Tristarcaptain 282 Posted May 6, 2016 Report Share Posted May 6, 2016 Okay gang I know there are a lot of knowledgeable people out there, so my question is: There appears to be some products out there to help us improve the all important frame rates of our beloved hobby, so can anyone give me recommendations what is best (and works!) for an 'average ' computer that is a few years old. I have FSX by the way. TIA Martin Link to post Share on other sites
Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) 142 Posted May 7, 2016 Report Share Posted May 7, 2016 Hi Martin! TBH, it's extremely difficult to be helpful about increasing frame rates on "an 'average ' computer that is a few years old". A generic answer to such a generic question would probably be along the lines of "get yourself a faster CPU" — an answer which is technically correct, but not necessarily useful to you. You're focussing entirely on frame rates, and hence the most effective solutions will tend to be hardware-related (rather than tweaks to fsx.cfg which only make a significant difference if your fsx.cfg was in bad shape previously). However, if you were to give us some specifics of your machine (e.g. CPU type and speed, memory amount, HDDs and SDDs used by fsx, graphics card details, along with any other relevant factors such as DX10, type of scenery you use (photographic?), shaders, and so on) we might perhaps be able to make some slightly more helpful suggestions. What frame rates are you seeing at present? If you're landing a PMDG 777 at London Heathrow the result will be rather different to when you're landing the default trike at Friday Harbor, so please qualify your answer accordingly. However, since frame rates are so often hardware (notably, CPU) -related, I'm also wondering what kind of "products" you had in mind when you asked your question? Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747 Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted May 7, 2016 Report Share Posted May 7, 2016 If you aren't already using "Steve's DX10 Fixer", that product has a huge effect on making the game run smoother. It is the One Tip that I know of that has the most bang for the buck. Link to post Share on other sites
Corsaire31 419 Posted May 7, 2016 Report Share Posted May 7, 2016 The best tool I know of is about adjusting the graphic options and sliders to your computer performance ! And it's free ! Link to post Share on other sites
Captain Coffee 2,030 Posted May 8, 2016 Report Share Posted May 8, 2016 ^ I stand corrected. Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted May 8, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 8, 2016 On 5/7/2016 at 03:44, Bruce (a.k.a. brian747) said: Hi Martin! TBH, it's extremely difficult to be helpful about increasing frame rates on "an 'average ' computer that is a few years old". A generic answer to such a generic question would probably be along the lines of "get yourself a faster CPU" — an answer which is technically correct, but not necessarily useful to you. You're focussing entirely on frame rates, and hence the most effective solutions will tend to be hardware-related (rather than tweaks to fsx.cfg which only make a significant difference if your fsx.cfg was in bad shape previously). However, if you were to give us some specifics of your machine (e.g. CPU type and speed, memory amount, HDDs and SDDs used by fsx, graphics card details, along with any other relevant factors such as DX10, type of scenery you use (photographic?), shaders, and so on) we might perhaps be able to make some slightly more helpful suggestions. What frame rates are you seeing at present? If you're landing a PMDG 777 at London Heathrow the result will be rather different to when you're landing the default trike at Friday Harbor, so please qualify your answer accordingly. However, since frame rates are so often hardware (notably, CPU) -related, I'm also wondering what kind of "products" you had in mind when you asked your question? Cheers, bruce a.k.a. brian747 Thanks for your response. Sorry for the delay in replying... My computer is about 4 years old, and at the time, the specs. weren't too bad. I guess that they are still respectable. I have an AMD A6-3650 APU processor with Radeon HD Graphics. The processor is 2.6 GHZ, Quad core. I have 8.00 GB RAM and a 1GB graphics card. I do not have photographic scenery, but use Ultimate Terrain from Flight 1 for certain regions, such as USA. I have a 1TB dedicated hard drive for FSX. As an example of a typical flight, flying from South Bend (USA) to Chicago O'Hare in a Captain Sim Boeing 707 with weather set to fair, the fps were anywhere between 25-45 ( a lot of fluctuation looking at the numbers, but smooth transition of frames). Going into O'Hare, this drops to around 14 fps and the landing then shows the rate at below 10 fps, which really shows in the lack of fluidity. Flying a Wilco Boeing 737 or Captain Sim Boeing 777 drops the rates even more when landing. I guess I could reduce the settings, but I was wondering about a product called FSX Fiber Accelerator which is available at FS Pilotshop and Just Flight. I was wondering if anyone here has used it? TIA for any advice. Martin Link to post Share on other sites
brett 2,284 Posted May 9, 2016 Report Share Posted May 9, 2016 Froggle did a half-hour video on it here, if you want to check it out while waiting for other responses. Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted May 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2016 On 5/7/2016 at 12:28, Captain Coffee said: If you aren't already using "Steve's DX10 Fixer", that product has a huge effect on making the game run smoother. It is the One Tip that I know of that has the most bang for the buck. I have used this once quite a while back. Is it best to use this on a semi regular basis, even when there are no definate problems? TIA Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted May 10, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2016 8 hours ago, brett said: Froggle did a half-hour video on it here, if you want to check it out while waiting for other responses. Thanks, Brett. Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted May 10, 2016 Report Share Posted May 10, 2016 be prepared to be tweaking for a while to get what suits you best - every person's setup is different, even with exact same hardware There are a lot of tweaks out there you can try and do, so my advice is just to cherry pick the ones that you feel helps. Also, only change one thing at a time - this may seem tedious and time consuming, but in the long run it's best as you can see exactly what has made an impact. If something makes a negative impact then it is easier to find out what caused it too. I had an old dinosaur PC that was older than yours and it run FSX quite well - don't get too wrapped up on FPS, look more into how smooth it feels. So if you are moving camera, does it stutter? FPS I found to be quite a bad judge of performance in FSX. My final point is this, I ended up buying a new PC and with a fast CPU, it made a super increase in performance and made my flying more enjoyable. Before the new PC, I had tried upgrading my GPU but that made very little difference - it looks like FSX is very CPU dependant. I know a lot of people will maybe disagree with me on my comments above, but it's my two penneth worth Enjoy tweaking mate!! Good Luck! Link to post Share on other sites
wain 879 Posted May 10, 2016 Report Share Posted May 10, 2016 Very wise words from Jim about fps..be more concerned with smoothness of the sim...I have seen 50-60fps on some PCs and they still had sssstutters... 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Corsaire31 419 Posted May 11, 2016 Report Share Posted May 11, 2016 Totally agree with the statement about smoothness, as I am using a Track IR it is the most important. In fact I almost never look at my FPS. I know they are between 20 and 30, but as long as it's fluid I don't really mind ! Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted May 11, 2016 Report Share Posted May 11, 2016 If I use one of my GA aircraft and set my frame limiter to unlimited - I get a stupid amount of FPS but every now and then I get 'spikes' where it either goes up or down really fast. So I lock my frames at 30 (I am happy with 30 and don't feel the need for 60). This does not have 'spikes' and remains constant. Now if I load up the beast PMDG 737NGX and hit a heavily dense populated area, this FPS can drop from the 30 - but the sim is still smooth and you wouldn't even notice if you didn't have an FPS counter in the corner. I would think as a minimum FPS you should be looking around 20 - I find anything below 20 will be noticable for me. Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted May 12, 2016 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2016 On 5/10/2016 at 04:46, UKJim said: be prepared to be tweaking for a while to get what suits you best - every person's setup is different, even with exact same hardware There are a lot of tweaks out there you can try and do, so my advice is just to cherry pick the ones that you feel helps. Also, only change one thing at a time - this may seem tedious and time consuming, but in the long run it's best as you can see exactly what has made an impact. If something makes a negative impact then it is easier to find out what caused it too. I had an old dinosaur PC that was older than yours and it run FSX quite well - don't get too wrapped up on FPS, look more into how smooth it feels. So if you are moving camera, does it stutter? FPS I found to be quite a bad judge of performance in FSX. My final point is this, I ended up buying a new PC and with a fast CPU, it made a super increase in performance and made my flying more enjoyable. Before the new PC, I had tried upgrading my GPU but that made very little difference - it looks like FSX is very CPU dependant. I know a lot of people will maybe disagree with me on my comments above, but it's my two penneth worth Enjoy tweaking mate!! Good Luck! I always thought that FSPS (or lack of!) caused the 'stutter'. I guess that I was wrong! Anyway, thanks UKJim and to everyone else who has helped with this posts. Regards Martin 1 Link to post Share on other sites
stu7708 244 Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 6 hours ago, Tristarcaptain said: I always thought that FSPS (or lack of!) caused the 'stutter'. I guess that I was wrong! Well, you are correct in that they usually go hand in hand... it's just that the FPS counter in FSX is kind wonky and not very reliable... Link to post Share on other sites
UKJim 502 Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 I use FRAPS to measure my FPS and that is far more reliable imo than the FSX counter. It can also be used for video and screenshots - but quite basic. For screenshots I use Greenshot and for video I use Nvidia Shadowplay Link to post Share on other sites
J G 927 Posted May 13, 2016 Report Share Posted May 13, 2016 Sometimes a "stutter" can be caused by your PC having to fetch more data from its hard drive (HDD). A slow HDD is often a bottleneck and is usually one of the slowest action in a chain of actions as a read arm has to move to spinning disk to read the data required. There are ways to try and improve on this: 1.Buy a faster HDD - Newer HDDs have larger memory buffers which they use to store anticipated data ready for use, their disks spin faster so that data can be read faster. Hybrid drives take this a step further storing much used data in memory rather than on the disk itself. Solid State Drives (SSD) have no moving parts and speed up data transfer hugely. 2. Buy a second HDD - By a second HDD and store your operating system on the boot drive and your FS on the second drive. This way accessing the operating systems data does not compete with the data access requirements of the FS 3. Do both of the above. Looking at your PC spec, I would say the main issue you have is the processor speed. MS FSX is essentially a very old piece of software. Back in the day when it was designed processors were faster than the graphics cards that were available, so MS loaded the processor with as much number crunching as it could. FSX used DX and since then we have had DX10 and now DX11, graphics cards with faster processors and faster bus speeds (transfer speeds across the connection with the motherboard) which allow the graphics cards to take much more of the graphics calculation load, but only if the design of the software allows it - MS FSX is old and does not. The only small ray of light is DX10 preview mode. DX10 was just on the horizon when FSX was bought to market and MS thoughtfully provided a check box to allow the software to use DX10 on a then top of the range graphics card. There was a small problem with this. It didn't work, I don't know why, perhaps MS had to make some informed guesses about DX10 which turned out to be wrong. Steve's DX10 fixer corrects these problems and allows the use of DX10 Preview mode. Use it as every little helps. All of the above are not going to make your problems go away and to be honest I wouldn't recommend nibbleing away at the issue as you will spend a load of cash with variable results. As I said before, you processor is probably the main issue and that is a fundamental part of your PC. I guess it comes down to how much you love your hobby and how much you want to spend on it. My previous PC had a fair to good graphics card and ran at 3.4GHZ , with some of the more complex addons I was getting 4 FPS, yes that is four frames per second. that's totally unusable. There are plenty of addons that, together conspire to eat up your PC's capabilities, so you either have to be content with simple basic scenery and simple add-ons, or buy a PC that is man enough to cope with what you want to throw at it. I took the second of the two options above and I now have a very quick FS PC, but then I love this hobby and have an understanding wife. :). Having said that, I still have frame rates as low as 15 on the new PC, but that will be with an addon that is notoriously processor hungry, everything to the max and sophisticated scenery. I can get rates that are in the hundreds if I dumb down. Don't ask how much I spent on the quick PC. My understanding wife might just change her ways if she finds out! 1 Link to post Share on other sites
Tristarcaptain 282 Posted June 9, 2016 Author Report Share Posted June 9, 2016 Thanks so much for your advice JG. I have been fiddling around with settings and it is running a bit better now. There are still certain 'add ons' that seem to slow the fps down, but I do the best that I can! I do not have the money for a super computer, but I did add a dedicated hard drive for FSX, as I read that it best to have a separate one to the C-drive. I must admit that the system seems more stable configured like that, and of course, learning about some things on here has helped me to avoid having to reload the game every time FSX throws a wobbly!! Thanks again for your help and I apologize for the delay in getting back to you. Link to post Share on other sites
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