A Tweak That Helped My Frame Rates

[Guest diajohn2]

Samsung HD160JJSATAII

[Guest diajohn2]

Wonder about the paging file on the USB Flash Drive?

[duckbilled 310]

This is similar to a question I posed a few months ago. I ended up purchasing a 10,000 rpm drive. I put 2 partitions on it. 1 that is small for page file, 1 that is large for FSX. I have nothing else on this drive. I also added rem to total what I have in my sig. With my modest specs, performance has been decent. I found this article to be VERY informative.http://www.techarp.com/showarticle.aspx?artno=143&pgno=0

[Guest NWjetflyer]

Microsoft support page for FSX has now added doing a selective startup as an option for enhancing performance. I've tried it and it's easier to do than stopping programs one by one.

[duckbilled 310]

Do you have a link for the process? I have been using a general clean boot process suggested for improving game performance but many have reported that FSX might need certain services to operate that are not necesary for most games or FS9. This is the process I use.http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815069/#XS...122120121120120

[Mace 1,902]

>>Wonder about the paging file on the USB Flash Drive?Well for that matter, how about a paging file on a ramdisk? It probably is not worth the ram cost to do that, though, especially for us FS'ers.I would think there may be issues with using a flash drive to hold the paging file though, since it would be just like having a temporary paging file, which is not as fast as a fixed (contiguous) page file.Also there is the issue of the size of available flash drives...4 gb+ would probably be ideal. So at present, using a flash drive as a cache is a more viable option for most people I guess.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2310 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 2.5-3-3-8 (1T), WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian case

[rhodges 6]

Thanks Gary:I have 3GB of 400 memory on a Intel 3.2 CPU and a 6800XT-AGP-256Bit/512MB video card. Tried your suggestion and at least for the first time kinda enjoyed flying FSX. I had about given up without spending big bucks which I don't think I will do specifically and only for this version of FS unless massive improvement shows up as testified to by a significant number of witnesses. Your suggestion improved my outlook somewhat significantly at least.Having to be picky as to where one flys, in what they fly, and how little scenery options can be utilized was still defaulting back to FS9 where I had none of these problems. This is especially true when I hear that those with peak systems still cannot tackle high density areas very successfully. One really wonders about when the really great complex stuff hits the fan (Or at least I hope it does). Hopefully, in a few months hardware will be available that will meet the potential of FSX.I just flew from KLWB to KJYO in the Baron, flew around Washington, DC for a while, then flew in the Reginal Jet from KJYO to KBTR. Frame rates were normally in the teens to 20 in transit, but reasonably smooth, certainly flyable to me personally. Flying around DC was another matter, but the scenery is beautiful. One gripe I have with FSX is the fixation on terrain relative to the season (Nothing but snow North, nothing but gray South). Hopefully third party contribution will solve that bit and give us more realistic variation. My limitation setting is 20FPS anyway, as these tired old eyes have never been able to tell the difference with anything higher than that. Yea, I know, to you frame rate purest this is herasy, but it is a little like listening to a Sterio to me. I have never been able to tell the difference in the $2,000 rig there either, but my wife says I have retarded ears.I experimented extensively with settings. I used the Pentagon as my reference point. When I turned Scenery Complexity or Autogen below the listed settings, I lost the Pentagon along with other similar scenery. For what it might be worth to anyone, the following were my settings:Ansiotropic filtering = 8X (Video Card)Antialiasing Settings = 4X (Video Card)FSX>Options>Settings>Display>GraphicsTarget Frame Rate = 20Full Screen Resolution = 1280x960x32Global texture resolution = Very HighLens Flare = Unchecked OffLight Bloom = Unchecked OffAdvanced animations = Unchecked OffFiltering = TrileanerAnti-aliasing = Unchecked Off (Will try this rather than card later)FSX>Options>Settings>Display>AircraftGlobal Settings = Very LowDefault Cockpit View = 2D Instrument Panel (Bet I lost all you virtual cockpit purest huh)Show cockpit Tooltips = Unchecked OffHigh Resolution 3-D virtual cockpit: Checked On (Am I back in your good graces yet?)2 D panel transparency = Slider Full LeftAircraft Casts Shadows on the ground = Unchecked OffAircraft casts shadows on itself = Unchecked OffAircraft Landing Lights illuminate ground = Checked OnFSX>Options>Settings>Display>SceneryAll sliders are full right including Special effects except the following:Water effects = Low 2XScenery Complexity = NormalAutogen density = SparseGround Scenery Shadows = Unchecked OffLand detail textures = Checked OnFSX>Options>Settings>Display>WeatherGlobal Settings = Very LowCloud draw distance = 60 MilesThermal visualization = NoneCloud detail = Simple CloudsCloud coverage density = LowDownload winds aloft = Off UncheckedDisable turbulence and thermal effects = Unchecked OffRate at which weather changes = MediumNote: I did use the Jep. undated online weather every 15 mins. during my flights.FSX>Options>Settings>Display>TrafficGlobal Settings = CustomAirline traffic = 23%General Aviation Trafic = 24%Airport Vehicle Density = MediumAll aircraft labels were Checked On except User Aircraft and tail No.Label color = RedCyclke rate = 1 Sec.Road Vehicles = 17%Ships and Ferries = 19%Lesiure Boats = 22%I did see significant vehicles on the road, and at the airport. Kind of neat to have utility vehicles run up to my bird as soon as I killed the engines.The thing that has worried me most is that even with Vista and DX10, to my limited knowledge what it sounds like to me from what I read is that FSX is ALMOST purely dependant upon greater CPU's but utilizes multicore very little. Making this more complex is that the CPU manufactures have chosen to increase their greatness PRIMARILY by multicore implementation. If this turned out to be true, appears to me that three years from now we will be right where we are now as far as performance is concerned and we still will not be able to open the FSX bag to get all the goodies. In my ignorance, I sure hope this concern has no credibility at all. We may get there yet in spite of my apprehension.Happy flying and thanks again Gary:RTH1585368CFI

[Guest abulaafia]

The problem with turning off the pagefile is that one your RAM is full, you will receive an Out of Memory error and FSX will crash. There are other options, e.g. reducing the amount of files that are paged, clearing the pagefiles etc. See this and other articles there http://www.speedguide.net/read_articles.php?id=1404

[Guest abulaafia]

Forgot to add that in Windows XP you actually cannot disable Virtual Memory. Even if you disable the pagefile, the OS will page to the HD if necessary. Run FSX and press Ctrl Alt Del then check PF Usage ... :)That said, I do see some FPS gains when disabling the pagefile, don't know if it will be stable though. More to read on the issue: http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/archives/000422.html

[jagabom 21]

Not if you never turn the computer off.

[GaryTrammell 10]

Yes a very small pagefile, But It seem its only there for prosperity. I I run out of memory with 3 gig, I might as well quit! :)Gary

[Guest abulaafia]

It's not that simple. It's not important what amount of memory an application actually uses, but how much it requests. The OS gives the application what it requests - if you have a pagefile that does not matter, and you never run out of memory. Without a pagefile you may actually run out of memory without any application actually using the memory, so to speak. In FS9, turning off the pagefile clearly results in Out of Memory messages after long flights. I have not been able to show this in FSX because there aren't any realistic aircraft available as yet. Once you get your PMDGs and your PSSs running in FSX, lack of pagefile might well proof disastrous.

[rhodges 6]

For what it may be worth:Will make another flight from KLAX to LLBG in the IFly 747. They don't get much longer than that.We will see what we see:Happy Flying:RTH

[Palebushman 0]

Hi Randy,Have done all the tweaks to fsx.cfg that I have 'cherry-picked' from this wonderful AVSIM FSX forum since Nov:06.Always defrag my 'C' drive where FSX is the only program, other than the OS is installed, before I go flying.Only have page/swap files SET to 1536 Mb which is 1024Mb(1Gb) x 1.5 on a totally separate HDDFPS is set to 20 and it fluctuates between that down to 15 and all other sliders are nearer to the left from middle. But after a couple of hours flying, things start to become a little strange, and landing at the nearest airport or field becomes a necessity. Probably because my rig is not up to the power required to sustain longer flights yet. No doubt AVSIM is the place to keep an eye on for any FSX 'Fixes'or updates.

[rhodges 6]

Welllllll?Please do not think that I am challangeing anything anyone else has said, nor do I anywhere near claim to have the technical knowhow that some of the rest of you have, but this is the result of my monkey and bannana routine as to my findings:In FS9 flying the IFly 747-400, ElAl Livery, 35,000 ft. mach 8.4 I took off from KLAX with fsmeteo live weather, current North Atlantic Tracks and flew to LLBG. With tail winds, it was about a real time thirteen and 1/2 hour flight with no problem whatsoever.I then switched to FSX, cranked up the default Boeing Livery 747-400 and made the mistake of letting FSX compile my routing from LLBG to KLAX, 36,000 feet, mach .84. (COME ON FSNAV, I NEED YOU!) Everything was rational through Turkey on to Hungary and even to Denmark. Here the ridicules took over. All the way across the Artic and then down to Fort Yukon, Alaska. From here we virtually reversed course (well partial anyway to a Southeasterly heading and flew through Alaska, Washington and Oregon. Total time was about twenty hours real time (No, I didn't stay up that whole time, I went into the cabin and slept and let the backup crew fly). While I am confessing, Somewhere close to Sacramento, Calif. I had to check unlimited fuel as well.The next time I crank her up, it may bite me, but so far I see no sign of running out of memory on long flights, or any others for that matter with page files turned off. The only time I have ever had this error message (before and after expanding memory) is when I had duplicate or corrupt AFCAD files. The same holds true for me anyway concerning crashes to desktop, freezes, or FS exiting. There is an excellent third party utility for immediately identifying this situation.Happy flying:RTH