SP2 Pros vs Cons

[paulyg123 135]

Can someone tell us what benefits in PERFORMANCE did they get from SP2 (in FSX with Vista and a DX10 type video card? All planes I have a FSX planes like LD767 and PDMG 747 that's all I care about)Was there any noticeable improvements?Any bad side effects /system crashes?Please summarize. The posts drag on and on but not with the meat I am looking for. I am getting a solid 30 fps with FSX and LD767 with sliders at 50% with Dell Quad core and dual 8800 GTX cards and don't want to mess with success if SP2 buys me nothing.

[G7USL 117]

Try it yourself. If it doesen't work for you, uninstall it?A freind of mine with DX10 and Vista reports improvements. I am still with XP and 6800GT

[Geofa 108]

Performance increases as always may be subjective and hard to qualify.I reported after I got acceleration that I saw no performance change on my 4 year old system. However, on that system I ran with for instance autogen off for obvious reasons. After accel no difference.When I upgraded two weeks ago I was surprised to find that there was minimal difference between running with autogen full off and full on. Now I seem to remember one of the performance enhancements was to autogen. So is that increase due to sp2 or the new system (maybe both)? Same with light bloom-now I can turn it on with minimal penalty in dx10(also one of the stated improvements). So it would appear to me, a system with specific settings left unchanged will probably show no impovement-but some settings that in the past would cause severe performance decreases may now be more hopeful-if your system can handle them.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest UlfB]

>When I upgraded two weeks ago I was surprised to find that>there was minimal difference between running with autogen full>off and full on.Geofa,Is this with DX10 only or do you get a small fps difference with different autogen settings in DX9 as well?I made a fast test with different autogen settings in both DX9 and DX10 mode. The decrease in fps is bigger in DX9 than in DX10 on my setup. In DX10 mode I got about 55 fps with Normal setting and it dropped to 44 fps when set to Extremely Dense. In DX9 mode I got 62 fps with Normal and 29 with Extremely Dense.Sad thing is that I get issues with a lot of my aircraft when I run in DX10 mode, so I still run in DX9 mode. I'm still curious to know what issues are caused by nVIDIA drivers, by FSX SP2 and by the developers of the add ons. I wonder if anybody really knows.Ulf BCore2Duo X6800, 4GB RAM, BFG 8800GTX (driver version 169.13)Creative SB X-Fi (Gamer mode)Vista 32 SP1 RC, FSX Acc/SP2

[Geofa 108]

So far I lose 2-4 fps with dx10 mode. I'd suggest looking at the nvidia forums about drivers-it doesn't seem to be just fsx that is amiss. It also seems to vary from card to card.I have very few problems with my 8800gt but when I was borrowing my son's 7800 had all kinds of troubles.http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showforum=22http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Bray 1]

I dont have those add on planes only default. Installed SP2 and I have not seen any improvements. Hard to tell as I am no expert testerI do not see any better FPS etc. I have it running with the preview DX10 and have no idea what it is supposed to look like. It looks the same as before. Still have some stutters and the blurry stuff. My system is 3 months old with Vista home, Q6600/3GB RAM/8800GTS312. All default FSX no addons etc.Not too shabby a system and I guess my expectations might be too high. But after all the hoopla from MS about DX10 etc etc, it is a bit of a let down. So I guess you can try SP2 and uninstall it if it gives you trouble. Bill

[Guest Bob Huntley]

Can only suggest that you try it and see - results on different systems seem to vary. Its easy enough to switch between the two modes.To give one example, a couple of weeks ago I changed from a Core Duo to a Core Quad processer (E6700 to Q6700). On the Duo DX10 definitely gave a higher frame rate than DX9 - with the Quad the difference is very much smaller. (If anything DX10 is slightly slower, but that could be because I'm overclocking the Quad less aggresively).

[Geofa 108]

One strange thing I noticed is in rural areas dx10 seems to be faster than dx9-and in city areas it seems to be slower-wonder if anyone else has noticed this?http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Geofa 108]

I find water at max settings looks much better ,some of the colors seem more subtle, and light bloom is different (and seems to change with each new driver release). Other than that the difference is not huge.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Bray 1]

>I find water at max settings looks much better ,some of the>colors seem more subtle, and light bloom is different (and>seems to change with each new driver release). Other than that>the difference is not huge.I will try the light bloom and move water from mid to max and see what happensThanksBill

[Guest jshyluk]

One thing SP2 is supposed to be able to do is render larger groups of the same thing faster -- I am thinking this is a hierarchical level of detail algorythm. The trick is, the large group of things has to be of exactly the same thing for the bonus to work. I think. And it might explain what you are seeing, if you are flying over forests with mostly the same tree repeated. Or maybe it's an unrelated factor, like aiport AI density where you are flying. I doubt that you can point to a feature in FSX and say just one thing is reponsible for it.Jeff ShylukAssistant Managing EditorSenior Staff ReviewerAVSIM