FSX & SLI

[Black ZR-1]

I'm thinking about getting another 8800GTS for FSX. Right now I have all settings on max except for sparse scenery & autogen, and medium low traffic (with the exception of Light Bloom & Ground Scenery Shadows off). I average 20 - 30 fps over cities and 30++ over terrian (locked @ 32). I was wondering with SLI, would I be able to bump the scenery, autogen & traffic to say like dense and high traffic or would I not see any difference at all? If I'm going to get a 5% increase I would say it's not worth it. I'm looking for anywhere between a 20 - 30% increase = 10 - 15 more fps.

[Daube]

I would say that it would be wiser to tweak your FSX instead of spending another 700 bucks for a new 8800.
I could be wrong, but I think that if you just set your MAX_TREE_PER_CELL and MAX_BUIDING_PER_CELL in your FSX.cfg, and install the reduced autogen variety (you may not need the reduced textures with such a card), you would get your 30% increase in performance...

... or did you do that already ?

[Black ZR-1]

Well that's the thing. I like the default autogen and I don't want to change it. I know there's tweaks out there to make it run better but I don't want the FS9 look. I love how FSX looks and plays and I don't want to change anything.

I paid $349.99 for my 8800GTS back in January and I can get the same deal on the 2nd one thus ='ing $700.00 if that's what you mean. But if you think about it, an 8800GTX alone with tax is over $700.00 at retail stores around here (IL).

[justpassingthrough]

FSX is not an SLI application so the purchase would be a waste. The E6300 would bottleneck 2 8800 cards anyway even if it did work with FSX


As for looking like FS9, I would not worry about that. The FSX Dev's stated quite clearly that FSX is designed to exceed the ability of any hardware currently available and that will be true for some months to come. Before spending monny on more hardware I would work with the config file to trim it out for the card.

Add/edit the following to your FSX.cfg file and see if it looks like FS9 (it wont)


[Display]
BLOOM_EFFECTS=0 // Disable light bloom for now to test. You can try to enable it after everyhing else is set up and tested. It will be the last item to work with after all else is tweaked
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=240
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=28 // Please lock it @ 28 with the rest of these settings to test. Personally, I would leave it at something between 25-28 PTaylor and Steve Lacy both said running unlocked or at high frame lock is a huge mistake and this value should always be balanced with the hardware and sliders. The only exception was with photo scenery which tends to run better on unlimited frames with certain hardware.


[Main]
DisablePreload=1 // recovers major memory by not preloading the default flight
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 // 8800 should easily do the default value. .25 is the minimum I would run. Set it .33 for testing (you may be able to raise this a tad later after testing)

[SCENERY]
LENSFLARE=1
DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1
IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5


[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=4.500000
MESH_COMPLEXITY=100
TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=25
AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
DETAIL_TEXTURE=1
MESH_RESOLUTION=21 (set it to 19m in the scenery settings unles you use 10m mesh such as FSGenesis, with 10m mesh set it to 22 (10m slider))
WATER_EFFECTS=4 // any higher is a waste until DX10 is released
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1800 // FS9 = 600 @ full Autogen slider

[John_HR]

:-? Hey Black_ZR,   why would you want better than 30fps?  Human eye does not detect anything above 30 fps. Makes no difference whether 30 or 100 fps.

Anyway, I'm sticking with my FS2004. I did purchase and install FSX deluxe, but fps is so pityful, its ridiculous.  I keep downloading and installing FS2004 planes, panels, sceneries and so on, really enjoying my FS9.

Chao to all flight sim junkies like me  ;D

[Black ZR-1]

Miltest, I have tried your tweaks and played around with the sliders. The most I gained was 3 - 4 fps more than my default settings. However, I did OC my video card to GTX settings and gained another 5.

[DizZa]

If you must upgrade get a faster processor. A E6300 will bottleneck another 8800, and fsX won't even use that second video card.

Go grab an E6700.

[quote] :-? Hey Black_ZR,

[justpassingthrough]

Miltest, I have tried your tweaks and played around with the sliders. The most I gained was 3 - 4 fps more than my default settings. However, I did OC my video card to GTX settings and gained another 5.

Im not an expert and do not own your card or hardware. Unless you are willing to drop the autogen numbers and sliders then what you have is the best that I can suggest.

The 8800 is a pre-release DX10 card and although it is the best thing going right now, it is still not designed to overtake FSX. That hardware wont be released until the end of this year.

[Daube]

Well that's the thing. I like the default autogen and I don't want to change it. I know there's tweaks out there to make it run better but I don't want the FS9 look. I love how FSX looks and plays and I don't want to change anything.

I paid $349.99 for my 8800GTS back in January and I can get the same deal on the 2nd one thus ='ing $700.00 if that's what you mean. But if you think about it, an 8800GTX alone with tax is over $700.00 at retail stores around here (IL).

By tweaking the autogen variety and not the textures, you will not get a complete FS9-like autogen. You will keep the density and the nice textures, so it won't look like the poor FS9 autogen. You would not loose either the kind of autogen objects per areas (like pines for alaska, coconuts for islands etc...).

You decide
I'm just trying to make you save 700 bucks.

[Black ZR-1]

Miltest, without a doubt, your config settings worked. But this is what I realized: Yes, the water in FSX on max settings looks amazing, but is it worth it? Unless you love flying over water & floatplanes then yes, otherwise no. I set it to x1 like you suggested and gained 8 - 12 fps right there. With those extra fps, I set my autogen & scenery to max and now have the same fps I was getting with max water and sparse scenery/autogen when I had my default settings over cities and rural areas.

The tweak also helped me with increased air traffic. Road traffic took a hit though so I reduced it to 0 and compensated it with max airport ground traffic. I do not recommend Light Bloom even with 8800 cards. That setting cut my frames in half; same goes with Ground Scenery Shadows.

Daube, with the tweak, I noticed that some of the autogen were missing but not enough to make it look like FS9. You're right.

[justpassingthrough]

[quote]Miltest, without a doubt, your config settings worked. But this is what I realized: Yes, the water in FSX on max settings looks amazing, but is it worth it? Unless you love flying over water & floatplanes then yes, otherwise no. I set it to x1 like you suggested and gained 8 - 12 fps right there. With those extra fps, I set my autogen & scenery to max and now have the same fps I was getting with max water and sparse scenery/autogen when I had my default settings over cities and rural areas.

The tweak also helped me with increased air traffic. Road traffic took a hit though so I reduced it to 0 and compensated it with max airport ground traffic. I do not recommend Light Bloom even with 8800 cards. That setting cut my frames in half; same goes with Ground Scenery Shadows.

Daube, with the tweak, I noticed that some of the autogen were missing but not enough to make it look like FS9. You're right.

[justpassingthrough]

And one last thing... the CPU you are using is bottlenecking the 8800. This is especially true if you overclocked the card. The E6800 is the only processor that will not be significanlty bottlenecked by that card (although it still is)

After you get the sim timmed with settings, I would start learning how to overclock the CPU/Memory if your motherboard supports settings that allow such things. It does not take much to see a very distinct result. By increasing the FSB and bringing the memory and CPU up, you will open the bottleneck considerably. PTaylor was very clear in his blog that the CPU/memory bus being raised is what FSX likes to see over just about any other tweaks.


Overclocking those areas requires knowledge of how to do it right and you must monitor temps in the process to be sure your not overheating. The Core2 overclocks quite nicely with much lower temps as compared to AMD systems so you should be able to easily get a 5-10% boost (or higher) in that area without any special cooling needs.

Overclocking should be done after all the sim settings are made. Overclocking is not about raising the sliders and tweak numbers, its about sharpening the textures and smoothing out the sim for exceptional flight dynamics and visuals. Overclocking the system is what put the icing on the cake for me.

BTW.. I also run the THERMAL VISUALS at a setting of NATURAL so I get all the filght dynamics in turbulence and also get to see the birds having fun

[Black ZR-1]

I've taken screenshots with my default FSX config file to show you the difference between water effects and autogen/scenery settings.

All screenshots are the same/angle. I'm using FRAPS for fps meter. I have fps unlocked to show maximum fps count.

Also notice my resolution: 1680 x 1050 because I use a widescreen monitor (it's native resolution).

Location: O'Hare Airport
Time & Day: Day/Summer
Plane: Maule

First shots: default settings. What I fly with.










-------------------------------------------------------------

2nd group: Same settings, same screenshots only this time with water effects set to 1.x






As you can see, setting the water effects to 1.x, I double my fps while keeping the same settings.

-------------------------------------------------------------

3rd group: Same settings, water effects set t 1.x & this time with full autogen & scenery






With water effects set to 1.x, I am able to run full autogen & scenery with the same fps I was getting with water effects on max & autogen and scenery on sparse. Keep in mind all the other settings have been untouched.

-------------------------------------------------------------

I will be posting comparison screenshots with the tweaked FSX config file miletestpilot has suggested later.

Also, Miletest, I am very familiar with overclocking cpu's. My motherboard is made specifically just for that, but I have never OC'ed a Core2.

[justpassingthrough]

Mesh Resolution to 19 unless you run 10m mesh from FSGensis,... heres the deal, running any higher than 19m is useless because the default mesh is 38m (19) and 76m. 10m mesh means the slider gets set to 10m... you dont have 1m mesh installed so I think you may be wasting resources.

Texture Resulution to 1m,... You will probably find very little difference between 1m and 7cm and what you save between those two may give you what you need to raise Water to 2x Low (4 in the config file)

Mesh Complexity to 100%.. not sure why you have it at 99%


FSX was designed for add-on partners to develop mesh and textures that will make full use of the sim sliders. Setting the MR and TR to max may not really be giving you as much as you may think and backing them down might provide more where you need it.



It is good you know about clocking.. that is going to give the system that last boost it needs


I assume you use the WideViewAspect=True switch in the FSX.cfg file



You are also pulling resources by running FRAPS at the same time even if it is not encoding

[Daube]

If I'm not mistaken, the only noticable difference concerning the texture resolution is the road texture.
The ground textures are set for 1m resolution, setting any higher will have no effect.
But, the road resolution are much more precise, and when you set your resolution to 7cm, you can really see the difference when you are on a road.

But this is usefull only when using a ground vehicule