Delivery times...

[Brian Z]

I guess it depends on the model, I have one that gets its power from a regular power cord.

[Bass]

How are you doing, Paul?
....with the Global sight too.....

[Fozzer]

How are you doing, Paul?
....with the Global sight too.....

Finally got ORBX FTX Global installed, with the help of yet another IDE CD ROM Drive, for the provided CD!... ...!

It looks quite nice, together with my Ultimate Terrain USA. The scenery is an improvement over the default FSX Scenery...obviously!
...(mind you, I'm still trying to get it to look as nice as my FS 2004 scenery with all my add-on bits and bobs!)... ...!

The biggest problem was constantly running out of system memory, (I only have ancient, 184-pin, 2.5 GB of memory installed on my 32-bit system), due to the increased complex scenery of FTX Global, UT USA, and my selected custom scenery options, etc!

Instead of using "Custom Settings", and setting many options to maximum... ...., I selected certain "Pre-set options" which seem to ease the load on my system memory, (my old Pentium 4, 2.8 GB Processor seems to cope fairly well with the load).

...any form of "Traffic" is a real killer, in terms of frame rates and system memory!

So far, it looks quite good...not as silky-smooth as my FS 2004...but it makes a nice change of scenery type!

Swapping between FS 2004 and FSX as my fancy takes me!... ...!

As I mentioned before.....FS 2004 and FSX are just...."different" from each other!... ...!

Paul.... ....!

P.S....remember that the ORBX PNW demo contains a LOT of very impressive additional airport scenery...which is NOT included in ORBX FTX Global.....that just improves the default scenery!

[Bass]

I can't think of anyone else than you, who can get things running on that system you got.

I TIP MY HAT

Note. I've discovered, that every time i close and restart the sim, things are getting better and better! But you know that.

[Fozzer]

I can't think of anyone else than you, who can get things running on that system you got.

I TIP MY HAT

Note. I've discovered, that every time i close and restart the sim, things are getting better and better! But you know that.

Its a case of; "Want" versus "Need", Bass... ...!

I "Need" a Lawrence Livermore Super-Computer to run my FSX smoothly.... ....

...but do I "Want" the enormous expense?.... ....

....probably not.... ... ...!

Paul.... ... ...!

P.S...I'll tell you what though....(for all those wondering)....My ancient (Year 2005) Pentium P4 tower computer runs my FS 2004 as smoothly as butter off a hot tin roof!... ...!

[Daube]

Hey Fozzer, congratulations on getting the FTX stuff installed finally

Regarding your OOM errors, there might be a few tricks that could help reducing these problems. Most of them consist in reducing wisely some of the display settings. I don't know what are your current settings on your computer, but here is what I would advise you:
- limit your terrain mesh resolution to 10 meters. 5 meters is nice of course, but there aren't many meshes around that are *that* precise, so keep that a 10m (or even 19m) in your sim. That will also speed up your flight loading time, by the way.
- ensure your autogen slider is not at maximum setting. The max looks good, but it's REALLY heavy on the performance of the computer. I would advise one or two cranks below the max. It will still look good, but it will also be much lighter on the performance
- concerning the terrain texture resolution, you might want to limit it to 1 meter only... or 60cm at maximum.
- in the FSX.cfg, if not already done, add the two autogen tweaks in the [TERRAIN] section, as follows:
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL = 1000
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL = 300
These numbers are pretty low compared to the default values (4500 and 4000 respectively), but they will drastically reduce the memory consumption of your FTX textures

I hope these will help preventing your OOMs.

[Fozzer]

Ta Daube!...

Many thanks for your recommendations!
...given them a try!
I certainly shouldn't set my FSX settings at Custom/Maximum...like I do on my trusty FS 2004!.... ...!

I seem to get FSX to run much smoother with good scenery, with careful selection of the various "pre-selected" settings in the in-game menu... ...!

By the way.....

These entries...>>>
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL = 1000
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL = 300
...don't appear on my fsx.cfg [Terrain] list... ...!

I also read somewhere, that any alteration to the in-game menu settings cancels any "user settings" in the fsx.cfg list!

Paul.... ...!

P.S...just ADDED the two entries above to the fsx.cfg list...see if it makes a difference!

[Daube]

The two tweaks I mentioned have to be added, because by default they don't appear in your FSX.cfg.
Just copy and paste these two lines in the [TERRAIN] section of your FSX.cfg.

Concerning the 'user settings' cancellation, it's true, but keep in mind that only two tweaks are concerned:
- the LOD_RADIUS
- the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD

The LOD_RADIUS, just like in FS9, determines the maximum distance at which the terrain is displayed in a "detailled" manner. So that makes the distant terrain look better. It corresponds to one of the sliders in the FSX configuration screens, I don't know its name in english. If you set the slider to the max, it will set the LOD_RADIUS in the FSX.cfg to 4.5. However, FSX will accept values like 9.0, if you set them manually in the FSX.cfg of course. I would recommend you not to exceed 6.5, if the power of your CPU is limited. I run at 8.5 on a i7 960 overclocked at 3,6 GHz.

Same goes for the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD, which determines the maximum resolution of the textures that can be displayed on 3D objects (planes, buildings etc...). There is a setting in the FSX configuration screens with a name like "global texture size". If you set that slider to the max, it will set the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD tweak to 1024, which means 1024x1024 textures. You can push that value manually to 4096, in case you downloaded any high resolution repaints (or have any addon aircraft that has such textures by default).

Now, every time you go modify the FSX settings in the configuration screens, the LOD_RADIUS will go back to 4.5 and the TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD will go back to 1024. These are the only two that will be changed. The rest of the tweaks will not move.

[Fozzer]

I am teetering on the very edge of system memory requirements!... ...!

One more slight move of certain in-game sliders in FSX will propel me into the realms of an acute memory loss!.... ...!

Mind you...

Having FTX Global, Ultimate Terrain USA, and FS Tramp Satellite map (the equivalent of FS Navigator for FS 2004), and Plan-G v2.0.5, all running at the same time, doesn't help matters in the memory department!

Paul...where am I?... ...!

[Fozzer]

To hopefully ease the present ; "Out-Of-Memory" problems with my FSX + various add-ons, I have increased the System memory...

..from 2X 1GB + 2X 256 MB..(2.5 GB)...

..to 4X 1 GB (4 GB)...(the maximum on my 32-bit system)....

...of which about 3GB is recognised for me to use! (the whole 4 GB can only be used on a 64-bit system).

See wot 'appens now!... ...!

Paul...slider increase time?.... ...!