violingineer

Note that Ultimate VFR does have autogen embeded on their photoreal aparently in some places, this is a rarity in the FSX community. The only other widely available product for US locations with autogen is megasceneryX (the forerunner of megascenery--which does not have autogen). There are a few others but not much support. Aerosoft SwizertlandX is probably the best. I have megasceneryX Phoenix and it's great. I have also created some of my own that has autogen, see my new mexico scenery on rikoo. There are a few others if you look hard for free. But no one claims an entire state with autogen--if UltimateVFR does that is impressive. That said, there is no way to combine landclass autogen and photoreal scenery autogen placements. It doesnt work that way. You can either have landclass (GEX, FTX) and autogen, or photo (megascenery, simsavvy, make your own) and autogen that is defined on that, but you cannot interchange them. The native FSX autogen is landclass, therefore you can never use native FSX (or FTX or GEX) in combination with a photo product. That's why I love MegasceneryX sooo much. It has just enough autogen to keep things smooth and realistic but still has fine photo qualities. Unfortunately they only made about 6 cities until they chickened out and just started doing photo only. Wish they would bring back some realy dev and include autogen too. Thinking about getting Colorado Ultimate VFR now that the price is more reasonable. Any opinions on Colorado?

A better suggestion: Iris has two DA42 versions. I don't think they offer them for sale on their website, but perhaps an aftermarketer might still offer. The "Aviator" series is the better version, however both offer leaps and bounds better simulation/quality per framerate than Alabeo. I can't speak for Eaglesoft, but that prob has slightly better frames, but old looking.

It didnt surprise me to hear that the 404 was not that great, but that WAS because the first thing I noticed was that Carenado/Alabeo was still using the same Avidyne EX500 gauge developed from the C90 etc. This gauge is a frame rate hog, especially on terrain mode. Same for the DA42 and the Carenado derived G1000 with terrain. Why the distinction between Alabeo and Carenado anymore---Alabeo used to be the low cost/frame rate friendly version, but no more. Side note, if you want a good DA42, Iris Aviator series is awesome. Now everyone has little bugs on this 404, and that combined with total lack of interest in FPS by the developer, is really turning me off to Alabeo. All the while noticing that the Saratoga TC has excellent frame rates---mainly because they stuck to less glass. However some aircraft they do pay more attention to the textures and efficiency than others!! See the PA46T with all of its glass, and yet it still has decent frames. The inconsistency with this developer drives me nuts. IMO, Ant's and Baytower are the only two GA developers that got it right. I don't have the top of the line PC, but I did buy all my hardware for the sole purpose of FSX, and some planes I get consistent 60 fps (my monitors rate) with the mouse pointer out, and thats which planes I find I fly the most. Also, thanks Bert for chiming in (you don't know me) but your opinion means a lot, when you said you liked the Baytower on a thread, I immediately went and bought it. Your opinion on the C404 checked the box for me on not bothering about this plane. Your knowledge and posts over the years have really been helpful. (I've lurked and lurked, and I've been playing FS since Apple II days, so I've been around.) Finally, why don't more developers go back to regular gauges that can be replaced??? Just like real life, and part of the beauty of FSX was the customization. I don't like certain gauges or transponders/avionics, let me build the cockpit to my likes. Developers should make provisions for this, in whatever way they can maximize looks, function, and efficiency. Alabeo, once was distinct for its efficient and beautiful and cheaper products, but now it is just Carenado's same old low efficiency (see their TBM and latest crap bizjets on frame rate). Whats the point? Does anyone care about frames anymore??

Well... I guarantee OOM's if you still use an XP system (like I had refused to upgrade from Win7 fearing it would jack the frame rates...) But, yeah OOMs are less of a concern now Since i FINALLY bought Win7. But you should always as a rule pay attention to texture sizing efficiency it will help load things in memory faster and allow switching between views much faster, or even improve FPS.

Long time FS user here, mostly lurker to forums, sorry. Been using FS since it was on an Apple ][e. Anyhow, lemme give you some perspective, with FSX I strive for 60fps ALWAYS with the mouse pointer displayed on the VC. This is with my frame limiter set at 60 of course. I do NOT have a badass machine... intel i5 8meg ram 9 CAS latency and a $100 video card, Win7. With such, I can run the majestic q400 at 60fps (pointer displayed) usually with REX running on low cloud settings, with FSX scenery/autogen maxed out and with bojote's tweak. There are only a few advanced payware aircraft that can achieve 60fps with consistency on my machine as of now (q400 is one, see below). The latest products from Carenado don't. And I'm not sure why, considering both Aerosoft, Majestic, and A2A offer products that are just as detailed (or more), that consistently have better fps (some sort of mojo magic by tweaking vertices, textures, pixels, what have you). The only two Carenado aircraft that are good on frames that I still consider "modern" FSX graphics are the Baron, and the V35/F33, however the latter is pushing it for "modern". Beyond the Baron's release date, the remaining Carenado planes have varied in horrible FPS (TBM850) to decently flyable/nice looking in good conditions (Piper Malibu, Seneca). Alabeo has done a considerably better job optimizing for FPS, due to less glass, however even they have fallen a little short on several aircraft---the DA40 is downright GORGEOUS, and is decent on FPS, but cant handle what the Carenado Baron can handle fps-wise, and the complexity is nearly the same. That said, I've done everything above (reduce textures, delete cmeteo) and I get ZERO improvement on frame rates for the S550. I do get 60FPS with my pointer not displayed, unless there are clouds. But, with my pointer displayed I get 30-40s. Not good enough for me. I did replace the ADI and eHSI with frame rate friendly ones (thank god you can replace these) and it bought me 10 fps. Surprisingly, I actually dont notice much improvement if I replace the MFD with something efficient.. unless of course you choose other modes on the MFD such as Terrain that destroy fps. BTW Kronzky GPS (google it) is great free addon for a light on frames terrain display. Any other ideas I'm open to hearing. If you are curious which planes I think are the absolute best for frame rate versus graphics detail and flight, they are in this order: 1a) Believe it or not: Virtavia (Alphasim) T-34c mentor has the absolute best frames/performance versus graphics and real life accuracy of all. Maybe not as complicated of a plane, as say, the next one: 1b) Majestic Q400 (can get a little slow in heavy weather-but the detail/performance ratio blows all the "pro" detailed folks away: iFLY, PMDG, Etc) 2a) A2A Accusim Piper 180 (strangely FAR better FPS than it's sisters A2A C172 or C182) - this cherokee is such a hoot! 2b) Real Air SF260 or Spitfire (not very complicated but great frames versus beauty) 3) Iris Da42 Aviator Series (not the pro series version, which is just as good on frames but not as detailed) 4) Aerosoft Dash 6 Twotter (extended is fine). 5) Aerosoft AirbusX (not extended one - that reduces frames I hear) 6) For sheer FPS alone: Carenado Baron or Alabeo Pawnee (Tie: GREAT frames, not very complicated planes of course) 7) And for bizjets: Lionheart Epic VLJ (for a glass cockpit good frames, but realistically these arent built in real world, waiting for LJ24b to go on sale again) 8) not a "modern" graphics plane, but the Eaglesoft Citation V 2.0 still kicks Carenado's butt for realism and outstanding frames. I wish Carenado/Alabeo would learn to improve their graphics techniques w/r/t frames. You don't need all the bling they provide if 1) your plane is not smooth, 2) the gauges are too tiny/fuzzy to read numbers clearly, 3) the realism is spotty....

Umm the texture bmp's on this livery are 21 MEGS each!! Can we say OOM error? The Carenado paints are 4Mb each. When you do a repaint, take this into account.

Ummm.... I had this same question. Arno, from FSdeveloper shows on his blog (http://flightsimaviation.blogspot.com/search?updated-min=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2014-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=8) a P3D A36 with the steam gauges--is this something just for P3D, I think not since it is sold as P3D/FSX!! Worth the money if they have that option....as the Aspen 1000 Carenado includes can actually be downloaded from FSdeveloper in the gauges section. (Carenado must have bought the rights to use it in their plane) .... PS. I just realized that the plane in question is the DEFAULT P3D Carenado that comes with P3D. This is the one that has the steam gauges.