Classic British Flight Sim

In January I bought the Feelthere Phenom 100 with quite a good manual which contained a tutorial flight of about 55minutes. I thought that this would be an excellent way to learn how to use a modern glass cockpit in Windows FSX. At that time my operating system was Windows 7.

A week or so ago along came MS with what appeared to be a compulsory installation of Windows 10.

Afterwards I ran the FeelThere aircraft as "Administrator" and have attempted the tutorial flight several times - I have never completed it satisfactorily!

First I was surprised to see that the framerates set at my target speed of 25FPS were reaching only 14-15 sometimes 10 when taxying at the default scenery. Once in the air the framerates behaved erratically reaching 4-5 just prior to landing. I contacted Feelthere support and they suggested that I should upgrade my Graphics card drivers. I have an Nvidia 950 GTX and the most recent drivers are three days old today. New drivers installed and off I went again; some improvement but framerates still very, very low with landing impossible using default FSX scenery.

Just caught a paragraph in the latest issue of PC Pilot magazine suggesting that some W10 problems with FSX could be solved by running Windows 10 in "Administrator" mode. Did that.

Once again unto the tutorial breach today. Much improvement 24-26 FPS all the way until fully established on the ILS at the destination, suddenly the framerates dropped to 1.7FPS!!! I just shut the whole caboodle off in disgust.

Persistance can sometimes pay off and I have flown the tutorial route in a similar freeware aircraft at a solid 25FPs all the way to the terminal. The Feelthere Phenom is the only aircraft in my FSX library to display such low framerates.Other users of this product with different computers to mine have reported similar low framerates over a considerable period of time. I have saved the program to a disk and deleted from my FSX library. If a solution is found I shall be very pleased to re-install this aircraft. The great thing about this Phenom is the fact that it does look good and the navigation and autopilot systems work very well together.

I have been in touch with FeelThere Support who stated that they have no idea why this problem affects some users and not others and it was they who suggested that I should upgrade my graphics card drivers.

I feel that the product is, at present, not entirely suitable to run on Windows 10 plus FSX.

Does any forum member have any idea what may be causing this type of unsatisfactory low framerates? Please note that only default scenery and UT2 was being used but no weather program was running during my attempts at the tutorial flight.

Hi Hobby

I don't have a pc with FSX and Win10 nor do I have the Phenom or UT2 so my suggestion may be out of place. From what you're saying.. it all goes pear-shaped pretty much when you're established on the ILS. You don't say which airport though you do say it's default FSX. You also have UT2 running.

1. Try pulling your traffic slider back a bit. If you have it set to 100%.. you're more than likely seeing more traffic than is realistic.. especially if the airport you're flying into is a big one. The drawback of pulling the sliders back is you can often see little or no traffic at smaller airports. Worth a try though.

2. Try programming the tutorial to fly somewhere else. I take it the tutorial is in essence, getting you used to using the FMC so instead of going to the airport it lists.. go to a different one and wing it.

Go with turning down UT2 first and see how you go. Dare I say it but the longer the flight.. the more likely this is going to happen (your slowing down that is) because your VAS can get to a point where you'll start bouncing off the 4gig FSX limit. FSX isn't particularly good at forgetting where it's been I'm afraid.
ATB
DaveB

Hi Dave

Yes, I shall try turning down UT2 first. I have adjusted Airline traffic from 60% down to 40%, Airport vehicles from medium to low and road vehicles from 40% to 25%.

Real Life today means that I cannot complete the tutorial now but aim to do so by Wednesday.

I shall also try flying a 60 minute flight in that aircraft between two other airports just for fun!!

Thanks for your suggestions - will inform you of results.

PS: the tutorial instructions state that no weather or AI should be used but that seems very unrealistic to me.

ATB

I don't have the Phenom either, but looking at the sales page it states that it's "FS9 or FSX", which makes me wonder if it's a port-over. FS9 port-overs can be harder on frame rates than an equivalent FSX native model.

Good point Dave. I've just had a look too and there's nothing to say it's an FSX native model. Published system spec would be fine for FS9 and anything requiring that spec for FSX native should go like S off a shovel.. not drag you down to 1.7fps

First time I've looked at Feelthere. I thought they were a dev but they appear to be similar to JF in selling other folks stuff while releasing some titles under their own banner.
ATB
DaveB

First of all I contacted Nvidia.com this evening and one of their support staff checked that I was running the correct driver for my GeForce GTX 970 with W10 operating system. All the graphics card details were verified and I am running the correct and very recently released (365.1). Time to get back to the FeelThere tutorial flight.

Frame rates recorded tonight were as follows:

Parked, brakes on setting up systems and engines started: 25 FPS
Taxying default scenery, reduced AI, no weather, no FS ATC: 17.0 - 21.0
T/o and climb: 19.5 - 20.0
Sustained climb to FL 320: 18.6, 23.7, 16.9, 17.0
Cruise M0.61: 16.4
Descent to 6500ft: 16.0,24.0,13.4, 10.7
Approach: 11.5,12.0,
ILS G/S and 500ft: 2.1,2.0
Switch off prior to WOG. Exasperated.

What a pity, beautiful aircraft, most of the nav and AP systems work but one cannot land safely!

As the famous rabbit used to say, for this aircraft for now, "That's All Folks!!"

Off to use my Camsim FSX Phenom 300 to tour Europe using a modified panel and that excellent new GPS v1.6 for FSX only by G Munro it does do more, and very clearly too, than the default FSX GPS.