"Upgrading" from FSX to FS9

[Mr._Ryan]

Here's the thing I'm finding as I'm comparing FSX to FS9: I saw a lot of youtube videos of people that have gotten FS9 to almost look like FSX in terms of graphics; I have Ground Environment, Real Environment, FS Global 2010, Ultimate Terrain and on and on and on installed, all of the sliders maxed, and I can't get it to look even close. My suspicion is that the videos on youtube are of small areas where the user has super-detailed scenery, and that for the rest of his FS9 "world" it looks a lot like mine. Am I wrong? What gives? I thought with all the addons I would at least get it to look close.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nc2o7XumdPQ[/media]

[Capt.Propwash]

if YOU made that video... by that video FS9 "IS" better than FSX in terms of scenery.

I am just starting to play around with installing Ground Environment Pro, but I am finding that their "textures" in MY sim are Absolutely NOTHING like what they show on their website.

https://www.simviation.com/phpupload/upl ... 278170.jpg
(image copied from environments.flight1.net in order to be shown here; could not hotlink to their page)

[Mr._Ryan]

[quote]if YOU made that video... by that video FS9 "IS" better than FSX in terms of scenery.

I am just starting to play around with installing Ground Environment Pro, but I am finding that their "textures" in MY sim are Absolutely NOTHING like what they show on their website.

https://www.simviation.com/phpupload/upl ... 278170.jpg
(image copied from environments.flight1.net in order to be shown here; could not hotlink to their page)

[Daube]

Here's the thing I'm finding as I'm comparing FSX to FS9: I saw a lot of youtube videos of people that have gotten FS9 to almost look like FSX in terms of graphics; I have Ground Environment, Real Environment, FS Global 2010, Ultimate Terrain and on and on and on installed, all of the sliders maxed, and I can't get it to look even close. My suspicion is that the videos on youtube are of small areas where the user has super-detailed scenery, and that for the rest of his FS9 "world" it looks a lot like mine. Am I wrong? What gives? I thought with all the addons I would at least get it to look close.

There are only very few addons that can make specific FS9 places look as good as in FSX. Mainly, the concerned areas are the sky and the airports.

• The sky in FS9 is quite the same as in FSX, really. So if you provide FS9 with nice sky and clouds textures, it will look just as good as FSX with the same sky and cloud textures.
  
• The airports sceneries usually consist of buildings and photoreal ground. If they used the "3D ground" technique (displaying a flat 3D object with a very nice ground texture/photo on it, on top of the default sim ground), then there is no ground texture resolution limitations anymore, and for that airport you can get something looking as detailled, crisp and precise as in FSX.

However, there are places where the magic won't work.
The most obvious one is the water. No matter how many REX textures you fill in your FS9, the seas will never look as good as in FSX. On some angles, where the reflection is not visible, you can get close (with good sea ground textures), but then again you'll be limited by the waterclass which is less detailled than in FSX, causing a quicker "chess" effect due to repetitive textures.

Same goes for the "normal" (out of airports) areas. You won't be able to get crisp textures on the ground, and the limited variety of landclasses will cause the same problem as described above for the water. Also the autogen will not look as dense in cities or forests.

However, most of those limitations are not really relevant for those who pilot big liners at high altitude and land only in big airports. The ground crisp textures will be there at takeoff and landing, and they will get a pleasant sky to sail. Meshes or ground/water textures are not that important in such flights, but performance is a big bonus, a bonus that FSX can hardly provide, even on the best machines, especially on major airports. IFR is where FS9 rules

[EVVFCX]

I'm guessing I'm the odd one out!

Out of the box I prefer fsx: Why? because I'm only getting 1 to 2 fps difference between the two and for the better graphics in fsx I now prefer it, plus, I've been passing my older flight sims onto colleagues at work to get them interested in flights sims so no longer have fs2002 or fs9/fs2004 disks at home.

Overall my fps is poor anyway compared to what others mention here but I've not gone through any of Nicks sim tweaking methods.

regards

Steve

RIP flight sim 1 by Sublogic

[hhomebrewer]

I was reading a post in another section of the forum and someone mentioned something I had never thought of - running FS2004 instead of FSX. It makes some sense; instead of upgrading your PC for tons of money to run FSX well, just switch to FS2004. Does FSX really require that much more RAM/CPU power, etc. than FS9? My specs:

Intel Quad core @2.66GHz
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX+ (512 MB)

I can get 30 fps with decent settings on FSX, but I have to keep the traffic low and there are definitely tradeoffs. How much better would my system run FS9?

I would greatly appreciate anyone's input.

fraps says I'm  getting a solid, rock-steady 60 fps out of what you see below. I see no reason to downgrade to FSX. I was only able to get around 25-28 fps when trying to enjoy FSX. Tried for about two weeks to come to love it. Never did. Took it off. Never looked back...

[Steve M]

I'm guessing I'm the odd one out!

Out of the box I prefer fsx: Why? because I'm only getting 1 to 2 fps difference between the two and for the better graphics in fsx I now prefer it, plus, I've been passing my older flight sims onto colleagues at work to get them interested in flights sims so no longer have fs2002 or fs9/fs2004 disks at home.

Overall my fps is poor anyway compared to what others mention here but I've not gone through any of Nicks sim tweaking methods.

regards

Steve

RIP flight sim 1 by Sublogic

My FS9 is sitting on a shelf. I too have FSX and it looks and runs just fine. In FS9 I got amazing framerates, but even locking the frames at 20 I had serious jaggies and blurry scenery even at a standstill on the tarmac. My wings looked like Wilma Flintstones hemline. After 3 days of reading, adjusting and tweaking and posting, No luck. For me, at least, I'll be sticking with FSX, IL2,MS CFS2 and a few others, all of which run fine on my system.   

[snippyfsxer]

Whenever I start mentally calculating how many hundreds of dollars I would have to spend on enhancements to make FS9 look as good as FSX, I realize that if I wanted to go back to FS9, I could probably achieve a similar result by simply lowering my sliders in FSX.

[Daube]

Of course it's a matter of personnal standards. There are still some simmers who prefer 2D panels, even for VFR flights. In any case, even in FS9 you already get a good load of very good looking virtual cockpits, so even the VC-only pilots could get satisfied in FS9, provided they ignore the lack of smoothness of the gauges. I flew FS9 for 3 full years, and I enjoyed it as much as I could. I never had payware in it, because at that time there were very few planes that could motivate me to spend money. The realistic planes were mostly liners, and I was not flying them seriously enough in FS9 to feel the need for paywares. I was more interested in VFR exploration flights. I was about to spend some money on Holger Sandmann's sceneries, but then FSX appeared.

Concerning the functionnalities that you mentionned, the autogen fade in/out is indeed missed in FSX, but the autogen density compensates a lot. The 3rd party weather engines now exist both freeware and payware. And whatever you do, once you've made a flight with a you even just started an Accusim aircraft on the tarmac, there's not way back to FS9.

And your remark about the limitation of FSX graphic settings to match FS9 quality is very valid. With my previous computer (Q6600@2,75GHz, 3 Gb RAM, 8800GTX), when I was limiting the settings to FS9 quality, I could maintain a solid 40 FPS flying over Seattle Tacoma. It was a valid solution for IFR flights to major airport, but unfortunately it was not valid at all for VFR flights, because those limitations were just deleting the advantages of FSX over FS9 scenery. Fortunately, the performance impact if the "VFR" areas (out of major airports/cities) was not that big and even an old computer like mine could provide a very smooth experience.

[ctanner]

bought an HP  i7 quad core, 6gb ram, 1gb  ATI video card plus new 23" lcd monitor, loaded FSX, ran well, scenery downloads are few and far  between for my area of interest, dumped FSX and went back to 2004, sure runs sweet on this machine, just having a few scenery library addon problems with windows 7 I never encountered with XP.
Upgrading to FS9 from FSX is the way to go as far as I'm concerned, cheers

[fred39]

FS9 I fly it becauseI run everything at max and get these results :- !,500ft







Over Seattle at2,500ft



Fred39

[Steve M]

FS9 I fly it becauseI run everything at max and get these results :- !,500ft







Over Seattle at2,500ft



Fred39

Welcome to Simv. Maybe it's from compression but the horizen line in #1 and the aircraft in the last one has a case of jaggies. These are things I can't bear and my reason for shelving FS9.

[fred39]

No Jaggies my end I do not suffer from them no stutter or hang ups just good flying ??
It must be your end ??
I have FSX installed as well why pay more money for addons when I'm OK with FS9?????

Fred39

[Steve M]

It's all about what your happy with, I like the extra details I get from FSX. (I currently don't use any addons except GEX)

[Daube]

No Jaggies my end I do not suffer from them no stutter or hang ups just good flying ??
It must be your end ??

I see jaggies on the horizon as well, but they are visible on the first shot only. The horizon looks like a stairway. Perhaps it's the fault of the program you use for resizing your screenshots, or perhaps your antialiasing is not set high enough.

I have FSX installed as well why pay more money for addons when I'm OK with FS9?????

As said before, it all depends on the addons you're looking for.
If you like the addons that you can get in FS9, then that's perfectly fine. A lot of simmers are in the same exact situation, they are satisfied with what they get with FS9 so they have no reason to switch to FSX.
But some people need something more than what FS9 can bring.