FSX Really Flying Now! - How I Achieved It.

[Guest Chas]

With reference to my previous post, "The Key To The Holy Grail" I was hoping to show some screenshots of what I have achieved on my mid-range Dell Dimension 8300. I cannot up-load them. I would like to make clear what I did to achieve superb performance on my machine. My approach to solving my poor performance issues with FSX concentrate on the preparation & install stage of the process and not post install tweaking of textures and cfg files.I believe the FSX installer falters near the end of the installation procedure when most of the critical configurations appear to take place. It does appear that if you stop some services running to save system memory, FSX performance declines. Amazingly it appears to run better without using the tools that we often used to shutdown unwanted background services, before running FS9. This is part of my reasoning for starting some of the dormant windows services before installing FSX to make sure they run properly, if indeed they are needed. I am no authority on computing however, I have somehow managed to unlock the performance in FSX on my modest machine which has a 6800GT graphis card and 1gig of system RAM.Without reducing any textures I have achieved 17-25 FPS while flying around the KPHX area, pretty much 20 FPS most of the time! Full autogen, highest scenery density, road traffic 30 even 100 percent, (the later does cause occassional dips to 14 FPS). Water effects mid-way. Cloud coverage at 100 percent & AI traffic at 4 percent. I cannot believe the detail that I now have, buildings everywhere!The effects of taking care and preparing the computer at time of install have really paid off!WHAT DID I DO TO ACHIEVE THIS, in summary.....Installed .NET Framework 1 in addition to the latest version which I have installed.Run Windows up-date.Run spyware utilities & check for viruses.Defragment drive.Removed old driver and cleaned up with Driver Cleaner Pro.Installed Nvidia driver 91.47, (the best driver as far as I am concerned).Repaired FSX installation with downloaded tool from Microsoft, (mentioned in my previous post, reference MICROSOFT KB928080).Cleaned out old registry values relating to FSX with CrapCleaner freeware tool, there are lot's FSX registry enteries left behind after un-install!Removed all files from Windows Prefetch Folder.Removed all temp files from the Windows Temp Folder.Disable Firewall and anti-virus software completely.Ensure no other programmes running.Force started the Windows Installer and .NET Runtime Optomisation. Force started any other likely services that FSX may need during install, (including Networking Services) but perhaps cannot be started easily by the FSX installer. There is logic behind kick starting the Windows Installer before FSX installation just in case it is required and cannot be started by the FSX installation, (asuming this is how it works). Install FSX.FSX now updates DirectX during install and appears to do a few other configurations near the end of the set-up procedure as well as playing an introductory video, all these extras not previously seen during my last two installations of the Standard Edition of FSX which left me with reasonable to very poor performance. DirectX up-dates inspite of having the latest DirectX drivers and SDK installed with no option to stop it, could this be a patch?Defragment drive, (try O&O Defragmenter with Complete Name file structure method selected).The simulation now ROCKS! look at the pictures, they say it all. It is possible to run this simulator on a mid-range machine with detail far exceeding that of FS9. It is possible to push autogen all the way to the right and have detailed road traffic, all this and no texture tweaks! Please note I have removed the default XML file from the autogen folder when the screen shots were taken. I had applied this tweak in the previous installation but could only use autogen at it's lowest setting with reduced autogen textures and without traffic etc.I guess I am now getting the performance that I should have had in the first place, you may be able to do it too!Some of what I have written here may not be relevant, I am sure there is some good solid advise with regarding to installing programmes, we do often forget to clean-up before we install a programme or turn off that anti-virus software. You could run the unlimited trial version of Tweak Manager, it has hundreds of settings that you can change in Windows XP, you can tweak to enhance XP core performance easily and saftely with this brilliant piece of software. I believe there is no need to purchase it because many of the tweaks useful to us are included in the unlimited trial version. Try also NT Registry Optomiser which is free. Chas

[Guest DanWalloch]

Could it be that you killed your Anti virus so there was more system resources?

[Guest Chas]

No.......I always take care of that, disabling anti-virus etc. I believe it's more complex than that. Cheers!Chas

[Mace 1,902]

Chas it sounds like you have simply done what any good knowledgeable hardware/software person does---you properly configged your rig.Microsoft intended to bring in new average joe FS'ers with this release. But the sim they released, does not cater to them at all. The average user knows nothing about deleting the prefetch every once in a while, knows nothing about defragging with a quality defragger, knows nothing about running services, and so on.And yet, these and many other things must be optimized to get good results with the sim. The average joe isn't going to know to do these things. The sim is good. But as it stands today, it is NOT for the casual user. They won't have a clue as to where to even begin on configuring it to run well.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Guest Chas]

Thank's for that Rhett, this simulator is a real masterpiece. I would never have appreciated it fully unless I could see it in action with high scenery details and effects applied. When I look through the thumbnails of the default aircraft and see that the white Cessna Caravan has the thumbnail picture of the grey Cargo caravan, I wonder what else they have missed that is hidden deep down in the bowels of the program language that we cannot see! I like the idea that Microsoft decided to make a product that will last into the future, if Microsoft suddenly decided that this was it's final incarnation, we would at least have something that lasts for a while! Don't forget, I have proved it will run well on mid-specification machine right now!Chas

[LAdamson 240]

Sometimes, I think I'd kill the "autogen" anyway! I keep lowering the slider in FS9, as I now believe that so many of the structures look, so cartoon like. I've gotten use to the improved textures of FSX, and would just as soon climb a few hundred feet to see photo-textures, versus cartoon villages at street level. Trees would be good though.I figure that I've had rather good luck with FSX, because it, along with FS9 and X-Plane were placed on the new CPU at the same time. Not much other programs or past problems to deal with. I'm even using the old CPU to type this. :)L.Adamson

[Guest Chas]

That's FSX's strongest point with me. The ability to use high resolution photo textures. I love the high resolution photo scenery demo from Just Flight. I'd rather have photo scenery that look's 3D than to have all that autogen. The frame rates that I get with the photo textures are now in the 40's to 50's and can enjoy the water at it's highest setting. I will be shopping for another hard drive to accomodate the photo textures of future shopping trips. I must admit that Microsoft have done pretty well to give the illusion of the real world, alas I have yet to have a bird strike! Chas.

[MD83 1]

>Chas it sounds like you have simply done what any good>knowledgeable hardware/software person does---you properly>configged your rig.>>Microsoft intended to bring in new average joe FS'ers with>this release. But the sim they released, does not cater to>them at all. The average user knows nothing about deleting>the prefetch every once in a while, knows nothing about>defragging with a quality defragger, knows nothing about>running services, and so on.>>And yet, these and many other things must be optimized to get>good results with the sim. The average joe isn't going to>know to do these things. The sim is good. But as it stands>today, it is NOT for the casual user. They won't have a clue>as to where to even begin on configuring it to run well.Yes, but should Avg Joe have to do all of those things, in order to get a piece of software to work smoothly? No ;)

[LAdamson 240]

>Yes, but should Avg Joe have to do all of those things, in>order to get a piece of software to work smoothly? No ;)>Looking at all the addons and associated cost's to bring FS9 up to the level that everyone is supposeably loving......Would the average Joe do that too? Of course not! ;)L.Adamson --- all I've done is add FSGenesis to my FSX.

[KnightFlyer 43]

wow can anyone else confirm that starting these services will improve fsx performance? to me it all sounds like superstition or a placebo-effect deal

[rjsagel 0]

Hello,I have a rather big FS9 setup and added FSX to my computer that I believed was fast (AMD64 3500+ with 2 gigs of RAM and 2 Nvidia 6800's in SLI). FS9 runs at 45 FPS and FSX runs at 8 FPS. I have done everything suggested and finally went with the following:1. TweakFPS for FSX2. IFR selections from TweakFPS that activates scenery but no Autogen3. Flying helo's only from airports where the FPS are easy and the scenery is great.I recently looked at a computer (DELL Game Machine) that would probably let me move to FSX only - it costs $4500 USD and is out of the question. It seems ashame that many of us are struggling to use FSX when we still have FS9 and all of its' addons - I actually prefer my FS9 setup to the FSX because I can't run the FSX and see the great things it is supposed to do. However, thanks for the suggestions - they will help someone I'm sure.Cheers,Ron Sagel

[Guest Chas]

I don't believe you have to spend all that money Sagel.I thought about creating a video to show how impressively this sim can run on a mid-range machine, I could only do that using the inbuilt video tool within the simulator. The video could then be shared to give inspiration to others who may be "down in the dump" because they have spent a lot of money on their machines and expect to get more out of them, when it now seems they can. I have experimented with no autogen and then increasing it to full with the scenery detail slider bang against the stop to the right. The difference in frame rate between no autogen and full autogen is about 8-10 FPS, which I now find totally amazing. I am worried that something may happen to change my good luck, like installing a later display driver. I wonder if I have corrupted the display driver, I have not re-installed it since I tried tweaking it with no less than two tweak utilities which gave me a blue screen of death each time I tried to start a flight. I reset the driver using RivaTuner. I cannot remember the name of the other tweak utility that I downloaded from The Guru Of 3D that I used to cause the blue screens. I don't blame that tool, I was foolish to use two together, (perhaps).At the moment my FSX is on a serious course of steroids!!!Chas.

[Mace 1,902]

>Yes, but should Avg Joe have to do all of those things, in>order to get a piece of software to work smoothly? No ;)>That's not the question to ask, sounds like you put it on a different tangent. What I meant was, Average Joe *does not know* how to do all of those things. Not "should he". --which that question should not/need not be asked here.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

[Guest Chas]

A placebo-effect! I have a genuine and very visible increase of performance, a simulator on Viagra (this is not a feeling that my simulator is better or bigger) you are hard to convince. I knew this post would raise some cynical replies, there is a lot of ill feeling around FSX at the moment.*******************************************************************The purpose of this post is to detail as many of the changes that I made to achieve what I have now, I hope that minds will be able to come together and piece the jigsaw together. ********************************************************************I have been thinking about using the video utility to upload a small video of my FSX experience, would that convince you?It is possible to share video's in FSX.It would be interesting to know how many people experienced a DirectX install without a prompt during the install of FSX.It would be interesting to know how many people saw an introductory video at the end of the install routine.These are events that never happened during my first two previous installs of this simulator. Yours ayeChas

[ahinterl 1]

Thank you for the heads up.But anyway, IMHO it's common sense to stop each and everything that hinders FS to make use of all system resources.This includes keeping registry and hard drive in good shape.Antivirus and thelikes have absolutely no room on an FS PC, as have any other not FS related programs I mean. Sure, not everybody can afford a PC for FS only...And restricting the FS features (autogen etc.) to what the PC can handle is common sense as well for me.So, all in all, nothing new here.The point is: when I set a slider more to the left, I "cripple" FS somehow. This sums up with every slider that's not fully set to the right stop. The question now is if I want to play a crippled game or not. If not, current hardware cannot provide the amount of power needed to run FSX, let alone run it with complex add-ons. Period.I have my FSX stowed, it's unusable for me without something like PMDG's A320 and some decent airports. But then, I fear my FPS would be well below 10, so unusable again...Andreas