fsx /vista/ xp pro

[Prof Bill]

Hi Bill,

You know, this is not very accurate. Microsoft ONLY says that DX10 is only with VISTA. I tell NO!!!!!!

Take a closer look. DX10 is avaliable for WP at least as a project. So, it is matter of time to have DX10 at Xp officially.

http://www.technospot.net/blogs/down...-alky-project/

You are of course quite right but the Intellectual Property content of DX10 is owned by Microsoft.
By the time DX10 is ported legally to and works effectively, efficiently and fully supported on XP, I suspect we will have moved on to the successor of VISTA which is well advanced in the development pipe line.

Bill.

[Paul G]

FSX is a CPU requirement program and not a GPU. It is all about rendering and rendering is coming out of the cpu. The gpu just display to the screen all the images.

Thank you Achilles. Important info here as I realize that my video card is probably not the issue. However at times I get a load of vertical lines appear on screen which does suggest that there is a problem, perhaps it's defective, over-heating or simply crashes.

There are things about my rig that could be factors in terms of performance. Well they are:

1. I'm running 3 screens (LCDs), originally at native resolutions but now somewhat downgraded, expecting this to bump up frame rates
2. I only have a 320Mb Nvidia 8800 GTS. This was because at the time it appeared that's all that one needed and it was meant to be a smidgen faster than the 640mb
3. I haven't bothered overclocking anything
4. I have an Intel E6600 dual core processor running at 2.4 (stock)
5. I have Ultimate Terrain, X-Graphics AND My Traffic all running although with low settings

However, I defragment the hard drive frequently using Ultimate Defrag. Graphically it looks like its doing good and I DO experience faster disk access, especially during loading of the sim, and less blurries.

I just reinstalled FSX and it now runs beautifully again. Perhaps I should reconsider which add-ons I want to add. I'm going to get a snapshot of the install as it is. FSX with SP2 installed but nothing else. Then instead of a mammoth uninstall and reinstall every couple of months, I can just restore base and re-install the add-ons

For some reason I get blurred textures which seem to degrade over time, almost like they're being damaged by use of an add-on that eventually makes me thing that it's time for another re-install. Thankfully FSX hasn't yet complained about being installed millions of times although I think this is ok on the same machine.

Would upgrading the processor be the best bang for buck (or frame rate increase for buck)? Overclocking is clearly an option but not sure how much mileage I'd get out of this. I have an EVGA 680 SLI board not running SLI.

Thank you

Paul

[Paul G]

I'm quite satisfied.

With all of the scenery & airport add-on's I have it looks and runs great.

Since buying a new FS9 computer back in November I couldn't be happier. The system is well more than adequate to run FS9 and additional upgrade hardware that used to be high-end stuff in it's day was dirt cheap.

I am now convinced this would have been the way to go. When FSX came out and for a real long time afterwards, there was little in terms of add-ons. Then FSX drivers took a while so it's only now that we can run FSX like FS9.

The benefit I guess is that, without any add-on, FSX can run like FS9 would with a ton of add-ons, albeit, like a dog. The same PC that runs FS9 maxed with everything added, runs FSX adequately. It's like there is an FS version in between FS9 and FSX in terms of performance leaps.

I have toyed with going back to FS9 and still have it installed. I just don't see FS9 as having many more years. It won't be long before a machine that can run FSX really well will be affordable. And now, finally software producers are starting to produce FSX only versions of their software.

Paul

[Michael Carter]

Probably just about the time FSIX is released.

[mauriceb]

Would upgrading the processor be the best bang for buck (or frame rate increase for buck)? Overclocking is clearly an option but not sure how much mileage I'd get out of this. I have an EVGA 680 SLI board not running SLI.

Paul

Definitely. Upgrading the processor = the best bang for buck

Overclocking is also a good bet since you can easily get between 10-20% more speed with simple overclocking on most Intel CPUs. And by simple overclocking, I mean just increasing the clock speed without changing any voltages or adding extra cooling.

I went from 3.0 GHz to 3.6 GHz on an Intel 6850 and from 2.66 GHz to 3.4 GHz on an Intel Q9400 without any stability issues at all and with standard cooling. So overclocking is certainly worth a try before upgrading the CPU.

Maurice

[AchillesP]

I am now convinced this would have been the way to go. When FSX came out and for a real long time afterwards, there was little in terms of add-ons. Then FSX drivers took a while so it's only now that we can run FSX like FS9.

The benefit I guess is that, without any add-on, FSX can run like FS9 would with a ton of add-ons, albeit, like a dog. The same PC that runs FS9 maxed with everything added, runs FSX adequately. It's like there is an FS version in between FS9 and FSX in terms of performance leaps.

I have toyed with going back to FS9 and still have it installed. I just don't see FS9 as having many more years. It won't be long before a machine that can run FSX really well will be affordable. And now, finally software producers are starting to produce FSX only versions of their software.

Paul

Producers started to build fsx add-ons because today's extremelly pc's can run them. So, they can sell the products.

When today's extremelly pc's are affortable tommorow, we will see the one add-on behind the other and no conversation will take place about fs9 anymore. The story showed this and the story is repeating again.

[Prof Bill]

Reading the many technically content rich comments and advice we have seen recently it might be of interest to many who are involved in the "Right OS and its Fitness for Purpose in running FSX and its successor", perhaps consideration of the following might be worthwhile before making a significant cash outlay on ones FSX Hardware and Software!

The successor to VISTA is not very far away:

http://news.cnet.com/Next-version-of...?tag=mncol;txt

The future support of Windows XP has been stated:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-99...?tag=mncol;txt

This does not say that XP will be abandoned but there are questions that need to be answered regarding future MULTICORE support.

Bill.

[Michael Carter]

They didn't realize how popular XP was until they tried to pull the plug on it prematurely. I'm glad they will be supporting it until 2014.

Not all XP Home or XP Pro computers are the low-end bargain basement systems. Even Dell is offering XP computers. So is Acer and E-Machines. Probably others I haven't heard of as well.

If Vista is supposed to be the end-all for Windows operating systems, why is MS keeping it supported for another five plus years?

Because it's that good, that's why.

[Mr. Midnight]

I don’t know Achilles if I say that is totally true about the story repeating itself.

Fsx was so far advanced from fs9 you could not reasonably upgrade.

You had to make some serious decisions on upgrading at that time, and even now you just got a machine that will run it the way you want it too.

I went from 2000, 2002, 2004 fairly easy without all of the super changes that FSX is putting us through.

Yes I had to upgrade, get a better card, and get a faster chip. But at least there was a CPU out that could handle it.

what I believe is happening is that we are caught in the middle of new and better technology on faster computers , and the old technology is going away.

So all I can do is wait, and I will bet you anything, that when FS11or FS12 comes out, that is when you will have a sim that you will not even believe is real, because now you will have computers that will use the new technology to handle the software.

My opinion of course

Thanks...........Robert