Flight Simulator X Players!

I was wondering how all Flight Simulator X players on here run FSX.

I play on these specs:

Intel Core Duo T2400 1.83ghz
2gb DDR2 667mhz Dual Channel
Mobility X1600 256mb (Mobility Catalyst 6.8's)
80gb 5,400rpm Hard Drive

I run the game on low-mediumish settings where everything looks bad, and there are plenty graphical errors which I cannot identify.

I really want to play FSX but it just has too many graphical glitches.

And I was wondering how everyone else ran FSX.

Post screens if possible.

 

I once downloaded the demo for my M1437G. But it was too laggy and didn't look so nice as on the pictures. So maybe I will try it in the feature on a DX 10 notebook.

 

Well it looks like FSX Service Pack 1 is due out this month.

It will add dual and quad core support as well as various bug and performance improvements!

http://blogs.msdn.com/ptaylor/archive/2007/05/04/fsx-sp1-beta4-posted.aspx

 

What about on my system?

 

You can always download the demo and try it yourself. However, please do note the fact that the FSX Demo is very buggy and not optimized for frame rate. Therefore, the full retail version's performance is much better than the demo version.

I'm also waiting for the SP1 to come out and see how much of improvement it is, if it has some effects on improving the frame rate, then I will buy the deluxe full version, not doubt about it.

Here you can see how FSX Demo runs on my system:

1st Screenshot - Set everything to absolute ultra low, move all sliders all the way to the left, turn off all visual effects (no self-shadowing, no bloom, etc).

2nd Screenshot - Set "Aircraft", "Traffic", "Weather" to ultra high, "Scenery" to Medium (no self-shadowing, no bloom, etc).

3rd Screenshot - Set everything to absolute ultra high, move all sliders all the way to the right, turned on all visual effects (self-shadowing, bloom, etc).

4th Screenshot - Same as 3rd Screenshot, except time and weather change, and have the bloom effect in focus.

All 3 settings are in 1280X800x32 resolution, which is the highest that my graphic card can handle and available in FSX.

1st - http://img516.imageshack.us/img516/365/haha1wa2.jpg
2nd - http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/5038/haha2es5.jpg
3rd - http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7595/haha3wi1.jpg
4th - http://img523.imageshack.us/img523/7089/haha4yc1.jpg

 

which would be better for Flight Sim X

Dual 512MB NVidia® GeForce™ Go 7950 GTX (total 1GB)

OR

NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8700M GT graphics with NVIDIA SLI (Total 512)

 

Well the 7950 GTX would run it better than the 8700M GT, but it couldn't run in DX10 like the 8700

 

Yeap more eye candies in DX10...the upcoming new version will be DX10 optimized for 8700m.
These are just speculations...Not too sure if 7950 runs as well as 8700 in real world though unless someone actually tested it...

 

Do you mean a new version of Flight Simulator altogether?

 

Would the 7950 GTX 512 SLI handle the graphics at their top settings?

 

Forget about sli. A couple of weeks ago, i read an article in one of those flightsim magazines. According to this article, Fsx does currently not support sli. Altough, I heard that a future patch would solve the problem. No date was given though.

 

Can anyone confirm this? I have heard that the new service pack, released within the last month or so, allows a dual processor to be utilised. Does this also allow for SLI?

 

FSX does not have a built in SLI profile, no, however you can manually create one for any game:
http://www.slizone.com/page/slizone_appprofile.html

Anyhow, the dual 8700's would probably be preferable in general (though not quite as fast as the 7950's) as they would better handle the intense shading in FSX.

Edit: I just checked again and it appears FSX does indeed have nVidia SLI support.

 

So you reckon the dual 8700's, that are on board the new XPS 1730 would be better than the 7950's ?

 

FSX runs great on medium-high settings with my laptop.

So it will run great on anything with a 7900,8600,8700 in it.

 

Can anyone tell me what would be the best graphics card available at the moment in a notebook (pref Dell or AW) for FSX, and the best graphics card available in 3 months (again pref dell or alienware)

thanks!
is alienware showing any signs of offering a better graphics card in the M9750??

 

Not sure this is the right place for this, but the best offered now is the SLI Go7950GTX config, offered by alienware in their M9750. In three months or so I imagine we'll see a single 256-bit DX10 chip, hopefully offered either in the M1730 or an updated Alienware (it's unlikely they'll stick with the m9750, as it's on an old chipset).

 

any idea how well fsx would run on the laptop in my sig?

 

How about the 8600M GS, or the 8600M GT, offered in the Dell laptops? How does FSX perform with these??

 

The game runs great on my laptop.. We need to setup some multiplayer action!

 

I've been running FSX on high settings over on my Asus C90S.
E6700 (this thing owns FSX pretty good)
8600M GT 512mb DDR2
3 GB ram
120GB 7200 rpm
Vista Ultimate 32 bit if that matters?

I usually get 25-30 fps, which is well more than what you need to fly in FSX. Can't wait for the Acceleration expansion pack. It is gonna be incredible. I am not too optimistic about running DX10 on this 8600M GT...

Heh... if anyone is interested in flying just drop me a PM. I'm admin at a server and I'd be happy to show ya around the place and do some flying of course

 

FS-X Acceleration Expansion Pack does not work with my T61 w/Intel GM965 (X3100) card. I have the latest Intel drivers on XP Pro... FS-X stops and says the card is not supported. It works fine with FS-X Deluxe.

This sucks. Who else is stuck with an Intel X3100 and the FS-X Expansion Pack? This is the last time I buy Intel graphics!

 

I'm surprised you even got FSX to run on an x3100...it is not a gaming card by any means.

 

BluSki - You are fortunate that FSX runs at all. Integrated graphics really aren't for gaming.

 

ooo the pack is out? I totally forgot about it. Is it worth whatever its selling for?

 

I picked up a copy at Circuit city the week it came out for $17.99+tax.... don't know if that's still the price, but def worth checking into.... It's pretty good though, I don't use the DX10 "preview" as they call it, but otherwise not too shabby.... some decent new missions, and the new planes are cool, just coulda used a few more i think. Overall, good stuff though!

 

I own FSX, just was waiting for a decent patch to help improve overall performance. My 7950 GT with Athlon64 4800+ X2 couldn't quite keep up unfortunately, at least with the dynamic scenery on. That's the main reason I got it. Otherwise it looks like FS2004.

I hear it is more CPU hungry than GPU, so now maybe my desktop will at least be able to run it half way decent.

 

I play FSX on this:

Centrino Core 2 Duo (T7200)
2GB DDR-2 667MHz. RAM
128MB GMA 950
80GB HDD (speed unknown)

My GPU currently sucks and im buying a new PC shortly, but the graphics are still pretty decent. I play on almost the highest settings possible, but there is a little bottleneck or lag every once in a while, but thats where the new PC comes in...

EDIT: See Sig... as you can see its also a Tablet and not for gaming too.

 

I bought FSX, but until SP2 w/ Vista SP1 come January, FS9 is my game of choice... suprisingly i get 35 FPS (locked at 35) in FS9 with addons and such it looks better than FSX... LOL

 

Just curious, what is the benefit of locking frame rates?

 

I've heard it frees up CPU time for stuff (calculations?) in the sim. MS Flight Sim is supposed to e quite CPU intensive.

 

Check out this here:

http://wiki.fsavia.com/files/fsxtweakguide.pdf

Under " Graphics Tab: Target Frame Rate:" heading.

Basically it allows for much more fluid motion, freeing up the CPU for other operations that will typically cause wild fluctuations in fps otherwise. FSX is a CPU hog. GPU is not the bottleneck in this case.

I'm not sure what's going to be in SP1, but hopefully some tweaks found by the community. I remember when it first came out, there were some quick tweaks to the clouds and environment that bumped the FPS up by a good 20-25% and didn't effect the overall graphical quality much at all.

Problem is, Microsoft usually develops in a vacuum, and rarely takes into account all the hard work and observations of the community. Let's hope they take heed and do some massive improvements for improved overall performance.