Recommended Settings, Add-ons & Scenery?

[blitzer]

Hello All,

I've only just signed up - so please be gentle with me!

I'm only a casual FSX'er and am not overly concerned about knowing the whole in and out's of the sim or aviation in general, but all the same do enjoy the "realistic" flight model that FSX offers.

Anyway, I have a fairly decent PC that I built towards the end of last year and have tweaked the settings in FSX to get a balance between frame rates and level of visuals. What I have now is certainly way better than my previous PC, but all the same I was wondering if there are any settings that I should tweak to improve things further? All the info I have found so far online seems to relate to slightly older hardware making it hard for me to gauge just what areas I should be concerned with.

Ideally, I'd have all the settings on max, but from experience found this is too much for my hardware over larger detailed cities and frame rates become too low taking the edge off the experience.
My preferences are for (whilst maintaining high enough frame rates for smooth flight/appearances)...

• High quality aircraft detail.
• Decent level of ground objects for realistic low-flying
• A reasonable level of other air traffic so I don't feel like I'm all alone up there.
• Good weather, clouds and water.

These are the specs of my PC so I'd appreciate any guidance as to what settings to concentrate on?...
[list]
[*]OS - Windows Vista Home Premium 64bit SP2
[*]CPU - Intel Core2 Quad

[Rich H]

I'm not really sure what sort of planes, or helicopters, you like. For realism and detail, you might want to try PMDG. Except they don't come with a small price tag.

[blitzer]

I'm not really sure what sort of planes, or helicopters, you like. For realism and detail, you might want to try PMDG. Except they don't come with a small price tag.

Doh, I knew I should have mentioned what aircraft I like to fly. To be honest it tends to depend on how I feel at the time. Sometimes I'll like to fly around at low altitude in a military fighter, or fly something older that takes a bit more thought and at other times I'll spend hours flying helos.

To be honest I like flying most types of aircraft. I must admit I was very interested in the CaptainSim C130, but as I said I just could not get the demo of it to take off and don't really like the idea of paying for it in the hopes it will work then.

Can you proivde me with a link to place selling the aircraft you mentioned please? Do you have any experience of any of the scenery/mesh packs?

Thanks for your post.  ;)

[stevehookem]

You need to read and follow NickN's amazing Windows and FSX set-up guides found as stickies at the top of this forum.

Don't skip anything. Do them all. Don't think that lowering a setting will improve framerates---it won't. Some settings actually make FSX run faster if they are turned up. I can personally vouch for this!

Did I say not to skip anything? If you do, the entire process is useless.

Do it and fly happy!

edit: Install Acceleration. It fixes many, many issues. And DON'T SKIP ANY STEPS!

[Rich H]

I'm not really sure what sort of planes, or helicopters, you like. For realism and detail, you might want to try PMDG. Except they don't come with a small price tag.

Doh, I knew I should have mentioned what aircraft I like to fly. To be honest it tends to depend on how I feel at the time. Sometimes I'll like to fly around at low altitude in a military fighter, or fly something older that takes a bit more thought and at other times I'll spend hours flying helos.

To be honest I like flying most types of aircraft. I must admit I was very interested in the CaptainSim C130, but as I said I just could not get the demo of it to take off and don't really like the idea of paying for it in the hopes it will work then.

Can you proivde me with a link to place selling the aircraft you mentioned please? Do you have any experience of any of the scenery/mesh packs?

Thanks for your post.

[blitzer]

No worries about the PMDG site - found it thanks.  8-)

[blitzer]

And I'd definitely think about buying the C-130, won't regret your money. It works fine with FSX Acceleration. And welcome to SimV!

Well it is very likely that I would but when I tried the demo I could not get the plane to actually take-off. It's a shame because I really like the idea of flying that big beast. I'm rather reluctant to purchase the full product if it's going to end up doing the same though.  :(

[gtirob01]

And I'd definitely think about buying the C-130, won't regret your money. It works fine with FSX Acceleration. And welcome to SimV!

Well it is very likely that I would but when I tried the demo I could not get the plane to actually take-off. It's a shame because I really like the idea of flying that big beast. I'm rather reluctant to purchase the full product if it's going to end up doing the same though.

[blitzer]

I can't say I really see the point in a demo aircraft that you can't actually fly. I suppose it's the only way they can ensure you don't just stick with the demo plane only, but still it would be a good idea for them to provide some warning as to the plane not actually being flyable.