sargentx

Everyone is different and everyone likes different add ons etc for fsx. That goes without saying. For some, certain mods work great, and others have problems with the same mods. I want to share my thoughts on ezdok/ezca and the enb mod. Both mods are awesome without doubt. If cameras are your thing, then ezca is the supreme program that will give you unlimited camera views, head shake and buffering effects, and a bunch of other things. However, from what I've read online, a lot of people simply like the head shake effect and buffering illusion. Also, if you've tinkered with ezdok, you know that it's quite complicated and can sometimes have issues. It's not idiot proof. Personally, I was having a lot of problems with ezdok (technical issues) and ended up uninstalling it. Luckily, I wasn't too obsessed with the camera views and am quite happy with the default cameras of fsx. I do however loved and missed the wiggling, undocked head effects. The other day I discovered AccuFeel. this:http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=49 This program is extremely simple compared to Ezdok, but will give you instant, accurate head shake, stall buffeting, and ground shake in all your aircraft including addon aircraft simply by installing the software. It detects the type of aircraft, reads and understands it's flight specs and creates a shake profile for it. It also adds a whole plethora of improved sounds which are really amazing. This program is not a camera program though, so you will use the fsx camera system. You install it and forget about it. It's customizable if you want to tweak it with a really easy to use slider menu that appears in your add-ons tab. Regarding the ENB series mod....once you use it, it's hard to tolerate the default, washed out values and tones of fsx. It really gives fsx a photographic look. But as many know, there can be some serious issues the mod including crashes, burned out skies, difficulty getting the mod to work in all types of time themes etc. For me, it was the single cause of CTD and fatal error messages. You can approximate most of the effects other than bloom by simply adjusting your desktop colour settings. Run fsx in it's own window and adjust your gamma, contrast, lightness etc until you get a richer, more contrasty look. Just playing with these sliders, you can exactly match the HDR effect of ENB....darker richer darks, brighter, more blown out lights etc. And at night, you can really get the high contrast, rich velvety blacks that are so much the prize of the ENB tweaks. On my LED tv, fsx looks awesome, and exactly matches the values of ENB minus the bloom softening. I liked the soap opera gauziness of enb, but got tired of the persistent crashes and problems. Maybe yours works great...I don't know. Aside from bloom, all the other effects can be had by changing your desktop colour settings....gamma, contrast, brightness, vibrance. Also play with your TV/monior settings as well. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you don't lose colour saturation or detail in blown out whites. It gives you a lot of customizability. I don't know, just my thoughts.

Everyone is different and everyone likes different add ons etc for fsx. That goes without saying. For some, certain mods work great, and others have problems with the same mods. I want to share my thoughts on ezdok/ezca and the enb mod. Both mods are awesome without doubt. If cameras are your thing, then ezca is the supreme program that will give you unlimited camera views, head shake and buffering effects, and a bunch of other things. However, from what I've read online, a lot of people simply like the head shake effect and buffering illusion. Also, if you've tinkered with ezdok, you know that it's quite complicated and can sometimes have issues. It's not idiot proof. Personally, I was having a lot of problems with ezdok (technical issues) and ended up uninstalling it. Luckily, I wasn't too obsessed with the camera views and am quite happy with the default cameras of fsx. I do however loved and missed the wiggling, undocked head effects. The other day I discovered AccuFeel. this:http://www.a2asimulations.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=49 This program is extremely simple compared to Ezdok, but will give you instant, accurate head shake, stall buffeting, and ground shake in all your aircraft including addon aircraft simply by installing the software. It detects the type of aircraft, reads and understands it's flight specs and creates a shake profile for it. It also adds a whole plethora of improved sounds which are really amazing. This program is not a camera program though, so you will use the fsx camera system. You install it and forget about it. It's customizable if you want to tweak it with a really easy to use slider menu that appears in your add-ons tab. Regarding the ENB series mod....once you use it, it's hard to tolerate the default, washed out values and tones of fsx. It really gives fsx a photographic look. But as many know, there can be some serious issues the mod including crashes, burned out skies, difficulty getting the mod to work in all types of time themes etc. For me, it was the single cause of CTD and fatal error messages. You can approximate most of the effects other than bloom by simply adjusting your desktop colour settings. Run fsx in it's own window and adjust your gamma, contrast, lightness etc until you get a richer, more contrasty look. Just playing with these sliders, you can exactly match the HDR effect of ENB....darker richer darks, brighter, more blown out lights etc. And at night, you can really get the high contrast, rich velvety blacks that are so much the prize of the ENB tweaks. On my LED tv, fsx looks awesome, and exactly matches the values of ENB minus the bloom softening. I liked the soap opera gauziness of enb, but got tired of the persistent crashes and problems. Maybe yours works great...I don't know. Aside from bloom, all the other effects can be had by changing your desktop colour settings....gamma, contrast, brightness, vibrance. Also play with your TV/monior settings as well. The nice thing about doing it this way is that you don't lose colour saturation or detail in blown out whites. It gives you a lot of customizability. I don't know, just my thoughts.

Cool, thanks for that! So i guess fsx is incredibly watered down. Almost like a cartoon of reality.

THank you! So convoluted...sheesh. I'll look at it tomorrow.

I know this is not the right place to ask this, but I can't find an answer anywhere. I own REX essential Plus. I want to updrage to Overdrive. How do I do this? On the REX site, there appears to only be the option to buy REX essential with Overdrive as a package. I'm under the impression that he overdrive portion is free? Where can I download the upgrade if there is one? I can't see it anywhere. Thank you so much

First of all, I'm definitely not one of these guys who flies published approaches with VOXatc in my 10 monitor garage setup. So yes, I understand that fsx can be much much more real in terms of ATC than it is. I've read a fair amount of real and fsx atc phrasology and have a general idea as to what the real world is sort of like. That said, my question is this: When you create an IFR flight in fsx and you use the default atc, it more or less tells you what to do. "Climb to.....descend to.....expect vectors for....yadda yadda. It's very procedural and if you know how to fly an ILS approach you're pretty much set. Is that what it would be like for a small airplane/private pilot type person in real life? When do yo use all those STAR approaches and published approaches etc? I can't seem to get a straight-for-idiots explanation for any of that stuff. Anyway, The question is: If I use the ATC for a little vfr flight in a small aiplane; is that a somewhat real process? And...when do real world small aircraft pilots use approach charts of any kind? Why would you need them when the ATC simply tells you what to do every step of the way. This is totally Noobish I realize. Just curious.

Question: Why can't people tinker with fsx and make it better short of changing config settings and code values etc? For example, horizon blending. It sucks in fsx, so why can't a tech savvy person change it so it's better? Is the code encrypted? Somehow unchangeable?

$1,000,000.00 of what?...man-hours, computers, office space rental, publishing, advertising...... I guess hey? I guess it would take someone like us, but who has millions doing nothing and a passion for the hobby to make it happen. : ( I must say though, I'm pretty happy with the fsx setup I have. I tell ya, all the orbx NA sceneries and all their little airports, combined with this great little Calgary addon (my home town)....and an upcoming cyyc airport for Cal from SimAddons; with REX and tweaks and ENB, geeze, sometimes I'm floored by how real and photographic it all seems. I'm happy with fsx for conceivable years (I HAVE TO BE considering the shameful thousands I've spent on this little hobby over the years!) I was there on my Apple 2E in the 80's trying to figure out what all those green lines were! lol

My questions is this: With so many brilliant scenery designers, aircraft modellers, and computer fs nerds out there; how come nobody has created a new flight simulator like fsx? Pardon my igorance, but why would a company like Orbx make awesome scenery for fsx, and not be focusing their energy on making New Flight Sim awesomeness 2015 or something of their own ....think $$$$$$? Is it hard to build something like flight simulator x? I guess that's a rhetorical quesion...interface design, art design, marketing, scenery design and programming, simulation physics, aircraft modelling, access to huge photo-based resources like satellite imagery, and an army of creatives trepsing around the world taking tens of thousands of reference photographs and video, 80 underpaid recent computer design grads on 50 computers doing blend masking of shorelines.... yadayadayada I guess you needed Microsoft and Aces for something that big. Or no? Everyone cries for a new base fs engine, but is anyone building one? It seems that there is ample talent out there to do it...what's missing? Hell, I'd pay to start up a company to get something like that going! I think there would be huge bucks to be made from it...and a continuation of the hobby. I don't know. Motts Clamato Caesar is doing the typing tonight ; )

Once you get ENB series ini. file into the fsx main folder, it's really a matter of tweaking it. I've spent hours fiddling with these setting and think I've got it down pretty good. This is a 'bloomy' setting, so if you don't like your fsx to look all soft and atmospheric, adjust it yourself. This is a great starting point for fsx. For fsx, the most critical settings are: under [bloom] Bloompowerday= The brightness and power of the fuzziness/70's porn look of fsx. Higher values look very atmospheric and real...too high and it might look schmaltzy to some. I love the effect at moderate levels. Hyper real space and light. Also controls brightness of the effect Bloompowernight= same as above. Really brings the guage lighting to life. BloomAdaptationScreenLevel= This value increase the effect that your eye is adapting to darks and lights. At dusk, you look down at the ground and it's very dark, then after a few seconds you adapt and it gets brighter. While this is neat in theory, in fsx and ENB the effect isn't smoothed and happens in a flash. Really jarring and not realistic. 20 seems to solve this as a value. [colorcorrection] darkening effect= This is basically the level of contrast between the brights and the darks. The higher the value, the more real it looks...until the difference is too great and you loose detail. Set a dusk scene and adjust from there. This number is pretty realistic I think. Instant download and installer of an already tweaked ENB series: http://www.fs2000.or...c_details/324243 VERY conservative settings. My settings after 3 days of fiddling and experimenting in all conditions: EnvBumpAmount=100 EnvBumpOffset=100 ReflectionFlip=0 [bLOOM] BloomPowerDay=45 BloomFadeTime=1000000 BloomConstantDay=1 BloomQuality=0 BloomScreenLevelDay=1 BloomCurveDay=7 BloomPowerNight=30 BloomConstantNight=5 BloomCurveNight=9 BloomScreenLevelNight=12 BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=20 BloomAdaptationMultiplier=45 BloomAllowOversaturation=1 BloomMaxLimit=57 [sSAO] UseFilter=1 OcclusionQuality=2 FilterQuality=1 DarkeningLevel=10l BrighteningLevel=100 IlluminationLevel=100 AdditiveIlluminationLevel=18 UseAmbientOcclusion=1 UseIndirectLighting=1 FadeDistance=50 UseForAlphaTest=0 UseForAlphaBlend=0 [colorCORRECTION] DarkeningAmountDay=35 ScreenLevelDay=8 ScreenLevelNight=14 DarkeningAmountNight=-20 GammaCurveDay=-2p GammaCurveNight=6 ColorSaturationDay=1p ColorSaturationNight=-1 UsePaletteTexture=0 [WATER] UseWaterDeep=0 WaterDeepness=20 WaterQuality=0 [sHADOW] ShadowFadeStart=40 ShadowFadeEnd=80 ShadowAmountDay=50 ShadowAmountNight=40 ShadowScreenLevelDay=40 ShadowScreenLevelNight=30 ShadowQuality=1 UseShadowFilter=0 FilterQuality=2 ShadowBlurRange=30 [ENGINE] ForceAnisotropicFiltering=1 MaxAnisotropy=16 ForceDisplayRefreshRate=0 DisplayRefreshRateHz=60 [MOTIonblur] MotionblurQuality=0 MotionblurVelocity=0 MotionblurRotation=0 [PERPIXELLIGHTING] SpecularColorMin=0 SpecularColorMax=100 SpecularColorMultiplier=100 SpecularGlossinessMin=0 SpecularGlossinessMax=100 SpecularGlossinessMultiplier=100 [DEPTHOFFIELD] DOFQuality=2 DOFNumberOfPasses=1 DOFFocusRange=50 DOFBlurinessRange=10

Well, this is nothing new, but figured I'd share my ENB series settings. It took me hours to get it to this point; so maybe for someone out there it will be a freebie. I spent a few nights experimenting with and researching all the ENB series file settings and have got it to a point where it seems, at least to my eyes, to be very real, with a touch of atmospheric bloom, and working in all conditions (desert, night, day etc.). I found this handy download that installs ENB into your fsx directly. It's been tweaked by the maker, but I find it to be quite conservative and not using the enb potential to the fullest Imho. Thanks for making the installer though! : http://www.fs2000.org/downloads/doc_details/32424 USE AT OWN RISK! From what I've read, you need a decent graphics card. This setting is specific to a high end card. (gtx 560ti at the time of this posting) Just open up fsx and look for the enbseries.ini Open it in word pad and play (if you can call it that). By the way, if you open fsx in windowed mode and make your wordpad adjustments in another,...all you have to do is change the size of the fsx window and it will reload the textures and graphics settings so you can see the changes you made without reloading fsx. Just save enb each time you make a change, then grab and change the fsx window in some way. Tada. I think this is pretty decent. I personally like a bit of shmalzy bloom. If you don't, just lower the value of Bloompower day or night. After all is said and done, the main ones you want to play with in the ENB settings are: [bloom] Bloompower day (Produces the atmospheric haze around light objects. High values looks like cheap porn from the 70's....but there is a sweetspot where it feels like light and space. ]bloom] Bloompower night, (I like bloom at night at airports...really brings your landing lights to life and all the lighting. [bloom] Bloomfadetime....(basically how fast in milliseconds the 'eye' would adjust from moving from dark to light) Darkening effect. Basically the level of contrast intensity. Higher values = darker darks and lighter lights. I sat in my car on a bright day and approximated the contrast difference facing the sun. These alone will give you lots to fiddle with. Here are my complete FSX settings: EnvBumpAmount=100 EnvBumpOffset=100 ReflectionFlip=0 [bLOOM] BloomPowerDay=45 BloomFadeTime=1000000 BloomConstantDay=1 BloomQuality=0 BloomScreenLevelDay=1 BloomCurveDay=7 BloomPowerNight=30 BloomConstantNight=5 BloomCurveNight=9 BloomScreenLevelNight=12 BloomAdaptationScreenLevel=80 BloomAdaptationMultiplier=45 BloomAllowOversaturation=1 BloomMaxLimit=57 [sSAO] UseFilter=1 OcclusionQuality=2 FilterQuality=1 DarkeningLevel=10l BrighteningLevel=100 IlluminationLevel=100 AdditiveIlluminationLevel=18 UseAmbientOcclusion=1 UseIndirectLighting=1 FadeDistance=50 UseForAlphaTest=0 UseForAlphaBlend=0 [colorCORRECTION] DarkeningAmountDay=35 ScreenLevelDay=8 ScreenLevelNight=14 DarkeningAmountNight=-20 GammaCurveDay=-2p GammaCurveNight=6 ColorSaturationDay=1p ColorSaturationNight=-1 UsePaletteTexture=0 [WATER] UseWaterDeep=0 WaterDeepness=20 WaterQuality=0 [sHADOW] ShadowFadeStart=40 ShadowFadeEnd=80 ShadowAmountDay=50 ShadowAmountNight=40 ShadowScreenLevelDay=40 ShadowScreenLevelNight=30 ShadowQuality=1 UseShadowFilter=0 FilterQuality=2 ShadowBlurRange=30 [ENGINE] ForceAnisotropicFiltering=1 MaxAnisotropy=16 ForceDisplayRefreshRate=0 DisplayRefreshRateHz=60 [MOTIonblur] MotionblurQuality=0 MotionblurVelocity=0 MotionblurRotation=0 [PERPIXELLIGHTING] SpecularColorMin=0 SpecularColorMax=100 SpecularColorMultiplier=100 SpecularGlossinessMin=0 SpecularGlossinessMax=100 SpecularGlossinessMultiplier=100 [DEPTHOFFIELD] DOFQuality=2 DOFNumberOfPasses=1 DOFFocusRange=50 DOFBlurinessRange=10 If you use REX, I tweaked this ENB series using "tropical new" sky texture. I find with ENB, sky textures that have little to no blend work better as the dynamic range washes out the sky. Any sky in REX that has a single Blue to it as apposed to a blend looks more realistic and less washed out.

sorry...not "affinity"....it's "priority". It's in task manager/processes/ right click fsx.exe/ choose real time or High. Real time can produce some glitches (for me it's sound issues. I've never had a crash or instability though). Unpark your cores and see if that, combined with High priority gives you 80% use on all threads. It did for me....with great results, but not everyone seems to benefit the same. I"m running win 7

It's interesting that the "spot view" from the views drop down in-game menu has a fluid, bouncy action to it when using the hatswitch. There must be a way to have this same logic to the VC view. I dunno, moving out of my range of knowledge. Thanks all. c

NoahBryant.... Ya that works...but it would be nice to have that same fluid motion and be able to just look around with the hat switch. I guess that's the question I'm wondering about.

No easier way in the config files hunh : (

I've never had any instability or crashing priority in RealTime. However, with my current audio drivers, I get crackling and audio artifacts only in that mode. I don't get any sound issues in High priority. I usually don't bother setting the priority to HIgh because for the most part, my rig gets 30-60 fps everywhere in high settings. The endless flight sim dream is high fps and great performance in all flight conditions, sigh. 10 gig processor would do the trick! ; ) five years maybe? .

You know how when you use mouse-look (shift O) in VC mode, it has a beautiful, fluid movement to it much like TrackIR? But when you use the hat switch to pan it has a very robotic, rigid 'fixed' way of moving that feels mechanical and crude? Is there any way to make is so that the hat switch looking behaves like the mouse-look panning? Fluid and more Human like? I tried a tweak that involved finding the cameras cnfg but the changes didn't make any difference. I"m using Win 7 so don't have the c/documents and settings/ et.etdc path. Rather its the c/users/app data/roaming-local etc. path. Anyway, if there's a way to do this I'd be greatly appreciative. Please be detailed in your description using windows 7 paths if possible. Thank you so much!

disabling hyper threading has no effect on performance. It's a windows feature that allows for better multitasking. you're not multitasking with fsx. This stuff is so bloody system specific. I got significant, repeatable gains in fps in saved, repeatable test flights with setting the priority to real time COMBINED with unparking my cores as did a couple of other people in here. The differences aren't wishful thinking. it's the difference between 12 fps and 25 fps over ultra dense scenery like seattle (orbx). I have no idea why or how, but it just works for a certain setup. Strangely, I get the best performance with the Bojote auto tweaker, whereas some of you say it causes major issues. The Word Not Allowed's guide (many of the same tweaks) caused me noghting but issues and poor performance whereas some of you say it made things great. Who the f___ knows. This is a strange beast.....I just wanted to post WHAT WORKED FOR ME in a very clear way so that it MIGHT work for even just one person. That's all. I've tried a lot of stuff....some works some doesn't. That's fsx.

This all started with me wanting to buy TrackIR 5. But because 1)I'm poor and 2) I play fsx sitting far back on a couch with a big screen, I couldn't because track IR5 has a maximum distance of 4 feet. Also it's bloody expensive. I love the idea, look, and functionality of the system, but it can't work with my physical set up and bank account. At first glance, this might seem silly, but holy crap does it work nearly as well as track IR...especially for just casual flying looking left and right, up and down. If you've ever tried Mouse-look ( shift+ O) , you'll notice that it has the lovely, smooth, 'real' head motions of track IR...only you're using the mouse, which obviously sucks.....BUT using a laser/optical mouse, 1) go into options and go to controls and select "mouse look" from the hardware drop down menu. 2) set sensitivity and null zone for mouse look to near zero...like 2% 3)Go into keyboard/joystick assignments and set "mouse look all directions" (default is shift+O ) so that it's assigned to one of your controller buttons so that you can easily toggle mouse-look on and off. I use the trigger. 4)On a hard surface floor, lay a small bath towel down (not folded). If you have rugs, put a book down or a thin, flat, piece of wood and lay your towel on top of that. On top of the towel, lay down a normal sheet of paper. You'll find that this little 'cushion' set up makes all the difference. Tinker with it . This can work with two mice, one for the trackir thing and the other for general pointing and clicking. So what's all this for????? You're going to use your FOOT! 5)Now don't laugh until you try it....it's very subtle and you hardly move your foot at all....you stop realizing you're doing it and it links to your visual thinking system after only minutes. I'm able to control my visual panning in virtual cockpit mode with extreme precision and you'll find that the movements are very very slight to get lots of panning motion in a nice, fluid, track IR way. I can swing around and look behind in and back to front in one, little gesture. The trick with this is to plant your heel on the ground and use it like a pivot. The rest of your foot rests on the mouse with varying pressure as you control. The slight cusion stabilizes the view when your foot is fully resting on the mouse. I also tried having both my feet on either side of the mouse, which works also, but not as good. You have to experiment a bit, but after only a minute or so of practice, you'll see how super easy this is....it all happens in a really small way.....a simple slight curling of the toes and you look down, half inch motion to the left and it pans like a head motion, etc. It's really subtle and intuitive. I hardly ever use the jerky hat switch panning anymore, but if I want to, the defaulted toggle for mouse-look on the controller allows me to instantly get back into hat-switch mode so I can click stuff or regain control. It's added a lot of immersion to the experience. I just finished flying out of London and all along the coast, used my foot-view the whole way and it was perfect for gawking, landing, instrument checking etc. Don't knock it until you try it. I'm impressed with the precision and relatively minuscule motions required to make it work.....it feels like you're 'thinking' the views and they're happening on-screen. Very unconscious. Again, experiment with rug, no rug, magazine, paper on rug etc...bare feet is a must I think. I put a little strip of skateboard grip-tape on the mouse which helps even more. The foot-mouse could be a usb laser, the control click mouse is your wireless....not sure about all the combinations and permutations that work or don't etc. Obviously this won't work if you're using foot pedals. Like I said "POOR MAN'S".

I only know about my windows 7 results. As with anything, who the hell knows. On my end, I can confidently say that I've gained 10-15 fps everywhere without doubt....and a strange and very nice smoothness to the sim when framerates are below 24....it feels like 30. Through testing, I know that it's the unparked cores + the realtime setting for priority. The unparked cores don't really do much on their own on my system. It seems to be the combo. I mean, how can you not see a drastic improvement in performance with 8 threads all at 80%? I've heard of people having issues with the high priority (ctds, errors etc.) I've had none whatsoever so far, MAYBE it's more stable because of the unparked cores??? I don't know anything about this stuff. Just trial and error. I'm only making claims for myself (another dude on here also saw big changes..like doubled the fps.). We'll see. Don't get me wrong, I still get the odd crappy frame rates, but never below about 23 and very rarely. Has to be a crazy airport with lots of weather and stuff going on. There's no way in hell I could fly smoothly in these conditions before this adjustment. On max settings Seattle was 12 fps. Now 23-30. I've eased off on the autogen one notch just for that little bit of extra smoothening; but don't really have to. If this helps just a couple of people then it was worth posting. I hope it doesn't waste anyone's time or cause grief. ...I guess if you set your priority to 'realtime' just for fsx, there's no worry of it causing a tricky system hang where you can't make changes because your cpu is fully committed. Maybe do your own reading on this. I'm stable with it. And yes, you have to turn on 'realtime' after you launch fsx. It's easy as the launch window is windowed.

The core parking thing doesn't seem to do much....except when paired with a higher cpu priority setting, I'm going to advise a setting lower than "realtime" though.....because apparently if your OS crashes, you'll have no way to recover because the cpu is fully committed to fsx! I've had no issues though. I guess it prioritizes fax even over mouse inputs and stuff like that. Hopefully others will post their results with this combination.

Cool! I'm glad it helped. It was amazing on my end. Just a warning though:http://blogs.msdn.com/b/oldnewthing/archive/2010/06/10/10022675.aspx USE AT OWN RISK! LOL Thanks Kannwar, I'll check out the guide you mention. I think I've perused it before.

I'm going to back track and contradict myself. I honestly have no opinion re: the Bojote tool. it seems to greatly decrease texture drop-out issues and maybe makes things less prone to graphics melt-downs. I don't know. I'm now running the config on the Bojote fixes and no more black skies or texture drop outs. I honestly don't notice too much of a fps increase, but the fixes are about more than just increasing fps I gather. I'm no expert on code/programming. In another post, I've added another little thing I found that gave me an additional 15 fps and dramatically improved performance. If you check your task manager during game, you'll see that the threads of your cpu are imbalanced and unevenly working. If you turn of 'core parking' in windows seven you'll get a more even spread across the threads. This has little to no effect on performance, BUT....if you go into Task manager/processes and right click fsx, you can choose to set the priority for the cpu. If you select 'realtime', you might see great results. For me, I'm getting all 8 threads working at 80% and a dramatic increase in frame-rates and performance. Night and day really.

Yes you're right, I meant "threads"....and also the thread priority. In the task manager there are some choices when you right click on fsx.exe "Priority" is the one I meant. In windows seven you can select "realtime" whatever that means. Combined with the unparked cores it's giving me 8 threads working at about 80%. Before setting the realtime, I was getting uneven thread use across the unparked cores. I'm no computer expert, but of all the things I've tried, this has given me the most dramatic performance boost. I have no idea why or how.

Well, for me at least I've discovered a combination of things that have given me absolutely unreal performance with fsx and all my Orbx sceneries. I've added 15-20 fps on top of what was typically about 24-40 fps, zero stutters or problems, and can actually max the autogen sliders to the far right over Seattle and get 20-30 fps. Everywhere else I'm averaging 40-50 fps. The lowest I ever see is 22 and that's around dense airports like Harvey field from Orbx. Even at 22, the sim feels like 30 fps. It's got that high def video look to it. I just thought I'd share this because for me at least, it's like Christmas morning. This stuff probably only applies to faster systems. I don't know. System, i7 3770k 3.5-3.7 ghz (stock) windows 7 Geforce GTX 560 REX Plus, Orbx PNW and all airports, Lancair legacy from Real Air simulations. All sliders set to maximum except for vehicle traffic (25%) Airline traffic (off, preference), No bloom, no aircraft shadows, and water at low 2.0. 1. Unparked my cores. I guess this allows the system to use all the cores without saving power and 'parking' less used cores. Do your research. http://forums.extrem...ad.php?t=358646 2. Downloaded UIAutomationCore.dll http://dllexedown.co...48&page=430���� I simply dropped this into my fsx main folder. Completely eliminated all crash issues and error messages. No more Fatal error BS. 3. Performed the Bojote fsx tweaking tool. http://www.venetubo..../fsx.html��Does wonders for performance and graphical glitches and loading issues. 4. Set my fps limiter to unlimited. 5. Went into Task Manager/processes/ and changed the affinity for fsx to 'Real time'. Definitely not running any other processes in the background. Have had no instability. Computer is purpose built for fsx and only runs this program. This, combined with unparking my cores has given me nearly maximum use of all 8 cores evenly. For the first time ever, Im seeing 80% load across all the cores as apposed to the usual and frustrating 'variety' of loads. The result is nothing short of phenomenal. My computer is running fsx on max graphics as if its fs2004 on a 2010 computer. I just had to share this. Really worked for me, I hope it works for someone else! FSX is a pig.