Smooth FSX running?

Hello guys I am new to this forum and I need your help. I've been doing a ton of reading on fsx and it's capabilities. Fsx vs fsx steam OOM messages, crashes etc. I would like the best realistic experience with fsx. I am willing to sacrifice a couple of things in order to keep my fsx from crashing or lagging. I am not a computer guy. In fact, I just recently build one with the help of my friend. If you guys can answer me in the simplest terms, I would greatly appreciate it. :)

I am not an extreme hardcore add on guy. The add-ons that I wish to use at all times are the following.

-Taxi2gate airports(KMCO, KJFK, etc.)

-Rex soft clouds(maybe in the future but not immediately)

-Ground service vehicles

-AI traffic( I prefer a lot of airline traffic to make it realistic)

-Payware aircraft. (Airbus, PMDG 737, 757 quality wings, CRJ etc.)

I don't necessarily need graphics on max, only when I begin to descend towards the airport. The last thing I want is the sim loading, crashing or lags while on final approach. Other than that, I'll be at FL370 and there isn't much to look at that high. I want the airport and service vehicles to look at their best.

I am aware that FSX can only use a maximum of 4GB and so many add-ons that you have may cause it to slow down or lag. Will the add-ons listed above run good with no lags? Smoothness is the biggest key for me while not sacrificing graphics too much. I watch YouTube videos a lot and some user have amazing graphics and the sim seems to run amazing. Sometimes I even have better specs than they do.

I understand you all can't promise anything, but I'll be happy to hear people opinions or advice to give me the most out of my sim. Thank you all for reading this!

Specs

-i5 6600k( 3.5 plan to over clock to 3.9 ghz)

-Cooler Master Evo 212

-Asus Z170-A ATX LGA1151 Motherboard

-WD Black 500GB Performance Desktop Hard Disk Drive - 7200 RPM SATA 6 Gb/s 64MB Cache

-Crucial Ballistix Sport LT 16GB (4 x 4GB) DDR4-2400 Memory( planning to get 8x2 instead of 4)

-Kingston SSDNow V300 Series 120GB 2.5" Solid State Drive

-Asus GeForce GTX 950 2GB Video Card

-EVGA SuperNOVA NEX 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply

-Windows 7 64 bit.

very reasonable system, but, the harddisks are very small. 120gb sSSD is tiny. And 500Gb HDD as well.

regarding performance. the more detail and the more models are closely around you, the lower the framerate gets.

At high altitude everything is far away. There you can set higher graphics settings.

It's at the airports that you are surrounded by 3d models (planes other traffic, buildings, static vehicles) and there you need to have the settings lower to have decent framerates.

Setting detail lower at cruise altitude won't help when arriving at the airports. You will need to set the settings low enough at the airports anyway.

Don't watch YouTube videos because they are "Heavily" edited and massaged to make them appear better than what actually took place. Even at 3.9 ghz, with all of those addons, you will likely be getting some kind of slow down, lag, or stutters. Making adjustments to the FSX.cfg and adjusting the Graphics sliders will help in making things go smoother.

Okay thank you. It almost seems that you cant ever win with fsx? If I had the graphics around medium, will that help? Traffic vehicles around 40%? Boats and ships around 15%? If I would have to drop more than that then building this computer isn't worth it for me.

very reasonable system, but, the harddisks are very small. 120gb sSSD is tiny. And 500Gb HDD as well.

 

regarding performance. the more detail and the more models are closely around you, the lower the framerate gets.

At high altitude everything is far away. There you can set higher graphics settings.

It's at the airports that you are surrounded by 3d models (planes other traffic, buildings, static vehicles) and there you need to have the settings lower to have decent framerates.

 

Setting detail lower at cruise altitude won't help when arriving at the airports. You will need to set the settings low enough at the airports anyway.

Thanks for your reply. If I got a bigger HDD and bigger SDD will that help my situation? Also, what do you predict as far as graphics setting while I am approaching a high density airport? My system won't run smooth with no lags at medium or high medium? Does it make a difference if the airport is an add-on? I am then afraid of adding all of these add ons. It seems like you can never win with FSX

Drive size doesnt make a difference for performance. They'll just be full quickly.

Your pc seems ok. The other remarks were generic. At airports fps are always lower. At detailed payware airports even more. For everyone.

Don't get too hung up over FSX performance or it will spoil the flight sim experience.

(It's a bit like buying an expensive hifi system and then listening out for distortion instead of enjoying the music!)

My computer is 4 years old now and I have all the add-on's you mention and many more and I fly my PMDG 747 to all parts without a problem.

Just fly and enjoy! :)

AI traffic is one of the biggest FPS-killers. Depending on the AI models, having many airliners on a payware airport will slow down the simulator to a crawl, and it often ends in an OOM.

The second one are 3D models. It doesn't matter if these are autogen houses, aircraft building or vehicles or your own aircraft. Complex models require complex calculations = overall sim FPS go down. Complex models require more space in the computer memory than simple ones = higher risk of OOM.

The third one are your settings. It will take time to find the "sweet spot" for your system. As il88p wrote, you will have to set your simulator in such a way that your preferred airport scenery will have the best performance that it can while you are on approach. That is the only baseline that matters. If it means to turn AI traffic way down, or switch off the moving vehcles, then you will have to do that - no two ways about it.

It isn't really a question of the hardware - you can always have "more" in the simulator (contents and settings) to bring the comupter to it's knees - every computer! But you can get FSX to run well on every computer if you manage your own expectations accordingly.

A people said above, don't bother watching YouTube videos. Those are a poor guideline for planning your own system. Digital videos are not trustworthy in any sense of the word. Many producers want praise for they work, so it is hard to resist the temptation to resort to a few simple "cheats" to make the result look better. (like recording at 1/2 simulation rate to give the sim more time to make things look good, and then accelerating the result in post processing).

The specs that you listed - is this your current sytem or one that you are planning to build? It is not one of the strongest computers, and IMHO you will have to turn everything down in FSX to middle ground or even below that in the order listed above.

AI traffic is one of the biggest FPS-killers. Depending on the AI models, having many airliners on a payware airport will slow down the simulator to a crawl, and it often ends in an OOM.

 

The second one are 3D models. It doesn't matter if these are autogen houses, aircraft building or vehicles or your own aircraft. Complex models require complex calculations = overall sim FPS go down. Complex models require more space in the computer memory than simple ones = higher risk of OOM.

 

The third one are your settings. It will take time to find the "sweet spot" for your system. As il88p wrote, you will have to set your simulator in such a way that your preferred airport scenery will have the best performance that it can while you are on approach. That is the only baseline that matters. If it means to turn AI traffic way down, or switch off the moving vehcles, then you will have to do that - no two ways about it.

 

It isn't really a question of the hardware - you can always have "more" in the simulator (contents and settings) to bring the comupter to it's knees - every computer! But you can get FSX to run well on every computer if you manage your own expectations accordingly.

 

A people said above, don't bother watching YouTube videos. Those are a poor guideline for planning your own system. Digital videos are not trustworthy in any sense of the word. Many producers want praise for they work, so it is hard to resist the temptation to resort to a few simple "cheats" to make the result look better. (like recording at 1/2 simulation rate to give the sim more time to make things look good, and then accelerating the result in post processing).

 

The specs that you listed - is this your current sytem or one that you are planning to build? It is not one of the strongest computers, and IMHO you will have to turn everything down in FSX to middle ground or even below that in the order listed above.

This is my current list. I wanted to ask you guys first before dropping some money on the system first. What would you change about the specs on my system in order to make it better and smooth sailing? I appreciate all your responses.

Don't get too hung up over FSX performance or it will spoil the flight sim experience.

 

(It's a bit like buying an expensive hifi system and then listening out for distortion instead of enjoying the music!)

 

My computer is 4 years old now and I have all the add-on's you mention and many more and I fly my PMDG 747 to all parts without a problem.

 

Just fly and enjoy! :)

Thanks your response. I'll try and find the sweet spot for the sim :)

Drive size doesnt make a difference for performance. They'll just be full quickly.

 

Your pc seems ok. The other remarks were generic. At airports fps are always lower. At detailed payware airports even more. For everyone.

Thanks for helping out guys. Airport payware such as Taxi2gate airports, the fps will decrease no matter what? One last thing. What's consider auto gen?

Hello,

I am currently working on my tweaking, trying to find out more improvements by tweaking a couple of single lines.

At the moment I've added/modified couple of lines, such lines from kosta's guide to running FSX at the best way possible. But I'm continuing my tweaks further where I'm able to run smoother on heavy airports such as KJFK, KLAX, KSFO, well the ones that eats fps the most. And of course including the add-on sceneries.

So what I've tweaked and what I have improved at the moment is approximately in numbers.

FPS: Without tweaks, default KJFK airport , Airbus X > 8-15 fps.

Settings: Semi Max including Ai Traffic

FPS: With tweaks, FSDT KJFK v2, New York City X, Imagine Sim LaGuardia > 20-30, drops to 14-15 when closing the city, that's where it'll eat your fps therefore I'm trying to find a solution.

Settings: Semi Max including Ai Traffic

I will explain everything with settings and how to tweak and etc once I actually see more improvement even though I've already improved the fps by 10 to 15.

I'd suggest you reading kosta's guide which is stickied at the top of the forum.

My specs:

i5 4670

GTX 760

8GB RAM

Thanks!

What would you change about the specs on my system in order to make it better and smooth sailing?

Invest in the fastest CPU you can afford. FSX is very largely CPU dependant. If you can, an I7 4.5GHz is the way to go. And the best cooling for it you can get. The CPU works hard running FSX. Very hard.

Also, the sim seems to do best with NVidea cards. Other video cards seem to lack something that makes it work it's best.

I agree, you need much bigger HD's. FSX has the worst habit of expanding to fit the available HD space. It's just amazing. Once you start adding planes, scenery, whatever, the disks just get smaller and smaller :D

Start out with just the "vanilla" install. No add-ons of any kind. Using the FSX.CFG and the sliders in-game, make it run the very best you can. Change ONE thing at a time, then test very carefully and thoroughly. FOR YOUR SYSTEM. All systems are different. You can build 2 identical systems and their optimum settings will be different from one another.

THEN, slowly add things, one at a time. Test thoroughly as you do for hicccups, glitches, FPS load-downs, whatever.

Finally, have a software temperature monitor of some sort for your CPU, at least, so you can keep and eye on it. Overheating kills electronics, and especially chips, like the CPU. Just check it once in a while as you fly to see what's going on under different loads. Like flying over the country-side, and the cities, and on final to an airport. With a TON of AI planes and cars and so on at an airport, and with only a few AI items around. Things like that.

And bear in mind, all this is only my opinion of what you need to do or get. I am far from a computer super-geek or anything, but I've read the forums a lot :D

Hope this helps a little...

Pat☺

And, by all means, read Kosta's tweaking guide, located at the top of this forum.

Jorgen

Hello,

 

I am currently working on my tweaking, trying to find out more improvements by tweaking a couple of single lines.

 

At the moment I've added/modified couple of lines, such lines from kosta's guide to running FSX at the best way possible. But I'm continuing my tweaks further where I'm able to run smoother on heavy airports such as KJFK, KLAX, KSFO, well the ones that eats fps the most. And of course including the add-on sceneries.

 

So what I've tweaked and what I have improved at the moment is approximately in numbers.

 

FPS: Without tweaks, default KJFK airport , Airbus X > 8-15 fps.

Settings: Semi Max including Ai Traffic

 

FPS: With tweaks, FSDT KJFK v2, New York City X, Imagine Sim LaGuardia > 20-30, drops to 14-15 when closing the city, that's where it'll eat your fps therefore I'm trying to find a solution.

Settings: Semi Max including Ai Traffic

 

 

I will explain everything with settings and how to tweak and etc once I actually see more improvement even though I've already improved the fps by 10 to 15.

 

 

I'd suggest you reading kosta's guide which is stickied at the top of the forum.

 

My specs:

 

i5 4670

GTX 760

8GB RAM

 

 

Thanks!

I've been doing some research in this fsx.cfg file you speak up and it seems worth a try. However, all the videos I see are all older than 2 years. I'm not sure if they are exactly up to date or if they still working.

Invest in the fastest CPU you can afford. FSX is very largely CPU dependant. If you can, an I7 4.5GHz is the way to go. And the best cooling for it you can get. The CPU works hard running FSX. Very hard.

Also, the sim seems to do best with NVidea cards. Other video cards seem to lack something that makes it work it's best.

I agree, you need much bigger HD's. FSX has the worst habit of expanding to fit the available HD space. It's just amazing. Once you start adding planes, scenery, whatever, the disks just get smaller and smaller :D

Start out with just the "vanilla" install. No add-ons of any kind. Using the FSX.CFG and the sliders in-game, make it run the very best you can. Change ONE thing at a time, then test very carefully and thoroughly. FOR YOUR SYSTEM. All systems are different. You can build 2 identical systems and their optimum settings will be different from one another.

THEN, slowly add things, one at a time. Test thoroughly as you do for hicccups, glitches, FPS load-downs, whatever.

Finally, have a software temperature monitor of some sort for your CPU, at least, so you can keep and eye on it. Overheating kills electronics, and especially chips, like the CPU. Just check it once in a while as you fly to see what's going on under different loads. Like flying over the country-side, and the cities, and on final to an airport. With a TON of AI planes and cars and so on at an airport, and with only a few AI items around. Things like that.

And bear in mind, all this is only my opinion of what you need to do or get. I am far from a computer super-geek or anything, but I've read the forums a lot :D

Hope this helps a little...

Pat☺

Yes I have consider a i7 CPU. It will be an additional $120 just to upgrade it however. I'm just afraid of spending all this money and not having the system running the way I desire. There seems to be a lot videos and talk about the fsx.cfg file and adjusting and tweaking some things. Some have said it works. Does your system run the way you want it?

Don't watch YouTube videos because they are "Heavily" edited and massaged to make them appear better than what actually took place. Even at 3.9 ghz, with all of those addons, you will likely be getting some kind of slow down, lag, or stutters. Making adjustments to the FSX.cfg and adjusting the Graphics sliders will help in making things go smoother.

I've been doing some reading and watching some videos on this fsx.cfg file. However, most videos seem out dated. Any recommendations on what I should be looking at or consider during the fsx.cfg file edit?

Did you tweak your fsx.cfg file along with the fsx settings? Is it running better in your opinion?

Just lower the settings in the 5 tabs of the fsx graphics settings menu. Autogen, texture detail, and traffic, switch off light bloom.

Buy a fast cpu. I5 or i7 doesn't matter. Highest ghz matters. Maybe one you can overclock.

The fsx.cfg is just your saved fsx settings. Very little you can change manually. Read kosta's fsx guide and you will understand. Just copying someone elses settings won't work.

Did you tweak your fsx.cfg file along with the fsx settings? Is it running better in your opinion?

As several have mentioned, to tweak the FSX.cfg file read Kosta's Guide, stickied up at the top of this forum. It's not the be-all and end-all of tweaking, but it's close. Yes I have seen quite a difference using it. It's well worth the time. As to this sort of thing being "old" in computer terms, remember that FSX was written what, 10 years ago now? And the core software hasn't changed a whit since, just computers. This can be accomodated by reading the tweak guides and understanding what they are changing.

And quite often, the tweaking guides are updated to take into account new computers, video drivers, and so on.

Another fantastic guide I have used a lot is Nick N.'s Bible (please forgive any offense, it's his name for it...), found HERE with Nick's NVidea tweaking guide found HERE. Both excellent, and well worth the time to read through thoroughly.

Don't get fooled by "outdated". Normally, a year is a long time in computer terms, but in this case, that's not really applicable.

All this, and other guides I have found that are more advanced, have been extremely helpful. At least to me. I suspect they won't hurt you to at least glance over them.

Knowledge is power, and these guides are sources of great power :D The One Ring of Fsx stuff.

Remember to always make a backup before you edit ANYTHING, whether it's the FSX.cfg, or an aircraft.cfg, or whatever. And that means before making any changes. It's also helpful to somehow designate the backup files, either numerically, or temporally (Hows that for the use of an obscure word?? Huh?? :p). They don't take up much room on your HD, and can save you a lot of frustration if you typo, or otherwise really mess something up. Not that I do...much...

Good luck! Once you start tweaking things, you are hooked for life!

Pat☺

Just lower the settings in the 5 tabs of the fsx graphics settings menu. Autogen, texture detail, and traffic, switch off light bloom.

Buy a fast cpu. I5 or i7 doesn't matter. Highest ghz matters. Maybe one you can overclock.

The fsx.cfg is just your saved fsx settings. Very little you can change manually. Read kosta's fsx guide and you will understand. Just copying someone elses settings won't work.

Either I am blind or stupid or both lol. Where is the file? I can't seem to find it on the top of the forum. Can you copy and paste? I will try and do this.

As several have mentioned, to tweak the FSX.cfg file read Kosta's Guide, stickied up at the top of this forum. It's not the be-all and end-all of tweaking, but it's close. Yes I have seen quite a difference using it. It's well worth the time. As to this sort of thing being "old" in computer terms, remember that FSX was written what, 10 years ago now? And the core software hasn't changed a whit since, just computers. This can be accomodated by reading the tweak guides and understanding what they are changing.

And quite often, the tweaking guides are updated to take into account new computers, video drivers, and so on.

Another fantastic guide I have used a lot is Nick N.'s Bible (please forgive any offense, it's his name for it...), found HERE with Nick's NVidea tweaking guide found HERE. Both excellent, and well worth the time to read through thoroughly.

Don't get fooled by "outdated". Normally, a year is a long time in computer terms, but in this case, that's not really applicable.

All this, and other guides I have found that are more advanced, have been extremely helpful. At least to me. I suspect they won't hurt you to at least glance over them.

Knowledge is power, and these guides are sources of great power :D The One Ring of Fsx stuff.

Remember to always make a backup before you edit ANYTHING, whether it's the FSX.cfg, or an aircraft.cfg, or whatever. And that means before making any changes. It's also helpful to somehow designate the backup files, either numerically, or temporally (Hows that for the use of an obscure word?? Huh?? :p). They don't take up much room on your HD, and can save you a lot of frustration if you typo, or otherwise really mess something up. Not that I do...much...

Good luck! Once you start tweaking things, you are hooked for life!

Pat☺

Thanks for all your responses. How do I make a backup? Just drag the current fsx.cfg file and put it on the desktop and edit a new new?

Thanks for all your responses. How do I make a backup? Just drag the current fsx.cfg file and put it on the desktop and edit a new new?

To make a backup of your FSX.cfg as it is right now, just right click and copy to your desktop, rename it something like FSX_orig.cfg and when that is done, place it back where it belongs for safe keeping.

To make a backup of your FSX.cfg as it is right now, just right click and copy to your desktop, rename it something like FSX_orig.cfg and when that is done, place it back where it belongs for safe keeping.

Thank you!

Where the FSX.cfg is located depends on your OS. For example, with the Win7 OS, it's located in C:\Users\StuckInARut\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX on my computer. I am pretty sure Kosta's Guide says where they are in different OS's.

Kosta's Guide can be found HERE. It's a bit long, but explains things in a way even I can understand :D

Another excellent guide is found RIGHT HERE.

Does all that help any?

Pat☺

His guide can still be found at the link I posted above. The thread in the FSX forum (the one we're in now) can be found at THIS LOCATION. Good luck, and happy tweaking!

Pat☺