Am I FSX Ready?

[DanKH]

Hi Ian you silly sod!
Why did you ever think you would be able to install a simple program on a laptop ....

By installing Acceleration you implicit installed the SP's, as Acc contains SP2, and if it recognizes that you haven't installed SP1, it pulls one out from the pocket and throws that in too ;-)

So there you go, that isn't your problem.

Did you get that low FPS on a "untampered" default setup? No tweaking, no adjusting, no nothing? Just install and fly?

If you use the sliders, one thing to be aware of, is that half way settings in FSX equals full setting in FS9 (more or less) so don't expect to be able to pull all the sliders to the right.

[speedbird591]

Hi Ian you silly sod!
Why did you ever think you would be able to install a simple program on a laptop ....

I know! And to think that I didn't particularly want it! But why do men walk to the Poles? Why climb the highest mountains? Or dive the deepest depths? Because it's there. of course! It's what defines mankind :roll:

Anyway. No probs. With your and Ben's advice (and anybody else who has a suggestion, sensible or otherwise) we'll face the challenge and have lots of fun on the way

Thanks for the tips. I flew originally with the default (very low) settings as it installed, using the Cessna and the powered hang-glider thingy and got about 7-10 fps at LHR with no traffic. Fiddled about a bit and couldn't get it any better. Installed Acceleration and saw no improvement. One major problem was that it wouldn't open in full screen mode - just flashed on and off. I had to start in windowed mode (which switched off anti-aliasing and looked awful) and then change to full screen.

I'm going to start again from scratch. I didn't really make a note of everything that was happening as I was over confident about it the installation. This time I'll do it scientifically and note the problems as they occur. I've cleaned everything off, run crap cleaner and defrag. I'll leave it a couple of days to see what advice is forthcoming and then I thought I'd try this:

Let FSX install into its default location on my C: partition with the OS. Run it for a few cycles without the SPs and without altering the settings at all, reboot the laptop. Then install Acceleration, reboot again and see what we've got. Sound OK?

What do you think about installing the main NVidia forceware driver instead of using the laptop specific one? Are you familiar with the idea of using a modified information file to force a driver to install against its will?

Added complication: Vista has SP1 hovering in the background. Available now for download and force fed via Windows Update in a week or two. I wonder if it might be worth getting that trauma over with first

Cheers, Dan

Ian

[DanKH]

Well my religion has always been that SP's are made because they solve some issues.

I have all my adult life installed each and every hot-fix, sp, or other thingies that cam from Microsoft Update, at the same moment they were available. And I have never, ever seen any problems occurring, but always seen an improvement in someway useful or not, but still an improvement, never the other way. I may have been lucky all the time, but taking into consideration the amount of updates, I've installed through the years I think not. And this counts for both private and professional uses.

The same things applies to all my NON-MS programs eg. drivers and other programs.... never experienced any problems... at all.

"Quod Erat Demonstrandum"

Of course you have to decide for your self.

[SkippyBing]

Ian,

My laptop is a bit lower specced than yours, Centrino Duo, 1GB of RAM and an nVidia 7600 2 Go graphics card. It's running XP not Vista however I'm getting better frames than you, with FSX Acceleration (so both SP). Default A321 on the RWY at LHR I get between 10-15, once I'm off the ground it's up to 20 (Target FPS), as I normally don't hang around major airfields like LHR it's not a problem, and I could get higher there by reducing the AI traffic.
My setting are :-

Graphics Tab
Global settings - High
Native Screen Resolution set with Bilinear and Anti-Aliasing
Global Options - Global Texture resolution: High, Lens Flare and Advanced Animations

Aircraft Tab
Global Settings - Medium High
High resolution 3d VC
Aircraft casts shadows on ground, doesn't cast shadows on itself and landing lights illuminate ground (don't fly at night much so not sure how that affects stuff)

Scenery Tab
Global Settings - Custom
Level of Detail Radius - Medium
Mesh Complexity - 50
Mesh Resolution - 152m
Texture Resolution - 5m
Water Effects - High 1.x
Land detail textures
Scenery complexity - Very Dense
Autogen - Sparse
No ground scenery shadows
Special effects - Medium

Weather Tab
Global Settings - Medium Low
Cloud draw distance - 60mi
No thermal visualisations
Detailed clouds

Traffic Tab
Global Settings - Custom
Airline Traffic Density - 32%
GA Traffic Density - 30%
Airport Vehicle Density - Low
Road Vehicles - 32%
Ships and Ferries - 33%
Leisure Boats- 31%

I don't think I've ever tried updating the graphics drivers on the laptop. Also I'd say I had room to improve my frame rate at LHR by lowering some settings but as I normally fly out of Gib to test shipping and carrier aircraft it's not a problem for me. Just set FPS to unlimited and I'm getting an average of mid - 30 s at altitude.

[speedbird591]

Of course you have to decide for your self.

Spoken like a true guru - the ultimate get-out clause You must be a manager, Dan!

OK, taking full responsibility, I shall soon, before your very eyes, ladies and gentlemen, perform a Vista SP1 update. Da Dah!

And then...and then...

Skippy - many thanks for that set-up info. That will be really useful. It's also encouraging to know that my laptop specs shouldn't preclude me from running FSX OK. I think I'll leave the graphics card update as a last resort. The OEM one should be OK.

EDIT: Skippy - do you run it in full screen mode OK?

I probably won't get round to reloading for a few days, but I'd like to collect any advice before I do. I've got my annual 'Rules' exam next week. If anybody knows anybody in the Rail Industry they'll know about this exquisite form of torture. The Rules is the safety bible for anybody with a safety critical railway job and it makes British Airways annual 2 day aircrew SEP (safety equipment and procedures) look like a walk in the park! The Rules manual, just for guards, is 10cm thick and then there are two routes manuals (Western and Southern) of the same thickness to know intimately, as well as Traction (operation of the different types of train). The exam is a one to one with a manager and consists of 150 verbal questions over the space of 5-6 hours. So you see, I have a little bit of revision to do over the next few days.....

Ian

[DanKH]

... You must be a manager, Dan!...

Actually I'm on my way to it. Next call for a very intensive Course, the first step towards Project Manager ;-) So you're not half wrong there Ian ;-)

Break-a-leg with the exams!

Now:

[Myles]

Ian,

All the advice I've seen suggests that you should defrag your hard drive after installing FSX and after installing any service packs, as well as Acceleration.

It might not do too much for you, but it's worth a try!

Myles

[SkippyBing]

Ian,

I used to run in full screen no problems, I still can except I now have to reboot windows when I exit FSX!?! I think it's something I've added to FSX or my Windows install as it's only recently started doing it, I don't get the same problem if I run with a maximised window.
I sympathise with your exams, I have Flying Standards in about a months time which consists of a ground and an air 'trap' where they can ask me pretty much anything they want so at the moment I'm RTFM !!

[speedbird591]

Here's an update on the FSX saga. I first went for the Vista SP1 update which took about an hour and installed successfully. This is what it does:

I think Microsoft's marketing people got that from a condom machine :roll:

So then I defragged my C drive but it was pretty neat and only took 10 mins. Feeling that things were going my way, I stuck the FSX disk in and let it install wherever the hell it wanted to (C drive). Did a couple of flights without altering any settings, rebooted and installed Acceleration. Before running the sim, I followed Myles's advice about defragging after installation. I'm glad I did. Here's the result!



Two and a half hours with 21,000 fragmented files - 99% of which were FSX! No wonder it wouldn't fly before!

So, at last I fired it up and mirrored Skippy's settings to see how it compared to his laptop, but I set the fps limit to 40 to see what was possible:



That is what one would expect with the slightly higher spec, so I cranked up all the AI traffic to 50%, left all the other settings the same as Skippy's and got 15fps on the ground and 20-25 in the air. Also it loads straight into full screen mode with no problems. So I reckon that's it. Job done. I've got FSX running pretty good on a laptop.

Thank you very much for your advice, guys. I followed it and it worked and it's much appreciated. I hope this saga will help anybody else who runs into trouble. So the main differences from my first, unsuccessful installation were using the default location, Vista SP1, reboot between loading FSX and Acceleration and a post installation defrag.

Oh! Just one more question. Now I've got FSX - what the hell do I do with it?

Ian

[SkippyBing]

Ian,

Congrats, now use it for what it's good for and get down in the weeds
Oh and carrier landings, I hear there's a moving Ark available for it...