FSX Without vs. With GPU?

Hi, back again from the cycle of "play FSX -> get tired of low frames -> get tired of tweaking FSX for FPS -> give up on FSX (for a while)". I'm sure some can relate ;)

 

Anyways...

 

I can get OK framerates (20-30, usually not consistent) with my system specs, but only without rain and with everything looking just a bit too old-gamey. I'd like to be able to increase settings a little, fly in weather other than perfect, use some (freeware) detailed aircraft, maybe some really light shaders... you get the idea.

 

I know that FSX, being a simulator, is way more CPU-bound, but I've heard of people with GPUs, and CPUs worse than mine, get higher frames than me.

 

SO, would a sub-$50 GPU be an improvement from no GPU at all? Also, is rain based on CPU or GPU?

 

Thanks! Specs and settings below:

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Windows 10 Pro

Intel i5-2400 @ 3.10GHz

8GB RAM

1920x1200 Monitor

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GRAPHICS

 

1024x768x32

Bilinear

Global Texture: Very High

Preview, Lens FLare, Light bloom, and Avd. Anim. are all off

 

AIRCRAFT

 

"Ultra High" preset

 

SCENERY

 

"Terrain and water"

Medium

42

38m

1m Mid 2x

Checked

 

"Scenery Objects"

Normal

Normal

Unchecked

Medium

 

WEATHER

 

"Medium Low" preset

 

Traffic

 

"Very Low" preset

 

Here's an idea of what that looks like:

20 FPS in the rain, even lower in the cockpit.

Hi. I'll write more later when I have more time and an at a cooler spot. (got here atm.)

a small question for now. Is that a Posky aircraft? Or is it the default 737? (with a repaint)

thanks.

Oh, and keep calm and stay safe.

A new disease often takes scientists years to fully understand. Trying to follow along with every step in understanding can drive you up the wall. Best to just stay calm and wait untill they have found

solid answer. Worrying about all the unknowns won't help. On the contrary.

 

Untill solid answers are found all you can do is try to protect yourself and others as best as you can.

 

Huggs, :D

il.

Yeah, some crazy times right now. And yes, it's the default w/repaint, oh and it also has the Advanced VC addon by Alejandro Rojas Lucena. That might contribute to the VC rain lag, but I still get low FPS with any other aircraft, default or addon.

3.1 is a bit low.

I can't look at all those settings in detail now.

General advise, a nvidia graphics card will help. I have a very old one. The EVGA GT430. Bought it for my previous pc, seems a lifetime ago now, and an still using it.

It's not a great card at all any more. But, it allows me to use NvidiaInspector. The card combined with inspector makes things look pretty good at lower fsx settings. For example scenery and texture detail settings.

With the card 'making things look sharp', the Cpu will not have to do all that work and can focus on getting me higher fps.

I also have a 3570k which has a HD3000 GPU built in. The hd3000 is supposed to be almost equal to a gt430, but when I compared them for fsx I saw much better results with the gt430.

Reasons for that I think are:

[-1-] gt430 has it's own fan for active cooling,

[-2-] gt430 has settings you can fine-tune with nvidia menu or NvInspector. So you can adjust in detail for the game. Menu for hd3000 is so limited adjusting settings with that is almost no use,

[-3-] Plus, gpu in cpu adds heat so cpu heats up more. By not using the hd3000 Gcpu the cpu stays cooler, resulting in better cpu performance.

 

To judge that image well I would have to switch on my pc. Same to look closely at settings. Weather's too good to do that now.

Just one thing on that now. Water settings are a relatively high load. I set those to 'low 1x' which works much smoother. (i also use a freeware program called fswaterconfigurator as well to make water look nice.)

And rain is always a big load. With rain I use lower settings. Can't see much in rain anyway. No reason to make the pc draw a lot of detail if it then hides the details again with rain.

Hope it helps. il.