AFTER 1 MONTH WITH FSX

[unique]

Well, after 1 month or so with FSX I have to say generally very disappointed. What the hype all said about the better graphics: Well yes they are nice, but you really cannot play this game on a normal PC just 2 years old.

Having spent literally £100#s of pounds to upgrade memory and all sorts of tweaks and tricks tried, many of which I have read on this forum (thanks for those guys), I still find it impossible to land a simple B737-800 at LAX or any busy airport for that matter.

Frame rates are lousy at a busy airport. To land you may aswell delete all scenery and just fly it in on a scenery drawn with crayons by a child. If you even dare to use sliders and about half way, you go right down to 1 or 2 frames per second, so it is just a big expensive slideshow.

In flight you can slide up the sliders during flight as that makes the scenery nicer, but when you get close to landing, forget it.

On the ground to get any of the trucks or jetties to appear, sliders have to be on high or maximum, thus frame rates are rubbish.

I spend more time switching settings to try to get frame rates up than actually playing this game. So I am not going to play this game anymore, Microsoft's claims that it can be played on an XP machine with 1 GB memory etc are scurrilous lies.

Why this game cannot be put onto a Playstation and be played properly I will never know, surely Microsoft now are falling way behind when it comes to graphics. I don't have a playstation or a Wii or anything like that, but what I have seen of those, your games play so much better on those consoles. Yet this lovely game is still stuck on a PC with a refreshing frame rates as a graphics basis, surely it is time for this to get onto some system where frame rates are not an issue.

I suggest Microsoft recalls this game and gives us all a refund, not that they would even entertain the idea or even reimburse me for the £100's of pounds I have spent on a 2 year old PC, and now I am beginning to read that Duo Cores and even Vista will not be able to handle this game.

Surely they could have just improved FS9, at least that works with current PC, and held this expensive game (£59.95 paid for the DeLuxe Edition version by me), so not cheap! What is the point of releasing a game that needs to rely on frame rates, when all the frame rates I get are 1 or 2 at the nicest airports and just above 10 inflight surrounded in a blue sky with no weather added and any traffic.

THIS HAS BEEN A POINTLESS RELEASE. What do Microsoft want us all to do, spend yet more on Vista, no doubt all the memory I bought and the new nVidia card I bought to try to get this game to work properly will most likely not be compatible with Vista. They can go jump in a lake for all I care.

Here I attach a picture, LAX parked with jetty and trucks, but 2.4 frames and I am at a standstill! No weather added, just makes for a nice picture, a NON moving picture is all this game gives me.

I will never believe any of Microsoft's claims that are printed on the back of a box ever again. There should be a law against making claims when they know full well, customers will shell out money for this game and be bitterly disappointed by it.


D

[bert]

Sorry to read you're so dissapointed, but it says more about your computer than about the game.

With most sliders either on full, or at least 70% I get FR as high as 40 FPS while flying, and on the really busy and detailed airports still 10+ ( in fair weather).

Right now it might seem FSX is only for top-of-the-market machines, but in 6 months every off-the-shelf machine will play this game as it should be, cuz that's how fast technology goes....

Again, sorry you're so dissapointed in the game, but asking for a refund is not very realistic... If it's really that bad, go back to FS9 and put the new game away until you eventually get a new computer?

[Captain America]

Do you feel better after all that?
I sure hope so.

You can get that 2.4 FPS up to at least 7-10 FPS, if you would
only continue to work with FSX and have an open mind.

Microsoft will never get back my copy of FSX, recall or not.

There are more and more tweaks and fixes being put on the table
every day. I found a couple last week that increased my FPS.

Each new Flight Simulator is better than the last.
Stay with FSX and enjoy the ride to that perfect Flight
Simulator, someday soon.

Edit: Forget about the large busy airports. Go with General
Aviation acft in small regional airports. I can consistently
get FPS of 20-30, smooth as silk and the scenery is wonderful.
Fly through mountainous areas and you will see. Good Luck.

[unique]

Guys,
Perhaps I was a little angry, but I certainly felt let down.

My PC now exceeds the specs on the Microsoft box, so I was expecting a little more after all the money I spent.

I re-loaded FS 2004 and boy now that is working fine. With my new graphics and memory I have all sliders to the max, AI traffic, scenery, everything and I am going to stay with 2004 until Microsoft solve this with FSX. No juddery graphics, loads so fast in comparison with FSX, and to be honest, the jetties and trucks are a gimmick, after a while they just seem to get in the way and slow eveything down, and I am on this to fly not to look at little trucks, so I'll stick with 2004 for now. Perhaps in a few years when PCs have caught up, I will open FSX up again, but for now it stays deleted from my system. It took up a lot of space and that space now can go to add ons for 2004.

D

[rhodges]

Hello Diego:

I share your frustrations, although I am still plugging away little by little. Although also somewhat disappointed, I still have some hope that FSX can evolve into the best that we have had in future days for the FS experience. I feel that school is still out for a final conclusion.

As I said in another post, I have hesitated to say anything as it seems that there are two extreme views: One far to the right with nothing but praise for FSX, and another far to the left that says it is just junk. Surely there is a place for those of us in the middle on these forums that are a bit disappointed thus far but have high hopes for the future. I am thrilled that nobody has accused you of trolling and trying to start something (yet).

Many have said that we went through this same thing with FS9 and previous versions. There is some truth to that, but for me at least no where near what it is for FSX. I just hope it has the promise to be worth it as future developements evolve. I got FS9 weeks early, FSX was weeks late (Both pre-ordered from the same place). Many have had installation/activation problems not present in previous versions to my knowledge. Thankfully I was spared that. Display quirks are present which to be fair may be me, and/or my system, but I have no sign of them with FS9. Addon aircraft and scenery are other issues with all kinds or pros and cons depending upon the eyes of the beholder. One ironic good point. FSX results in cooler CPU temperatures than FS9, which may be due to FS9 addons, I don't know. FSX obviously is smoother at lower frame rates than is FS9 (Thank goodness)

Sorry, but the recommendations to only fly at remote airports, with light aircraft, with no weather, and reduced or no scenery does not impress me as being something good and better than the previous version where all of these are at maximum settings and good results. However, hopefully all of these items will evolve into acceptable if not superior qualities.

I personally will continue to plug away little by little trying to give FSX a fair shot, however, for pleasure will continue a relapse back to FS9 where I can hop in a Gulfstream V or a 747 with full FMC capability and fly from locations equal to KJFK - LLBG with updated weather, plenty of company in the skys, VatSim ATC and IMHO beautiful scenery and airports (Old eyes of the beholder again).

I presently am struggling along with a P4-3.2, 3GB/400 mem. and a 6800 256Bit, 512MB AGP Super cooled Video Card. Next will hopefully be a core 2 duo processor. If I may ask in this post, how important real world is the 8X mode compared to the 4X Mode? I am considering a motherboard that would give me the capability of retaining my 6800XT AGP Video as a secondary video card, and adding a good PCI-Express primary at a future date. Unfortunately the motherboard under speculation is limited to the 4X mode (ASUS P5VDC-X) .

My hope is that in six or nine months (OK make it a year maybe plus a little) that all frustration with FSX will be a thing of the past and only academic.

Happy flying and Holidays to all:
RTH
1585368CFI

[unique]

My sentiments exactly. If one does as one is recommended to do, enhance a PC to max it out, one expects an increase in the frame rates. For what I spent, I do not see such an increase.

Now however, 2004 loads faster due to my money spend, plays better and I am now back at 2004.

Microsoft lied to us, and now they have people giving this FSX a bad review. I took a look at other reviews on Amazon and the like and as of today, and I am not the only one who feels Microsoft over did the hype.

This game is for computers that are not yet even on the drawing board yet.

As to going to smaller airports, well, no. What is the point of having them on FSX and them loading through at initial start up only if you will never be allowed to fly into them properly..?

Pointless. Gone back to 2004. I doubt I can ever recommend FSX to anyone ever again.

Diego

[haje]

Hi Guys,

I think MS was a little over-optimistic, publishing those FSX specs.

Quote:With most sliders either on full, or at least 70% I get FR as high as 40 FPS while flying, and on the really busy and detailed airports still 10+ ( in fair weather). End quote.

40 fps in mid air may be sufficient when you're doing a flight over the Atlantic at FL 360, but the experience is definitely going down the drain when you are going to land at JFK. The fun of doing a long flight in an airliner has very much to do with the completion of that flight at a busy airport, maybe even during a thunderstorm.

Quote: Forget about the large busy airports. Go with General
Aviation acft in small regional airports. I can consistently
get FPS of 20-30, smooth as silk and the scenery is wonderful.
End Quote

May be true, but what if you happen to like JFK? And landing big iron there?

If running FSX means buying new hardware or waiting until you can afford it, or alternatively, looking at a slide show, I think it IS disappointing.
For those who can afford the hardware: be my guest, have fun and have a good flight! For all the others: "Downgrading" to FS9 may be the best solution at the moment.

My experience with FSX does not extend beyond the demo. Are the demo's framerates comparable to the full version? I do not want to buy new hardware right now and FS9 runs fine on what I have. Flying around St. Maarten in the FSX demo at a graphics quality that is roughly equal to FS9 shows framerates hardly above 15. FSX can really show off, turning the sliders to the right, but only as a slideshow. So for the moment, I'll fly FS9...



regards,

HaJe


Artificial flight may be defined as that form of aviation in which a man flies at will in any direction, by means of an apparatus attached to his body, the use of which requires dexterity of the user."
Otto Lilienthal

[n4gix]

>My sentiments exactly. If one does as one is recommended to
>do, enhance a PC to max it out, one expects an increase in the
>frame rates. For what I spent, I do not see such an increase.

Therein lies the fallacy of believing that "hardware is the only answer" to poor performance.

The simple fact is, that most simmer's computer systems are very, very poorly "tuned" for gameplay performance. Out of the box, default settings, WinXP is optimized for desktop business applications.

Properly "tuned," I've seen even lowly P4 2.6 GHz, 2GBDDR machines run FSX at 70% max settings with a reliable 20-24 fps even in highly detailed areas, such as NYC, Seattle, LAX, etc.

Think of it this way: how well would your car perform if the engine were so poorly tuned that it could only produce 60% of its rated horsepower?

I very highly recommend that simmers pay more attention to the "system" they have, which is more than simply hardware! ;)

One of the most excellent and comprehensive guides to performance tuning your "system" was posted by Nick N. in this thread here:

http://www.simviation.com/cgi-bin/ya...num=1163028653

[wallyboard]

Hey Bill,

Good you posted the link.

I followed the recommendations there, concerning O&O Defrag, Registry Mechanic, and generally restoring the performance edge XP, and it was truly amazing. But not without cost. I added a couple more gigs of ram and replaced the Radeon 9800 with a Radeon X1650Pro.

My 3 yr. old P4 3.0GZ went from setttings at less than 20% to about 80% where I still fly on the edge of stutters, but it works.

I am a very happy flyer for now!

[unique]

I went through the instructions and to be honest, it was far too complicated. Maybe a Microsoft liar will come and do it for me. I do not see why I should start playing around with all sorts of settings just to get a game to play. I have other things to do too.
D