FSX on Windows 7 64 bit?

[DaveKDEN]

Just wondering if anyone's made the switch from 32 bit XP or Vista to Windows 7 64 bit? Does FSX run any better on it using the same system specs?
Bought our oldest daughter a Dell Inspiron 15 laptop for her birthday with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit and it sure seems faster than my desktop, even though the specs aren't as good.

[Kiwikat]

I'm getting 25% less FPS with W7 Pro 64 vs Vista Ultimate 64. With Vista I was locked at 60 and that is usually what I got. With W7 I'm getting 40-50 at the same settings.

I think it has to do with Nvidia drivers more than W7 though...

[falcon409]

Yea, running windows7/64 with FSX and no change whatsoever in how FSX runs.

[stovall]

Well here is my 2cents, unlike Kiwikat and falcon409, I get maybe 5-10 fps increase but the biggest change for me is with my Nvidia 280 graphic card while in XP and Vista 32 bit I always had one studder after a long pause. Things ran very smooth but there was always the studder. Now with Win 7 64 bit there is absolutely no studder. FSX runs smooth as glass and very acceptable fps with sliders set very high. Oh by the way I only have 4 GB ram but that will change now that I have 64 bit Win 7 Ultimate. That is my next expenditure, 8 GB ram.

This was a big change for me and so far I am loving it. Playing Rise of Flight is duck soup for graphics. With it maxed out I am having a great time.

[hey_moe]

Hi Dave, I have been playing with W7 for almost 6 months now. As far as FPS in different gaming programs I really haven't seen that much change. Something else might be slowing you down. Is there anyway you can do a defrag, then go into MSCONFIG/START UP/ and shut down all running process/ reboot/ start FSX and fly in the same area and post your findings...Thanks, Mike

[Quixoticish]

Went from XP 32 bit to Win7 64 bit. No difference in frames, but then I didn't really expect any. I think that those seeing performance increases are doing so because they have a fresh, clean, uncluttered OS working in the background rather than something that has been slowly bloating over the years as Windows is prone to do.

[Hanimichal]

My hardware:

M3N-HT DELLUXE mempipe
9800GTX+ 512MB
5gb RAM Corsair
Fatality1 X-fi + Logitech 5.1 X-530
AM2 Phenon2 x4 3.0
2 Hd
Thermaltake 600w

I was user xp pro 32bit
and now win7 64bit and gain 3~10 fps in FSX

[jmig]

Will more then 4 G RAM make a difference in FSX? I always thought that more than 3-4 Gs was a waste, so far as FSX was concerned?

I run XP-64 with 4 Gs RAM and I am happy with the performance.

[DaveKDEN]

Will more then 4 G RAM make a difference in FSX? I always thought that more than 3-4 Gs was a waste, so far as FSX was concerned?

I run XP-64 with 4 Gs RAM and I am happy with the performance.

Good question.

[Dangerous Beans]

The main differences I see between XP 32bit and Win 7 64bit is

1/ Much faster loading times, especially when going to the aircraft selection menu, in XP it can take forever to load in Win 7 it only takes a few seconds.

2/ Smoother flying experience. About the only time I see a stutter is if I turn my head really fast (TrackIR). In XP although I managed to get the stutters to a bearable minimum I was never able to eliminate them and just learned to live with them.

[dhl1986]

I just went from Vista 32 to Windows 7 64, and have noticed a slight performance hit. I am thinking this might have more to do with the fact that I am flying more and more on VATSIM these days than I was when using Vista.

I have noticed that menus load quicker with 7... the main menu of FSX seems much more responsive as a whole. Still, the best performance I have gotten from FSX was with XP 64. It is a shame that there wasn't more support for that OS, because it could have been the king.

[Bjoern]

Slight performance gain with Windows 7, no troubles whatsoever.

[falcon409]

Good question.
Yea and I wish I had known the answer when I went and blew a bunch of cash on memory to upgrade to 8gig only to find out that FSX is a 32bit program and anything beyond 4 gig is useless for that program.
It helps the OS run more efficiently, but does nothing to increase performance in FSX.

[dswo]

The main differences I see between XP 32bit and Win 7 64bit is

1/ Much faster loading times, especially when going to the aircraft selection menu, in XP it can take forever to load in Win 7 it only takes a few seconds.

2/ Smoother flying experience. About the only time I see a stutter is if I turn my head really fast (TrackIR). In XP although I managed to get the stutters to a bearable minimum I was never able to eliminate them and just learned to live with them.

This has been my experience too.

[DaveKDEN]

Yea and I wish I had known the answer when I went and blew a bunch of cash on memory to upgrade to 8gig only to find out that FSX is a 32bit program and anything beyond 4 gig is useless for that program.
It helps the OS run more efficiently, but does nothing to increase performance in FSX.

It might help slightly with FSX as there's always "stuff" running in the background of windows. Maybe some of the extra RAM goes towards that thereby allowing FSX to take full advantage of 4 Gigs? Don't know how much you paid for the extra RAM, but maybe not all of it was a waste. :d

[Alexraptor]

4gb+ and a Win7-64 will make a huge difference over someone running XP-32 with 2gb(or even 4gb).

The difference for me was like day and night. After installing Win 7 i was able to up the sliders quite a few notches, and also note that i had then already reinstalled WinXP-32 a couple of months earlier.

[ManuelL]

I found that several of my addon aircraft I used under winXP are/seem to be compatible with Win7 64 (Wilco airbusses, Dreamfleet Dakota).

[Quixoticish]

4gb+ and a Win7-64 will make a huge difference over someone running XP-32 with 2gb(or even 4gb).

The difference for me was like day and night. After installing Win 7 i was able to up the sliders quite a few notches, and also note that i had then already reinstalled WinXP-32 a couple of months earlier.

As I mentioned above there was no difference for me doing this exact upgrade path. My XP installation was always kept very clean and tidy and stripped of unneeded services though which is probably why.

[Alexraptor]

As was my XP installation.
Whats your hardware specs anyway? Because it may or may not be that i have some hardware that is better utilized under Win7 64.

[gw1945]

Hey Alexraptor,
I have a simular rig I have been re-juvenating. If you don't mind, what kind of FPS are you getting. I run my settings pretty much according to "Nick's FSX Tuning guide. I am showing 30-35 in areas of "normal" scenery, and 18-22 in busy airports such as KSEA(Nick's test flight). I had a pretty clean xp pro 32 setup running about the same fps,,,thought I would do a little better with a 64 bit sys. I'm sure I don't have w7 "cleaned up" well enough yet, since there's not a lot of info out on it. I was considering another 4g ram kit, but I'm not sure it's worth it.??? Don't know whether to keep pouring money into this old box, or go for a new i7 rig. If I had gone the i7 route to begin with, It would almost be even money, with the upgrades I've done so far. Every time I turn around, it's another $100 for this or that. So anyway, it would be nice to know if my rig is "in the ballpark" of where it should be.
Thanks, Gary


mogo: abit ip35pro
cpu: c2d e6750 @ 3.2
gpu: gtx260 slightly clocked
ram: G.Skill 4G kit DDR2 1066 cl5 at 5-5-5-15
Sys HDD: WD caviar 250G
FSX HDD: WD caviar 500G
OS: W7 hp 64

[Kiwikat]

So anyway, it would be nice to know if my rig is "in the ballpark" of where it should be.

It sounds like your rig is definitely in the ballpark of where it should be.

If you want to skip the i7 series (which I am), rip out that c2d and add in a Q9550 or Q9650 and overclock it. I'm running a Q9550 e0 at 3.4 GHz, a modest overclock. Make sure to throw a nice cooler on top of it too. I'm using a Xigmatek S1283.

[TeaSea]

Well here is my 2cents, unlike Kiwikat and falcon409, I get maybe 5-10 fps increase but the biggest change for me is with my Nvidia 280 graphic card while in XP and Vista 32 bit I always had one studder after a long pause. Things ran very smooth but there was always the studder. Now with Win 7 64 bit there is absolutely no studder. FSX runs smooth as glass and very acceptable fps with sliders set very high. Oh by the way I only have 4 GB ram but that will change now that I have 64 bit Win 7 Ultimate. That is my next expenditure, 8 GB ram.

This was a big change for me and so far I am loving it. Playing Rise of Flight is duck soup for graphics. With it maxed out I am having a great time.


My experience echo's that of Stovall's. Overall system performance has improved for me on other applications. With FSX I didn't see a drastic difference -- maybe a little in the FPS area--However, my NVIDIA 7900 Graphics card performance has been greatly improved. I've always had issues with this card in FSX -- bad on stuttering after a bios update I could not roll back from. I was at the point I worked exclusively in windows mode with FSX. Now the stutters are gone, and the program runs much more smoothly. FSX was not my reason for upgrading but I'm pleased with the results. I run a 32 bit Dell dual core XPS box, also at 4 GB Ram. It was well worth not waiting around for service pack 1.

[dswo]

Three weeks after installing the new OS, I'm still seeing smoother turns in FSX and faster loading of the aircraft selection menu; this is compared with Win XP Pro SP3 (32-bit). I'm very pleased.

Windows 7 Ultra (64-bit)
Core2Quad Q6600 (stock speed)
4 gb RAM
Nvidia 8800GT (512 mb)