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...It's one of the hardest thing to gain when dealing with customers from afar. Still, it is possible. I suggested to the folks on AvSim to capture some objective data to back up their experience when running the new sim. Specifically what I suggested was to send the output from DXDIAG.EXE and a snapshot of FSX settings (by saving them to a separate .CFG file) to our tell_fs@microsoft.com alias. I don't know if the folks that own that alias really wanted all the mail but, hey, I thought it would help. In fact, here's an email we received today:

Hi, I was advised by Tdragger from avsims.com to write an e-mail with my dxdiag and fsx.cfg file attached.  I am expecting more out a brand new game with brand new technology.  FPS is slow and the graphics are not good.  The thing that gets me about the graphics is mainly the ground.  It looks so blurry and zoomed in.  It looks like a satellite picture that is zoomed in so we are flying over a zoomed in picture.  Then the buildings and houses are just put right on top of it.  Not realistic looking at all.  I was wondering if it could be the fact that I need to upgrade ram or video card because my cpu is fine.  Thanx for your time.

 

-Dave

One of our developers forwarded the email internally with this reply:

Sounds like he's running out of video memory and G2D/D3D are throwing out the highest detail mips to free up space. He's got his terrain texture resolution set to 7 cm. Setting it back to 1 meter might free up enough memory to clear up the problem. Anti-aliasing and high screen resolutions also chew up memory. Turning off anti-aliasing or switching to a lower screen resolution may help.

Heck, sounds reasonable to me. I hope Dave checks my blog!

 

Anyway, I can't guarantee you'll get this sort of customized help but if you're so inclined, here's how to produce the files I mentioned:

  1. Click Start, then Run...
  2. Type 'dxdiag' and press Enter.
  3. Click the 'Save all information' button.
  4. Save the file (default name = 'dxdiag.txt').

Then...

  1. Run FSX.
  2. Click 'Settings' from the left hand menu.
  3. Click the 'Save...' button.
  4. Save the file (will have a .CFG extension).

Send those two files--to us or anyone you think might help!

Comments

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2006
    Hi Mike, Great advice, I hope that you guys get some good feedback, and perhaps enough information to put together some sort of FAQ with solutions such as the example you have gave us.  It seems that this version of the sim will take a bit more customization to give everyone the experience they desire. The AutoGen code that Paul gave us worked wonders for me personally - I'm getting much better performance now with a lower population per cell.  I've got each set to 600.  Am I right in that being much like the max that FS9 would give us? Best, Owen

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2006
    Are you interested in any data from Vista 5744?  That is probably where I am going to start.

  • Anonymous
    October 12, 2006
    Mike, What is the area of a "cell"? Square mile, half mile,? Just curious. BTW, don't have retail till Tuesday, but having a great time using Demo2. Great job on the newest incarnation of FS! Thanks!

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 13, 2006
    My second biggest question is will I see any benefit in performance FSX running it on Vista (RC2), as it has DX10? Would the FS team like some feedback (like Scott S. said)? My biggest question though is why did the scenery designers recreate the stadiums of Birmingham City and Aston Vill (football/soccer clubs), and not include the stadium of my team Liverpool, with their ground Anfield being famous throughout the world!?!? Seriously though, despite all the winging going on, I'm perfectly satisfied now I've figured out the best settings for my PC! One satisfied customer.

  • Anonymous
    October 14, 2006
    Bought it at 14:00, got a refund at 16:20. FPS of 7 to 11 when at larger airports flying heavy metal.  Intel 3.4 Dual Core, NVidea 7600 256 PCI Express, 2GB RAM.I will stick with FS9. John

  • Anonymous
    October 15, 2006
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    October 18, 2006
    You can't sell a product which won't run on any existing system! I just can't believe it! A friend of mine uses 3Ghz Pentium CPU, 2 GIGs of memory and 2 NVidia 7800GT Graphic Adapters AND IT DOESN'T RUN PROPERLY! I'm quite angry.