FSX lag

[stratosphere]

Hi, I'm new to the forums. Well iv'e signed in many other sim forums but they all seem to fail.

Ok, here it goes... I recently got a new PC.

CPU - Intel Core i7 970 - 4 cores/8 threads 2.93 GHz each
GPU - nvidia GeForce GTX 570 - 1280 MB
Motherboard - Asus P7H55 Extreme Design
RAM - 8 GB
SSD - 44 GB of free space
DirectX 11
Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit
HDD - 1T

I believe I could put the fsx graphic settings to max and have no problems. Well for some reason I can't. I have to turn off traffic and put scenery to low so it performs better. But what ever I do, even if I put the settings at minimal, I still get lag.

Any suggestions?

[Daube]

Hi Stratosphere, and welcome to Simviation forums.
You said that you registered to many other forums in an attempt to solve your problem, but that will not help. Registering to forums is useless if you do not take the time to read what is written in there.

There are TONS of topics, discussions about performance optimizations for FSX. On most forums, those topics are even stickies, easilly and quickly accessible to anyone. I'd suggest you to relax and really start to take your time reading the various experiences from other users. There has been a lot of users facing the exact same situation, and they could solve their problems and enjoy FSX. Their experiences are useful to read, they will provide you all the information, tips and tricks you need

[stratosphere]

The other forums I visit didn't have the same problem and are just not active so I signed up here instead.
So you say that there are similar threads to mine, but I couldn't find anything. Though I do think its a bug or some sort because FSX should perform very well on my PC. Do you mind giving me a link to a similar thread. Thanks.

[Daube]

FSX will perform great on your hardware, but before this, you'll have to configure your hardware properly, and then you'll have to configure Windows and your video card properly, and finally you'll have to configure FSX properly.

That's the summary

I'll check the topics to see if I can find a really explicit one. In the meanwhile, what you should do is:
- make sure your Windows is totally up to date with Windows Update
- update the Windows components that are not handled automatically by Windows update, that is .NET Framework, C++ runtimes, Java Runtimes, and DirectX9 Runtimes (google finds them easilly, directly on Microsoft website)
- ensure your FSX is up to date with either SP1 and SP2, or Acceleration.
- once all of this is done, ensure you have some recent video card drivers.

[stratosphere]

I have a few problems with that.

1# I stopped relying on windows update because a file ruined my computer.

2# I cannot install updates for FSX because I have it in another language.

3# I don't know how to thank you. 

[Daube]

If you cannot run Windows Update then you have a serious problem, because you won't be able to really optimize your computer.
For the manual downloads like C++ runtimes etc... the language is not a problem, you can specify it on the MS download page just before you launch the download.
For the various SPs for FSX, normally the language shouldn't be a problem, just like above, you should be able to specify the language you want on the download page on the MS website.

Concerning the usefull topics, in the end it resulted impossible to find anything here. The search engine keeps telling me there are no results for words that definitely SHOULD return some topics. The sticky topics from NickN might be too technical for you but I advise to at least to try to read it, just for a check.

Finally, once the SP1 and SP2 for FSX are installed (or FSX Acceleration, if you have it), go to this website to get some kind of automatic optimization of a file nammed FSX.cfg which contains some hidden yet important settings for FSX:
http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html
Read carefully.

One last thing: you said you had an i7, 4 cores but 8 threads. That means the Hyperthreading is activated on your i7, and this feature is actually not so good for FSX performance. You should try to deactivate it, but for this you'll have to go in the BIOS of your computer, and if you are not an expert, then I would recommend you NOT to touch this.

[stratosphere]

Updating to service pack 2 made it finally work.  Thanks dude!! I put everything on max including traffic and scenery and there is no more lag. Although sometimes it skips a few frames but its good enough for me. FSX works fine even if hyperthread is on.  :-?

[Daube]

Yes, it works with hyperthreading, but the performance is a bit instable, that's why it's usually recommended to switch HT off
Glad you could get your FSX to work correctly. Now you have tons of freeware addons to discover

[stratosphere]

There is an option in the nvidia control panel. "Optimize with thread" I disabled it. Did I do the right thing?

[Skunkworks]

I don't know if this is true of the i970, but my i920 hated dual channel memory and absolutely loves triple channel memory! 
Until I switched I didn't know what I was missing!