FSX, Finally!

[Formula_1]

Hi all

I bought FSX as soon as it came out. I was shocked I couldn't really run it without tweaks to improve the frame rates. Even then they were low and the game looked bad. I just gave up and uninstalled it, returning to FS9.

Today I installed FSX onto my new system and and patched it up to SP2. I just had the best flight I have had in a long time

The game auto set everything to full, except 1024x768 res. It also set the frame rates to 20. I launched the game and chose the Maule and the default location (Friday Harbor, I think it is). I then set it for summer/daytime. When the loading ended and I was in the cockpit, I looked out and thought, wow, this looks good and fairly smooth. I checked the frame rates and saw a solid 20fps. I then hit alt and set the res to 1920x1200, expecting the fun to come to a halt. Well when I returned to the cockpit, I was very pleased to see I still had 20fps and stuned by how much nicer the game looked at hi-res. I then set the frame rates to 25. Low and behold, it held 25 perfectly! I may have to give 30-32 a shot next.

So, I may not be installing FS9 again. It served me well for all these years, but I believe FSX is here to stay now.

While my machine isn't cutting edge at all, it does run games far better than I ever imagined it would. I had already seen how Crysis, Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2 ran beautifully, but it was FSX that showed me just how well this pc does run games.

Gigabyte GA-EP45C-UD3R
Core 2 Duo e8400 at 3.7GHz (Hopefully will get 4+GHz out of it).
4GB G.Skill DDR2-1000 (I have 4 more GB's ordered)
GeForce GTX 285
Vista Ultimate 64

I didn't have to spend too much for it, around $1,300.00.
Well worth it to me, since I can now push my games at my monitors native res of 1920X1200. They run perfectly smooth and look terrific. I'm very happy

[Formula_1]

Hi all

I was not looking at all the setting when I posted this, sorry. Everything in the main graphics page, showed everything maxed, but when I looked more into things, I found that was not the case  :-?

Like all traffic was quite low and was some other settings. I don't know why the main page shows everything maxed. It still does, except after I changed the res and frame rates it shows custom in the top colum. All the others still show max though.

Anyway, I manually set everything to max and was only getting 13-17fps over Charlotte Douglas using realtime weather (fairly cloudy and overcase today). However, weather didn't seem to have much affect over it, as I turned it to 'fair' weather frame rates remained the same. So did res. I changed it from 1920x1200 to 1280x786 or something like that. Again no change, but it didn't look as good. So I changed the res back. One thing I had changed in the gfx card drivers was ASF 4x and AA 8xQ. I did the other day. I don't remember what default was. This has been fine in all other games, but it maybe part of why FSX slowed down on me.

I have since hit the Default button in the main gfx screen and just changed the res back tp 1920x1200 and set the frame rates to 24. I haven't tried another flight yet. I am still waiting for my TrackIR 4 to get here. It is suppose to come tomorrow.

I'm sorry if I mislead anyone. I didn't mean to, I just overlooked the settings thinking everything was automatically on full.

Anyway, I am still loving FSX

[BFMF]

AI traffic is a real FPS dropper, especially if you have a lot of addon AI airline traffic. I usually keep most of my traffic down at about 20%

[HarvesteR]

i had to completely kill AI traffic in order to get good frames  :-/

my Pentium D CPU is really becoming old and useless... and i have no money right now to upgrade

[Formula_1]

Thanks guys

I will work with the AI settings first then. I didn't check it after I restored the default settings, but I believe it was at 20% when I noticed that things were not really maxed out. I can understand how it would slow the sim down, as all I was getting done was telling ATC, I have the traffic, lol.
Plus I had cars jacked up too. Honestly, I think I would rather have a good bit of ground traffic and less air traffic. It is just so cool to look down and see a world that looks alive.

Anyway, I have seen I can run it now with playable frame rates and have it looking good too. I just need to find the best balance, because it is now clear, I can't turn everything to full.

[NickN]

tuning FSX is easy if you follow the rules


http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_p ... ?TID=29041

[Formula_1]

Thanks Nick.
I will go through it all asap