Does SP2 help the blurry situation?

[Guest Nismo35]

I've been tweaking my system a bit (E6600, 7900GS, 2 gig RAM, XP sp2, FSX sp1) and am pleased with the performance I'm getting with medium/high settings. I think I have some form of the blurries, mostly in the VC (F9) and my outside views look spectacular most of the time. I've read here in the forums that when you switch views you could lose the hi-rez graphics for a bit and then they reload(hopefully). Anyway, I'm looking to get Acceleration which looks like it includes most or all of SP2. I've seen very mixed reviews about Acceleration and am a bit wary of installing it. I've read Phil Taylor's blog about SP2 helping with the blurries with DX9. http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007...on-and-sp2.aspx"4) Optimization of terrain IO for photo-scenery and

[klemay 0]

Hi Todd,Make sure you read the CTD forum and all the issues folks are having with their Nvidia VS SP2 setups.I for one removed FSX all together. My eVGA 7950GT just didn't play well with SP2. It was the dreaded CTD while trying to access the menu in Full Screen or trying to ALT-ET to get to windowed with the same result that did me in; then once I installed the latest 169 drivers, and setting up NHancer to ensure my Globlal and Profile settings were the same, wala, it fixed it....however the fix on my sys created a sim that couldn't get out of the 9-12 framrate arena...no matter where I flew...unless I turned down my sliders to around a quarter from the left...and honestly, whats the point when you have to turn everything down?So, I'm back to FS9 until I can upgrade or decide to go ATI....and I'm not so sure I want to go that route yet.Read, read, and read again!Ken

[Guest Nils79]

Hi Todd,yes, it reduces the blurries, but it is not a magic performance booster, which will allow you to ignore the complexity of the sim.I love Acceleration, because the planes are great, the sceneries are great and there are already add-ons which are using the Xpack features (e.g. Razbam's Intruder). So, lots of value at a low price.The only negative i can say about it, is the lack of documentation for the included airplanes and the racing against the ai is not fair.Normally i would recommend you Acceleration, but as Ken already mentioned, your GF7 graphics card might be a problem, because of the menue CTD issue.AFAIK mainly GF7 cards are affected and i don't know if there is a fix or not. So, i would recommend you to first test SP2 before you buy XPack.There are already add-ons, which are needing SP2 and i'm sure that their number will increase. So, better test SP2 now and not when your favorite add-on will force you to do it.

[Guest Nismo35]

Thanks for those bits guys...First off, I want Acceleration. I would think SP2 is a good thing, although I'm just a little gun-shy because of the possible problems most notably CTD. I had that issue when I first loaded FSX, and have made it very acceptable now, though I do get an occaisional crash. Yes Ken, I've seen the CTD forum and I'm not thrilled about it...a big reason I'm hesitant. I'm getting a consistent 25-30 fps in flight now, 15-20 last night landing at Reagan, so I think that's ok. I change views often - in air or on the ground and rarely have issues. Don't want to CTD every time I change views! Nils, funny how people are saying it's the 7 series nvidia cards...I almost ordered an OC 8800GT (660/1900) from Newegg Friday, but after confirming Tom's benchmark with FSX, the difference "they see" is just two frames. http://www23.tomshardware.com/graphics_200...=1057&chart=292The thing is, I see many people with higher end equipment that are still having problems, so I tabled the video card for a later time. More 9800's come out this month so I'll see where all the prices go. That 8800 GT was $200 after rebate. As far as the value, I have no question about that, shoot, it's $20 from Amazon, and this is just delaying me from getting the CH pedals. Was going to order them Friday too. Believe me, I want the P-51 big time!!So, still don't know what to do. There's a few threads going on about SP2 and of course everyone has differing opinions...heh...Also, I ordered UTX this weekend. Maybe that will help me a little with the blurries. Really looking forward to that.

[Guest Nils79]

Forget the Tomshardware benchmark, it's nonsense.Only the best cards are good enough for FSX, but you also need a very good CPU.One of my favorite blog entries of Phil: http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2008...d-consumer.aspxWith a GF7, i would test SP2 before i would buy XPack and new HW. If it works, buy Acceleration and install it before you install UTX.But you have to uninstall SP2 before you install Acceleration (http://www.fsinsider.com/downloads/Pages/SP2-EN-ReadMe.aspx).If you get CTDs with SP2, you can try the newest beta driver and also the new DX redist and read Phil's blog and the threads here regarding the CTD menue issue.And if you don't find a solution you can make a buying decision for new HW.

[Guest Nismo35]

Thanks again Nils for the great advice. I saw that blog and was the reason I was looking into the 8800 GT...looking to get some more memory bandwidth, among other things. I was thinking along a similar line...I was going to ask how easy or difficult it is to uninstall SP2 and if that would bring you back EXACTLY to where I was before installation. And though I've never used it, I wonder if system restore would do that...revert my hard drive back to it's exact state before an SP2 install. (I used to use a program called GoBack that did this and was quite helpful) I ask this because now I have my system, imo, running very well. I'm just getting back into FSX and was having issues with textures loading at reasonable distances. Buildings would load as I was getting pretty close to them. The magic solution for me was going to trilinear filtering in FSX and moving my texture settings in nvidia control panel to highest quality. Getting great frames and the textures are loading properly. I included the screen shot to show 34.1 fps on final at DCA with most textures, including those antennae in the distance which I've never seen before. Just after taking off in Baltimore, many buildings in D.C. could be seen which was never the case previously.Back to SP2...because I'm VERY pleased with how FSX is running now, I don't want to screw it up! Still weighing the benefits of SP2 with the risk of adding potential problems.Again, thank you very much for your help!

[Guest Nils79]

Hi Todd,better use the installer/uninstaller to remove SP2, to ensure that you will remove everything of SP2. Otherwise you could get problems with the installation of Acceleration.I don't think that System Restore backs up FSX files, so i think you would only remove some installation informations and that could end bad.Uninstalling could be a problem with some add-ons or if you modified something. I think a clean installation for SP2 would be the best and uninstalling should work then without problems, if you remove SP2 for XPack. You could back up your FSX.cfg to save yor settings (but don't use it directly with Acceleration. Use only your tweaks and display settings in the new XPack FSX.cfg).I don't believe in magic, so i'm sure you will find your perfect settings again ;)