txnetcop
June 10th, 2007, 20:33
OK, first I'm going to ask you to be honest with yourself at what you call a slideshow. FSX, unlike FS9, can be very fluid even at low frame rates if you have it set up right. Now it is also possible that you have FSX set up wrong even with all the tweaks and hints that are available to you...how do I know this since I now have a kickin' system that runs it at around 32-35fps locked everywhere...desperation has strange bed-fellows. Are you willing to settle for less than what you want for reasonable fluidity while flying and experimenting as you go or are gonna get peeved and just quit and bad mouth the product and the help? Decide before you start:
I build PCs for a lot of people who really can't afford a PC so we buy cut-rate and refurb parts sometimes to get them started...especially kids and older guys who live mostly on social security. I can't always help people I want to help because I didn't build their system and don't always know what some well meaning tech might have done either in their software set-up or parts that may have a brand name but are not truly up to snuff for whatever reason. I have bought brand-name memory that once had been very highly rated only to have it fail time after time and then noticed it was memory built by someone else with BRAND AAA's name on it.
But this is not about me or what I do, it's about what happens after you have established that you have a fairly decent system that runs the socks off of FS9 but won't do squat-diddly in FSX, and yet Joe-Blow with the same system seems to be running his fairly well.
In the next couple of weeks we will be talking about how to build the system that we now have bought parts for based on some fairly good advice...mine:costumes:...and Hey Moe, and others that are pretty good at this stuff, but for now you have a single or dual core that so far hasn't done well at running FSX, so let's check a few things and see what we have to work with. Most dual cores and higher end single cores should do fairly well with SP-1.
First go back to Phil Taylor's blogs and cursor down to the bottom and make sure you have downloaded the latest version of SP-1 and have installed it correctly and that you defragged your hard drive before you put it on and then after you put on SP-1
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/
Let's forget about the tweaks for now, just make sure you have SP-1 loaded and ready for use. I know I'm gonna get kick-back on this from some who say they did better without SP-1 but guess what you can do even better with SP-1 loaded if we do some things to help the PC use what it has to work with. There are several things that SP-1 improves within FSX itself...read Phil's blog as to what changes and additions were made.
Second,erase your old fsx.cfg file before you start FSX. You will find it under Documents and Settings, YOURNAME, Applications, Microsoft, FSX, if that doesn't help you go to START menu, then Search and type in the words FSX.cfg in All Files and folders.
Now open up FSX and go to settings at the left of your screen and customize at the bottom...then take every slider in every tab to zero. Does that sound crazy or what??? Why do this??? Simple it's going to be about budgeting to get what you want or at least come close to what you want while saving for that kickin' machine you want.
Move your target framerate to 40 frames per second and while in Windows mode not full screen, go into your sim and using CRTL Z key see if yours pegs at 40 and will pretty much stay there for about a two or three minutes while you fly. If it won't, take it a little lower until it stabilizes.
Now it's time for choices, what are the things I have to have the most in order to enjoy flying, a great VC cockpit and a nicely modelled exterior, or heck with the VC just give me some scenery to look at while flying around here! Or are you a traffic maniac like someone I know, and have to have tons of traffic in order to be happy. All of these take away from your 40fps budget, some more than others.
Ok, go to ONE slider you most want to have as a priority and move it to 100%, now check your flying aircraft in the windows mode and see if you are still pegged at 40fps or whatever rate you had to settle for. If you have already lost some fps with just that one setting you will have to budget carefully on what settings are next and just how high you want to slide them. As you go to each slider you want start highest and check your aircraft and frame rates, you will have to settle for less on some but you may come close to what you call fluid and continuous flight without the slide show effect. A hint...autogen and air traffic will bring you down fast, so budget carefully and see how this works for you.
These pics are done on a single core AMD64 2800+ OC'd to 2.766 GHZ, a factory OC'd Nvidia BFG 6600GT video card, 2GB of DDR 184pin PC3500 ADATA Turbo RAM, and an EIDE 7200 rpm hard drive. It took almost an hour of messing with the settings to get it right starting high and lowering to get a good combination, but it can be done...be patient and good luck.
Anyone may contribute to this thread all I ask is keep it positive or if you have questions that's fine too, but let's not end up wiping out the start of a new area of resource, OK?
The next thread we will talk about the tweaks and how they affect your system performance that will be tomorrow
Ted
I build PCs for a lot of people who really can't afford a PC so we buy cut-rate and refurb parts sometimes to get them started...especially kids and older guys who live mostly on social security. I can't always help people I want to help because I didn't build their system and don't always know what some well meaning tech might have done either in their software set-up or parts that may have a brand name but are not truly up to snuff for whatever reason. I have bought brand-name memory that once had been very highly rated only to have it fail time after time and then noticed it was memory built by someone else with BRAND AAA's name on it.
But this is not about me or what I do, it's about what happens after you have established that you have a fairly decent system that runs the socks off of FS9 but won't do squat-diddly in FSX, and yet Joe-Blow with the same system seems to be running his fairly well.
In the next couple of weeks we will be talking about how to build the system that we now have bought parts for based on some fairly good advice...mine:costumes:...and Hey Moe, and others that are pretty good at this stuff, but for now you have a single or dual core that so far hasn't done well at running FSX, so let's check a few things and see what we have to work with. Most dual cores and higher end single cores should do fairly well with SP-1.
First go back to Phil Taylor's blogs and cursor down to the bottom and make sure you have downloaded the latest version of SP-1 and have installed it correctly and that you defragged your hard drive before you put it on and then after you put on SP-1
http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/
Let's forget about the tweaks for now, just make sure you have SP-1 loaded and ready for use. I know I'm gonna get kick-back on this from some who say they did better without SP-1 but guess what you can do even better with SP-1 loaded if we do some things to help the PC use what it has to work with. There are several things that SP-1 improves within FSX itself...read Phil's blog as to what changes and additions were made.
Second,erase your old fsx.cfg file before you start FSX. You will find it under Documents and Settings, YOURNAME, Applications, Microsoft, FSX, if that doesn't help you go to START menu, then Search and type in the words FSX.cfg in All Files and folders.
Now open up FSX and go to settings at the left of your screen and customize at the bottom...then take every slider in every tab to zero. Does that sound crazy or what??? Why do this??? Simple it's going to be about budgeting to get what you want or at least come close to what you want while saving for that kickin' machine you want.
Move your target framerate to 40 frames per second and while in Windows mode not full screen, go into your sim and using CRTL Z key see if yours pegs at 40 and will pretty much stay there for about a two or three minutes while you fly. If it won't, take it a little lower until it stabilizes.
Now it's time for choices, what are the things I have to have the most in order to enjoy flying, a great VC cockpit and a nicely modelled exterior, or heck with the VC just give me some scenery to look at while flying around here! Or are you a traffic maniac like someone I know, and have to have tons of traffic in order to be happy. All of these take away from your 40fps budget, some more than others.
Ok, go to ONE slider you most want to have as a priority and move it to 100%, now check your flying aircraft in the windows mode and see if you are still pegged at 40fps or whatever rate you had to settle for. If you have already lost some fps with just that one setting you will have to budget carefully on what settings are next and just how high you want to slide them. As you go to each slider you want start highest and check your aircraft and frame rates, you will have to settle for less on some but you may come close to what you call fluid and continuous flight without the slide show effect. A hint...autogen and air traffic will bring you down fast, so budget carefully and see how this works for you.
These pics are done on a single core AMD64 2800+ OC'd to 2.766 GHZ, a factory OC'd Nvidia BFG 6600GT video card, 2GB of DDR 184pin PC3500 ADATA Turbo RAM, and an EIDE 7200 rpm hard drive. It took almost an hour of messing with the settings to get it right starting high and lowering to get a good combination, but it can be done...be patient and good luck.
Anyone may contribute to this thread all I ask is keep it positive or if you have questions that's fine too, but let's not end up wiping out the start of a new area of resource, OK?
The next thread we will talk about the tweaks and how they affect your system performance that will be tomorrow
Ted