How to make FSX run Smoothly ???

[Guest Aviation]

Greetings!Hope you're all doing fine. I have a question which I'm sure could bring up tons of deffrent answers. So, please, if you have the expereice, I ask that you provide me with your guidance.I have FS9, with tons of payware and freeware add-ons(and lots of hardware). My computer has: 30 inch LCD screen, AMD 64 X2 3.0 Ghz,{Bus Speed: 1000MHz (2000 MT/s}, 3 Gigs of RAM PC6400 @ 800 mhz, 600Watts Power supply, New Motherboard AM2 Socket, PCI Express 8800GTX Video Card, and Windows XP...And of course, FSX SP2!FS9 runs fantastic with all the add-ons and all levels to MAX. However, FSX is nothing near to FS9 when it comes to performance. It is very slow and "levels" are at minimum for it to atleast run a bit. FS9 runs smoothly, but not FSX. And when I say smoothly I mean the graphics. FSX stutters and lags; it doensn't runs smoothly. Imgine what if I buy add-ons; it may break. I want to be able to make it run as if you are seeing an airplane pass before your eyes (like in real world), and flies without stuttering or laging--Like FS9 !So, for Christ sake:--- Has anyone, been able to build a home computer capable of making FSX run smoothly?--- How do you "overclock" the processor or motherboard? Is it necessary or not?--- What processor do I need to make this thing run smoothly, AMD or Intel? --- What's more important the processor speed or the Bus Speed ?--- Which is better for FSX?: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3.20GHz or AMD Phenon 9600 2.30Ghz..Or is there an Intel that's better?--- And finally: Does FSX make use of dual cores or Quadcores? Or do you have manually assign them?Pleas respond if you have the experience on these questions. I will GREATLY appreciate you !!!!!

[ryanbatc 12,800]

not really, there isn't a PC that can run it maxed, although some out there can do a pretty good job with some tweakingI don't know much about the latest CPU's, but if you could get a E6850 and overclock the pants off it it might work wellOthers will chime in of course....oh, CPU pure clock speed is better, and yes, FSX uses dual and quad cores, but not intensly...edit: look at the CPU charts here...http://www23.tomshardware.com/cpu_2007.html

[sipos 0]

To be honest, i think it is some wierd thing going on with fsx. My computer is less powerful then yours and i get fairly smooth performance. But sometimes it slows to a crawl just out of the blue. I restart and it is a smooth as silk again. Not sure what makes it crawl. I made a video a while back in dx10 mode. I can't post the direct link because of music copywrite stuff but here is my youtube channel - http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=joeysipos , go to the flight simulator acceleration video. This is the performence you should be able to get out of fsx. Note I only have a amd 3200X2 and a geforce 8600GTS. I think it may have to do somthing with the "aircraft cast shadows on it's self" if you have that checked.

[Guest Desert Flyer]

Granted I don't have my settings on maximum anymore now that some folks around here have attempted to edumacate me on how the FSX actually works but on my settings which give me pointy mountains, and pretty clear ground textures, I have been getting reliably between 25 and 29 fps BUT then all of a sudden it will drop down to like 8fps, and then a minute later will jump back up to 25 to 29fps again. If I play too long then sometimes it will come to a crawl on my computer too but a restart brings it back up to an acceptable level again. My computer however is nowhere near as powerful as the OP's.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

"I want to be able to make it run as if you are seeing an airplane pass before your eyes"If you are referring to the external view, make sure that you use the fixed spot view, not the regular spot view. The fixed spot view in FSX is rock solid, whereas the regular spot view hesitates and surges.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

It is actually called "locked spot", not "fixed spot"...

[Lord Farringdon 477]

[virtualstuff 751]

>not really, there isn't a PC that can run it maxed, although>some out there can do a pretty good job with some tweaking>>I don't know much about the latest CPU's, but if you could get>a E6850 and overclock the pants off it it might work well>>Others will chime in of course....oh, CPU pure clock speed is>better, and yes, FSX uses dual and quad cores, but not>intensly...Actually I agree running at Heathrow 2008 with a lot of custom AI the LDS767 at 25 FPS (the locked value)Great performance and sometimes a dip to 17 fps but that is with the detailed addon stuff and the largest airports and heavy weather in the skies with full overcast never below 24...GA aircraft is always at 25 lol and resolution is 1680 * 1050 WidescreenHardware is:CPU: Intel E6850 C2DGPU: XFX 8800GT XXX 512MB Alpha Dog Extreme Edition (this one really rocks the best card I ever had)Mobo: Gigabyte GA-P35-DS3 (rev. 2.0)Memory: "the beast" Geil Crucial memory DDRII 800 at 4-4-4-12 4GB dual channelDisks: WD Raptor RPM 10.000PWU: Hiper 580 watt Sli OS: Vista Ultimate running as Adminstrator lol (after tweaks the performance is better or at least the same as my XP :-))Drivers 169.25 WHQL + NhancerHardware prices are great here in Europe now so I upgraded the mobo/CPU/GPUAs for performance have some comparison material running from both my sons in our home network and DX10 games both running C2D E6600 with HD3850 and HD3870 ATIand DX10 + 3GB ramReading so many stories about Crysis but have seen it in action on my oldest son his PC and it performs great with his radeon HD3870 and almost with all settings at the highest (after his dad did the tuning on the OS lol) Actually no horror story here ;-)We where actually surprised by the performance of the HD3850 which performance was much greater as expected from all the reviews reading stuff... http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y156/awf1/sign.jpg

[Guest fsxmissionguy]

Snip: " ... BUT then all of a sudden it will drop down to like 8fps, and then a minute later will jump back up to 25 to 29fps again."So when that happens, and you pull up Task Manager to troubleshoot this issue, which process do you see consuming a) disk resources or :( CPU resources.I assume, after all, that your computer is not devoted to running just FSX. I'd bet there's an OS on there somewhere, I'd bet there's some virus scanning software too, and lots of other nice utilities, all connecting to the internet on a schedule to do their work.Issues like this are not caused by FSX. They are caused the vast, vast majority of the time by the 52 or so other processes your computer is running simultaneously which occasionally demand resources, sometimes inappropriately hogging them.Discovering what is occurring is a trivial task.

[Guest Alphahawk3]

You have more than enough hardware to run FSX "smoothly" as you say. I have an P4 3ghz....2gig ram....7600gt video card..GEX.....XGraphics...FSGenesis mesh and I am stutter free. I only fly GA and stay out of large cities....but even in Seattle I can get decent FPS...12-15 taking off. It does vary at times also but I do not have the stutters as I did in FS9. I have Flight1 172R and RealAir SF260. Both of these add on planes give me great performance. I also have a Cirrus SR22.....love the plane but cannot use it even at small airports. I can only get 10 or 11 FPS with it...just don't have the setup for that plane. I do have texture popping...autogen popping in front of me as I fly...but I know this is because of my CPU. There is just not enough power there to stop that. I will on occasion have some blurries...but they do not last long. On take off and landing I have no stutters.....period! I am no computer guru nor am I am a dummy either. I read a lot on here and I can tell you first hand...at least for me....if you do not have a good processor and video card this sim can be an exercise in frustration. I have tried all of the so called TWEAKS and have never really found them helpful..at least for me. I wish I had a system like yours...I can only imagine what FSX would do for me with that power...compared to mine. I would look hard at how you have FSX setup...it is not your hardware. Hope you get it running because it is in so many ways far ahead of FS9. Regards, Randy