What Add-Ons Kill FSX and should be avoided

**Major_Spittle** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:18

I was talking to a buddy of mine and he told me to stay away from ORBX scenery (PNW to be precise) because I would never be able to fly around cities again without turning down all my settings. He said basically that it makes things look too good and you have to turn down everything else (traffic, ai, ...) in order to run it. This floored me because I am running a water cooled i7 920 @ 4.2ghz with 6 gigs of DDR3 1600 ram ATI 5830, but he says it don't matter and I'd have to turn down REX settings and my AI if I wanted more/better trees and houses to look at.

On here I always hear people rave about different products and about how well they run. ORBX PNW,Stark,Dunnington all got kudos here, but it seems like products never get knocked on this site because of the Mods. My buddy knocked ORBX PNW pretty bad because his system (i5 750 @ 4.0/4GB/5770) couldn't run it unless he all but turned off street traffic, AI planes, and some other settings while he still was only getting about 8-10 fps around KSEA where he was getting 17-25fps before.

I consider my system as being pretty high end, so are there any other products that no matter how good they look you would stay away from due to the load they put on a system? What about some of these other City add-ons? Traffic software? I refuse to turn down the AI planes and Traffic in FSX because it makes it look too dead to me.

**skyhawka4m** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:21

Major...all I can say is that I have the PNW and I love it! I also own the Darrington, and Stark's fields and they are perfect. I at first was having some FPS issues but with some minor scenery and graphics tweaking....I'm not getting between 30 and 35 FPS, in most areas and nothign below 22 in conjested areas.

I would say......get PNW and try it out. I truly think you will be more than happy.

ORBX will get my money for each release they do for PNW area.

OBRX bring on concrete please!!!

**Skittles** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:28

I'm not actually a huge OrbX PNW fan, simply due to my preferences in scenery, however your comments are misguided. Even though it's not the scenery for me, it's extremely well optimised.

Your comments are basically based on the fact that you refuse to turn down AI traffic. If you refuse to turn down AI traffic then just about every single decent scenery add-on ever created kills FSX and should be avoided.

**Major_Spittle** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:32

Originally Posted by skyhawka4m

Major...all I can say is that I have the PNW and I love it! I also own the Darrington, and Stark's fields and they are perfect. I at first was having some FPS issues but with some minor scenery and graphics tweaking....I'm not getting between 30 and 35 FPS, in most areas and nothign below 22 in conjested areas.

I would say......get PNW and try it out. I truly think you will be more than happy.

ORBX will get my money for each release they do for PNW area.

OBRX bring on concrete please!!!

Can you run it with 30% car traffic, 100% GA/Airline, 50% boats, 100% Ships, Airport Scenery High..... I don't run much on low in my FSX set-up if it moves. What is your computer like.

**Major_Spittle** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:36

Originally Posted by Skittles

I'm not actually a huge OrbX PNW fan, simply due to my preferences in scenery, however your comments are misguided. Even though it's not the scenery for me, it's extremely well optimised.

Your comments are basically based on the fact that you refuse to turn down AI traffic. If you refuse to turn down AI traffic then just about every single decent scenery add-on ever created kills FSX and should be avoided.

I run GEX/REX just fine, and if that is what you consider misguided the more power too you. I call it how my FSX is set-up to my liking and I'm asking what add-ons would then Kill my FSX experience if I installed them. ie, being force to turn the setting down.

It is not like I am running this game on a $500 computer.

tigisfat · May 23rd, 2010, 10:39

That's a big conclusion to jump to about PNW, and kinda unfounded. I can positively tell you it will surely not kill FSX.

It is a resource hog memory-wise, and can occasionally cause out of memory errors combined with aircraft as complicated as an accusim, but for the most part those are rare.

My computer has substantially less power than yours, and my frame rates are near default autogen levels in 99% of the ORBX PNW. My computer is a three and a half year old dual core 3.0GHZ.

You won't regret buying the PNW title, and that's coming from a guy that usually only prefers photoreal scenery.

**skyhawka4m** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:51

'm running an i5 , 650 3.20, with an ATI HD 5500, and 8gb Ram

I run my scenery in accordance with what is recommnded by ORBX.

**Skittles** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:53

Originally Posted by skyhawka4m

'm running an i5 , 650 3.20, with an ATI HD 5500, and 8gb Ram

I run my scenery in accordance with what is recommnded by ORBX.

Your traffic settings are perhaps 10 times what OrbX reccommends!

**spotlope** · May 23rd, 2010, 10:53

One of the settings you have to manage carefully when using the PNW package is your autogen. Orbx put a whole lot more of it into their work than you'll find in default scenery, and some systems struggle with the higher settings as a result. The good news is that there's so much beautiful autogen in the product that turning down your sliders should still result in great-looking scenery. I run my AGN at "dense" over the PNW, and I get very good frames, in the 20's-30's, dropping to the high teens over Portland and Seattle. Even there, I consider it to be very flyable.

**Cactuskid** · May 23rd, 2010, 11:23

I highly recommend PNW and Orbx Australia products. I run a rather modest system and it runs PNW pretty good. I'm locked at 30 FPS and it pretty much stays there, except over KSEA where it dips down to about 17-19, especially over the airport, but then again, KSEA is pretty busy with AI. I keep my autogen set to dense. Actually, I get less stutters and blurry ground textures with PNW than with default textures. I also run FEX.

Everybody's system is different. There's only one way to find out how well it will work on yours...

**ryanbatc** · May 23rd, 2010, 12:27

Meh I'm with the OP.... I tried the demo and it kills my performance (one of the reasons I did not buy it) - I couldn't fly the demo with more than a carenado or default plane

**Major_Spittle** · May 23rd, 2010, 14:24

Originally Posted by tigisfat

That's a big conclusion to jump to about PNW, and kinda unfounded. I can positively tell you it will surely not kill FSX.

It is a resource hog memory-wise, and can occasionally cause out of memory errors combined with aircraft as complicated as an accusim, but for the most part those are rare.

My computer has substantially less power than yours, and my frame rates are near default autogen levels in 99% of the ORBX PNW. My computer is a three and a half year old dual core 3.0GHZ.

You won't regret buying the PNW title, and that's coming from a guy that usually only prefers photoreal scenery.

Well, I never have ran PNW but from what I have been told by someone with a system quite similar to mine was that when he installed it he had to lower all his traffic settings and lowered things like cloud density. He said he basically gave up airport vehicle density.

My intent wasn't to bad mouth a particular product but to have a realistic/honest conversation about what products drag FSX to its knees. I haven't tried but I am pretty sure I can Max out a basic install of FSX/Accelleration on my system. This Means Max EVERYTHING/EVERYTHING enabled and with a few tweaks make it flyable in and around KSEA (13-17fps w/o stutters). There are a lot of products I could then install and see no change or very little change to the point that I would never have to touch my settings. Then there are products that would put my system down to 4-7fps and make it completely unflyable.

I know this is a subjective conversation. Someone running a Dual Core @ 3ghz will never be able to enable everything or have any amount of traffic and therefore may be fine with add-on scenery around KSEA because they are not losing airport animations/busy airports and maybe just dialing down their texture resolution a little. And I guess this conversation isn't about "well it ran fine on my computer in a mimimized window at 600X800 res". It is about how much resources some add-ons use so people can get an idea of what will work for them. I am not trying to single out ORBX, it is just the example of what a friend told me would happen to my system if I installed it. I tend to believe him because we have very similar systems and he actually installed it and saw what it did and continues to try to make it work because he likes it and already spent the money.

On the flipside, I have read in places that some of the traffic software will actually use less resources than the default traffic and you just disable the default traffic in FSX when you run it. Has anyone done this and does it work? Do they also do all the airport animations/vehicles?

**tracyq144** · May 23rd, 2010, 15:52

PNW did kill FSX for me, in a way. Even though that's not my home area, I simply can't fly anywhere else in FSX, it's just not "real enough".

I run FSX on a Core2 Duo laptop, so I do have to turn the AI traffic way down, but I had to do that before I installed PNW. PNW, along with Tongass Fjords, is simply the BEST addon I have ever downloaded.