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I keep having problems with FSX, for over a year already. Can anyone help me get FSX installed propperly?

I'm not a flightsim-pro, I have no need for the ultimate FSX-experience, I only want to relax with a fun flight, so now and then.
I have one decent computer for all my work, which runs all the normal programs as msn, skype, firefox, photo and video editing, etc and I simply want to run a fun game at the side.

Some of the problems I get stuck with:
-Traffic signs/wind direction poles on the runway.
-Wheels, shadows, or flying lights drive over the roads on the airports, with no vehicle attatched.
-Being directed back and forth between 2 ATC sources, like Rotterdam hands me to Schiphol, schiphol hands me back to Rotterdam, back to Schiphol, back to Rotterdam and so on and so on...(Is there a 'make up your fucking mind'-button to use in ATC? A 'fuck you'-button would be satisfying as well). Then when I get handed to another controller I often only get the option to go back to the one that just handed me off and I keep getting back to the same controller all the time.
-Engines wont start. When I run a freshly installed FSX all aircrafts work fine, the engine is running when I load the game and they keep running all through the flight, but after a while the engines arent running when I get in and I cant get them to start, or they turn off once they're started. I also notice that the left engine does start(for a short while), but the right doesnt start at all.
-ATC window closes when I switch frequencies on any radio.
-Progressive taxing only shows when looking at it from one direction and disappears when you turn your point of view, which mostly means I have to look at the nose of the aircraft and drive the aircraft towards my point of view. In other words, I have to drive backwards with my point of view over the markings.
-As soon as I start installing addon scenery or aircrafts, all kinds of wierd bugs show themselves once or a couple of times and this can be a lot of different things, this isnt constantly the same thing with the same addon, but differs every time. Can be that GPS guided flight misses turns, that instruments go wack, ATC controllers stop giving commands halfway a flight, buildings show in impossible places(for instance, on the runway), roads run over buildings, ground vihicles drive through buildings, I get a different GPS in the GPS screen then the one that's present in the aircraft, aircrafts are parked in blocks and covers and I cant remove those, HDG and/or ALT are already switched on when I turn on autopilot, al kinds of bugs appear when switching from GPS-mode to NAV-mode, and a lot more things that have shown themselves once or twice, but nothing seems to appear as a consistant effect from a specific procedure.

Advised by FSX support from Microsoft, I already rebuild most of my computer, installed a 64bit win7 and I've been trying all kinds of things for almost a year and Microsoft cant give me one single fix for any of the problems.

I also tried to install the whole computer for FSX only and followed all instruction from Nick N, but this didnt make any difference concerning the problems I just mentioned.

So... HELP! Can anyone hand me any advise to get my FSX running propperly?

Thanks

If you're just looking for fun and relaxation, without having any interest in top-of-realism simulation, then I would advise you to switch to FS9.

FSX is quite difficult to set up properly, especially when it comes to finding a good quality/performance balance. Given the description you gave about what kind of experience you're looking for, I believe FS9 will be more than enough, and will be much easier to install and set up.

Concerning your specific problems:

- wind poles on the runways are due to bad default sceneries. Solution is to edit the airport with appropriate tools, or to download a replacement scenery (if there is one).

- wheels+shadows+flying lights = car traffic with no textures. This happens in the demo and the retail version of the sim. Didn't you install SP1 and SP2 (or Acceleration) for FSX ?

- the ATC redirections happens when the route is too close to the limits of each tower controlled area. No solutions appart from NOT contacting the other tower when you are told to do so.

- check the icing switches, check your fuel levels, check your mixtures/prop picth etc... CTRL+E can switch any of the default planes and most of the addon planes. If it doesn't work, then probably there is a problem with your default flight. Switch to the default Baron, press CTRL+E, see if it runs.

- ATC window closes ? Check your in-game options.

- Progressive taxi display problems sometime happens with some sceneries, I don't know the origin of the problem.

- instrument problems are usually the sign of lack of electricity. Did you turn the generators ON ? Other bugs are due to bad sceneries. Replace with either freeware or payware addons.

Or switch to FS9.

...(Is there a 'make up your f@#king mind'-button to use in ATC? A 'f!%k you'-button would be satisfying as well).

So... HELP! Can anyone hand me any advise to get my FSX running propperly?

Thanks

, same here,but please remember this is a family friendly forum,and have a nice soft pillow on your desk so your head wont hurt as much when your beating your self on it.

I feel your pain, and I'm sure most everyone on this site does too, but you came to the right place to get the best info on the web to find out how to get your FSX up and running. As Daube said, FS9 is a much more user friendly sim and will get you flying right out of the box. FSX takes awhile to set up, your on the right track by going to Nick N's sticky. My advice is to take one problem at a time, don't add any add-on's untill you get the base FSX running. Once you get it going good it's well worth it. Fegedabout the ATC, sorry to say, that's the virtual government for ya .
Goodluck and welcome to the headbangers club!

@Ang2dogs -Sorry if I offended anyone with my phrasing, I thought that the language my kid can hear on daytime TV wouldnt be a problem on a family forum, but I guess that's not the case...

@Daube -yes, i've got SP1, SP2 and Acceleration installed.
I've been experiencing those problems for over a year already and I checked for updates, but there arent any.
If there's any bug in the software, there will be an update in a matter of weeks at the most, I've been working with plenty of programs and games to know how that works. Are you telling me there are bugs in the software and Microsoft isnt doing anything about it? That would be a killer for the awful reputation they already have...
And a legal sale can only be made once the product is dellivered in propper working condition, if a product isnt working propperly, there's no official sale. So if bugs arent fixed within reasonable time, non of the FSX packages are actually sold... Its really hard to believe Microsoft will risk 100% of their sales will be returned, to be honest.

I could give FS9 a try, of course, but do all my FSX addons work in FS9 as well? By now I've bought quite some addons to fix scenery and aircraft issues by replacing the original with addons (they dont fix any of the problems, by the way) and of course to create a nice environment to look at, I'm not planning on buying everything new...

@Ang2dogs -Sorry if I offended anyone with my phrasing, I thought that the language my kid can hear on daytime TV wouldnt be a problem on a family forum, but I guess that's not the case...

@Daube -yes, i've got SP1, SP2 and Acceleration installed.
I've been experiencing those problems for over a year already and I checked for updates, but there arent any.
If there's any bug in the software, there will be an update in a matter of weeks at the most, I've been working with plenty of programs and games to know how that works. Are you telling me there are bugs in the software and Microsoft isnt doing anything about it? That would be a killer for the awful reputation they already have...
And a legal sale can only be made once the product is dellivered in propper working condition, if a product isnt working propperly, there's no official sale. So if bugs arent fixed within reasonable time, non of the FSX packages are actually sold... Its really hard to believe Microsoft will risk 100% of their sales will be returned, to be honest.

I could give FS9 a try, of course, but do all my FSX addons work in FS9 as well? By now I've bought quite some addons to fix scenery and aircraft issues by replacing the original with addons (they dont fix any of the problems, by the way) and of course to create a nice environment to look at, I'm not planning on buying everything new...

No your FSX addons will not work at all with FS9.
However, FS9 has quite a great base of freeware and payware addons to choose from. If you're looking for fun and relaxation, you won't need to buy any payware, a lot of freeware addons will bring you just that.

Concerning the bugs in FSX, there has been two patches, SP1 and SP2 (and Acceleration, which is SP2 with some additionnal and specific stuff). There were no additionnal updates. FSX still has a lot of bugs but nowadays with a little bit of info gathering on the forums, anybody can find the explanations on how to configure the sim properly.

I'm using FSX and I absolutely love it. But I do not only use it for fun and relaxation, I also use it because of the unmatched realism of some of its addons (paywares), which is why I cannot switch back to FS9. On the contrary, you should not get any problems with FS9:
- you will get tons of freeware planes (fun, sci-fi, airliners, general aviation etc...) that won't get any display problems
- you won't get anything like OrbX sceneries, but you will nevertheless find quite a lot of nice airport sceneries, nice-enough landclasses, nice-enough meshes etc...
- you won't get any crisp photorealistic sceneries, only 5m/pixel ones, but they already look quite good once you reach a certain altitude. Check out http://www.blueskyscenery.com/ to discover some excellent examples.

FS9 is definitely worth a try in your case.

I think I'd go for the explination to setup FSX propperly...

I'd like to get to a reasonably realistic way of flying, aimed at enjoying the scenery at low altitude flight. That's why I want to fly by controlling autopilot as much as I can, so I got time to look at scenery.
I'm not after a high-end pilot training, that's what I meant with 'I have no need for the ultimate FSX-experience', for me its all about building and looking at scenery, not about flying every type of aircraft up to realistic perfection.
Thats why bugs in scenery bother me and the overload of bugs in ATC commands, that distract me from my flight.

And to me it seems a bit hars to to switch to FS9 and flush well over 300euros of GEX, UTX, REX, OrbX and airport addons down the drain, to be honest. That's what its all about for me, building scenery and then fly a nice simple flight by controlling autopilot, to enjoy what I build and exploring the world like that.
I'm probably looking at it from a whole different perspective then people who have a thing for the aircrafts themselves.

Ok, if you liked the OrbX sceneries, then there is indeed no way back to FS9, so let's forget about this.

What is your current hardware ?
Getting FSX to work properly will require multiple steps, from setting up the game settings, the video card settings, and finally optimizing the FSX.cfg.

This computer is like 5 years old, already and I'm gonna get a new one in a couple of months tops, but this is what I got now:

Motherboard: Asus P5QL-E
Processor: Intel Core Duo CPU E8200 @ 2.66GHz
Hard disc: 2x Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm (from which one for FSX only)
Video card: Nvidia, MSI N460GTX Hawk
Ram: 4GB (not exactly sure which type)
Operating system: Win7 64-bit
Controller: Saitek X52-pro

Maybe you can advise me on what I have to pay attention to when I buy the new computer? If it capable of running FSX properly, it sure will run the rest I need the machine for. For starts I was planning to take the video card from this one, since its hardly a year old.

And thanks for all your effort, mate.

There are only four things that you need to keep in mind when you buy a new computer for FSX:

1- FSX wants cores and GHz. Dual cores are not a good choice. Go for quad-cores or higher. Also, don't even think about buying any CPU running at less than 3,2 GHz. The rule is simple: the more cores, the fewer blurries. The more GHz, the more FPS. Go for an i7. A 2600K is a great start, but even my i7 960 gives some nice results already, as you could see on my various screenshots.

2- FSX doesn't need a high end video card, but cheap video card (low range) are forbidden. NVidia card names are quite easy to understand:
- first number (hundreds) = the generation (more or less, because the tend to lie from time to time). The higher, the more recent.
- second number (tens)= the quality. '9' are for extreme gamers. '8' are perfect. '6' are minimums. Anything below 6 is for Word, Excel and Powerpoint.
- the third number is useless.
- the letters are relative to the power as well, but I'm not too sure about this.
Anyways, I have a NVidia GTX480 from Asus and it gives fantastic results. The card power is important to deal with high screen resolutions, AntiAliasing and Anisotropic filtering, and finally to handle the high-res textures on some airplanes or sceneries. You don't need the top, you must avoid the cheap, you must aim for the "good".

3- Power supply: ensure the power supply unit in your computer case is a powerfull one, enough to handle your video card (!!), the various harddrives (you might want to add some in future), the memory, the additionnal fans for the CPU, and the CPU itself.

4- cooling: summer is coming. FSX will transform your PC into a volcano and your CPU+video card will become lava if your computer case is not cooled properly. As we're just getting out of winter, people are not thinking about this too much at the moment. But in just a few weeks, we will start seeing so much topics about computers crashing on all forums, just like EVERY year ! So plan some money to get an efficient computer case, or AT LEAST a serious CPU cooling system.

Now, when it comes to your current computer, its main problem is the CPU:
- it's a dual core.
- it has a very low frequency.

That means that you should probably alter the FSX settings in order to match the graphical quality of FS9 if you want to maintain a flyable sim. That means:
- bloom disabled
- terrain mesh to 19 meters or greater
- terrain complexity to 50% or less
- terrain texture to 5 meters per pixel
- autogen density to normal or more sparse
- autogen limited in the FSX.cfg to 300 trees and 300 buildings (with the autogen tweaks)
- scenery complexity to normal
- ground scenery shadows disabled
- water to 1x only. You can try 2x low, but there will be a cost
- cloud/weathe settings to maximum, but the draw distance should be kept at the minimum. Also, the cloud textures should be replaced, because the default ones are big BUT ugly and FPS-killers. Go for the HDE clouds, keep the cumulus to 512 pixels size, beautiful and easy on the frames
- AI: disabled. All of them, air, water and ground. You can install some companies from WOAI once the default traffic file is removed if you want, but that will have a cost on the FPS.
- FPS limit set to 20 FPS for first tests.

Of course, a correct tweaking of the FSX.cfg is mandatory. Check Bojote's website.
And finally, concerning Nick's advises for tunning the video card, I would especially recommend you to ENSURE the "transparency AntiAliasing" is totally disabled in the FSX profile of your NVidia drivers. Ensure as well that the AntiAliasing is disabled in the game settings, but forced ON in the NVidia drivers settings ("override any application settings"), and set to a correct value (8xS is a good start).

Interesting reading.

For all the love in the world, and hours of faffing, i finally admitted defeat trying to get FSX to run anything like properly on my old Intel based core duo iMac running Win 7. However it ran fs9 to perfection.

The solution? I bought a Quad core i5 iMac. Ive not even touched the cfg, and it runs FSX beautifully. With the sliders maxed it still runs ok suprisingly, knock them back a little and its very smooth, now ive gone from win 7 32bit to 64 anyway! Using 32bit was a mistake!

With your PC, i dont think youll ever get there - sorry to say, but only based on my core duo experience. Fs9 on the other hand, can be made to look very good and run very well. I still think it can give FSX a run for its money.

Good luck!

Just wondering... FSX is released in 2006, so the development period has been 2005-2006, I guess that it's made for the relevant computers of that age, which were a whole lot less then my curent one, which is from early 2008.
If a 2008 computer isnt fit to run 2006 program, how could the 2006 computers ever have been capable to run it to full capacity, since that is what the program was originally created for?

And a few questions: If I buy a new computer, which brand of processor would be best, AMD, or Intell?
And the same for the video card, would I best choose for GeForce or Radeon? And is there a difference between AMD Radeon and ATI Radeon, or are both the same, as is with all the different GeForce brands?

Just wondering... FSX is released in 2006, so the development period has been 2005-2006, I guess that it's made for the relevant computers of that age, which were a whole lot less then my current one, which is from early 2008.
If a 2008 computer isn't fit to run 2006 program, how could the 2006 computers ever have been capable to run it to full capacity, since that is what the program was originally created for?

What a wonderful question!... [smiley=thumbsup.gif]...!

...and one which still has me baffled, even today!... ...!

Paul... ...!

As an 8-Bit, Zilog Z80, Computer programmer from long, long ago, I have always suspected that it was due to Ace's coding of FSX which maybe was rushed, and not very efficient at the time...Microsoft delivery demands?
Perhaps, if they were to do it all over again, it may be much improved, and more efficient?

Just wondering... FSX is released in 2006, so the development period has been 2005-2006, I guess that it's made for the relevant computers of that age, which were a whole lot less then my curent one, which is from early 2008.
If a 2008 computer isnt fit to run 2006 program, how could the 2006 computers ever have been capable to run it to full capacity, since that is what the program was originally created for?

That's why there are sliders to adjust the level of quality.
FSX, in its original version, had a problem: it was developped for single-core CPUs, the team was hoping that the CPU frequencies would continue to grow, eventually reaching very high speeds with more efficient architectures, stuff like "Pentium 5", sort of. Unfortunately, things took a different path shortly before the release of FSX: instead of increasing the speed, they increased the number of cores in our CPUs. It was too late to alter the game engine already, so they decided to make the SP1 and SP2 patches that brought multi-core support for the heaviest taks in the sim: the building of the terrain as you fly.

Once the SP2 went available, modern computers of that time could successfully run FSX with a level of details equivalent or superior to FS9. Of course they could not run it at maximum settings, but appart from a few kids, nobody really cared.

I can make a simple example about this: what if I make a road sim that can display hundreds of buildings and vehicule in a perfectly fluid way ? That would be cool, people would call it "optimized", etc... Now, what if I introduce a slider that controls the amount of displayed vehicules and buildings, and I set a totally unrealistic maximum value for this slider ? Something like 1.000.000.000 buildings and vehicules ? The computer would melt in a lake of lava instantly, right ? And people would start crying about the fact that the game cannot run at max settings, and that it's not optimized, it's crap coding etc....

When FSX went out, very few people understood that:
- the default ground textures were 25x more precise than the FS9 ones
- the ground textures could become 2500x more precise than any FS9 ground texture !
- the terrain mesh could become 361x more precise than FS9 (1m instead of 19m in FS9)
- FS9 could display a maximum of 600 autogen objects per terrain cell (1,2km square) while FSX was set to a default of 4000 buildings and 4500 trees (provided the ground textures were set to display such dense autogen, which was not the case for desert for example...)
- etc...

Truth is that it was quite easy to lower the FSX settings to match FS9 quality and performance, and still benefit from the features of the new sim that the old sim didn't have. But very few people wanted to do that, most kept complaining about not being able to run at a level of quality that was way above FS9. In my case, I could finally fly FSX with a very nice graphic detail (compared to FS9) at the end of 2007, when I could finally get rid of my outdated Pentium IV computer.

And a few questions: If I buy a new computer, which brand of processor would be best, AMD, or Intell?
And the same for the video card, would I best choose for GeForce or Radeon? And is there a difference between AMD Radeon and ATI Radeon, or are both the same, as is with all the different GeForce brands?

Go for Intel with NVidia graphic card.

Bought a new computer this week, think this one is gonna do a lot better already.

Processors: intell core i5-2310
RAM: 6GB DDR3
Video card: Geforce GT550
Hard discs: Seagate Baracuda 7200rpm & Kingston SSDnow200 (got FSX on this drive)
OS: Win7 64bit

Everything seems to run very smooth and aircrafts fly more stable and easy then ever before.
I just started testing and only problem I'm experiencing so far, is that once I start using ATC, there are no voices and the volume of the overall sound goes down by a lot.
Do you know what the problem is here?