FSX settings

[speedbird591]

OK I got it Tempted by the wip shots of Rick's Jetstream I did a furtive search for the cheapest FSX offer around. Amazon's £17.73 with free p & p for FSX Gold was so silly that I couldn't think of a reason not to

As there's no hurry to set it up, I thought I'd do it step by step and keep it simple, like me. So to save loads of pointless fiddling time, what I want is some advice on the settings I should start with.

The platform is my laptop. Windows 7 HP 32bit. Core 2 duo P7450 2.13GHz. 4Gb DDR2 RAM. Graphics NVidia 9600M GT with 1Gb. Not particularly powerful but runs FS9 maxed out with 100% World of AI traffic at around 20 fps.

FSX installation went smoothly as did Acceleration. I haven't tweaked any settings but I've loaded three add-on airports and one aircraft (DG's Beaufighter). As I'd bought the FS9 versions I was able to load the FSX versions of FlyTampa KaiTak and UK2000 LHR and BRS at no extra charge.

It all seems to be working OK but looks a bit basic and the AA is off. So what I want is the accumulated wisdom as to where my settings should be for a good starting point. Specifically:

DX10 Preview on or off?
Anti Aliasing on card or program?
nHancer or not?
Filtering mode?
Any suggestions as to sliders position?
Limited or unlimited frame rate?
Does AI traffic install in the same way as FS9?

And any other advice anyone can offer. I figure I can save some time if I use your experience before I start meddling and get lost and frustrated!

Many thanks

Ian

[Rick Piper]

Hi Matey

AA on
AF on
Nhancer installed (if you are NVidia)

sliders for Autogen about half way and water one down from max
rest depends on how smooth you want it
I have frames locked at 22 as it works smoothest for me at 22 (21.9 fps)

any more and it gets stuttery in turns

DX 10 preview off as it causes far more problems than it improves FSX

the only thing i like about DX10 preview mode is the water effects in rough weather

Regards
Rick

[TSR2]

Disk IO on a laptop is going to be a bugger mate as you've only got one physical drive which isn't particularly fast (unless its a Solid Sate one?) so it may chug a bit.

[Rick Piper]

Sorry didn't see it was a Laptop

most laptops can't run at half the graphics power of the same lever desktop so not sure

Regards
Rick

[DaveB]

Hi Ian..

You can always try the link posted on my 'Pausing' thread.. http://www.forum.aerosoft.com/index.php?showtopic=30796

It didn't fix my pausing though things do look quite nice

ATB

DaveB

[speedbird591]

Thanks Rick, Ben and Dave.

Using Rick's basic advice as a starting point, I've been messing around in the default Cessna and 101 at a few places and playing with the sliders. It's looking very promising, despite the laptop limitations. Gradually moving the display sliders up, the best balance seems to be around 'High' which still gives me a smooth flight at around 20 fps with dips to 14 - which is better than I was expecting. That was at Kai Tak but I haven't tried it at LHR yet.

I've downloaded that pdf, Dave, and I'll work my way through it. Looks like some very interesting stuff in there, thank you, but I'm sorry to hear it hasn't cured your pauses

I'll tinker with it for a while before I start throwing AI at it and see what that does It was certainly worth £17.73 even if I don't use it much until the jetstream is finished

Thanks again for all your advice

Ian

[speedbird591]

CHANNEL FOUR NEWS FLASH!

LIVE from Kai Tak



Yay! My retro AI transferred to FlyTampa FSX with no problems. In fact all of my World of AI has also transferred across merely by dragging and dropping the aircraft and traffic bgls - so my UK2000 Heathrow and Bristol are also fully populated.

I've been using Mathijs Kok's document, linked to by Dave, for tuning and am now getting comparable frame rates to FS9 with comparable graphics. As FSX runs more smoothly than FS9 I can afford to trade some more fps for even better graphics as I experiment. But it's a good starting point.

I've installed DM's Trident as per Ben's instructions and we've done our first landing into HKG. I found it very difficult without a 2D panel but I could probably get used to it. Is it possible to display the 2D panel in DM's aircraft in FSX? It doesn't come up when you cycle 'S' and I can't see it on a 'views' menu so I expect it's been taken away as a punishment for being old-fashioned A crime to which I plead guilty, but with mitigating circumstances

Cheers for now

Ian

[TSR2]

Hi Ian, 2D panels are all there mate, simply click Views > Cockpit and select 2D or VC. The setting you choose there will then stayuntil you change it back... e.g. if you select 2D panel and then Cycle through the views, you'll get the 2D showing in place of the VC.

RE your traffic.... its not quite as straight forward as you think. By copying over the FS9 bgl files, you disable the FSX ones, meaning that none of the good stuff will work... i.e. ships! You can easily convert the FS9 bgl's to FSX ones, but so long as you have 1 FS9 traffic file, any that are native FSX format won't display.

[DaveB]

Tks for the report Ian

BTW.. that default Bell Jetranger not only flies well, it is incredibly easy on FR's. I was looking at the freeware version of UK2000 Manchester which as mentioned, is about 25% of the Extreme version and I was wondering if the frame hit I was seeing was a little excessive.. so much so that I might have problems with the full version should I ever get round to buying it (I'll add that I was in the new Tiger Moth at the time). I changed to the UKMIL Puma and movement in the sim got a little smoother then changed to the default Jetranger with Rick's BEA FJ paint and it went silky smooth.
This of course has nothing to do with your FSX install but it does show what very good FR's you get off something you'd presume would hog them due to it having a ferkin' big whizzy thing on the top

ATB

DaveB

[speedbird591]

RE your traffic.... its not quite as straight forward as you think.

How did I know that was coming?

Thanks, Ben. It explains why I haven't got any ships in Hong Kong harbour

Sooo ... how do I convert a FS9 traffic bgl to a FSX one? And if I've got to do it individually to all those WoAI ones then, as far as HKG harbour goes, I'd be scared shipless!

Ian