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SP1 Tips

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Here are some general suggestions and a few tips I have gleaned from the forums.

General Performance

The goal of SP1 was:

· to increase performance 20-40%

· to enable FSX to take advantage of multi-core machines

· fix some other bugs

There was not a goal to make FSX playable with all sliders to maximum. Those settings likely aren’t going to be possible in all cases with current hw.

Ok, so what is possible? That is dependent on your specific config and your specific flying profile.

A technique to determine what is possible is as follows:

· Decide on a minimum frame rate, like 20.

· Lock FPS to that rate.

· Start with all sliders left, and slowly turn them up until you find a setting that makes you dip below your rate.

· Then back off and you are at the level of what your machine can handle.

In general, even with SP1, it’s still true that at max settings FSX throws more at the CPU and GPU than the hw can handle. As I said last November, that is the way we designed FSX. SP1 helps some yes. And the Penryn 45-nm processors this fall will give us another boost. The DX10 update might help a bit, as will 2nd generation DX10 cards. So more help is on the way. But, just as with FS9, in the 1st year expecting to run on max settings is still going to be problematic.

 

I would also suggest saving a couple of different settings, one for dense urban, one for mixed coastal urban, one for mostly flat rural, and one for mountainous rural. That lets you have settings that bias towards what is most important in what region instead of a "one size fits all approach".

Specific Issues

I can’t claim to have a suggestion for all the specific problems I have seen so far, but here are a couple of good ones for specific issues. Note - I can only claim that multiple users state these work, I haven’t tried all of them myself:

Crashes in atiumdag.dll on ATI?

 

Reports indicate that disabling Catalyst AI fixes this.

Stutters on nVidia

 

 dg on avsim reports indicate the following procedure greatly helps:

1. Update DirectX to the April 2007 release. The link is below.

April 2007 DirectX Link
https://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-bc6a-9b6652cd92a3&DisplayLang=en

2. Install updated drivers ( nVidia recently released the 158.22 nVidia Forceware drivers ) and we hear that a release in 2-3 weeks will fix the texture locking issue that the glass panel tweak addresses.

3. Delete your fsx.cfg and let FSX generate a new one.

Blurries

Gary Summons reports that adding

 

[DISPLAY.Device.xxx.0]
MipBias=6

 

To your fsx.cfg file reduces or eliminates the blurries especially with photo-scenery

 

Note: xxx is whatever your fsx.cfg shows for your graphics config.

Edit1:

I have seen people try values of 4-7 with varying success as well.

Edit2:

Thanks to weeniemcween on avsim.com, if this tweak induces shimmer in the trees, there are 2 things to try:

1) nhancer nvidia control panel, turn supersampling on ( ati must have an equivalent, I just dont know it )

2) if the 4x4 overdraw from 1 is killing your perf, try setting "Negative LOD BIAS" to "Clamp" rather than "Allow"

Comments

  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2007
    Jerm: good data, thanks for the comment.

  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 23, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    I've noticed some problems when I play recorded flight video- the wheels don't show up when landing.

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    Weidlich: We aim to be  IHV neutral, so eithers cards should work just fine. There is a noticeable benefit from 512 over 256 m. I am not sure if there is the same from 768 over 512m , thats probably worth asking on some of the forums.

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    Aberforth: thats not something we changed, and if you care about it you should make a bug report via the feedback link on fsinsider.com

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    NickN: interesting data, you should reply in the forum instead of letting it get buried here.

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 24, 2007
    Phil, I realize that this is not a tech support site but this relates directly to the SP1 update installation, by Aces. I just noticed simconnect has disappeared from my system since I did the reinstall and update.  Pete Dowson stated this on his website: http://forums.simflight.com/viewtopic.php?t=58095&sid=7836d5270cc6b046e227104c6a75b0ed He descibes the following "Re-installing SimConnect Sometimes it seems that the FSX install does not install SimConnect properly, and re-installing it seems to fix problems with Add-Ons. Do not resort to a complete FSX re-install, as the same mis-install of SimConnect seems to re-occur. Instead try the following:

  1. Find and delete the following file folder (change the C:WINDOWS part to your Windows folder if it isn't in the standard place): C:WINDOWSWinSxSx86_Microsoft.FlightSimulator.SimConnect_67c7c14424d61b5b_10.0.60905.0_x-ww_429211e9
  2. Insert the FSX CD, and run the repair utility. This should do the trick." The files on my files are titled as follows (I cannot find the file named by Pete Dowson): x86_microsoft.flightsimulator.simconnect_67c7c14424d61b5b_10.0.60905.0_none_dd92b94d8a196297 x86_microsoft.flightsimulator.simconnect_67c7c14424d61b5b_10.0.61242.0_none_e079b46b85043c20 What should I do and is there a new simconnect file?  What should I delete and what should I reinstall? Should I use the original CD? Your help here would be greatly appreciated or at least a direction to go in.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Phil, It looks like the Vista drivers for nvidia are still 158.18. Just an FYI

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Surfsup: I would suggest either Z's blog or the simconnect forum on avsim.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Phil, Thank you for your reply.  Files in the WinSxS directory are very, very hard to remove but finally managed it by drilling down.   Unfortunately had to re-install to get everything working again, but have that down to science as do other persons who own Vista Ultimate. Agree with the MipMaps opinions, too much sparkle. What does PerfBucket=7 do?  Some sites say that increasing it to 70 works better.  Should one mess with this tweak or leave it alone? Thank you for your help.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Hey, Just wanted to say that the performance on my system nearly doubled, thanks!! I am running a GF8800GTX on a single-core A64 3500+ (yeah, yeah, didnt have enough money to update both GPU as CPU but its pending :) ). I also didnt notice the blurries problem so many people seem to be complaining about. I only have this when I slew very fast to another place, it takes about 60 seconds to load all the textures and objects. But when I am simply flying at normal speeds, I dont see any problems at all, so I dont understand what everyone is talking about.... Or is everyone slewing?? hehe. I didnt touch my cfg-file and I am using the highest possible textures (I guess thats one of the reasons why 786MB VRAM comes in handy?). Happy flying, Niels

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Surfsup: perfbucket is the bucket we assign to your computer, 1-7. I do not believe setting it to 70 does anything at all, that must be the placebo effect.

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
    Phil, Just wondering - if the Nvidia driver team is working on FS issues, could you ask them to look at this long standing issue with windowed mode and anti-aliasing on?  What happens is this - it works for a while, but then switching between windows/apps etc causes the lower half of the view to revert to a static image of the panel or whatever else the first thing the card rendered was when the issue triggered.  It's kinda hard to explain but just mess around in windowed mode on a GF 7 or 8 series card for a while with 4XAA and Transparency AA on and it'll happen.  Mousing over a tooltip will put the lower half of the screen into this bugged state. Thanks! Ryan

  • Anonymous
    May 25, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 26, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 27, 2007
    Phil, please can someone tell me what in the good name of FSX is "blurries", is there screenshots anywhere on the net to view such "blurries", the other thing to mention about "blurries", is it only at altitude flying i.e. 30,000ft + or does is apply to VFR flying as well. My scenery is set at Very Dense Autogen and i'm experiencing no problems at all, at about 25,000ft the terrain obviously doesn't look that smooth but then again should it? I find setting my fps limiter to unlimited produces the best results. Over EHAM (Amsterdam) getting between 35fps and 65fps, never drops below 35fps, even after landing and parking at the gates.

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2007
    Tabs: nVidia has to comment on their specific issues, I just get to comment on the ones where we are working together and I know there is a resolution. outside of that, it just isnt my place to comment.

  • Anonymous
    May 29, 2007
    Shel: many enthusiast sites, like avsim.com, flightsimworld.com, etc - have threads about the blurries. something on their systems is causing contention so that the terrain texture generation is always behind. its strange. if you want to see screenshots, go read a couple of the threads.

  • Anonymous
    May 30, 2007
    Hi Phil, Thanks for the info, definetly not a problem on my PC. For anyone else out there, i've been flying full ILS approaches and have figured out a very easy way to auto land your aircraft using the NAV1 + NAV2 switches on the radio stack.

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    I have seen a great increase in quality and frame rates. I just ordered a new VIDEO CARD 8800GTS with 640 MB of Video Memory and I hope that improves my sim even further. Thank you,

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
    Hi Phil, It's probably not the right time or place but i was just wondering has work started on the DX10 update ? Would users with Vista and a DX10 card reap some serious rewards with it or will it be all superficial - Visuals, Performance etc. Also even though my system is running everything maxed out except traffic turned to 50% and autogen set to very dense i have 2 gig of ram and have heard that fsx and vista are ram hungry. would you suggest throwing another 2 gig in or would their be no benefit ? Thank's for your time E6600 Core2Duo 2 Gig ram 8800GTX

  1. 400 gig HDD
  2. 300 gig HDD

  • Anonymous
    May 31, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2007
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  • Anonymous
    June 07, 2007
    SCLincoln: Thats a tough one. We will use as many cores as are available, but we also like a fast CPU. I'd say unless the speed difference is >25%, more cores are probably better. Overall, just buy what you could afford, fly, and be happy.

  • Anonymous
    June 11, 2007
    The Q6600 it is then.  Thanks a lot.

  • Anonymous
    March 05, 2009
    Thank you for the article. It is very helpful and has lots of good tips!