IanHenry

Darren and Vicky were very nice people (I hope they still are!) but I know they suffered for their art, with both of them having illnesses at one time or another, probably brought on by the stress of keeping Earthsimulations going. Much missed. Ian

Chris, can you tell me which can you tell me which Land Class layers you turned off in UTX? I really fancy giving this a try myself, but there are several different LC layers to choose from. Ian

I used FSX-SE and the performance was great, but it started to develop a problem, whenever I finished a flight, the screen would just go black, even though the flight selection screen was running underneath the black, I know because you could click the buttons and hear the sound. If you pressed Control Alt Delete and then cancelled it the screen would return to normal. Doesn't appear a big problem but I found it really irritating. I went back to the boxed version and everything was back to normal. I've now uninstalled the boxed version and I'm running SE and gradually installing my add-on's one at a time to see if one of those is causing the problem, but they all run fine in the boxed version. Ian

I've solved the VAS problem (to a large extent) by just reducing the scenery distance slider. Prior to that I gave up on Orbx Vector and European LC and bought Flight 1's Ultimate Terrain V2 and 2.1 respectively for Europe and the USA. That helps quite a lot, or so I found, but I've still got Orbx Global for textures though. Hope this helps, Ian

Everything seems to be working ok now, I'm wondering if it was the graphics driver, Nvidia have just released a new one which I've installed since my latest re format. I'm reluctant to update my computer before I have to, even though it's over 5 years old, it still runs ok (most of the time!), and whatever you buy will be "out of date" a few months down the line, so to my way of thinking the longer you can leave it the better. Regards, Ian

Many thanks for your reply, Pie Eater. Unfortunately I don't have access to another graphics card, so wheat I've done is yet another re format and install of the whole computer and so far so good, although I haven't finished installing all my addons yet, which could make a difference. Cleaning the graphics card sounds like good advice, so I will do that. If it does turn out to be hardware related I think I'll probably replace the whole machine as it is quite old (i7 920, which is the first generation of i7 processers) and most of the computers that I've been shortlisting seen to come equipped with the GTX 970 which I'm guessing is a good card despite the controversy surrounding it at the moment, though I'm not sure how much of a performance gain I'll get with a new system. Regards, Ian

Hi, There's an interesting article in this month's PC Pilot magazine regarding FSX-SE. It says that some of the coding has been changed and that's the reason for the performance upgrade. Also I noticed that the default maximum texture value has been increased. I know on my computer I get double the FPS and the visuals are vastly superior. I'm actually finding that it performs better than Prepar3D v2.5. Ian

Hi, I'm looking for help solving a problem that I'm having. I've been experiencing black flashing lines on my screen when using Prepar3D v2.5. Those appear no matter what scenery setting I use. I've tried changing the video drivers. My computer has recently been re formatted and re installed so v 2.4 has never been used on this installation but it ran ok prior to the re install. I've also had some problems using FSX-SE. When I end a flight the screen goes totally black instead of returning to the start screen, although the simulator is running behind the black screen because you can hear it if you click on the tabs. Trying to alleviate this problem was the reason for the re format Running FSX in DX10 mode seems to be a way around this problem. My Graphics card is an Nvidia GTX580 and I'm wondering if my card is on it's way out and if so, would a GTX 960 or a GTX 970 with 4Gb be a suitable replacement for it or would I have to go for a 980? Any suggestions as to the possibility that my Graphics card is dying or if there's something that I can do to solve those problems will be very much appreciated. Thanks, Ian

Many thanks for your replies Pete and Jim, I've gone through all the scenery add-ons and disabled them one by one as Jim suggested and that didn't make any difference, and they are all compatible with the Steam version of FSX. Following Pete's suggestion did produce some interesting results. As I always run FSX in full screen mode, I pressed ALT+Enter to put the program into windowed mode, then pressed escape, the "do you want to end the flight" box appeared (this has always appeared) to which I confirmed that I did and the program exited to the start screen, I thought great I'm getting somewhere! I then restarted the default flight, switched to full screen and exited the flight and it exited normally to the start up screen as it should do. When I tried to repeat that I got the black screen again. I can't help but think the problem is with the graphics, but I'm using the latest drivers so I thought maybe I should install some earlier drivers, which I did, but still the problem persists. I know I can work around this, but it still irritates me when I know something isn't working properly. Thanks, Ian

Hi, I was wondering if anyone here has any suggestions for a problem that I'm having with FSX-SE. I've just done a complete re format and re install of Windows 7 64 bit and FSX-SE in an attempt to solve this problem but it's re-occurred. My system is quite old consisting of an i7 920 processer, Nvidia 580 GTX Graphics card and 12 Gb Ram. FSX-SE runs great on this machine with all the sliders to the far right with the exception of Traffic, set at 20%. On first installation with a few add-ons, REX Texture direct and soft clouds, Orbx Global, Vector and EU LC everything is fine, but after a short time, the problem appears. When I want to finish a flight and press the escape key the screen just turns black and the only way that I can return to the start up screen is to press Control-Alt-Delete and start the Task Manager. This problem doesn't happen if you use DX10 mode, but I've discovered that DX10 carries a performance penalty with the Steam edition, which it didn't with the Microsoft version. As the Sim is still running behind the black screen (you can still click on the icons and hear them operating) I started to think maybe it's a problem with my Graphics card, but all my other Flight Sims work ok and I think they are more demanding on the graphics than FSX (P3D v.5, DCS World, Rise of Flight & IL2 Battle of Stalingrad). Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, because at the moment, I'm completely baffled by this. Thanks, Ian

Vector works very well on my system, as does EU LC. I've also installed the North America regions and there ok. I think the problems will start if you try to install the airports. Ian

I've migrated to FSX-SE and the performance difference is just unbelievable. On my aging system (i7 920. GTX580 & 12Gb RAM), with all the sliders to the right with the exception of Traffic (20%) I believe I'm seeing a (very unscientific) doubling of my frame rates compared with MS FSX. The one area where I believe it's not as good is over photo scenery like the Horizon/Playsims U.K. For some reason the scenery never seems to be quite as clear and takes longer to load. Ian

Is it in open beta yet? There's no doubt that ASN is the best weather engine on the market. Ian

FSX-SE is great, on my aging computer (i7 920, GTX580 & 12 Gb Ram) with all sliders maxed with the exception of Traffic at 20% my FPS jump between aprox 60 to 160 over rural France in the default Maule using REX texture & Soft Clouds, Orbx Global, Vector & Europe LC (I which I could remember how to show the average FPS). The only thing I'm short of is ASN. It's interesting that the Texture Max Load is set to 4096 by default, you would think that using REX HD clouds would slow everything down. Ian

I would consider myself to be neutral on this subject as I have FSX, Prepar3D v2.4 and FSX-SE. I have just performed a system format and re-install so at the moment I don't have P3D installed at the moment because I can't see any point in installing it until v2.5 is released because that would entail re-installing again. I haven't installed standard edition of FSX either just the Steam edition, so when it's updated I will have Prepar3D v2.5 and FSX-SE on my system. I like to keep FSX so that I can use it for my UK photo scenery and also to "piggy back" aircraft & scenery into P3D, but at the moment I'm using the photo scenery and Orbx Global and Vector in FSX-SE. I've found the Steam Edition of FSX to be a revelation, I don't know what they've done to it, but it's great. On my old system (i7 920, GTX580 & 12Gb RAM) I'm running it with all the sliders to the right, with the exception of Traffic, which is set at 20%. For sky textures I'm using REX direct & Soft Clouds (I've bought Soft Clouds but I'm not sure what I got for my money!). In rural France, as an example using the default Maul on unlimited I can see the FPS fluctuating between 75 and 160 which I find incredible, and that's with no tweaks! If you can get FSX-SE when it's on one of their special offers (it only cost me £6 or so) then it's well worth having. Good luck with whatever you decide, Ian