JayDub

Brian, Mine is the same system. A two month old i4790K with a Gigabyte GTX 970 G1 Gamer 4GB on a Asus Z97 Sabertooth Mark 2. I had a "Professional" help me overclock to 4.6GHz. I suspect it was not done properly. The system ran fairly stable but was loud and operating temps ran much higher than I expected, mid 70s to a max of around 80C with a Corsair H100i liquid cooling system. I pulled the system back to operate at the 4.4 turbo boost and have seen no noticeable performance loss in FSX. The biggest gain was the drastic drop in operation temps. Now under full Load have never exceeded 58C and I sleep much better at night. The system now is extremely quiet. The i4790K/GTX 970 is a great combo for FSX. I run with all scenery sliders maxed with exception of water effects which is set at High 2.x. LOD set at 7.0. I have the FPS locked at 33 in FSX and I rarely see FPS below the mid to low 20s even in High density areas, stays at 33FPS 90 percent of the time. This performance is with all the Orbx FTX areas including Global, Global Vector and openLC Europe as well as Ultimate Traffic 2 set at 80 percent airline traffic and 30 percent GA............................ You will be very happy with that system at stock speeds, the cpu runs at a full 4.4GHz in FSX ..........................

Two Samsung 850 EVO SSDs added to my new i4790K/GTX970 system two months ago. One 250GB drive for the OS and the other a 500GB drive exclusively for Flight Simulator X. One of the best hardware upgrades I have ever made. Minimal performance improvement, but load times reduced by about 75 to 80 percent in FSX. That alone was worth the price of admission for me. My current FSX program tops out at just over 200GB so load times on a conventional drive could take up to 8 minutes in the past. Up and running now in around a max of 90 seconds. Go for the SSDs you will not regret it.............................

Purchased and installed both FTX Global Vector and FTX openLC Europe.......... Had a major elevation problem at Global KPSP that the vector configurator fixed on the first try, this with Megascenery X Southern California installed. Now both programs blend perfectly...... Programs truly transformed Flight Simulator X world wide...... FTX openLC is amazing, You have to see Switzerland now to believe it...... Well worth the investment in both programs...... JayDub

Looks like folks still having some problems with airport elevations after installing Global Vector. Appears no magic bullet to cure errors at all airports even after using the elevation tool. I may be very wrong in my assessment but I think I will hold off on the purchase for now. I have too much to lose if my airport elevations go wonky. Thanks,

Anyone still having airport elevation problems after installing FTX Global Vector or have the problems been solved. My FSX install is based on most of the Orbx FTX areas, 10 FTX airports plus FTX Global. I also have approximately 50 freeware PhotoReal airports from numerous sources. I am wondering if FTX Global Vector continues to have some negative impact on many airports such as elevation, terrain errors or sinking runways. All of my other Orbx softeware has installed flawlessly with no conflicts with any other scenery areas or airports. Not willing to take the chance of messing up most of my other airports. I will hold off ordering if problems still persist. If it's not in an Orbx area I am probably not flying there. Best FSX scenery ever produced as far as I am concerned. Any feedback appreciated, Thanks,

Through a break in the overcast the diety of Flight Simming has looked down on me and smiled...... After working with an older shader folder backup I was able to restore the water settings for low 2.x and above.... Low 2.x is about as much as my system can handle anyway.... Low 1.x, Med 1.x and Hi 1.x still corrupt the ground textures but I never used them so no loss..... The sim is now running extremely well with the new GTX card, a noticable improvement over the old Radion HD 4870..... I promise from now on to follow the golden rule of Flight Simming........ If you are happy with the way it is running, don't touch a thing just turn off the FPS counter, never open your .cfg file to try tweak it a little more.............. Just go flying............ Thanks for everyones help, JayDub

Now have lost all ground textures with no setting changes bringing them back..... FSX totally trashed at this time..... Have cleared shader cache several times and also let FSX rebuild the FSX.cfg file all with no luck....... Will disable all scenery in add-on folder as suggested, but have little faith in that as everything was working with 0 water effects priort to messing with the shader cache...... Looks like a total uninstall/reinstall of FSX if the disable scenery advise does not work....... In that case see you guys in a week or two..... Thanks for the suggestions......

Scenery installed All the Orbx FTX areas Oceana, North America and Europe. 11 of their custom airports plus FTX Global...... Ultimate Terrain USA and Canada.....Ultimate Traffic 2.... All the MegaScenery Areas, Southern California, Phoenix,Dallas Fort Worth, Hawaii, Las Vegas, Reno/Tahoe.... So, as you can see a total reinstall of FSX won't be fun but will do if necessary..... Power supply is a Cooler Master 750W unit........

No luck clearing FSX Shader Cache.... Result was all the ground textures going light blue with only the Auto Gen features showing.......... Signature has been removed......... Will edit profile later.....

Drivers and all ATI/AMD folders properly removed and cleaned with Display Driver Uninstaller V6.3........... Latest Nvidia 334.89 installed ...... No other issues with FSX or any other program, card performance outstaning in all other repects..... Intel Core 2 Duo E8500 Wolfdale, Overclocked to 3.80GHz Asus P5Q Deluxe Motherboard GigaByte GeForce GTX 660 2GB, Overclocked Version 8GB OCZ DDR2 Reaper RAM Vista 64bit Home Premium JayDub

Really a FSX textures issue so posting here rather than Hardware section....... I have just replaced my older ATI 4870 512MB with a new Nvidia GTX 660 OC 2Gb card. I have worked through most of the problems associated with the graphics card change over. Performance and visuals are now about what I would expect from my aging Core 2 Duo E8500 at 3.8GHz. The one problem I have been unable to resolve is that when ever any degree of water detail is selected I get very large light blue squares over most of the ground textures. The only way to avoid this is to have zero water effects. Did not have this issue with the ATI card, was able to use from zero to max water settings. What could I be doing wrong. Any help appreciated, Thanks, JayDub

Thanks, That makes sense to me....... The matched combo of E8500 and Radeon 4870 have really done a great job with FSX....... FPS locked at 31 and for the most part if I stay out of major cities the FPS will stay at a rate that will give a relatively smooth FSX experience...... This with all settings at max except for water at mid range and autogen at dense....... I fly almost exclusively in the Orbx sceneries with FTX Global also installed......... Guess I will hold off a while and do a total rebuild with new CPU/ GPU combo........ Won't be flying Prepar3D V2 any time in the near future...... Possibly everyone will have worked the bugs out of it by the time I am ready....... JayDub

A couple of days ago I upgraded my 6 year old Radeon 4870 512MB video card for a newer Radeon HD 7870 2GB OC version and see a slight loss of performance and visual quality in FSX....... How can this be..... Loaded the latest drivers and everything seems to be working ...... Have tried various settings and tweaks with minimal results...... I know the card is working as have seen a very noticeable improvement in visuals and FPS in other game applications...... It seems like a step backward in FSX however...... Any thoughts as to what I may be doing wrong..... I know FSX is CPU limited, but my 6 year old Intel E8500 overclocked to 3.8 has been keeping me in the game longer than I expected...... All things considered the combination of the old Radeon 4870 and Intel E8500 has run FSX very well over the years at near max settings.......Wondering if a switch to something like a GeForce 650TI would make a difference....... Only upgrading due to the new Prepar3D V2 will require at least a 1GB video card......... I also know I will have to upgrade my Vista 64bit OS to Windows 7 or 8 as well....... Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated....... JayDub

Tried it all .................... No luck so far.............. After three clean uninstalls and reinstalls problems still with me .......... Sometimes the menues work and sometimes they lock up ..... Most of the time they lock up..... Run as administrator each time but makes no difference..... Had problems prior to adding anything to the original Prepar3D program.....Also coninued crashes to desktop when in some of the Orbx scenery ares, used the Orbx migration tool and opject flow linker V1.4 ....... All drivers and windows updates current....... This system has been running a very complex FSX installation for years and it has a total of 193GB of program and addons...... Until now I have not seen the software yet that this system will not run....... After 5 days getting close to giving up..... Really a shame as when the program does run for me it has outstanding visuals and performance...... .......................Sapphire Radeon HD4870 512MB ...... Yes this card is enough ..... Runs FSX at very high settings smoothly JayDub

Yes, Prepar3D menus failing prior to any addons.......................... Seems P3D just does not like my system................ FSX installation running very well for years and it is very complex with a total of 193GB of program and addons........

Hi. Prepar3D Full Version is........... 1.4.4747.0 Sim Connect Version is ........... 1.4.0.0 Yes OS is Vista 64bit Home Premium, and as stated it has been running FSX without issues for years and my FSX installation is very complex with a total of 193GB of program and addons........ Installed Prepar3d three days ago April 27th...... Had this problem from the first day....... The uiautomationcore.dll fix you mentioned appears to be a Windows 7 64bit app, not really sure what it would do for me or if it is a factor with Vista 64bit, I have made no attempt to use it........... Again any help appreciated, JayDub

Good Day, Looking for some help from some Prepar3D experts…. Have posted this request for assistance on the Prepar3D, Orbx Prepar3d and Avsim forums in hope that someone may have a solution……. Having major freeze up on all menu screens once they are selected in the simulation…. Installed Prepar3D as instructed, opened it the first time as administrator and the program seemed to open without issue…. First indication of problems was attempting to open menus to make adjustments…. Initially seemed to work OK then started to lockup every time I opened a menu… Only way out was CNTL/ALT/DELETE and exit via the task manager….. At times I can open a few menus make my changes and cleanly exit the program, so by now I have most of my settings as I would like them….. However now almost every time I go to the menus the program locks up….. Also thought it was windowed vs. full screen for a short time but now lockups happen in both screen modes…. Used the Orbx P3D Migrator Linker V130 and it appeared to correctly set up all my Orbx scenery in Prepar3D….. Thought possibly the problem was when I was in Orbx scenery areas but then found had the same problem with the Prepar3D default setting in FTX Central…….. The only changes made to the original P3D program was the addition of the default FSX B737-800 and the migration of all my Orbx scenery…….. OS is Vista Home Premium 64bit…….. Any help appreciated, P3D runs like a dream on my system and I would hate to have to give it up..... Thanks, JayDub 　

Hi, Posted this earlier this AM trying to help another simmer with the same problem in a different area........ With UTX installed I had exactly the same problem at both Hawaii and off the west coast of the USA....... Simple solution for me was to go into the Scenery Library and uncheck the box next to "UT Exclusions for default scenery"....... This solved the problem for me and the scenery in these areas is back to normal and stays that way...... So far have seen no adverse effects anywhere else in the sim, however I fly mostly in the Orbx NA areas................ I Have both UTX USA and Canada installed........ Hope this helps...... JayDub

Joseph, With UTX installed I had exactly the same problem you discribe at both Hawaii and off the west coast of the USA....... Simple solution for me was to go into the Scenery Library and uncheck the box next to "UT Exclusions for default scenery"....... This solved the problem for me and the scenery in these areas is back to normal...... So far have seen no adverse effects anywhere else in the sim, however I fly mostly in the Orbx NA areas......... If the UTX tool suggestion does not work for you try my solution........ Just double checked it ths AM prior to this posting and I can duplicate your problem by enableing UT Exlucsions for default scenery....... Once unchecked back to normal....... JayDub

Don't Laugh.......... I keep the side open on my Cooler Master case also, about once a month use a Toro electric leaf blower to clean it out........ Have been doing this for several years with good results and no damage....... Inside of the case looks as clean as the day I received it............. JayDub

What a Great buy ....... Just ordered one, if nothing else an unopened shrink wrapped copy of FSX Gold will probably be worth some "Gold" in another four or five years........ Thanks for the heads up info........... JayDub

Same here my friend…… My first flight was on my IBM PC with 128k of RAM and a 10MB hard drive… I still have my original Microsoft Flight Simulator program and the manual, the entire program came on a 64k floppy disk……My first computer upgrade was to a 386SX and I thought I was in heaven….. Have owned every version of MSFS since and probably spent thousands of dollars on scenery and aircraft addons……. Also have gotten thousands of hours of enjoyment out of it over the last 20 years….. Money well spent as far as I am concerned…… JayDub

Thanks Guys, Since my original post I installed the XFX Radeon 6950 HD 2GB card…… I saw absolutely no improvement in either performance or visuals in FSX…… Returned to my older 4870 512MB card and will be happy with that for now……. Going to LOD 6.5 and locking FPS rate to 30 in FSX was the single most help in improving the visuals for me and minimizing the “Blurries”…….. I the blurrie textures issue is really only minor for me now but was trying to eliminate them all together……. Will play around a little more with the cfg file but believe I have about maxed out the tweaks…… Will learn to live with the limitations of my CPU until the next computer build and will probably go with an nVidea card next time….. My last three cards have all been ATI but it looks like it is time to move on……..JayDub

Mike,In partial answer to your question....Last week I replaced my Sapphire Radeon 4870 512MB card just like yours with an XFX Radeon HD 9650 2GB card to see if it would improve performance and texture loads.............. The answer was no, I saw absolutely no improvement in performance or visuals using the newer more powerful card...... My overclocked dual core E8500 at 3.8GHz appears to be the bottleneck....... The 4870 512MB is still an outstanding card, just check the internet for prices on them and you will find everyone wants more for them than many of the newer cards....... I reinstalled my old 4870 and will be content with it until I build a totally new system........ As Lenny in the above post indicated, nVidia may be the answer............. I will go with nVidia in my next build.......JayDub

Good Day, Could use a little help from the video card experts out there…… Currently running an ATI 4870 512MB video card with my Intel Core 3 Duo E8500 CPU which I have overclocked to 3.8GHz….. In FSX I get acceptable FPS with scenery settings at max with only water set in the mid range….. With LOD radius set at 6.5 and several fsx.cfg tweaks I have gotten the “Blurries” to a minimum, but still have a few close in textures pop into the clear a little late on occasion……My question is would replacing my 3 year old ATI 4870 512MB card with a newer ATI 6950 HD 2GB card help to totally cure my issues with the “Blurries”……. Got a very good price on the ATI 6950 about $85.00 less than a GeForce GXT 570 1280MB and $200.00 less than the 580 1536MB. I have always been an ATI guy, my last four cards have all been ATI and they have all been great… Any help or suggestions would be appreciated as have the new card still sealed in the box on my desk….. If I am not convinced that I will see a large improvement in performance and visuals I will probably return it for refund unopened…… I only care about FSX as the older card performs perfectly in all other applications……. I have a dual monitor setup….Again, any help or suggestions appreciated,JayDub