Are the FSX framerates acceptable now?

Shyzar · 10-31-07, 06:42 PM

I'm planning to buy FSX and I was wondering how good the framerates are with the service packs and everything like that. I just got a new system (E6750 2.66 GHZ dual core, 2 GB RAM, and a 8800 GTS 320 MB), would the frame rates be acceptable on the highest settings, and if not would it play well on any setting other than low?

And just a quick off topic question. Has there been any new developments about Storm of War?

Chock · 10-31-07, 07:02 PM

About the only thing that would make it struggle with that set-up, would be the autogen scenery on full tilt. You'd probably get away with it up on about half before it would start to complain, is my guess.

A lot will depend on what screen resolution you can live with too, of course.

Although I still mainly use FSX on my desktop, which is a single-core 3.2 GHz P4 running XP with a pci graphics card, it does definitely run better on my (Vista OS) laptop with a dual core processor and no flashy graphics card at all. Both these machines have 2 gigs of RAM and I did notice a significant improvement on BOTH rigs with the patch. There was a lot of stuff optimised in it, and it seems the FSX doubters were somewhat premature in dismissing the notion that it wouldn't run any better on Vista or dual core, because it does, simple as that, it did before the patch too.

I can confirm that load times were significantly cut after the patch, it was initially somewhat ludicrous, you could go away and make a coffee and when you came back to your PC it would still be loading the flight, but that is no longer true since the patch, it does load a lot quicker these days.

There is still much to be said for FS9 however, and whenever I'm reviewing anything that is suitable for both (for AVSIM), I'll do a lot of the testing in the older sim, purely because it does still load quicker than FSX, and you have to load a lot of different flights to do a decent review.

Nevertheless, when it comes to reviewing what the thing actually flies like, there is no comparison, FSX is markedly better at conveying flight than FS9, owing to its superior air mass modeling, and that alone makes it worth having, but it will be a while before FS9 disappears off my drive for things such as airliners, where the need to feel affected by every single bump in the air is not so great as it is when tootling around in a Piper Cub, or a glider.

Chock

Shyzar · 10-31-07, 07:09 PM

Thanks for the quick reply Chock.

The highest my moniter will go resolution wise is 1280 by 1024, but I would like to upgrade, but until games come that don't still look great at that resolution start coming, I might not upgrade.

I'm also planning on upgrading to Vista before the end of the year. I wish I did it with my new computer. But when I bought it I thought that there was still serious issues with it, and then 1 week after my computer came. I got an issue of PC Gamer that said that Vista's problems are mostly gone and that it would be smart to upgrade to it

I'm also downloading the demo to see how well that plays.

Chock · 10-31-07, 07:58 PM

Despite me not being a huge fan of Vista (I bought it 'free' with a new laptop, because I had to have it, as I train people on software, so needed to at least have experience of it, but didn't want to pay for it!), there is one advantage to Vista, beyond some software running faster, which is definitely cool, and that's 'power boost' or whatever MS calls it, whereby you can plug a USB flash drive into your computer and it configures as temporary RAM. I've not actually tried it out on mine yet, but have on someone else's PC and it was quite handy for speeding up some filter work on a very large image file (a 48-sheet billboard poster) in Photoshop. Oh, and it seems to be easier to set up a network with Vista too, I did notice that.

I would hope MS have also optimised the demo of FSX too, I'm sure they will have done, but they may have been lazy!

Chock

Shyzar · 11-01-07, 05:38 PM

I just played the demo and even on the highest settings, it plays great.

But I have one question, With mods to improve scenery, will the scenery at least look better than IL-2? The ground in the demo just looks so pixelated and unrealistic, same with the water.

Chock · 11-01-07, 06:10 PM

One of the issues FSX has is what most people term 'the blurries' i.e. terrain can look rather low-res despite having your settings on full throttle. The reason for that is that something has to give, and unfortunately, it is often the resolution of the terrain which drops out. There are two solutions to it, the first is drop your settings a bit so that you free up some RAM to enable the terrain to load its high resolution images, the other is to fly around a bit in the same are to give the RAM time to catch up in loading terrain. Short of that, you could always get some more RAM, but that's where the limit kicks in, as any OS will have a limit on how much RAM it can support, and there is also the problem of how much you could physically fit on your motherboard anyway. 4 Gigs would probably solve it, although with Vista, you could also try doing the temp RAM thing with a flash drive, although I haven't got around to giving it a shot yet.

Personally, I usually drop the water effects to minimal, as I'm not exactly in love with the effect in FSX, so I don't mind losing it. In any case you could replace the textures with the modded ones kicking about, which optimise things a bit, likewise there is an autogen scenery mod which uses far less RAM kicking about too, you can find them on AVSIM. You might want to also try stuff like RealSky Pro if you want to improve matters in a more subtle way, there is a review of this on Avsim (written by me, incidentally) which details what it does.

Chock

10-31-07, 06:42 PM	#1
Shyzar Engineer Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Surrey, British Columbia Posts: 214 Downloads: 7 Uploads: 0	Are the FSX framerates acceptable now? I'm planning to buy FSX and I was wondering how good the framerates are with the service packs and everything like that. I just got a new system (E6750 2.66 GHZ dual core, 2 GB RAM, and a 8800 GTS 320 MB), would the frame rates be acceptable on the highest settings, and if not would it play well on any setting other than low? And just a quick off topic question. Has there been any new developments about Storm of War? __________________ Since ancient times, there has never been a war that did not have a political character. -Máo Zédong Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. -Carl von Clausewitz

10-31-07, 07:02 PM	#2
Chock Sea Lord Join Date: May 2005 Location: Under a thermal layer in chilly Olde England Posts: 1,842 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	About the only thing that would make it struggle with that set-up, would be the autogen scenery on full tilt. You'd probably get away with it up on about half before it would start to complain, is my guess. A lot will depend on what screen resolution you can live with too, of course. Although I still mainly use FSX on my desktop, which is a single-core 3.2 GHz P4 running XP with a pci graphics card, it does definitely run better on my (Vista OS) laptop with a dual core processor and no flashy graphics card at all. Both these machines have 2 gigs of RAM and I did notice a significant improvement on BOTH rigs with the patch. There was a lot of stuff optimised in it, and it seems the FSX doubters were somewhat premature in dismissing the notion that it wouldn't run any better on Vista or dual core, because it does, simple as that, it did before the patch too. I can confirm that load times were significantly cut after the patch, it was initially somewhat ludicrous, you could go away and make a coffee and when you came back to your PC it would still be loading the flight, but that is no longer true since the patch, it does load a lot quicker these days. There is still much to be said for FS9 however, and whenever I'm reviewing anything that is suitable for both (for AVSIM), I'll do a lot of the testing in the older sim, purely because it does still load quicker than FSX, and you have to load a lot of different flights to do a decent review. Nevertheless, when it comes to reviewing what the thing actually flies like, there is no comparison, FSX is markedly better at conveying flight than FS9, owing to its superior air mass modeling, and that alone makes it worth having, but it will be a while before FS9 disappears off my drive for things such as airliners, where the need to feel affected by every single bump in the air is not so great as it is when tootling around in a Piper Cub, or a glider. Chock __________________

10-31-07, 07:09 PM	#3
Shyzar Engineer Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Surrey, British Columbia Posts: 214 Downloads: 7 Uploads: 0	Thanks for the quick reply Chock. The highest my moniter will go resolution wise is 1280 by 1024, but I would like to upgrade, but until games come that don't still look great at that resolution start coming, I might not upgrade. I'm also planning on upgrading to Vista before the end of the year. I wish I did it with my new computer. But when I bought it I thought that there was still serious issues with it, and then 1 week after my computer came. I got an issue of PC Gamer that said that Vista's problems are mostly gone and that it would be smart to upgrade to it I'm also downloading the demo to see how well that plays. __________________ Since ancient times, there has never been a war that did not have a political character. -Máo Zédong Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. -Carl von Clausewitz

10-31-07, 07:58 PM	#4
Chock Sea Lord Join Date: May 2005 Location: Under a thermal layer in chilly Olde England Posts: 1,842 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Despite me not being a huge fan of Vista (I bought it 'free' with a new laptop, because I had to have it, as I train people on software, so needed to at least have experience of it, but didn't want to pay for it!), there is one advantage to Vista, beyond some software running faster, which is definitely cool, and that's 'power boost' or whatever MS calls it, whereby you can plug a USB flash drive into your computer and it configures as temporary RAM. I've not actually tried it out on mine yet, but have on someone else's PC and it was quite handy for speeding up some filter work on a very large image file (a 48-sheet billboard poster) in Photoshop. Oh, and it seems to be easier to set up a network with Vista too, I did notice that. I would hope MS have also optimised the demo of FSX too, I'm sure they will have done, but they may have been lazy! Chock __________________

11-01-07, 05:38 PM	#5
Shyzar Engineer Join Date: Apr 2007 Location: Surrey, British Columbia Posts: 214 Downloads: 7 Uploads: 0	I just played the demo and even on the highest settings, it plays great. But I have one question, With mods to improve scenery, will the scenery at least look better than IL-2? The ground in the demo just looks so pixelated and unrealistic, same with the water. __________________ Since ancient times, there has never been a war that did not have a political character. -Máo Zédong Friction is the only concept that more or less corresponds to the factors that distinguish real war from war on paper. -Carl von Clausewitz

11-01-07, 06:10 PM	#6
Chock Sea Lord Join Date: May 2005 Location: Under a thermal layer in chilly Olde England Posts: 1,842 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	One of the issues FSX has is what most people term 'the blurries' i.e. terrain can look rather low-res despite having your settings on full throttle. The reason for that is that something has to give, and unfortunately, it is often the resolution of the terrain which drops out. There are two solutions to it, the first is drop your settings a bit so that you free up some RAM to enable the terrain to load its high resolution images, the other is to fly around a bit in the same are to give the RAM time to catch up in loading terrain. Short of that, you could always get some more RAM, but that's where the limit kicks in, as any OS will have a limit on how much RAM it can support, and there is also the problem of how much you could physically fit on your motherboard anyway. 4 Gigs would probably solve it, although with Vista, you could also try doing the temp RAM thing with a flash drive, although I haven't got around to giving it a shot yet. Personally, I usually drop the water effects to minimal, as I'm not exactly in love with the effect in FSX, so I don't mind losing it. In any case you could replace the textures with the modded ones kicking about, which optimise things a bit, likewise there is an autogen scenery mod which uses far less RAM kicking about too, you can find them on AVSIM. You might want to also try stuff like RealSky Pro if you want to improve matters in a more subtle way, there is a review of this on Avsim (written by me, incidentally) which details what it does. Chock __________________