WEll I put FSX down on its initial release cause of the issues. I would like to give it a full fledged try again so I want to know what is that standard tweaks (most up to dat) and also what is the best add on to get. What so far is the must have add on for fsx? Thanks fellow simmers

For the must have add on's I'd have to say the Real Air Marchetti and the Megascenery Hawaii scenery for a start.But I have lots of other add ons that are also very nice-fs genesis mesh and cloud9 Bergen/landclass.As for the tweaks-I personally didn't get much from them. I'd explore the sim where it is strong taking the defaults-and leave the weak parts to a hopefully upcoming patch...I just got back from a trip to Arizona-just flew around Sedona where I was-never saw below 30fps and the scenery matched beautifully..and a shared cockpit flying in such scenery is a wonderful thing.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Jason,Most of us are still trying to find one or more combinations of features vs performance that will give us the experience we seek when we 'fly'. Your signature implies a certain interest in virtual airlines. I don't know what your requirements for 'satisfying experience' are compared to mine. I love VFR, low 'n slow, flying through canyons and mountains, following rivers and roads. Terrain visibility and texture detail at max is a "non-negotiable" for me. One essential tweak for me is the cutback on maximum number of trees and buildings - buildings more than trees. I tried the reduced variety of vegetation tweak from Matt Fox during the demo days but have not restored it to the retail version. I can't say that I see much difference using the memory pool adjustment. I'm not sure how much effect the TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT changes have. I do know that I could see measurable improvement after doing the 'performance' type defrags - getting the sim and the pagefile out to the start of the drive. Disable all non-essential services. Shut down all non-essential programs at least while flyingI always notice better FPS with the ultralight vs any other default AC. If you have lots of default AC in view, you will definitely take a performance hit - use only low-budget AI aircraft and textures wherever possible. Stay away from complex airports (unless this IS essential for you to enjoy the sim). Normal (fair) weather actually impacts me very little, but even zoom level makes a difference... the wider the view, the more that has to be prepared for display. Do you have the max virtual memory available; is it defragged and contiguous?You didn't specify your processor, video or memory so it would be hard to even guess what kind of performance you 'should' be getting. But regardless, we all need to (and can) start with the 'cleanest' and most 'optimized' system that we can achieve.Can you describe (or list) what you hope to get from FSX; what does is have to be able to do to give you satisfactory performance? Defining this will also help select the 'best' add-on, be it terrain mesh, enhanced airports, AI aircraft, Flightplanners or other utilities.What do YOU want?Loyd

>WEll I put FSX down on its initial release cause of the>issues.>> I would like to give it a full fledged try again so I want to>know what is that standard tweaks (most up to dat) and also>what is the best add on to get.>> What so far is the must have add on for fsx? Thanks fellow>simmersPut it back down again, the first ACES patch is on the horizon but still some ways off. Come back in a month.Allcott

Thanks for the replies, I really only use FS for commercial type flights and only once in awhile do any VFR type flying. My main issue with the sims is getting smooth performance when on approach regardless of where I'm at. I have achieved what I consider to be the best sim for me in FS9 with my 400 dollars in add ons :0 but it burns me up to see FSX sitting on my bookshelf and not installed. I'm on a AMD 4200+ 64 X2 with 4 gigs of PC3200 DDR2 ram and an ATI X1900 GT PCI-E 256. So in FS9 with most sliders maxed I'll get about a steady 20 FPS. In FSX witht he default settings that FSX gives me I'll get a steady 15 FPS but everything looks like crap and thats not gonna cut it for me. SO I think what I'm gonna do is put FSX on my system and actually just use the new modelling to practice certain types of scenarios. From what I've been reading still FSX is a great paperweight. Thanks for the replies!