General FSX Disappointment Rant

[Mattace64]

Hello all, long time FS player, but new to this site (love it), just wanted to see what others had to say about my thoughts of FSX...

In short, it's a let down, it would be great if it worked, but it doesn't for me... and my computer seems to meet the requirements (at least for the standard FSX pkg, less acceleration).  Here are the problems I'm having:

1. Spot plane view corrupted (wings seem bent, with straight wings underneath?).
2. Night flying (spot or tower views) every thing is black, you can't see the airplane even with the lights on, but you can see the lights.
3. Sound is drastically unbalanced when cycling through views (not in your favor, louder views are louder).
4. Sound generally gets corrupted (I'll be flying a jet and all of sudden I'll hear a prop).  I've even had it to where the prop was sounding even after I quit flight simulator.
5. Sound is generally problematic in instant replays (muted in tower view, corrupt in spot views)

*Service Pk Comment:  I cannot run Acceleration with my current video card, it won't even try to run actually (pops up says cannot run because of video card).  So right now I'm running FSX with SP1 only... Now I do understand that they have SP2 for users who are not running acceleration, but the problem is that since I "activated" acceleration, my computer seems to be stuck in thinking that it is still installed even though it isn't.  Subsequently, when I try to install SP2 it says something like "can't install because acceleration is installed."

I can try uninstalling and reinstalling again, however I don't think it will help because once the software is "activated" windows seems to be stuck in thinking its still there, and still won't permit me to install SP2... and because of the sound problems I'm not sure a new video card is the solution.

God forbid you try to run a microsoft program on a microsoft operating system.

[coolpick]

What are your systems specs, that usually helps.

[NickN]

[quote]*Service Pk Comment:

[Brett_Henderson]

Edit.. ooops..

[Mattace64]

Well you guys are asking the right questions anyways...  It's a brand new computer:

Make: Compaq
CPU: Intel

[NickN]

Alright... you have a "POSSIBLE" medium grade base system that needs a video card. The onboard chips is from 7+ years ago

Your next question is... did the OEM give you a video PCIe/AGP slot on that motherboard.. if not, you are in fact running a low grade OEM POS and has no business running FSX

if they did, then you can get a video card and although its a bit much for the processor, i would still recommend either a 3870 ATI or an 8800GT, one of the two and at that point your system is what i would call medium grade for FSX because of the CPU

the only thing left is your budget for that... and if the motherboard will even allow a PCIe card.

If the slot is AGP and not PCIe.. you still have choices and would need to research whats available in the way of AGP cards... but do keep in mind, AGP systems are considered old news and at that point you have a med-low grade system for FSX

Does that answer your questions?

[Brett_Henderson]

I did a little esearch on Compaq desktops running that processor...

Most do have a X16 PCIe slot, but the model that is not a tower, won't have room for a decent video card. Even the tower model would need a power-supply upgrade to go with a good video card. (power-supply upgrades for OEM computers can be a head-ache)

And trust me when it comes to "stop-gap" upgrades... they're a waste of money. I can't find specifics on the m-board, but I'd guess it would accept an E6600 processor ( a $300+ v-card won't help much on your current processor.. certainly NOT $300 worth of help)....

[Mattace64]

I appreciate the feedback...

Brett, from an empirical standpoint I can't really argue with you, but can you blame me for trying when Microsoft says that I only need a 1.0GHz processor, 512MB of RAM and 32MB Vid Memory?  I know they are trying to sell the product, but from what you're saying that is off by a factor of 2 or more.

It doesn't seem that anyone reading has actually ran into these problems (possibly everyone else on here has very high-end machines)??  Ultimately if someone had these problems and found something to fix it, that would answer my question with certainty.

Let me point out that I have not been able to successfully install SP2, because I did try to install Acceleration.  That of course didn't work, so I had to completely uninstall and reinstall FSX...  I then successfully installed SP1, but when I tried SP2 it wouldn't permit the install because it thought that acceleration was still there.

Is there any chance that SP2 may correct at least some of the problems?  Not that I have anyway to install it.  

[Corrupt Silence]

Doubtful SP2 will do you any good. Minimum specs on any software will get you into trouble. It will run on minimum specs, as it clearly is, it will just run like crap. The performance upgrades you would be looking for were in SP1. FSX is a processor hog to put it lightly. Not to be negative, but you should probably run with FS9 on that machine.

[sonic]

I'm with you mattice, I have a core2 6300, 3gigs 667 ram and a 8800gt 512. I can run COD4, Crysis, ut3 on high with no framerate problems at all but I cant even play fsX. I guess games like crysis is a little more Video card dependant and my card is better than my processor. But sometime in the next couple months I plan on getting a Q6600 the highest that my asus board will support.

[Fly2e]

Mattace64, have you read Nick's avatar?  ;)

[Mattace64]

No I haven't read Nick's avatar... where do I find that... and why?

[Wii]

[quote]Well you guys are asking the right questions anyways...

[Wing Nut]

[quote]Well you guys are asking the right questions anyways...  It's a brand new computer:

Make: Compaq
CPU: Intel

[Fly2e]

[quote]Posted by: Mattace64 Posted on: Today at 4:37pm
No I haven't read Nick's avatar... where do I find that... and why?