New laptop doesn't run FSX all that well

[brettt777]

I have a new Asus G73 laptop that has an i7 720QM processor, Mobility Radeon HD 5870 with 1gb of GDDR5, 8gb of system ram and running Windows 7 Home Premium. These specs are way better than my old Dell XPS 710 and while the laptop blows the Dell away on every other sim or game I can run on it, for some reason FSX doesn't run any better at all. I keep having to turn down the graphics quality more and more. Sometimes it is silky smooth but other times when it's somewhat graphic intense (like a high speed canyon run through the Grand Canyon) I can barely get 10-12 fps out of it. This thing runs everything else at least half again as fast as the Dell with all graphic settings maxed out but for some reason I can't get FSX to run smoothly. I did alot of homework before I got this laptop and everyone said you can run even the newest games at max settings and it's silky smooth. That is apparently true for everything except FSX. So what am I missing? Should I use the DX10 setting? I've tried everything I can think of but I am sure there are other things that can be done. Thanks in advance.
P.S. yes I do have it in turbo mode.

[stansdds]

The Dell 710 used the Intel Core Extreme QX6700 quad-core processor overclocked to 3.2 GHz. Your new I7 720QM CPU runs at only 1.6 GHz, so you've cut CPU speed by half. Even in turbo mode your I7 peaks at 2.8 Ghz. Most games make heavy use of the graphics card, but FSX is incredibly CPU bound and really likes CPU's of 3 GHz or higher.

You can try DX10 as it reportedly works quite well under Windows 7, but I really think the slow CPU is going to be a problem.

[brettt777]

Okay that makes sense, but my XPS doesn't have anything like a quad core extreme QX6700 (I wish it did!). If memory serves, it's a duo core E6420 @ 2.13 ghz.
At any rate, you're saying that most of the new games and sims rely on a fast GPU, but FSX is more CPU dependent, correct? So the best I could hope for is getting it to run maybe as good as the XPS...? I wonder how the G73 does with a bit of overclocking?

[stansdds]

I was thinking you had one of the later XPS 710's with the quad core.

FSX and FS9, in fact the entire FlightSim series, relies on the CPU for all the flight dynamics calculations as well as much of the graphics computations. A strong graphics card is recommended, but you don't really need a cutting edge graphics card, but you do need the fastest CPU you can find. Dual core at a minimum, quads are usually better, but a really fast dual core will often beat a slow quad core.
It's also my understanding that the I7 720QM runs at 1.6 GHz on all four cores, but turbo mode basically shuts down three cores and runs the remaining core at 2.8 GHz, effectively making it a single core processor, something that is bad for FSX.

I don't know about overclocking a laptop. Overclocking requires good cooling, something that is problematic with a laptop. If you do decide to overclock, go slowly.