datter

I'm sorry in advance if this has been covered before, but I can never get the search working with any regularity on this site so I thought I'd post and hope for the best. As I recall I was posting in a thread similar to this not long ago but I'll be damned if I can find it now.I'm currently using WoAI and rather happy with it for AI traffic, it does the job... but as I recently said elsewhere on another forum being an FSX user I'm not one to leave well enough alone and all the various payware traffic addons look interesting too. I recently overclocked my Q6600 Quad to 3.3ghz (from 2.4ghz) so I think I have some processor power to play with as far as traffic goes, so I'm shopping around just to see what's out there.As I understand it Traffic X is the only one that's offering all true FSX ai aircraft, which should equate to better frame rates? Then there's My Traffic X which has some neat features too. Is there any sort of concensus regarding one over the other? What I'm after is something that will give me a lot of real world traffic, and not impact frame rates too much beyond what's expected. Also maybe have some neat extra features like Traffic X's spotter and whatnot.Traffix X, My Traffic X... just stick to WoAI? Any opinions are appreciated.

How long have you had it overclocked now, and is it stable?

Well given my Q6600 is a G0 I figure that will help me as far as temps go, and this with Vendetta cooler in place I hope to keep it under 65deg under load but we'll see. My first and only major concern is whether this Vendetta will even fit into my case given that I have two big 8800GT's in there. I've yet to crack it open for measuring but not knowing at this point is a mighty concern of mine. I should get time to check into that this evening.Disregarding my worries about the cooler fitting in there this is all very, very encouraging gentlemen and I thank you.

No sir, no Raid happening here. Also not overly concerned with FPS, I hate that damned counter. :) I'm after smoothness first, and the possibility of maybe turning up some detail.

Hi all, I've been reading about overclocking quite heavily and am curious if anyone can shed any light on the real world benefits within FSX and overclocking a Q6600? I'm not looking for how-to's (reading enough of that) or definitive answers saying I will see a gain of X fps, or X amount of smoothness etc... but rather just a feel for whether all this OC stuff is worth it as far as flying around in FSX is concerned. All that said, I just bought a CPU cooler today (an OCZ Vendetta 2) as I'm likely to pull the trigger and do this regardless... but I'm curious if all my reading and efforts are going to yield much goodness in the end. Here are my system specs: So, any guesses as to real world benefits to overclocking this (maybe to 3.2 or so?). If I'm gaining 2 fps or some such I'm not sure it's worth the trouble. Also, any guesses as to how well this rig will react to overclocking in as far as the components are concerned? From what I've read it this system should react well to OC'ing.Any opinions are welcome. Thanks,datter

Thanks for that, very helpful. I think I can live without fancy sky colours and effects if it means I can get rid of that nasty horizon. :)

I have hated that hard horizon line for a long time, and just happened across this. I've read the thread, but just to be clear... if using this with any 3rd part app that provides an alternate sky theme (like FEX or REX) do you first go into the setup for that 3rd party app, and disable any sky themes, then install the above soft horizons? If that's the case, this is a trade-off of any 3rd party coloured sky themes (be they blue/sunrises/sunsets etc) for a nice soft horizon. Is this accurate?If so, it sounds like a worthy trade-off to me.

More excellent suggestions to look into, and once again thanks to all.

I have not, but will look into that. Thanks.

I fly FSX regularly with a friend of mine and we're finding that some of the freeware aircraft we're trying are really just not up to snuff. Questionable flight models, no VC etc. We're looking for a list of must-have freeware planes (of all types) that are "good". Good = Virtual cockpit, decent "realistic" flight model, fancy features (clickable buttons in cockpit etc), decent visual appearance.An example of what we consider good is this F86 Saber. It was built for Fs9 but has been ported over to FSX (in an interim way) very nicely. It's a joy to fly, looks terrific, has a great VC with lots of goodies and even sports engine failures, stuck gear etc if you abuse it. Definitely "good".I'm posting this to a few forums in a search for some "good" freeware aircraft. I appreciate any feedback or suggestions.Thanks,datterPS- I'm flying FSX/Acceleration, though my friend is only up to SP2 (non-Accel) if that impacts any recommendations.

I've read (somewhere) that this Orbx Australia scenery will not work properly if you have any version of UTX installed, which is a deal breaker for me. Any idea if that's true?

I guess it depends on what you consider labour intensive. I downloaded the installer, then nabbed all the airliners I wanted. Admittedly I didn't get all of them, but all the names I recognized which was a substantial portion. I figure if I have airlines flying around I've never even heard of, I might as well stick to "Orbit". ;) Anyway, after getting those it was a pretty simple affair to get them installed using the installer... honestly didn't take much time at all and certainly not hours. Since then, I cranked the traffic up to 100% in FSX and haven't thought about it since which is what I was after. Install it, and forget it.

I'd recommend ignoring any commentary about "forgetting freeware stuff" and go try World of AI. My skies are now full (100% sliders) of real world aircraft with no noticeable performance hit at all. Install was painless, and it's free so you've got nothing to lose.Highly recommended.

The "your system is unique" bit is especially valid. I've read time and again how SLI does nothing to help FSX, yet on my particular rig FSX runs noticeably faster and smoother with SLI turned on. I also recently read a thread here on avsim in which there was talk that running FSX on two or three cores, as opposed to my available four might in fact make for an increase in smoothness. I tried it, and unsurprisingly on my rig all four cores is the way to go. I've seen this countless times, and in fact went through NickN's now famous post(s) about tweaking and had entirely mixed results. In the end I had to pick and choose what worked for MY system, and ignore the rest.

So to be perfectly clear (lots of numbers up there)... AffinityMask=12 will set a Quadcore Q6600 (for instance) to run on only two cores, AffinityMask=14 will set it for three cores, and AffinityMask=15 will tell it to use all four? Mine is set to four at the moment, but I might have to mess around with this a bit.

I've not had any trouble with it at all, but I've heard reports of people with issues as well. The main loading problem is when injecting your chosen textures into the sim which can take quite a few minutes, though you don't have to do that more than once. After that there's some loading once you're in the cockpit, which happens each time. You'll see a green bar at the top with messages saying REX is connected, copying textures and what not. That part only takes 30 to 45 seconds or so for me... although there is sometimes a delay of a minute or more before it starts happening for some reason. Slightly annoying yes, but all in all I find the end results worth the wait.

I'm using GEX (Ground Environment Xtreme) , UTX (Ultimate Terrain X) and REX (Real Environment Xtreme) all of which are working out very nicely. Looks like this for me (720p Youtube video) though my ground textures weren't as cranked as they could have been when I captured this as I was still screwing around with things.EDIT: Ah yes, first post... hi all. :)