an interesting observation about FSX SE since recent update

[britfrog 180]

Having unmercifully slagged off FSX SE in earlier postings 

in the course of a review this morning I noticed something interesting

I had started it at Miami (KMIA) and i was configuring it to use photoscenery , no top drawer airport just the default airport as supplied by M.S. and i noticed i was getting a pretty decent frame rate of about 55fps so i thought i would check  my  fsx installation used for testing stuff so set it up with the same settings and only got 38fps

Now this is with text max load at 4096 , and  LOD radius of 8.5,  0 autogen , traffic at 36%, but using dx10 however in the case of SE without steves fixer, all sliders to the right except water at 1+

however the exterior view dropped to low 40's in Se and low 30's in  fsx

both sims are on the same hard drive.

so then i tried the same setup on my main IFR version of fsx on another drive this gave me 40fps from inside and 37fps outside now this version of fsx is at least 500gb in size and hasnt been  renewed for several years so it compares well with the  new version on the earlier drive

 

just to check i then fired up my vfr version of fsx on yet another drive and got 34fps inside and 36 fps outside,  this drive is ancient so i was not surprised at its slowness

 

then i fired up P3D which is on the same drive as FSX SE and got:

34 fps inside and 23 fps outside

the interesting thing of note in all cases was taking the settings from default to 4096 tex max load and 8.5 lod radius actually improved frame rates using my photoscenery

 

so there you have it P3D with very little in the way of a/c and scenery is well beaten

 

FSX SE also with little in the way of enhancements (but more than P3D) knocks spots off them all!!  maybe their upgrade of last week really did do something for the performance????

 

Food for thought

[jaydor 345]

Have you taken into consideration that there is no autogen with photo-scenery?

So what are the autogen sliders in each setting? (They should all be zero)

An answer on a sticky to confused dot com will be appreciated..

[britfrog 180]

hi cfsed.com  in all cases autogen was set to 0  inc p3d

but if fsx se still costs €2.88 I would buy it  because the mods they are doing, do seem to be bearing fruit ,

in any case it is miles better than p3d

[IZ0JUB 162]

That's very interesting Nigel. I wonder is it worth re-installing then as the company have totally ignored all my communications?

 

Cheers, Mike.

[britfrog 180]

well mike , it didnt cost a lot, and perhaps in the short term it has more potential than p3d, especially as it is taking fsx to another level , P3d IMHO wont become a serious product until it goes 64 biit.

as much as I maligned dovetail, in one fell swoop they have leapfrogged LM the small changes that LM have made (cloud shadows and not much more) have had a huge hit on FPS and VAS, which affects everyone especially those with lower spec p.c's  dovetail have given those with lower spec p.c's more performance, and that is something we have all been crying out for since FSX arrived.

LM are going the same way M.S. did when fsx was launched, there will be no alternative but you will need a really high performance p.c. to run P3D , so be it, but i am really happy with fsx and dx10 and i dont see enough in p3d which convinces me to pay out the moolah to follow their path.

[IZ0JUB 162]

Thanks for that Nigel. Have taken a leap of faith and downloaded the STEAM interface. Some time in the next few days I will bite the bullet and go for the 4 hours + download of FSX SE which I will put on an external HD this time around.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[dogtrack 346]

Would be interested to hear how the "other" FSX runs on an external drive, Mike. When you get around to installing it.  Bought a copy when it was on sale, some months ago. As yet not got around to installing it though.

[IZ0JUB 162]

Hi Arnold,

 

I ran FSX Acceleration for a few years on an external HD on an XP machine no problems at all.

 

Will let you know how FSX SE goes.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[MyPC8MyBrain 273]

well... I’m not a fan of changes

but I’ve heard the same thing yesterday from a completely different direction,

no names; but he is using it firsthand daily to do his work!

[donnybalonny 46]

Nigel 

Your observations are good and as I said not long ago, I consider FSX and P3D to be very close relatives.

BUT, what you tell us is very much your personal experience.

 

FSX (highly tweaked) and P3D (default) may look more or less the same with photo scenery, but in other circumstances, with orbx, autogen etc, I find that P3D clearly has the edge with more depth in colors and landscape.

Another thing: How many hours and years have you spend tweaking and fixing bugs in your FSX install?  One of the things I like in P3D is that it runs very well out of the box (download), no tweaking is nescessary. Some looove tweaking and fixing stuff, while others, like me dont like it so much. And I have a heavy allergy to fsx CTD, something that rarely, if ever happen in P3D

That said, a well tweaked FSX is a lovely sim.

[wain 879]

To my tired eyes P3D looks to have a deeper colour to it, I have P3D and FSXSE both with ORBX Global /Vector and LC_EU, ORBX HD Trees, REX for textures and ASN for weather input. With no tweaking to either I have found them both stable and running for me smooth which is my priority.....maybe I have just been lucky and it justs runs fine, but like I said P3D looks to have deeper colours if that makes sense...

Wayne

[britfrog 180]

i dont disagree that p3d has slightly better colouring but try flying an airbus or the ngx into the latest heathrow and you will be down to below 10fps (if it doesnt crash on you)  while in fsx i can still get a cool 30+fps

hey if colours do it for you cool , personally i prefer a smooth simualation and will forgo the 10% better colours

And btw Anders as p3d is so poor on performance i have already started to modify the .cfg with some success

what ctd in FSX???? I cant recall the last time i had a ctd in fsx, if you use dx10 you will never ctd plus the colours are a lot better

I have p3d pro but i much prefer fsx with dx10, if i loaded up p3d with the same a/c and scenery that I have in Fsx (about 500gbs and counting) P3d would probably refuse to even start.

But to each their own!

[donnybalonny 46]

Nigel

I believe what you say and I´m not trying to defend P3D. If I had a nice FSX setup I wouldnt have been using P3D. But I came from FS9 because I had loads of problems with fsx back in the old days.

 

Its a matter of time... Its a lot of time to set up a nice fsx if you start from scratch. And besides, some of us do not have english as a first language. In my case its my 3rd language. Imagine youself setting up fsx from scratch and all information was in Spanish or Danish????

You get really mentally tired and I (at the moment) prefer using my limited brain capacity to study complicated addon AC manuals, because for me, thats what its about.... Flying.

 

One day...... in the future..... I may ask you about setting up FSX dx10.   But right now I´m busy with other stuff and my P3D works reasonably well even over London with Orbx England, but I have to admit that I have to turn down some sliders seriously when I´m over London. There´s a lot of autogen to be swallowed.  I accept that and most of the time, this red fps counter in the upper left corner is toggled off. As long as the sim works, that number is not interesting for me.

[IZ0JUB 162]

Just landed after a very successful flight in FSX SE Steam version 314160. No tweaks no mods just homemade scenery and I must now admit it works OK from an external HD. I have the FPS set at 29 and it just chugs along in ALL camera views at that FPS so that's OK by me with smooth operation and a lot less blurry's than my old FSX Acceleration with tweaks.

 

So until the next update........................

 

TTFN, M.

 

 

[Christopher Low 63]

 

I dont disagree that p3d has slightly better colouring but try flying an airbus or the ngx into the latest heathrow and you will be down to below 10fps (if it doesnt crash on you)  while in fsx i can still get a cool 30+fps

 

That is not the case for everyone, Nigel. I run P3D at very high detail settings, and I get smooth framerates flying the PMDG 737NGX into Aerosoft's Heathrow.....and that's with UT2 AI @ 100%.

[britfrog 180]

Anders, i only put the fps on when i am reviewing something, or when i want to know why things are not working correctly.

 

There is no doubt that we are all hoping the future of our hobby lies with P3d however i do have certain reservations. currently LM are using our feed back to refine p3D for  free!, i will not be surprised if once they get it to do what they want it to do , they will cut the umbilical cord, and force the "hobbyists" to go back to FSX and dovetail. after all they get mega bucks from foreign governments and the like, for their simulation stuff, we are small beer.

you have not put your pc spec on your signature so I do not know what you are working with

if you have a copy of FSX why not reinstall it buy Steves dx10 fixer do a few mods in the .cfg file and i think you will be amazed what fsx can do.

personally i only play with p3d as it cannot run my a/c and scenery, it gives me ideas which i then filter back to improve FSX

 

However as FSX SE appears to offer better performance than the stock version , even when modified, I am now going to spend a bit of time loading up SE just to see what it can take, before falling over and if you can still get it at €2.88 go ahead and get it , after all what can you buy today for less than 3 euros? not even a beer.

to be honest I never thought I would be saying that! but hey ho , go with the flow!

[britfrog 180]

Chris if i didnt know you better i would call you a liar, but you do have a better graphics card than i and that could well make the difference, maybe I will have to lift up some floor boards

[Christopher Low 63]

It's worth noting that my GPU has only 2GB VRAM, but it may also be significant that I run P3D at "only" 1280x1024 resolution, and with Level of Detail set to "High" (LOD 4.5). However, other than Tessellation Factor (which is set to Medium), all other settings are at Maximum (including Scenery Complexity, Autogen Density, and Water), apart from Shadows....and this could be a key factor. I usually run P3D with Clear Skies, so cloud shadows aren't really necessary. The only shadows that I have active at the moment are those cast by my own plane (both internal in the VC, and external).

 

To be honest, I was quite surprised at the relatively smooth framerates at my largest UK airports in P3D (I consider anything down to 20fps to be smooth). I had experienced some degree of stuttering at (for example) UK2000 Heathrow Xtreme and Gatwick Xtreme with UT2 AI @ 100% in FSX on my old i5 2500k powered PC (which had a 1GB GeForce GTX 560Ti GPU), but the improvement in this department (particularly at Gatwick) has been significant. I have counted the number of AI planes early in the morning at these two airports (around 6 AM) with UT2 AI @ 100%, and there can be over 140 AI planes at Heathrow, and up to 100 at Gatwick. These aren't low quality models and textures either. Most of my AI planes are decent quality models from FAIB, TFS, AIG, and AIA, and a large number of them have 32bit textures. Of course, VAS issues are always lurking in the background with dense scenery areas, and I have been restricting my test flights in P3D to taxi/take off/circuit/land/taxi at the same airport. Nevertheless, the performance is real.

 

To be honest, I don't blame anyone for being sceptical. If there is one thing I have learned over the years with FSX and it's derivatives, it's that you could install the simulator on two identical PCs, and get totally different results (both in performance, and also VAS management). I can't prove that, but I would bet that it's true. This is why getting advice from others is hit and miss, and probably also why excessive tweaking worked for some, and made a right pig's ear of things for others.

 

Another case in point would be FSX in DX10 mode. So many people (and I think Nigel is one of them) swear that this is the best thing since sliced bread, but it was crap on my i5 2500k PC. Texture shimmering, rubbish water, and graphical issues made it vastly inferior to DX9 mode in the visuals department, and this was using Steve's DX10 Fixer utility. The only advantage I saw with DX10 mode was the superior VAS management (and it was admittedly pretty significant). In fact, the problems that I am having with water in P3D remind me a lot of the issues I had with FSX in DX10 mode. Nothing has come close to the REX Essentials Sparkling texture set in FSX DX9 mode as far as water is concerned.

[britfrog 180]

that makes interesting reading Chris, as i have 22 inch monitors i use 1980 x something so as you say that must affect performance, but as i get very good fps in fsx i have always stuck with it.

 

I do find it interesting that some people have problems with dx10 for me it was just plug and play, and when i never had another ctd it was a no brainer to stay with it.

 

I have tried to run p3d at medium setting then just to see what happened put all the sliders to the max and there was very little difference in performance on my old p.c.

 

i do agree that the rex sparkling is very nice, i wonder what your p.c. would do Chris if you use ftx england with the aerosoft heathrow and give it a rainy day from rex to deal with?

[Christopher Low 63]

I wouldn't know, Nigel. The only FTX region that I have installed is Northern Ireland, and I would disable that if I could get good quality photographic scenery for the region. I say "disable" (as opposed to uninstall) because, contrary to what the ORBx documentation may suggest, you do NOT specifically need FTX England to run the ORBx UK airports and airfields that have been released. You just need one of the UK regions.

 

Hopefully I will be able to sort out the water in P3D one day, but I get the feeling that it will be due to blind luck more than anything else.