What should I upgrade to get better FPS?

Please see my signature for spec..

I am running ORBX Base, Vector, OpenLC Europe & FTX UK and have UK2000 Scenery for Heathrow (EGLL). I also have REX4 and Soft Clouds.

I took NickN's advice on my build where I could and have had my FSX.CFG tweaked by the Facebook group FSX Professionals and generally get about 24 FPS at a busy standard airport and up to 31 (fixed) when in the air.

However I noticed the other day when descending over london on route to EGLL that I was only getting 10FPS and at the airport I was only getting 7 FPS.

I do believe my FSX.CFG is tuned optimally with a good visuals / trade off performance but generally happy with that, however the demands of London and EGLL seem to pull it too hard.

My question is what can I do to my rig to improve the FPS further? I am running on a Dell MB and the CPU is a non-K so can't overclock.

Are there any other hardware upgrades I can look at that don't involve a new PC?

If not, what are the main things I can tune in FSX to keep the experience good whilst getting performance back at the airports that demand it.

I would consider my rig being pretty good and reasonably tuned and am a bit disappointed with the performance especially as I would like more add ons like traffic etc... but I understand these hit the FPS hard!!!

Hope you can help.

Thanks

FSX.CFG tweaked by the Facebook group FSX Professionals

I am not familiar with this group and what they tweak. Have you tried Kosta's tweaks. I find they work well for me.

Kosta's tweaks can be found in a sticky at the top of the Fsx forum

Bruce

It's just a hard question to give a solid answer to.

If I look at the specs, I notice:

a very weak power supply,

a non-brand name mainboard.

I would prefer a brand name mainboard, Gigabyte or Asus for example,

and at least a 500 Watt, better 600 watt PSU.

The CPU and graphics are pretty good, but, they are power hungry.

The issue, a new mainboard and PSU are not all that expensive, maybe 250$-300$ US in total.

But, if you have OEM windows, and with a dell you probably do, the Windows licence is tied to your current mainboard.

Getting a new mainboard means you will need to buy a new copy of Windows.

And you will need to install Windows from scratch.

That bring the price up another 150 or so $ US.

The following is not required, but....

With getting a new mainboard another issue is that you may find it hard to find one with the socket to fit your older CPU, and it becomes tempting to get a new one.

And as you are doing a fresh install of Windows, it would become very tempting to also get the nice SSD you had been ogling...

The list is getting long. I see: PSU, mainboard, RAM (your old ram may not be compatible with the mainboard), Windows,

And possibly: CPU, SSD.

Which puts you exactly a case away from a complete computer.

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You may now think, I was thinking along the lines of just a new CPU and or video card.........

Well, issue there is, your current mainboard is possibly locked out from overclocking. If so, a new cpu is of no use.

Also, the latest CPU's use the 2011 socket, and chances are your CPU and mainboard have a 1150 socket. So you could not upgrade to the latest CPU's.

Not sure of that though.

And your video card is pretty much top of the line. I would give love to have that one. But.... I'm not getting one yet. My video (one screen) is fine with my 3-4 year old GT430.

Fsx is not that demanding of the video card anyway.

In your situation just upgrading the video card is not going to help things.

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Definitely get a better power supply then what came with your computer.

If you want to think about upgrading only the CPU, look up what socket your mainboard uses. And look up if the mainboard and BIOS will allow you to overclock.

Overall, apart from the PSU, your PC looks like a well balanced set.

Your sentence "the other day I noticed ..." also makes me think there was a change and it used to run a little better?

In that case it could be a software thing. Do an "sfc /verifyonly" check, fix errors in system files with "sfc /scannow", check your error logs, keep your programs all updated, run a virus scan. In short, maintenance time.

So, after all that, besides the PSU, no clear recommendation. Sorry.

You run 3 monitors, I run only one. so it is really hard for me to judge what you would need in that situation.

When asking advice about new parts, best give a maximum budget, that makes it easier to answer.

It sounds like you bought a Dell and put some extra parts in. In that case it helps if you say which Dell it is exactly. Type, model, year, and if at all possible a few links to it.

One of the big negatives with buying a pre built branded PC is that they date very quickly and you get stuck when it comes to doing any real meaningful upgrades due to the motherboard. Your PSU power is very low and I can only presume that you installed the GPU after you brought the machine as I wouldn't think that they would be sent out of the factory like that with a PSU that would struggle running the GPU. But while a PSU upgrade should be first on your list to try, you may not get much if any performance gain other than a more stable system.

If it was me I would look at a motherboard upgrade if you can get one with a compatible CPU socket. As it has been pointed out know doubt your system came with a OEM copy of windows so you would require a new copy, but I do think a complete system rebuild keeping your GPU and CPU ( if you can get a mobo with the same socket ) would in effect give you better bang for your buck.

I think tweaking FSX wont change performance for you very much with the hardware limitations you have at present. Try a new PSU first 500w and above you never know it may work wonders.

I would consider my rig being pretty good and reasonably tuned and am a bit disappointed with the performance especially as I would like more add ons like traffic etc... but I understand these hit the FPS hard!!!

 

Hope you can help.

 

Thanks

What struck me most is the very large number of pixels you are generating, 5880x1024 plus a 4th monitor. My bet is you are first and foremost processor bound.

Honestly, from my experience, you need to have an Intel processor in the 4.5Ghz range and at least a Nvidia GTX970 to generate the number of pixels you have with 3 screens.

Before you upgrade any hardware, you might want to try the following settings to mitigate some of the processor load:

1) Autogen density -- NORMAL

2) Level of detail radius -- MEDIUM

3) Cloud draw distance -- 60 miles

4) Thermal visualization -- NONE (this was a big one for me)

5) All AI settings -- 20% or less (especially road traffic)

Many folks who have benchmarked FSX with Intel processors have indicated that hyperthreading "HT" can have a detrimental effect on performance if you are already processor bound. You may want to try turning it off.

Lastly, you may also want to invest in a 30-40 dollar sound card. If you are using the sound hardware built on the motherboard, it is using your already overtaxed CPU to process the sound files. Disabling the onboard sound card and installing a cheap add-on increased my FPS 10-30% with the best increases happening in the densest scenery areas.

Hope some of this helps.

PS. Here are some details about how I benchmarked my older system. The settings discussion is general enough to possibly apply for you.

https://uchisworld.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/happy-anniversary-part-2/

Thanks guys for all the feedback. I'll play around with the settings that HenryStreet suggested... Just out of interest if i set Thermal Visualisation to Normal then what are the visual differences I am likely to see? Does this impact my REX4 Direct Texture graphics etc?

Ref the hardware - I don't actually think I have anywhere to go:-

1. PSU - can't install a better PSU as its a bespoke dell and not standard ATX

2. CPU - can't put a K in and OC as its a Dell MB

3. GPU - I could wait till the GTX950Ti comes out and just about get away with installing this from a power draw point of view but not sure it will give me any benefits?

Thanks

.. if i set Thermal Visualisation to Normal then what are the visual differences I am likely to see? Does this impact my REX4 Direct Texture graphics etc?

Would be good to see what other folks say about the thermal visualization, there seemed to be a lot in the southern California USA area where I fly. For me, turning the setting off eliminated all the bird animations that were chewing up frames.

Shouldn't affect any of your REX graphics as far as I know.

Thermal visualization is only relevant if you fly gliders. If you don't, turn it off.

Thermals are warm updrafts that the gliders ride to gain altitude. In RW you judge the ground if a certain spot is likely to generate thermals, and you avoid for example lakes where there are none. In FSX this does not really work (AFAIK the thermals are pretty much randomized), so MS implemented the visualization feature so that you can see them - as shimmering air, circling birds and pretty solid blue/green spirals, depending on your setting.

If you want birds, there is a freeware addon called XBirds generating some (even many). Was released only a couple of days/weeks ago I think. It is quite nice, except the birds do not flap their wings (probably a good thing, because that would probably eat even more FPS)

I'll definitely turn off the Thermal Visualisation then and see what it does.

I also noticed the Nvidia GTX 950 was released today. This is meant to be an upgrade to the GTX 750ti which I have.

i know FSX is CPU bound but do this think I will get anything out of this upgrade?

I'll definitely turn off the Thermal Visualisation then and see what it does.

 

I also noticed the Nvidia GTX 950 was released today. This is meant to be an upgrade to the GTX 750ti which I have.

 

i know FSX is CPU bound but do this think I will get anything out of this upgrade?

One of the techniques I used to offload some FSX processing to the graphics card involved using Nvidia Inspector software. In this configuration, the anti-aliasing settings in FSX are set to "None" and Nvidia Inspector software is set with a custom profile for FSX that tells the graphics card to do the anti-aliasing.

In a scenario like this, a graphics card upgrade could definitely help.

Below is a link to the PMDG forums that describes how to set this up. I am using Nvidia Inspector for this purpose even on my new, higher power, computer for running FSX.

http://www.avsim.com/topic/324786-nvidia-configuration-guide-inspector-2xxxx-drivers-version-20-explanations-of-all-settings/

I'll definitely turn off the Thermal Visualisation then and see what it does.

 

I also noticed the Nvidia GTX 950 was released today. This is meant to be an upgrade to the GTX 750ti which I have.

 

i know FSX is CPU bound but do this think I will get anything out of this upgrade?

In short no it wouldn't. The GPU you have is fine and you wouldn't see any performance gain with the new GPU, at least not any visual gain. You would only put more load on your system that at present I would think is overloaded as it is.

The money you would spend on the new GPU would be better spent on components for a new build that would include your present GPU that is more than capable to do what you are expecting of it.

I agree with Darryl.

A nice inexpensive upgrade would be a new case and PSU.

Keeping things cooler and more stable power could help a lot.

Hanging an even bigger GPU on that weak PSU is not a good idea. It will likely not work, and even if it does, it won't give much improvement.

But that one GPU costs more then a nice case and PSU and then some.

Your current one is more then capable.