Surely i should be getting more FPS? Tweaking tool?

Hey guys,

So I recently bought a whole new system to play my lovely flight sims! I have always had a "mid range" system until now so I'm a little n00b when it comes to FSX'ing more "professionally".

Before I bought my new pc I did look online of different specs playing FSX with the PMDG's or the Aerosoft Airbuses and they seem to crack out about 30fps with great scenery and I'm getting around 22/23FPS on a good day with default scenery and REX OD.

Here are my sepcs below and I thought I was boarder lining over kill what I wanted. I know FSX has always been a pain to run and I can get DCS on Ultra High at 60FPS so this is a righ kick in the mr's!!:

Processor: i7-4970k 4.0ghz (turbo up to 4.4Ghz)

GPU: GTX 970 4GB

RAM: 16GB HyperX Beast 2133Mhz

Motherboard:Asus x97

If you have any suggestions then please let me know or even if you think I might of went "overkill" in another direction then please let me know. I do use my PC for other sims/games aswell so its not the worst thing in the world and I will upgrade to P3D when I get the chance. but for now I just want the decent sim I thought I paid for!

Thanks for the help!

I think you have two options here:

- Either jump through all the hoops of the tweaking guides, like the one from Kosta (sticky on top of this forum) until you find the sweet spot for your system. If your FSX is completely vanilla, then applying the most obviuos fixes (HIGHMEM and AFFINITY MASK) should already improve matters. But the road to the best possible FSX performance is a long and bumpy one.

- Or go for P3D right away, it will make better use of your hardware out of the box.

Hey guys,

 

So I recently bought a whole new system to play my lovely flight sims! I have always had a "mid range" system until now so I'm a little n00b when it comes to FSX'ing more "professionally".

 

Before I bought my new pc I did look online of different specs playing FSX with the PMDG's or the Aerosoft Airbuses and they seem to crack out about 30fps with great scenery and I'm getting around 22/23FPS on a good day with default scenery and REX OD.

 

Here are my sepcs below and I thought I was boarder lining over kill what I wanted. I know FSX has always been a pain to run and I can get DCS on Ultra High at 60FPS so this is a righ kick in the mr's!!:

 

Processor: i7-4970k 4.0ghz (turbo up to 4.4Ghz)

 

GPU: GTX 970 4GB

 

RAM: 16GB HyperX Beast 2133Mhz

 

Motherboard:Asus x97

 

 

 

If you have any suggestions then please let me know or even if you think I might of went "overkill" in another direction then please let me know. I do use my PC for other sims/games aswell so its not the worst thing in the world and I will upgrade to P3D when I get the chance. but for now I just want the decent sim I thought I paid for!

 

Thanks for the help!

Before you tweak your new FSX installation into the ground. I get 17 to 30 fps (30 fixed) and FSX runs very "smooth" for me. Fluidity is what you are after not fps. This is not a "First Person Shooter", it's a flight simulator that can be fluid at lower fps. There is a guide that has very minimal, but necessary tweaks that I don't know if I can refer to it from here. PM me and I'll give the link. After that if it doesn't satisfy you, then do the suggested "hardcore" tweak. The less tweaks the better in FSX, I speak from experience.

Hey guys,

 

So I recently bought a whole new system to play my lovely flight sims! I have always had a "mid range" system until now so I'm a little n00b when it comes to FSX'ing more "professionally".

 

Before I bought my new pc I did look online of different specs playing FSX with the PMDG's or the Aerosoft Airbuses and they seem to crack out about 30fps with great scenery and I'm getting around 22/23FPS on a good day with default scenery and REX OD.

 

Here are my sepcs below and I thought I was boarder lining over kill what I wanted. I know FSX has always been a pain to run and I can get DCS on Ultra High at 60FPS so this is a righ kick in the mr's!!:

 

Processor: i7-4970k 4.0ghz (turbo up to 4.4Ghz)

 

GPU: GTX 970 4GB

 

RAM: 16GB HyperX Beast 2133Mhz

 

Motherboard:Asus x97

 

 

 

If you have any suggestions then please let me know or even if you think I might of went "overkill" in another direction then please let me know. I do use my PC for other sims/games aswell so its not the worst thing in the world and I will upgrade to P3D when I get the chance. but for now I just want the decent sim I thought I paid for!

 

Thanks for the help!

First off, how many other programs or processes are running? Is your e-mail up? How about your weather updates, spyware, Office, etc.? Go to your Task Manager and see what all is going on. Turn things that you recognize and don't need while flying like e-mail & internet access off. That in itself can make a huge difference. All those idling programs are wasting computing time.

Next, check your display settings. If your graphic density or air & ground traffic levels, cloud draw distance, rate that weather changes etc. are set too high your frame rate will suffer. Start off with everything set at Default or maybe even lower & see what you have then and make adjustments. Consult your hints and see which sliders such as graphic density eat the most processing power and compromise by backing them off first.

Finally, realize that you're hugely unlikely to tell the difference between 23 & 40fps anyway. Super fancy screenshots and high frame rate claims are often what I call "brag-ware." It's like putting a bunch of emblems and huge spoilers on your Plain Jane automobile to make it appear it's ready for the race track.

Don't chase the tail of a braggart, it's not worth the effort. We all have to decide what works best for ourselves and let others try to do what they claim they can do.

Don't chase the tail of a braggart, it's not worth the effort. We all have to decide what works best for ourselves and let others try to do what they claim they can do.

Well put, these videos and pics are all graphically tweaked (the videos not FSX) in post production.

This is shot straight from the sim, no pic tweaks and very minimal FSX tweaks.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z186/Speirs_photo/Flight%20Sim/2015-4-28_22-12-41-175.png

First off, how many other programs or processes are running? Is your e-mail up? How about your weather updates, spyware, Office, etc.? Go to your Task Manager and see what all is going on. Turn things that you recognize and don't need while flying like e-mail & internet access off. That in itself can make a huge difference. All those idling programs are wasting computing time.

 

Next, check your display settings. If your graphic density or air & ground traffic levels, cloud draw distance, rate that weather changes etc. are set too high your frame rate will suffer. Start off with everything set at Default or maybe even lower & see what you have then and make adjustments. Consult your hints and see which sliders such as graphic density eat the most processing power and compromise by backing them off first.

 

Finally, realize that you're hugely unlikely to tell the difference between 23 & 40fps anyway. Super fancy screenshots and high frame rate claims are often what I call "brag-ware." It's like putting a bunch of emblems and huge spoilers on your Plain Jane automobile to make it appear it's ready for the race track.

 

Don't chase the tail of a braggart, it's not worth the effort. We all have to decide what works best for ourselves and let others try to do what they claim they can do.

Great advice! You know when my flight simming experience improved? The moment I stopped tweaking. FSX SE provides all the essential tweaks organically; so, I just install and fly. On my last flight I flew from KATL to TXKF with a Average Frame Rate 50.6 frames per second (recorded by ACARS) This isn't a stripped down FSX either, I used the following:

Imaginesim Katl

LATINVFR TXFX

FTX GLOBAL

FTX VECTOR

FS GLOBAL 2010

REX Soft Clouds

REX Direct

PrecipitFX

ASN

MCE

PMDG 737 NGX

All sliders to right EXCEPT Water effects (low 2.x) and Autogen density (Very Dense). I strongly recommend you don't tweak; instead, play with your sliders and find the settings that give you the most fluid experience.

Hey guys! Loving all the advise. I very much appriciate it.

I appriciate that the original fsx's aren't that great when it comes to performance. So I am scared of getting Orb x and stuff. Though my computer should able to run it... right? But listing what people are saying...

Might be time to move on to FSX SE or P3D for best performance?

Sent from my SM-G928F using Tapatalk

Great advice! You know when my flight simming experience improved? The moment I stopped tweaking. FSX SE provides all the essential tweaks organically; so, I just install and fly.

Agree 100%. I suggest to move to FSX-SE with the addition of Steve's DX10 scenery fixer and wait for the future Dovetail Flight Sim, taking into account the great job they have done with FSX SE.

P3DV3.1 is more advanced, but still has some problems.

Glad you said that!! as we speak installing fsx se. But can I still use pmdg, aerosoft airbus's and rex? They are my biggest concerns.

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I'm not using those addons.

I use this register utility: https://flyawaysimulation.com/downloads/files/18872/fsx-tweakfs-registry-utility-v121/

And addon installers are redirected to FSX-SE path.

But maybe is not easy in so complex airplanes, I'suggest "google" for info.

In any case, today FSX SE is at 7,5€...

Well I've installed fsx se. Rex works so far (that was the biggie for me) and some other stuff has installed just having issues with the 600/700 pmdg expansion : (

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Hey Guys,

I think we cracked it! :) so I went for FSX: SE in the end and ive just done a quick test flight from EGNX (East Mids) - EGLL ( Heathrow). ill be honest I just clicked the first paint I could find loaded it on to the runway took off then decided where I was going and worked perfectly :).

I got 30FPS all the way until I hit the ILS at Heathrow which it staggered between 18-25FPS but as someone said above. I wouldn't of noticed it I wasn't just staring at the FPS counter constantly.

Thank you all for you help. Any other Tips or addons you think will help ill be more than happy to give a listen!!

Vern.

Yes, anytime you get to an area where there is a lot more detail ie: Heathrow, Seattle, etc., your frame rate will slow. Don't fixate on that! Enjoy the ride & leave your frame rate counter off. That's yet another CPU user you don't need while flying!

HAPPY FLIGHTS!!!;)

Hello there! Yes, you should be getting much better FPS with such a system. I have multi core computer with a 2.33 GHz CPU, (note that FSX seems to be coded to work best on fast CPUs rather than multi-core systems), and I can get 15-22 FPS at a very scenic airport with all my slider maxed, except my water which I keep at around the 2 level.

Have you tried de-fragmenting your hard drive and, especially, your FSX folder contents?

The reason is because your computer memory management tends to swap page files into 'virtual memory' (hard disk space) for background running programs and O. S. applications. This goes on in the background even when you're using programs like FSX. Sometimes these background programs are necessary for your computer to function, and thus, take higher priority than your FSX program. Therein lies the problem. To minimize load times into RAM, make sure your hard drive is de-fragmented. This will keep all the FSX files coherent and allow swapping to be done much faster.

I hope this helps!

Cheers!! :-)

All sliders to right EXCEPT Water effects (low 2.x) and Autogen density (Very Dense). I strongly recommend you don't tweak; instead, play with your sliders and find the settings that give you the most fluid experience.

I second this. I don't think there is a magic bullet to make the sim run faster. Play with the sliders to give you the right mix of eye candy and performance.

I use similar settings and I think autogen density makes a very big difference in performance. I also lock the FSP at 30 and it seems to reduce stuttering somewhat.

Tweaking is controversial because it does not produce reproducible improvements. I'm sure most people don't systematically test the tweaks by benchmarking the sim under the exact same conditions either.

I agree,

A fragmented hard drive can cause a lot of issues, not just in FS. For that reason alone I have a clock set to check and if necessary defrag my hard drive once a week in the middle of the night.

I also have read that cloud draw distance, lights on the ground, lens flare, and autogen density are among the biggest useage hogs there are. Those are the first things I'd experiment with in search of more speed.

I don't know if your Heathrow is the stock or an add on enhanced version. I personally have ORBX England and the Heathrow Mega Airport expansion pack added to mine. With a 4.6Ghz i-7 and DDR4-2400 Ram plus a GeForce 980 GPU I do well to exceed 20fps at Heathrow. Turn on ATC, Progressive taxi, etc. and you about bring it to its' knees. But then again I find 20fps is quite usable for me.

I have different sets of display settings which I use depending on where & what I'm flying that day. I back off the things I don't need at any given time to save CPU time for what matters on that flight.

For example planning a long tube liner trip I back off the boats, ships, ground traffic, water texture, etc. so I can properly do approaches and use the plane's features. For STOL work I increase those things I can see from the ground and back off cloud draw distance, weather changes over time, and air traffic.

No two rigs are the same. Experiment with yours! But I'd strongly advise against "tweaking" unless you really feel you must. here are tweaking horror stories online here every day.