loki

A 32 bit application on a 32 bit Windows system can only access 2 GB of address space by default. For the app to access more than this you need to use the 3GB switch setting for Windows and the application itself needs to have the largeaddressaware flag set, which the initial versions of FSX did not (Acceleration/SP2 set it). As you note, a 32 bit desktop Windows system can only access 4 GB of RAM (and usually a bit less as the GPU and other devices will use up some of the VAS), no matter how much is installed. If upgrading, I would seriously look into moving to a 64 bit version of Windows. Definitely want to go for the fastest processor you can afford, with 3GHz as a minimum.

Unless you have one of the top end iMacs from within the last year or two, you will be looking at low to medium settings running in Parallels. Boot Camp would be a far better option if you have to run it on a Mac. This also depends on having an Intel based iMac, as the neither Parallels nor Boot Camp will work on the new M1 based models.

They have always talked about both sim and world updates, and I don't see anything to indicate this is changing. You can review the progress and upcoming updates in their weekly development updates.

How is DDR4 going to help with their CPU? It's an old model and supports DDR3. As for the GPU, no, you should not need to overclock to get good performance. In this case upgrading the GPU likely just moved the bottleneck over to the CPU. One other possibility is whether they did a clean install of the GPU drivers.

In theory, yes, it should be possible to run the sim offline after installing it. Unfortunately, this has proven to be somewhat unreliable and shouldn't be relied upon. Note that the offline mode does need to be configured while the PC is still connected to the internet. Also, running offline means you won't have access to the photogrammetry scenery beyond anything you may have cached previously (there is far too much data to install locally).

The rolling cache is primarily there to minimize the amount of data downloaded, though could be used if you don't have an internet connection. If you regularly fly in the same areas, the sim can use the locally stored data rather than downloading from the server again. It will refresh itself based on where you're flying, so moving to a new area could mean the data for previous ones is automatically dumped to make room. Manual caches, on the other hand, are specifically chosen by the user and won't be automatically removed and, as with the rolling cache, can be used offline. Here's a guide for the manual cache. https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/how-to-create-and-manage-manual-cache-regions/136740

Well, there have been a few issues with MSFS updates and the FBW A32NX mod. Including the example below where having the mod installed also affected the default A320. https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/showthread.php?330203-Fly-By-Wire-A320NX-instrument-panel-not-working-after-update-3 Perhaps you remember this one? Seems like a pretty good reason for Asobo to recommend clearing out your community folder before updating.

I think you're forgetting about the other side of upgrades where add-ons themselves break or do conflict with updated scenery, and from there some users have blamed the base sim itself. There have been cases where people had a third party scenery add-on installed for something that was subsequently included in one of the world updates, but couldn't tell the difference because they forgot the add-on was still overriding the now included version. I don't think anyone claimed the add-ons were somehow corrupting or breaking the sim's own files directly.

For those that may not have seen the front page news, PMDG will be releasing their DC-6 this Friday, June 18th. https://www.flightsim.com/vbfs/content.php?22705-PMDG-Announces-Release-Date-For-MSFS-DC-6 https://forum.pmdg.com/forum/main-forum/general-discussion-news-and-announcements/129736-16jun21-pmdg-dc-6-for-microsoft-flight-simulator-release-date-announcement

Have you checked for updates in the MS Store app? There are regular updates for the Store app itself, as well as possible Gaming Service ones. You can also run the MS Store troubleshooter to find and fix some issues with dowloads.

Your only real option these days is Steam. FSX Steam Edition is largely the same as FSX Deluxe plus Acceleration. It has a few minor bug fixes and a replacement for the Gamespy multiplayer, but lacks the complete SDK.

What I suspect is that the sim is focused more on indexing the add-ons at launch, rather than loading all of the data. Think of cataloguing all the books in a library. Noting the title, author and category is going to take about the same amount of time for each book, no matter how short or long each book is.

Haven't played with it myself yet, but from reading it here and elsewhere, I do have to wonder if the bigger factors aren't number and type of add-ons vs simple number of gigabytes. A simple test of removing everything from the community folder and adding it back wouldn't necessarily account for this at all.

A decade ago I would have agreed, but recently I think they are more committed than ever to PC gaming (which is doing quite well these days in general too ). Why spend money bringing the Xbox gaming brand and services to Windows just to kill it? Why bring the Halo series to PC at all? Not to mention the very large amount of resources sunk into DirectX on the PC? Dropping backwards compatibility has nothing to do with trying to kill gaming on Windows, and everything to do with cutting support costs and making it easier to move to new platforms, such as ARM CPU based systems. If they had really wanted to kill PC gaming, they could have simply continued the path of neglect they were taking a decade ago. If their Project Xcloud works out, it is going to kill both Xbox console and PC gaming, but that is still a long way off.

Sure, large organizations can change, but in this case I think what has happened in the recent past does very much still apply. The same management that approved bringing the Halo series to the PC, and improving the graphics in the process, are the same ones still running the Xbox division. Microsoft is pushing gaming on both the Xbox console and on PC, and it wouldn't make sense to artificially hurt one over the other. They would get money from the sale either way. In fact, the PC one might even make them more money as consoles are usually sold at a loss, and make money through a cut of game developer licences and game sales, which don't apply to the PC. These days it's also much easier to write games for both PC and Xbox as they can share far more of the core base than before. And top of that, Jorg Neuman has indicated in interviews that they know the PC is the primary driver of flight sims. Yes, being able to sell the sim to console users was a key reason for the project to get green lit, however they seem to be far more realistic about the user base than the Flight project lead and management ever were. I think there are other indicators as well that MSFS is very much aimed at being a sim in the same vein as FSX, rather than an overly simplified one like Flight. Why bother with improving the flight model over FSX? Why would you bother trying to build a realistic Garmin GPS? Why put all that work into the atmospheric model? None of this makes any sense if they were just trying to create Flight 2.0. Far more likely is that they are working towards a new and full featured sim, and still have a long road (runway?) to go to get there. Regarding GPUs, the issue isn't just crypto mining. Manufacturing constraints are a huge factor (Silicon chips of all kinds are struggling, even those that have nothing to do with crypto mining), and so is demand from gamers and simmers like us too. Manufacturing is slowly ramping, and new fabrication plants are being worked on, although those can take a couple years to fully come online. It may take a while yet, but I think supply will eventually catch up, or at least catch up enough that it isn't quite so hard to get a GPU.

Except that this has never been an issue with other games available on both platforms. The PC versions often have better graphics not available on the console, including the recent PC release of Microsoft's own console flagship Halo series. Regarding Flight, it was a very misguided adventure that rightfully failed. They wanted to get in on the then fledgling DLC and online markets, and control the entire thing themselves. Under the hood, the flight modelling was actually better than FSX, but was handicapped by the very limited selection of aircraft to show off.

Your performance difference was due to the resolution difference, not physical size. A 1080p (which is HD by the way) 50" TV and 24" monitor would have the exact same performance using the same GPU. 4k resolutions, however, require pushing four times the number of pixels as 1080p, which requires significantly more processing power and VRAM. On top of that, a GTX 1050 was never designed to run at 4k, which was the domain of the GTX 1080 (and even then it was still pushing the limit). The GTX 1060 was aimed squarely at the 1080p level, and shouldn't be causing stutters here. Those are likely from settings, add-ons, or maybe something else in the sim.

1920x1080 (I'm betting the x32 part is colour, though even if it 32" size, it doesn't matter to the GPU) is definitely not too high for that video card.

Did you install on a clean copy of FSX? Or did you have add-ons already installed?

PMDG have said they will be bringing their entire line-up to MSFS, including the DC-6. Might take a while though.

That looks like a decent off the shelf system for FSX. The only part I would question is that it looks like it only uses one stick of RAM, where two matched sticks of RAM would allow you to run in dual channel mode (a bit faster). Assuming you're in Canada based on the listed price, which part of the country are you in? If out west you may want to have a look at MemoryExpress as well. They have some pre-built systems and can also custom build too.

They may not have piston engines for ever though. https://skiesmag.com/news/harbour-air-goal-operating-electric-seaplane-fleet/ Wonder if this model would be included in Aerosoft's future Beaver project?

If it's such a big performance hit there should be evidence that disabling the page file on current systems makes a noticeable difference. So far I have not seen any.

Yep, how memory is managed is a bit more complicated than many people think. Increasing the page file certainly isn't going to solve a serious shortage of RAM, no, but going the other way and removing it entirely is more likely to cause someone trouble than just leaving it alone. After my last Windows install I just left it as system managed, even with 32GB of RAM. And so far it has just sat around 5-6GB without any intervention on my part.

Bit of a different situation and not really relevant to a modern personal desktop system though, is it? Especially if your page file is on an SSD. Sure, the ideal solution is more physical RAM, however, why would you want to completely disable what is essentially cheap insurance for running out in the mean time? I have yet to see any downside to keeping the page file. Set the page file to a fixed size, sure, but I think trying to outsmart the Windows memory manager by disabling it completely is a poor idea. If anything, someone who doesn't really understand what they're doing will follow this advice, forget about the setting and then wonder why they get a memory related error a month or two down the road, and blame the program or Windows.