FSX
I've run into a bit of Virual Address Space (VAS) problems with my old FSX setup, with the simulator quitiing on me on two unrelated flights. So after a bit of an analysis of FSX' VAS usage, with the biggest offenders being immersive and thus rather indispensable features like LOD radius autogen and AI as well as the aircraft model, I decided to give the DX10 mode another try. My last attempts were five minutes to check performance after FSXSE was released piled on top of a lot of disappointment in performance and bugs. However, since operating systems, video card drivers and the platform itself (at leat slightly) changes, I figred I had nothing to lose. Besides, there's that universally praised payware shader set supposed to fix a lot of things that were intended, but not implemented for the original DX10 mode.
So switching on DX10 and installing the free shader fixes and reading up on the required FSX and NvidiaInspector settings, I found that the past performance drops were not present anymore. I did, however experience low framerates during overcast conditions, but this was quickly traced back to my GTX570 not being able to keep up with the demands imposed by Sparse Grid Anti-Aliasing and a bug that basically anti-aliases clouds. So back to the default anti-aliasing settings offered by DX10 mode I went and found that performance in clouds was okay again, all the while looking not worse than on my DX9 setup.
I could do away with portover aircraft and scenery incompatibility as this was just a test anyway.
Reflying the first, formerly OOM-plagued flight in the Metroliner went really well (save for low framerates in the thick cloud layers generated by FSXWX) and I arrived with a whopping 1.2 GB of VAS remaining - while using higher display settings (LOD radius, bloom, cockpit shadows) than before. For a comparison, FSX with DX9 had quit on me on approach with a measly 0.12 GB of available VAS.
This was promising, so I took the money I had saved the evening before while writing the VAS usage analysis (instead of doing the usual alcohol-fueled socializing normal people do on Fridays) and bought the DirectX 10 Fixer. I figured that the investment wouldn be worth it in the long run if it indeed fixed portover compatibility and framerate drops.
After an easy purchase, installation and setup, I tackled flight number two, going from Minneapolis to Atlanta via St. Louis and Nashville. Lots of scenery and - especially - AI to cover. Add time of day into the equation, requiring a switch from daylight to night ground textures and you got yourself a perfect poison for the Virtual Address Space - as experienced with DX9 before. Climbing out of a cloudy MSP, there were only slight framerate drops in clouds, confirming that the "do not anti-alias clouds" setting of the fixer really does its job. Neat! Cockpit shadows were only spotted above the clouds while turning toward the first waypoint and while I wasn't particularly awed by the shadows themselves, the fact that they are dependent on position and intensity of the ambient (sun)light is all the more impressive.
The flight was only plagued by (normal) short stutters while injecting new weather or loading Atlanta's city and airport scenery. On approach and final, the new shaders really showed off what they can do. Cockpit, cloud and autogen shading accounting for the light from the setting sun and even slightly better framerates than in DX9 mode with the latter only significantly dropping while looking back at the sun. The VAS readout, courtesy of FSUIPC, made me a bit nervous as I only had around 0.3 GB remaining on approach and landing but it all worked out without issue. Even with the higher display settings than on the failed attempts. Wow!
In elation after a successful flight in a taxing enviroment, I checked up portover compatibility. Calclassic's DC-6B got its exterior textures back and the LSK airbase scenery also showed up correctly. Not to mention the few remaining non-native AI models I still use. Great!
So far, the DX10 fixer is an investment I don't regret. It enhanced the FSX experience and even silenced the siren song of P3D, which is either a dead end (v1 and v2) or becoming a compatibility nightmare (v3 and future versions). At about half the cost of an educational license, DX10, FSXSE and Windows 10 really seem to be a perfect match. A stable and - maybe due to the recent big update - very well performing operating system, a FSX patch level requiring no more performance tweaking* and the new shaders offering great visuals with much better VAS use (once you work around the broken full screen implementation in W10).
Pictures of the cockpit shadows and some great sunset atmosphere:
I may be late to the DX10 party and enthusiasm, but as the saying goes: Better late than never.
And now excuse me, I've got some shader tweaking and actual flying to do.
* Really. I've thrown Bufferpools and the AffinityMask tweaks that I've successfully used for a long time out of my fsx.cfg and it seemed to have actually improved performance! The only added tweaks left are accounting for wide view angles and VSync in windowed mode.
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Striker, listen, and you listen close: flying a plane is no different than riding a bicycle, just a lot harder to put baseball cards in the spokes.
Originally Posted by ceo1944
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