I just RE-installed the best flight simulator

I'm about to do the same, all the good features that are in FS2004 have been removed in FSX......cockpit raindrops, snow effects etc....

Plus, with all those great addons like airports and scenery available for FS2004, it makes no sense to go out and buy FSX. For now I will stick with the demo and save my cash for something worthy of $70 😂

I also timed my loading times, from clicking Fly now till I'm in the cockpit:

FSX, all graphics at low: 2 min 50 sec!

FS2004, all graphics at high: 25 seconds!! 😀

You get my point or what?

what system are you running? Sounds like the sort of loading times you would get on a ZX spectrum!!

I get pretty quick loading times with FSX, certainly well under a minute.

P4, 3.6
2.5gig ram
NVidia 6500gt 256mb.

NSX wrote:

I also timed my loading times, from clicking Fly now till I'm in the cockpit:

FSX, all graphics at low: 2 min 50 sec!

FS2004, all graphics at high: 25 seconds!! 😀

You get my point or what?

I get your point. It is to spread FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt). Why are people advertising how badly their computers suck?

Every time a new product appears, some people just have to say, "I can't get it to work, so it must be bad."

About 30 seconds for me with settings in FSX on high.

I have 2 gigs of ram and an Intel dual core processor.

Good for you NSX, now go back to the FS2004 forums and leave us alone until you get a modern computer, lets say, when FSXI comes out?

I didn't posted this to "FUD"

All I'm saying is the average computer isn't up to FSX, I'm not saying it's bad. When I'm gonna buy a new PC I will be able to play it smoother but until then I have to keep playing FS2004.

So it's not about scaring peeps, just to reconsider if your system will run it smoothly, and not make the same mis-judgement I did.

My System:
AMD Athlon 2.1 Ghz
512 RAM
128 MB NVIDIA GeForce4

Minimun showed that would be enough but as most of us know it isn't.

Just trying to help people with this, not pissing them of

I agree.. My husband bought me a new PC for Christmas.. ( i cant use it until then. lol.), its Vista Capapble and should handle FSx better than the one im using now. (it better be for 3k ).

Anyway, im reinstalling FS2004 and putting FSX on the shelf. The poor frame rates are deploring enough, but having to wait until there are planes and scenery to add on is unbearable.

Like the one guy said.. save your money until you get a new pc. FSX is not what it shows on the screenshots and on the tv commercials unless you have a supercomputer from NASA.

NSX wrote:

I didn't posted this to "FUD"

All I'm saying is the average computer isn't up to FSX, I'm not saying it's bad. When I'm gonna buy a new PC I will be able to play it smoother but until then I have to keep playing FS2004.

So it's not about scaring peeps, just to reconsider if your system will run it smoothly, and not make the same mis-judgement I did.

My System:
AMD Athlon 2.1 Ghz
512 RAM
128 MB NVIDIA GeForce4

Minimun showed that would be enough but as most of us know it isn't.

Just trying to help people with this, not pissing them of

Since this is the first time in this thread that you've posted your computer specs, I can understand the problem you encountered. Had you said that the minimum system requirements were unrealisticly low, I don't think anyone would disagree. Those requirements are based on a fresh install of Windows with nothing other than FSX added. That is not realistic in the real world.

By the way, comparing stock FSX and FS9 loading times is a bit like comparing apples and oranges. There is a lot more to FSX than there is to FS9. I have both on this machine. FS9 had about $1000 worth of addons and takes about 40 seconds longer to load that FSX which is on a slower drive.

Now that you have clarified things, I agree that you were not trying to spread FUD.

EDIT: If the subject of your post had been FSX needs more power than my computer has, rather than, I just RE-installed the best flight simulator, some misunderstanding could have been avoided.

All graphics on high in FS9 with them specs? I must have been doing something really wrong 🤔

Your current specs will really, really struggle with FSX. Good luck for when you get a better machine. 👍

Thanks CrashGordon,
I just don't want other fans to make the same mistake I did.

Cheers, NSX

I don't think the graphics or extras like birds, boats and motor vehicles is really enough to justify spending $70 on FSX and then $100's on a new system to actually get FSX working smoothly.

FSX is very disappointing IMO and after seeing the VFR scenery addon that is now available for FSX, it confirms my findings that Microsoft has not really put that much effort into improving the scenery...it's not that much improved than FS9.

I am afraid I agree that the spec requirement for FSX is obscenely high.

I run a dual core AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800.

I have 2GB of DDR400 RAM.

I have a single Nvidia Geforce 7800GTX video card.

I have 2 SATA hard drives installed with plenty of space on them.

Even with that set up, FSX takes quite a long time to load and is jerky if the sliders are up.

I can have most of the sliders at maximum but have to turn down the autogen scenery in order to make FSX run smoothly. I am a little annoyed at this because I feel that my specs are not the average simmer's specs. If I'm struggling with what I consider to be quite a high end set up, its not fair on those who have a more average PC.

I do have room on the motherboard for 2GB more of RAM and I could put a second graphics card in but that would be a ridiculous amount of hardware to run a flight simulation.

My FS9 takes like 5 minutes to load.

But yeah, I don't use the default FS9 so I have no reason to use the default FSX.

NSX wrote:

Thanks CrashGordon,
I just don't want other fans to make the same mistake I did.

Cheers, NSX

Considering that I've seen posts from people who bought it when they didn't have a DVD-ROM drive, I don't think anything said here is going to matter much. 😂

There's something to be said for tweaking. I have a power house of a computer with SLI, top dual core AMD CPU (CPU alone cost me $1300), 10k rpm hard drives, 4gb cas 2 ram, XP 64 bit, and the game out of the box on high was painful.

Where the pain happened though was based on the autogen. I noticed that FSX has an insane draw distance for autogen which is what, at least on my computer, makes it crazy slow. For example I could see entire towns being drawn with 1 pixel by 2 pixel sized houses 80 miles away (could tell by the shimmering). I mean the houses were like 1 pixel by 2 pixel!

Microsoft should have the autogen cut off after a certain point because then the sim doesn't need to draw 1,000 cars, 5,000 houses, 10,000 trees, and a dozen other large buildings you can barely see anyway. Even if it doesn't entirely draw them, it still needs to process them and calculate them and this is noticed when you spin the camera around.

Anyway I used the tweaks plasterred all over these and other forums, cut down my autogen to be the lowest possible, and the game runs great now perfectly smooth 30fps regular. It will slow down in areas like say LAX because I have Air Traffic AI up to 100% (I hated the major international airports with 4 planes only default setting) but outside of that everything is smooth.

Went skimming through the Grand Canyon yesterday, have an addon scenery pack for North America, graphics to max, textures to 19 metres, 100% mesh complexity, and didn't drop under 40fps. That's on my rig. I'd imagine a middle of the road could at medium graphics do fine if you whack away the autogen.

Hopefully MS adds an ability to reduce distance autogen is created. I bet that would help everyone out.

Your PC sounds like a dream machine 😀

I also totally cutted out autogen. But still my loading times are really long.
As soon as it runs, it runs well.

Like I said earlier: my clean install of FSX takes 2 and a half minute to load to main menu and another 2 and a half minute to start from clicking fly now to the cockpit.

On my clean install of FS2004 those numbers are 25-30 seconds each.

So what would cause that huge longer loading times?

One of the reasons is the mesh. It is much more detailed in FSX, and therefore a lot more data needs to be read.. See what happens to FS9 loading time if you replace the default mesh with LOD10 mesh.

I'm runing a decent spec, but not High end:

Windows XP
AMD 4400X2 2.2Ghz overclocked to 2.4GHz
2GB Dual channel DDR
7800GT 256MB Overclocked

I can't manage to get the Graphics on high on FSX, but I can manage around medium high settings.I would imagine high-end graphics cards with 512MB of graphics memory should manage FSX far better. FSX is really going to see potential on the Vista operating system and the next Generation DX10 graphics cards. I will probably upgrade my Graphics card around Vista time. For the time being I'm using FS2004 because its smoother and the scenery add ons look class.
I can't believe MS quote such ridicolous Minimum specs! People with machines meeting the minimum specs have no chance too be honest. MS might as well say "These are the minimum specs.................oh by the way I hope you like slide shows! 😂 "

Oh btw with my rig mentioned above which lands me 5 digit scores in 3DMark 2006, it still takes 4 1/2 minutes to load FSX from the selector screen to ready to fly. I chalk it up to more complex graphic and scenery/mesh data since comparing between it and FS2004 standard no addons, FSX is much more detailed to me.

I have a huge DEM addon of North American scenery for FSX which added an extra minute or so (was originally 3 1/2 minutes to load) but I just watch TV while it does it's thing. After that it's smooth sailing.

Also something I found, UPGRADE drivers lol. I upgraded my nVidia drives yesterday to the new ones posted with the SLI update and my game was even faster yesterday. Loaded a bit quicker but just looking around and drawing cities / navigating busy cities was a lot smoother.

No different to the computer, just updated drivers. I do agree though that the minimum specs are fairly unrealistic.

Ok then ... in a dream world where i had all the money i wanted ... what would i need to run FSX full tilt with all sliders up ... basically what would i need to play the game at the highest level?

my current computer is stuffing up ... both dvd drives i have died and the things full of viruses ... im looking at a new one and would like to know what i need to run FSX at the highest quality.

Thanks,

James

Take a look at https://forum.flyawaysimulation.com/forum/topic/22327/first-fsx-shots/

If that looks like something you can live with, he gives his computer specs below the screenshots.

Just a thought if you ctrl alt del and bring up task manger with fSX running and set its priority to ABOVE NORMAL it seems to make it respond as if its getting upwards of 30 fps when its saying its getting around 10fps. another thought is to just ditch the intel chips and go with the AMD.

SPECS
winxp sp2
2KW powersupply
AMD AM2 FX-60 dual core
4GB DDR2 ram
2x Nvidia 7950x2 SLI
Custom Water Cooling
4x 500mb 10000rpm SATA HD
2x 16xdvd/rw with lightScribe
1x 5.25"floppy

Its true that some games might run better if optimised for an AMD or Intel. However AMD is no longer the performance leader because Intels Core 2 Duo is the superior Processor. AMDs new FX 62 despite being super expense just can't compete with much cheaper core 2 Duo chips.Even intels lowest Core 2 Duo processors are really good performers .AMD are no longer the best bang for buck as they once were.

Anonymous wrote:

my current computer is stuffing up ... both dvd drives i have died and the things full of viruses ... im looking at a new one and would like to know what i need to run FSX at the highest quality.

Well.......... some antivirus software for a start.
Then, a Tardis to go into the future and purchase a bug free version of Vista and a DX10 video card. Get me one of each as well. I'll Paypal you.

The problem with AutoGen on FSX is that on the MINIMUM autogen setting, FSX generates more autogen than FS2004 does on it's max setting !

So as has been said above, this needs to be tweaked.

These tweaks (which cover autogen) made a HUGE difference to FSX on my system:-

https://flyawaysimulation.com/news/3806/

😀 😀 😀 😂 😎

hey hey!

got a quote for a new computer ... would fsx work at top end graphics on this?

Pentium D 945 3.4Ghz 2MB L2Cache 800fsb
1.0 GB DDR2 533 MHz Ram
160 GD SATA Hard Drives
Radeon X1600Pro 256MB 128bit DDR2, DVI, TV-out, 800/500MHz Mem/GPU CLK
Floppy Drive
On Board Sound LAN
Integrated Graphics adaptor
LG Dual Layer DVD Burner
Integrated graphics
Integrated Sound and LAN Card
Windows XP Home SP2

the RAM can be upgraded to 2 GB if needed?

thanks