performance-question

[Magnus Wahlström 1101647]

i seem to have lousy framerate on FSX, and im wondering where the problem lies. i have:

 

core 2 quad q9450 2.66ghz

4gb ram

nvidia geforce 8800 gt

plenty of harddisc space

 

i use FSX with REX and VFR gen X 2.0. this would slow down the fps for sure, but i only get like 10fps, with no traffic at all, and no autogen. the rest is pretty much maxed up.

 

does this seem reasonable? is there anything i can do, regarding driver-updating, or anything else? or is it acually perfectlt reasonable, and all i can do is to buy new hardware? where is my weakest link? the geforce?

 

appreciate any input! //magnus

[Ian Oliver]

I've just moved to FSX (with UTX, FSUIPC4, AS6.5, SB4). I've a dual core 3.6Ghz machine with 4Gb RAM and the Nvidia 8800GTS 384Mb card

running XP (32bit).

 

Installation must be done in small steps; make sure your machine is as clean (registry cleaning, defragmenting the disks) as possible beforehand.

Then piece by piece install everything: FSX, start, register, reboot, FSX SP1, start, reboot, FSX SP2 etc..

 

Then let FSX choose the graphics setting for you; you'll notice that it's probably about middling to low on most of the sliders. Then turn off

light bloom, all traffic and autogen.

 

Then set up the GFX card. You must have the latest drivers (make sure you properly uninstall theold ones first) ... last time i checked they were the v181 drivers from NVIDIA.

Reboot. Install nHancer and configure a profile for FSX. This is what works for me:

In FSX: AA off + Trilinear filtering. Most the sliders are about half way. Weather radius set to about 10mi, clouds to 60mi.

In nHancer: AA set to combined, 8S, Trilinear flitering optimisation on .. I'm at work so I can't remember all the options I've set.

 

With the DEFAULT aircraft in FSX I can get 40-100 FPS with it averaging around 70-80. With the Wilco stuff I get 20-40 FPS. Flying over

London with traffic reduces this down to 19-25 FPS with occasional drops to 8 if AS6 is updating weather or there's some heavy texture loading.

 

Ian

 

ps: send me a PM to remind me to send you the links that I found useful for configuring FSX and nHancer.

[Garry Morris 920567]

The latest drivers aren't always the best drivers. You may need to experiment with various driver versions until you find a version that works best for you.

[Magnus Wahlström 1101647]

allright i'll try all of that, thanks a bunch! i installed the 182.08 driver, i think it's the latest, but i will try a few older ones too, once i reinstall fs.

 

about the sp2 though, do you recomend that? i have acceleration, and there seems to be some problems combining the two? on fsinsider it says "If you have already installed Flight Simulator X: Acceleration expansion pack, do not install Service Pack 2." and "After you have installed Service Pack 2, you will be able to play multiplayer games only with users who have installed either Service Pack 2 or Flight SimulatorX: Acceleration."

 

wont this be a problem, flying on vatsim? i dont feel like i need acc, if sp2 makes things smoother, but whats up with this?

 

anyways, thanks! i will get back with the results. //magnus

[Ian Oliver]

The latest drivers aren't always the best drivers. You may need to experiment with various driver versions until you find a version that works best for you.

 

The 170.xxx series of drivers we terrible for me...v180xxx services I find are much more stable

 

 

allright i'll try all of that, thanks a bunch! i installed the 182.08 driver, i think it's the latest, but i will try a few older ones too, once i reinstall fs.

 

about the sp2 though, do you recomend that? i have acceleration, and there seems to be some problems combining the two? on fsinsider it says "If you have already installed Flight Simulator X: Acceleration expansion pack, do not install Service Pack 2." and "After you have installed Service Pack 2, you will be able to play multiplayer games only with users who have installed either Service Pack 2 or Flight SimulatorX: Acceleration."

 

wont this be a problem, flying on vatsim? i dont feel like i need acc, if sp2 makes things smoother, but whats up with this?

 

I understood that the acceleration pack contains SP1 only. I guess many of us FSX users have SP2 installed and see no problem with VATSIM - I don't think it affects us at all AFAIK.

I don't have the acceleration pack, got no need for it so it was plain FSX + Sp1 + Sp2 for me - similar procedure for UTX.

 

Important: Install things one at a time and make sure everything works between installs (a reboot is a good idea). Do not try to optimise anything until you've got the whole thing

running and stable.

 

Ian

[Larry James 901346]

about the sp2 though, do you recomend that? i have acceleration, and there seems to be some problems combining the two? on fsinsider it says "If you have already installed Flight Simulator X: Acceleration expansion pack, do not install Service Pack 2." and "After you have installed Service Pack 2, you will be able to play multiplayer games only with users who have installed either Service Pack 2 or Flight SimulatorX: Acceleration."

 

wont this be a problem, flying on vatsim? i dont feel like i need acc, if sp2 makes things smoother, but whats up with this?

 

You don’t have to install SP2 on top of the Acceleration pack because the Acceleration pack includes SP2.

 

The multiplayer compatibility mode of flying with or without SP2 is for people using FSX’s multiplayer feature to fly. We don’t use FSX’s multiplayer mode for VATSIM, so it doesn’t matter with patch level you use when flying on VATSIM, everybody still flies together, just as they fly together using different versions of Flight Simulator.

 

-- L. James

 

--

L. D. James

[email protected]

www.apollo3.com/~ljames