" step but well worth it and you can over clock it again once you check things out. There are many settings in the BIOS that could mess up your sim so going through and making sure that your clock speeds, memory timing, AGP settings, etc. are in good shape is a very smart move. You must also check your virtual memory settings because that too will slow down FS in a big way if not set correctly. I am not going into detail on the how to here because all of this is the same stuff that we had to do for FS9 and so a search of this site will provide the answers. Check to make sure that nothing is over heating on your system. Heat can slow a system down, it can be the only outward sign that you have a problem so check the temperature readings for the parts that you can and then open the case and inspect your system. If there is a build up of dust on or around the fan blades on your cpu, video card, power supply or case fans clean these up. Use compressed air or a brush and vacuum cleaner to remove the build ups. Over heating is one of the leading causes of computer failure and dust build up is usually the cause. Also verify that all of the fans are working, replace any that don't. Failing parts can also cause major problems but this is also harder to diagnose. Memory problems can be the worst, I have often seen people blame a program for a problem because it only fails when that program is run when in fact it was their memory. For those of you that don't know I own my own computer company so I build and repair them for a living. Anyway with certain memory problems it will only happen occasionally, you can even go out and buy software that tells you if the memory is good or not and it will pass with flying colors. In other words you can not completely trust these "memory checkers". If you have more than one stick of memory remove all but the first stick, start your system and check it, run FS and see if you have any problems, as well make note of how it runs. Shut down and replace that stick with another one and test again. If you have more than two sticks also try different configurations. If you notice a failure or slow down with only one stick you know that it is bad. You can also have problems if all of your memory does not match, on occasion different memory modules will not play well together. They can be fine for most things but in certain conditions they can slow the system down or fail. Memory can be very tricky to diagnose but it can often be the cause of FS problems. Remember, very few programs use nearly as much memory as FS does so your computer could work fine for everything else because they don't come close to using all of the memory leading you to believe that a problem is FS related instead of memory related. This one is obvious but often over looked, running software. Check every once in a while to make sure that not programs or processes are running in the background that you do not want there. Do not assume that because 3 months ago you stopped all unnecessary processes from starting that everything is still perfect. Installing new hardware, software, software updates, spy-ware, viruses, another user of the computer could all cause things to use system resources that you do not know about. Check for viruses and spy-ware fairly often because they can really bog down your system and then check out your running processes and kill what you don't need. Over taxed hardware. This is another big one. There is a variety of ways that this could come into play but it is often the reason that people think that Microsoft has written bad software when the problem is with their machine instead. What this boils down to is know your system, all of it because a chain is only as good as it's weakest link. Say you go out and build yourself a new PC, you get the fastest CPU, the best video card, hard drive, sound card but to save a few bucks you get a mother board on sale and some cheaper memory. The new system will run great but once you start to push the system, as FS does, you will be limited by the slowest part, in this case maybe the motherboard or the memory. This can also be a problem with older computers that have been updated, all the fast new parts will still slow down because of the slower old parts. One other thing to look out for, make sure you know what you are buying before you buy it. I had a client who wanted a new video card so he went to Best Buy and asked an employee there for help and happily walked out of there with a new card. He called me shortly after that to ask why he was not getting good performance out of the card. I found that the card that I bought a few years ago for my system was better than what the clerk just told him to buy. He got something with all kinds of special hook ups and options but was not the best for running games. The lesson here is that you should not assume that your hardware is the best for running FS, no matter how much you pay for it. We as humans are loathe to take blame for things or to admit, even to ourselves, that something is our fault. On the other hand we are quick to place that blame on someone else especially big companies like Microsoft. Yes, some problems are caused by them but almost every one of those people that have complained here about FSX running horribly should be able to get decent performance by looking at their computer and applying what I said above to it. It amazes me how often customers will become almost combative telling me that there is nothing wrong with their computer that the problem they are having is a piece of software or their internet service provider and these are both people who know very little about computers and people who know a lot. Then the vast majority of the time I go in and find that the problem was indeed their system, they just did not know enough to find out what the real problem was. There is no shame in not knowing, heck these computers are quite complicated and no one can know everything about them, I just wish that people would take this into account before they start throwing blame around and saying someone is at fault when in fact they are not. I will help free of charge, and time permitting anyone here who needs it. I am sure that 48 or 49 out of every 50 people here could get good performance and visuals if they checked the things that they needed to and made a few fixes. I will say it again, if I can get decent performance and visuals on my rig then almost everyone else should be able to as well. That is as long as they are realistic about what they are wanting to get out of it. We are not going to get 100 FPS and great scenery in this sim right now no matter what hardware you have. On the other hand I have FSX set so that the scenery quality and quantity is better than it was in FS9 and I still have a very fluid, smooth experience. I am not here to argue anything with anyone I am just stating my personal and professional opinion and experiences in hopes that it can help a few of you. All of this is the same as when FS9 was released, it was found then the majority of problems were not with the program and wirh some adjustments to the system it would work great, we just have to do that again. Yes it is a bit of a pain in the rear but well worth it!Thanks for listening,Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Yes you need to upgrade, your computer is obsolete. :)

I will be the first to admit that FSX is far from perfect, however it is massively improved in terms of visuals and flight realism over FS9, and as such requires vastly better hardware.I'm of the personal opinion that the code behind FSX is actually very well written and highly optimised. This is based on my observations such as:1) When setting autogen to max the density is incredibly high, trees in many areas almost seem to rival what you actually get in real life, which I didn't expect would happen for at least another few years. Despite this, and the fact that bump mapping is used on the building textures, you still get a playable sim albeit the framerates are lower than ideal.2) When turning off autogen, the sim runs extremely smoothly. This is despite the fact that the terrain textures are much higher resolution than what you get in FS9, and the mesh is also far superior and more detailed.I'm pretty sure that MS will release patches to further improve the sim, as is evidenced by the very quick release of a patch to address high-resolution photo scenery issues.People need to remember that you can't have your cake and eat it too. FSX contains many improvements over FS9 (the list is very comprehensive), and as a result impacts performance, even on high-end machines. I know that in time (probably about a year) I'll have it running sweetly on an upgraded setup, despite the fact that many people continue to assure us that FSX will be another FS2000. I'll probably re-post an "I told you so" thread once hardware and updates to FSX allow for an amazing simming experience.James

Don't feel bad because my e6600 doesn't get decent FPS in major cities even with the tweaks. Hopefully Aces will build the next gen FS from the ground up because the way i see it no hardware upgrade in the near future is going give us the FPS we would love even with DX10 and Vista.

Hi,I have a very similar system to yours, (p4 2,6Ghz 1MB RAM, but I have a 256 MB vid card instead)and get the sim running between 10 and 15 frames/sec, most of the time.My eyes opened when I went to Tdraggers blog, where I read this :"Sounds like he's running out of video memory and G2D/D3D are throwing out the highest detail mips to free up space. He's got his terrain texture resolution set to 7 cm. Setting it back to 1 meter might free up enough memory to clear up the problem. Anti-aliasing and high screen resolutions also chew up memory. Turning off anti-aliasing or switching to a lower screen resolution may help."I followed those suggestions and turned down everything I believe eats up memory :- the fancy 2. water effects- high resolution : I settled for 2m until I get my new rig- road traffic- I close every other program that is not strictly necessary for running FSAlso I installed the autogen tweaks (smaller bitmaps) you can find here on AVSIM. I can run now with autogen on dense to extremely dense,and have a sim that is out of the box comparable to my fs9 setup with all the fancy add ons.Yes, I still get to the point everything grinds to a halt (mostly after approximately 30 minutes of flying), with high (2.X) water effects on).To investigate, I had the sim running with task manager open.When I at that moment switch to the desktop, I see that I use 1,5 Gig of memory. Seems an upgrade is imminent. Resistance is futile.I agree with what is said above :- the sim is held back with the weakest parts of the system, in my case memory- most people are to greedy and push the sim over the capacity of there system.I suggest you do the same as me, and wait a couple more months untiil Vista is out, and then get yourself a decent system.janHope this helps.

Thanks Phillip and everyone for your insight. I am not trying to undermine the FS development team at ACES. They wrote a great piece of software, probably more advanced than any other game in terms of what it does. But FPS is number one. And maybe they did the best they could.If the graphics are an issue, why didn't ACES give you the option of installing a converted DTX3? version of the textures? This would have been easy to do. Or can someone package all the converted out of the box textures and post them on AVSIM if it hasn't been done it already? It is probably easy to do, but it would be nice if somebody budled it ready to go. The same with the cloud textures as well.I was getting marginal FPS on FS9 as well texture replacement with Ultimate Terrain, and cloud textures helped, but texture replacement hasn't been done yet. Again , if someone has it all converted and can upload it here at AVSIM that would be great. I would be interested in the before and after FPS. I really think you need 15 FPS minimum on take off and landing. Otherwise the stutter effect takes away from the realism of the sim.I am probably not done tweaking, and will fiddle as new developments occur I will apply them. But until the performance issue is resolved, I cannot fly FSX seriously.Thanks again everyone for the feedback.Barry

Memory is key. 2 gb minimum will allow all the textures and objects to load without clogging the system and causing constant stutters. For example, core2duo 6600 with 1 gig mem began clogging with even sparse autogen in busy areas. I added a couple more gigs and haven't had any system pauses or stutters within the sim even in city flying with normal autogen, though fps drops to 12 depending on the situtation.As a plus, the sim loads rather quickly with more memory as well and I don't have to shut down any other programs. Again, 2 gigs seems the minimum for smooth operation especially if you like a bit of autogen.Ian.

Thanks Ian, I am in a catch 22 situation. I don't want to put any more money into this obsolete machine. I would rather purchase a new system. But I plan on doing extensive research on what would be the ideal, but maybe even just single core, for FSX.So I would like to figure out away to "limp" along without investing any money into new hardware. So alternatives like textures etc, and other tweaks would be more suitible.Buying PC 2100 memory is a waste of money at this time. And it won't gaurantee significantly better FPS.Thanks!Barry

>Memory is key. 2 gb minimum will allow all the textures and objects to load...I agree with Ian. I have a very old, generic PC (2.4GHZ w/ Nvidia 128MB 5200 graphics) that runs FS9 with all max settings at 25-40FPS, but was choking on FSX at minimum settings. Upgrading to from 768MB to 1.5GB RAM allows me to fly FSX pretty much anywhere with a similar experience to FS9 for hours at 12-25FPS except at major airports. Missions fly between 12-25FPS too.In short, FSX works for bush-flying, but I revert back to FS9 for flying jets between major airports (KSEA, KJFK, etc.)With all the confusion as to what the best hardware will be for FSX/Vista/DX10 graphics cards, I thought spending $130 for the RAM to allow me to fly in FSX was worth it, as I won't be purchasing any new system until there are some clear results for what FSX-Vista-Hardware combo works, & I don't expect that to happen for another 6-9 months.

I'm sorry but it is currently not possible to write hardware into to the code itself to make it run faster... Anyway, I waited two years until hardware catched up to FS9, I suggest you do the same, or put the sliders to the left if performance is such a problem for you. But I for one, this time, I just have too much fun with FSX to put it on ice, and besides, it runs fine for what I use it for - On my hardware - With almost no tweaking whatsoever. And that is also the reason I don't particularly appreciate your use of "we" in your post.

Okay please let me put my two cents in it. You have it completely back wards. It is the redesign of the grapchics engine in FSX that has made most computers obsolete for it. So don't complain about lack of improvement in the engine. You want a massive rewrite? or the same grapchics engine that will work on your old tired system? You can't have both!Don't get me wrong, there is a big issue with FSX regarding performance. The issue is that there are no hardware upgrades in the near future that can improve FSX performance significantly. But to insult the designers and to complain for a new software that doesn't run well on old systems is not fair. Perhaps there IS a reason that microsoft always publishes the older version of FS simulator past release of a new version; to accomodate people with older hardware!

It is the redesign of the grapchics engine in FSX that has made most computers obsolete for itI assume you have some sort of proof to back this statement up, as if its true they did a very poor job and i think you need to check out a few other threads.rock n'roll dudes

>I'm sorry but it is currently not possible to write hardware>into to the code itself to make it run faster... Anyway, I>waited two years until hardware catched up to FS9, I suggest>you do the same, or put the sliders to the left if performance>is such a problem for you. But I for one, this time, I just>have too much fun with FSX to put it on ice, and besides, it>runs fine for what I use it for - On my hardware - With almost>no tweaking whatsoever. And that is also the reason I don't>particularly appreciate your use of "we" in your post.>>>It is absolutely false that you had to wait 2 years for hardware to catch up to FS9. The hardware was readily available on release. Indeed, the EXISTING hardware I had was good enough to run from FS8 to FS9. The only substantial change in terms of fps from the two was the volumetric clouds in which a low bit mod was developed fairly quickly. The only reason I changed from my P4 2.8 GHz system in the second year of FS9 to my current 3.6 GHz system was to take advantage of some of the heavy-on-frames third party planes and programs such as PMDG 747 or UT. The current incarnation not only runs poorly in city flying with my system but there is no existing hardware which can run it efficiently. On top of that that I cannot fly any third party planes, nor use UT which I ported over and ground my system to a halt on default settings.

Apparently you didn't take the time to read the 2nd post. His system is not neccessarily obsolete. By saying that you're assuming that FSX only runs on a virtually new system which is not always the case if you have read the many posts in the forum. My system runs FSX just fine.ASUS A8N- nForce SLI Chipset SATA RAID Dual PCIe MOBOAMD ATHLON64 3500+ CPU w/ HT Tech 512 Cache VeniceLG GWA-4161 DVD/CD200GB Maxtor SATA 150 8MB Cache80GB Maxtor Ultra ATA 133EVGA 7900 GT KO PCIe nvodngov19147-[Guru3D.com] drivers SB Audigy 22G Corsair PC 3200 400MHZ Dual Channel DDR Super Alien 500W P/SRunway 34R KSEA FR 14-16. Once airborne 21-251280 X 1024 X 32Target Frame Rate - 25Global Texture Resolution - Very HighAdvanced Animation - checkFilter - TrilinearAA - checkedAircraft: Default 7373-D Virtual CockpitHigh Resolution 3-D checkedaircraft casts shadows on ground -checkedScenery:LOD-LargeMesh Complexity: 100Mesh Resolution - 10mTexture Resolution - 1 mWater Effects - high 1.xland detail - checkedScenery complexity