Performance issue - FSX stutters increase as sim runs

[dom8984]

Hi All,

I'm having a rather strange performance issue with FSX.

When I start the game I have the scenery setting sliders about 3/4 of the way to the right snd I get reasonable performance, about 15FPS. (I've set the limiter to 30FPS, which I can achieve easily at high altitude cruise).

During long flights I notice that the performance seems to drop, on descent I have some quite noticeable stuttering even though the frame rate is drifting between 10-20FPS.

If I restart FSX at this point, all is well and the game plays smooth again. But this is quite annoying and I want to try to find out what is causing the problem.

I got a system monitor which showed that the CPU or memory was not maxed out, but it did suggest a HDD bottleneck so I did a full defrag twice. No improvement :-(

I have an i3 3.2Ghz dual core processor with intergrated graphics and 4GBs of RAM.

Has anyone else seen this problem or have any ideas what might cause it. It's very frustrating!

Thanks in advance,

Dominic

[torkermax]

25 or less you will start to see stutters. Could be, on descent, more AI aircraft are being rendered, More clouds being drawn and more ground textures are starting to be rendered, AI is the biggest frame rate killer. That is not uncommon on a less than ideal computer specially with an integrated graphics. Turn down your settings is the only alternative to just having a more powerful computer. Have you tried Bujotes tweaks?

http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html

[mallcott]

Limits of integrated graphics cards. almost certainly. You need a reasonable stand-alone GPU to use FSX successfully. In your case this will also most likely involve a high-rated power supply as well as what yo are seeing is either resource-starvation (no way is 4 gigs of RAM going to cope with powering the requirements of processing FSX AND the graphics processor at the same time) or overheating becuase what you have is pushing the power supply beyond its limits.

DO NOT use the Bojote tweaks. FIX THE HARDWARE FIRST.

If you want more advice, please supply FULL system specs, including FSX version information. There's a sticky telling you what you need to provide, please read it and comply.

[dom8984]

Thanks both.

I've tried using the Xtreme FSX PC Booster and have worked with their support to get a slight increase in performance by tweaking fsx.cfg. But it hasn't fixed the issue completely.

Sorry I didn't see the sticky note. I'm new to these forums. I'll try to add these details below:

1) My computer is a HP Touchsmart 610 all-in-one with i3 550 3.2Ghz dual core processor with Intel 3D intergrated graphics with 2GB of memory, not sure about the motherboard but I haven't changed it and the RAM is 4GB.

2) As for my software I'm running up-to-date Windows 7 SP1 with all drivers up for date. FSX has SPs 1&2 installed. I use a network configuration with FSX running on one PC, with Active Sky Evolution, vasFMC, FS Commander and Squawkbox on networked PCs.

3) As posted earlier, the problem is the performance getting worse during long flights. It is perfectly flyable when I depart, and the problem can always be fixed by restarting FSX.

4) No specific problem with third party addons, although the problem is worse when landing at airports with very detailed scenery.

I don't see either the memory-maxing out or the CPU overheating on the system monitor, but I realise that it could be a hardware issue, particularly when I see the specs of some of the systems others are using.

The system information says my PC can support up to 16GBs of RAM, and I can upgrade the processor to either an i5 5xx or i7 5xx series. Theres also a slot for a Mobile PCI Express Module (MXM) so I might be able to add a graphics card. Which upgrade could make the biggest difference? Or would I be better off starting with a new PC with higher spec.

Are there any other software tweaks, or am I just wasting my time going down that road?

Thanks again,

Dominic