Average frame rates on Quad Core Q6600 and 8800GTS

[Jonny D]

Hi guys, first up congratulations to the Orbx guys, Blue looks amazing, one of the only reasons I purchased FSX...wouldn't have bothered with Microsoft's stock standard sparsity. Being a brissie boy I can't wait for Gold !

My question though, I recently purchased a brand new system more than capable of nailing FSX.

Intel Q6600 Quad Core

Gigabyte nividia 8800 GTS 512 Mb

4 Gb 1066 Mhz RAM

etc etc

My problem is I have tried numerous settings, including the orbx recommended and my frame rates seem average considering my system. I get anywhere from 10 fps to 55fps. !!

Actually I only get 55 fps when the plane is pointing up at blue sky and clouds...when it starts pointing down (when I can see the beautiful scenery) I get around 20ish but frequently drops to 10 fps. I am just wondering if anyone else has similar specs and what your settings are on your video card and what your config file settings are ? 

Cheers in advance

[John Hockings]

Jonny

Glad you're enjoying the scenery! I have the same specs as you, though not sure what speed RAM, hard disk set-up, etc you have.  I limit my fps to 24, generally achieve this but around city areas, especially airports, this can drop to around 15-18 at times.  There are so many variables it's hard to be specific about results, but first step is to follow all the set-up suggestions posted here, esp re scenery settings.  Also, I have found great benefit in downloading nHancer and tuning my video card from there.

cheers

Prof

[Barry Meiklejohn]

I didn't notice what resolution you are running your display at - I have a 22inch 1680x1050. I have considered upgrading to a 24in 1920x1200 however I don't think the EN8800GTS (512mb) would handle it very well. I think for higher resolutions like that you really need to consider SLI.

So back to your main performance question. I have almost exactly the same specs as you. I have OC my quad core to 3.8ghz though which you may want to consider. If you do wish to go down this path there is a whole thread on the issue somewhere here on the forum - just search for overclock should find it. There are two issues - core speed will directly affect FPS and #of cores will directly affect throughput of textures.

In other words you will not see much difference in FPS between a Core2Duo E6600 or your Quadcore Q6600 - both clocking 2.4ghz. Raising the clock speed will see an incremental improvement in FPS. When I had my Core2Duo E6600 at 2.4ghz I would run normal autogen density at around 18 FPS dropping to 12FPS in city and heavy forested areas. Raising the clock on the same system to 3.2ghz would give me an additional 5FPS on those figures.

HOWEVER

On the Core2Duo there would still be stutters from texture overload. Going Quadcore stopped these stutters. My system now is locked at 25FPS (there are pros and cons to locking) and attains that figure nearly everywhere with autogen set to very dense.

One of the most important things you can do for your Quadcore is to implement the AFFINITY settings in your FSX config file. Here's some of my optimisation notes - sorry if it appears gobbledygook.

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=n

where "n" refers to the number of cores scheduled

1 = 1 core 0001

2 = 1 core 0010 (threading to a single core)

3 = 2 cores 0011

7 = 3 cores 0111

14 = 3 cores 1110

15 = 4 cores 1111

All 4 cores working now. CPU is regularly hitting 100% across all cores. So good to see all cores working and not going to waste. Haven't thoroughly checked out how using the 4 cores relates to performance but it appears that the sim is running a lot smoother and scenery is loading a lot quicker.  There must be a performance increase somewhere with a 50% CPU increase.  Frame rate increase appears to be marginal.

This is my affinity mask setting - you place it immediately under the [MAIN] parameters...

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

Other tweaks to try

[TERRAIN]

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=2000 //6000 is max

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=1600 //6000 is max

Let us know how you get on...

[dmrich28]

have to ask bazzam..why 14 and not 15 for Affinity mask?

I have almost an identical system as jonny D.

Just curious if you've read something saying 14 is a better choice.

(I've been running 15 the whole time)

Thanks, Dave

[Wolter van der Spoel]

Dave,

I presume that with that setting 3 cores are for running fsX and the 4th core is used for the other processes that one needs to run the puter, but it's just a guess from this end 

[dmrich28]

hmm...more tweak testing to do when I get a chance , some days work really gets in the way 

Dave

[Barry Meiklejohn]

G'day DM,

good answer Wolter - pretty much spot on, for 'other processes' substitute core FSX program...

FSX will always load on the 'primary' core anyhow. There are only parts of the FSX code that are thread optimised and by using affinity mask = 14 you are telling FSX to load those thread aware portions of the code onto the remaining cores and NOT the primary core thereby spreading the load. If you used affinity mask = 15 then you are forcing FSX to include the primary core it is already running on as well which can result in stutters.

You can see this in action by running the task manager application whilst FSX is running. You will always see the 'primary' core hit 100% whilst the others fluctuate a lot more.

I am using the term 'primary' core here to describe the main core FSX utilises; obviously all cores are equal from the CPU perspective

[dmrich28]

thanks for the reply bazzam...

I'll definitely try the 14 setting later today without changing anything else and see if anything changes even better.

Dave

[Nick]

Also a defrag may be required(O&O for the win mate) your PC may be wasting cycles hunting round for specific texture files on the hardrive that have been fragmented

and also bazzam, i am running at 1680x1050 on a 22 inch widescreen on my PC

My Pc

6600GT 128mb GFX card(devil incarnate this thing)

P4 2.4GHZ

1 GB of generic ram

[ojdee]

Just to add, I have an almost identical setup to the OP, although I am only running 8800 GTS 320MB. I was running at 1920x1200 with no problems, getting low 20s over cities and over 50s in open terrain. I have made the tweaks mentioned to affinity on my Quad, although it is also overclocked to 3.6Ghz. I am now running Triple Head at 3840x1024 with negligible preformance hit.

The tweak that made the biggest difference to me was the FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION variable in fsx.cfg. This basically determines what percentage of processing is devoted to loading scenery compared to all the other tasks in the sim. I've dialled mine down to 0.05, which sometimes sacrifices always crisp ground textures if you're in a fast mover, but is hardly noticeable when just ambling along over FTX terrain.

Anyway, check out more info here:

http://www.highflightsimulations.com/fsxcfg.html

I just thought it was worth making it clear that even a lowly 320MB card can handle high resolutions in FSX.

[O.Desfeux]

I didn't notice what resolution you are running your display at - I have a 22inch 1680x1050. I have considered upgrading to a 24in 1920x1200 however I don't think the EN8800GTS (512mb) would handle it very well. I think for higher resolutions like that you really need to consider SLI.

So back to your main performance question. I have almost exactly the same specs as you. I have OC my quad core to 3.8ghz though which you may want to consider. If you do wish to go down this path there is a whole thread on the issue somewhere here on the forum - just search for overclock should find it. There are two issues - core speed will directly affect FPS and #of cores will directly affect throughput of textures.

In other words you will not see much difference in FPS between a Core2Duo E6600 or your Quadcore Q6600 - both clocking 2.4ghz. Raising the clock speed will see an incremental improvement in FPS. When I had my Core2Duo E6600 at 2.4ghz I would run normal autogen density at around 18 FPS dropping to 12FPS in city and heavy forested areas. Raising the clock on the same system to 3.2ghz would give me an additional 5FPS on those figures.

HOWEVER

On the Core2Duo there would still be stutters from texture overload. Going Quadcore stopped these stutters. My system now is locked at 25FPS (there are pros and cons to locking) and attains that figure nearly everywhere with autogen set to very dense.

One of the most important things you can do for your Quadcore is to implement the AFFINITY settings in your FSX config file. Here's some of my optimisation notes - sorry if it appears gobbledygook.

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=n

where "n" refers to the number of cores scheduled

1 = 1 core 0001

2 = 1 core 0010 (threading to a single core)

3 = 2 cores 0011

7 = 3 cores 0111

14 = 3 cores 1110

15 = 4 cores 1111

All 4 cores working now. CPU is regularly hitting 100% across all cores. So good to see all cores working and not going to waste. Haven't thoroughly checked out how using the 4 cores relates to performance but it appears that the sim is running a lot smoother and scenery is loading a lot quicker.  There must be a performance increase somewhere with a 50% CPU increase.  Frame rate increase appears to be marginal.

This is my affinity mask setting - you place it immediately under the [MAIN] parameters...

[JOBSCHEDULER]

AffinityMask=14

Other tweaks to try

[TERRAIN]

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=2000 //6000 is max

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=1600 //6000 is max

Let us know how you get on...

I will try that this evening (canada east time) 3 = 2 cores 0011, i have an e6600 @ 3.5 ghz

I think a core2duo is enough for the games, it's better to buy an E8300 ou E8400 and to do an overclocking... it's less expensive.

[Nick]

@Desfeux- I would highly recommend the E8400 series for now, brilliants chip without being overly expensive, And they have the durability to overclock with.

Also when intel releases there new 45nm chips as the year passes on, they can take an even greater beating, meaning you can overclock the snot out of them without having to submerge your system in water

[O.Desfeux]

i m agree with you the E8300 and E8400 are the better choice actually 

[RedSkyHorizon]

Anybody got "Just Cause" on the XBox 360 ?

If you have, then you'll know when flying over those islands, how highly detailed and beautifully realistic all 1,025k of it is. Frame rates simply don't come into it.

It's a world away from anything MFS can do, but why ?

I love Microsoft Flight Simulator ever since the early day's when graphics and frame rates were just laughable. I remember flying in very dense fog just to get good playability.

I've taken a ten year break from computers since then and now I'm back,

but it seems some things never change.

Every now and then I go onto forums such as this and read the same thing over and over.

How do I get the most performance out of my system in order to get half decent frame rates.

The answer is, you shouldn't have to, you've already spent too damn much!

You've proberly got a computer that would have been considered a mini-super computer only a decade ago.

Do I really need to spend over £ 3000 on a system, in the hope of reaching performance levels seen in XBox games.

I don't think waiting another ten years will solve this. If I were cynical, I would say that Microsoft were deliberately retarding their simulations and games in order to push new hardware, but I'm not cynical, so I won't bother.

It's enough to give me Just Cause!

Anybody!

[solareagle]

Back in the single and dual core days I found locking the frame rate was the only way to get decent texture loading and to prevent stutters, but with a Quad I find its best to use unlimited.  Locking the frame rate causes a big performance hit for me, and it has on all my systems.  Say I'm getting 35fps unlocked, if I lock to anything, even 99fps, my performance drops down to about 25fps.  So just enabling the lock, regardless of what figure is selected, causes a performance hit for me, so I just go unlimited and with a quad my texture loading if vastly superior to anything I have experienced with a dual core, even when the dual is locked at 15fps or some other ridiculously low figure.

I would certainly overclock your system, as there is a big difference between 2.4Ghz and something like 3.2Ghz.  I’ve got mine at 3Ghz but that’s a board revision limitation.  After I get it swapped I'll be able to do around 3.5Ghz.  I run my memory at 4-4-4-10 1T, which seems to help a bit. 

When it comes to settings I pretty much max everything on the scenery tab, though I keep ground shadows off, autogen at very dense, water at low 2.x, or mid 2.x depending on the scenery, and I keep Mesh at 10m. Otherwise the other settings are maxed out. Ground shadows causes a big hit, so leave that off. Setting water to anything above low 2.x causes a big hit as well, so use low 2.x if you have performance issues. In some cases I set autogen to dense, such as over large cities.

On the weather tab I used 70mi and set the cloud coverage to high.

On the traffic tab I turn everything completely off, with the exception of road traffic at 10%. Airline traffic causes a massive performance hit.

On the aircraft tab I have everything enabled.

On the video card tab I have bloom turned off, global textures at max, and I have antialiasing checked, and filtering set to trilinear since I'm forcing 16xAF in nHancer. Bloom causes a huge hit so leave it off.

Within nHancer and a resolution of 1600x1200 I use 16xS supersampling set to enhance the application, with transparency supersampling enabled along with vsync and 16x anisotrpic filtering.  Since you have less video memory I'd recommend 8xS supersampling.

[O.Desfeux]

Back in the single and dual core days I found locking the frame rate was the only way to get decent texture loading and to prevent stutters, but with a Quad I find its best to use unlimited.  Locking the frame rate causes a big performance hit for me, and it has on all my systems.  Say I'm getting 35fps unlocked, if I lock to anything, even 99fps, my performance drops down to about 25fps.  So just enabling the lock, regardless of what figure is selected, causes a performance hit for me, so I just go unlimited and with a quad my texture loading if vastly superior to anything I have experienced with a dual core, even when the dual is locked at 15fps or some other ridiculously low figure.

bizarre....my level detail radius is max and my textures load quickly and i have 30 fps locked

I would certainly overclock your system, as there is a big difference between 2.4Ghz and something like 3.2Ghz.  I’ve got mine at 3Ghz but that’s a board revision limitation.  After I get it swapped I'll be able to do around 3.5Ghz.  I run my memory at 4-4-4-10 1T, which seems to help a bit. 

there is not difference between 3.2 or 3.5 ghz, I tried already.

When it comes to settings I pretty much max everything on the scenery tab, though I keep ground shadows off, autogen at very dense, water at low 2.x, or mid 2.x depending on the scenery, and I keep Mesh at 10m. Otherwise the other settings are maxed out. Ground shadows causes a big hit, so leave that off. Setting water to anything above low 2.x causes a big hit as well, so use low 2.x if you have performance issues. In some cases I set autogen to dense, such as over large cities.

On the weather tab I used 70mi and set the cloud coverage to high.

On the traffic tab I turn everything completely off, with the exception of road traffic at 10%. Airline traffic causes a massive performance hit.

my option is 50 % for road and default for airline.

On the aircraft tab I have everything enabled.

On the video card tab I have bloom turned off, global textures at max, and I have antialiasing checked, and filtering set to trilinear since I'm forcing 16xAF in nHancer. Bloom causes a huge hit so leave it off.

Within nHancer and a resolution of 1600x1200 I use 16xS supersampling set to enhance the application, with transparency supersampling enabled along with vsync and 16x anisotrpic filtering.  Since you have less video memory I'd recommend 8xS supersampling.

[jgruschow]

I have been following ths thread with interest. I have refrained from getting a quad core because from what I have read in reviews they are of no use with fsx.

In my opinion the best solution is a top of the line dual core. I have found through an aweful lot of experimenting, that fsx will use all of core 0 and then start on core 1. Performance graphs show core 0 to be running at 100% and core 1 fluctuating between 10 and 60%.

My system:

CPU: Intel extreme x6800 at 2.97. Overclocked to 3.6.Amy higher produces too much of a temp increase.

Ram: 2 gigs of Corsair low latency. I have found that I have never used more than 1.7 gigs

Video: NVIDIA 8800gts with 740 megs. Have considered SLI but I can't see any reason for it. I am more than happy with it.

Display: 1 22" viewsonic and 1 19" viewsonic. My desk is too small for larger monitors.

My usual settings: fps locked at 23. All performance sliders full right, except autogen density, which is set to normal. I can't see any reason to go any higher.

I always fly with "user defined" weather with clouds set on "broken" Nice puffy cumulus.

This gives me "near perfect" performance.

I have all unnecessary processes permanantly shut down.

Power Supply: 840 watt.

I have uses NHancer, but have found I do not need it.

I normaly have 29 processes running. I can reduce these by six, but it makes no difference to performance.

Useing the affinity settings does exactly nothing. Once you start fsx,everything else automaticly shifts to the other core.

I have cpu and ram useage displayed on my keyboard and while cpu is often at 100% it doesn't affect play and ram never exceeds 75%

I consider I have the best available computer to run fsx and will not be making any changes untill we see what FS 11 demands.

[Russ White]

I have a very similar system, i.e Q6600, 8800GTS 512, 8GB DDR2, ASUS MAXIMUS FORMULAR main board, 24 inch monitor etc etc.

Remember, just because you have a shiny new quad core and second generation GTS it still dosent mean you can have all the sliders to maximum! There is a lot of performance to be had out of these systems, however you need to play around a lot to find the sweet spot! with a big monitor, i run at 1920 X 1200 but to keep up performance at this level i totally disable AA, this is not too notacible as at this high resolution AA is not such an issue, and you can live without it.

I have target FPS unlimited as this yields the best results for me, i also found a strange performce boost by turning off "land detail textures" you dont notice that much difference with it off (infact i think it looks better off) but i gained an extra 5 FPS. Obviously turn off "light bloom", another little boost can be had by turning off "ground scenery shadows" a big boost can be had by turning off all traffic. These little tweaks have very little negative visual impact but a large performance increase.

Feel free to experiment with overclocking as the other posts here have mentioned, however, ensure you have more than just stock cooling installed, as overclocking any hardware above it's stock frequencies will generate a lot more heat, this WILL reduce the life of the unit unless it is properly cooled. As a business IT technician I would reccommend the following advice....Never rely on overclocking to solve all your performance issues, it will increase your FPS but dont get too ambitious, as it will risk possible damage to your expensive new hardware, aim for a ballance between performance and sustainability.

Russ

[Jonny D]

Thanks for your replys so far, yeah resoultion I am at  1024x768 32 (19" screen). I don't wish to overclock my CPU in fact, I ran task manager while playing and all four cores were only doing about 20-30% so it certainly seems its not a processor related issue...I am thinking its the settings on my video card....I am not at home at the moment so cant remember the settings but from memory I have 16x set for super sampling and anistrophic. My need to try playing around with nhancer.

[solareagle]

FSX is CPU bound in nearly all cases. Unless you are running insane levels of supersampling or have a weak graphics card the bottleneck is always on the CPU.

The additional cores do not increase your framrate, they will only aid in texture loading speed and in reducing stutters.  As long as you are free from a GPU bottleneck your frame rate is determined soley by your CPU clock speed.  This is a fact.  If you look in task manager you will see core 0 is near 100% utilization, and the clock speed of core 0 is what determines your frame rate.

After running a 2.8Ghz single core Athlon, a 3.6Ghz dual core, and Quad, I will never use anything other than a Quad for FSX, even though its currently running 600Mhz slower than my dual. 

I would say if you do not have any issues with blurries a highly clocked dual is the way to go, but if you have any troubles with blurries a Quad is the only cure.  I often fly upwards of 300knots at tree top level, and with that type of flying a Quad is the only way to keep sharp ground textures. 

[dmrich28]

just a FYI bazzam...had a chance to make that change from 15 to 14 and also lowered fiber fraction in half what I had and was running 18fps over YMML on the server, up about 6 fps.

Thanks,

Dave

[Matthew Webb]

Just a small thing:  I had huge problems with framerates and blurries.  I found out that FSX was running in single core, even on a dual-core chip. 

This might be a mis-setting on AlacrityPC, but to find out, go to the windows task manager and see if there's a lot of activity not just on one core.  If there is, find fsx.exe in the processers tab, right-click on it and choose "Set affinity".  Be sure all boxes are checked.

The instructions here are for Vista, but I think they're the same for XP.

[Barry Meiklejohn]

just a FYI bazzam...had a chance to make that change from 15 to 14 and also lowered fiber fraction in half what I had and was running 18fps over YMML on the server, up about 6 fps.

Excellent news Dave - there is plenty of good information in this thread...

[Butch]

Good evening gents,

I have read this tread and done some experiments, but first the specs: Q6600 @ 3.35, 8800GT, 4gigs PC6400 ram. I've changed the heat sink to a TR 120 extreme and I rarely get temps of more than 50C on FS, in fact running Prime95 with all 4 cores at 100% it only ever reaches 59C.

I've been able to run it at 3.4 but after about 15 to 30 minutes I get BSOD's so I have had to back it off to 3.35. I would be interested in getting the setting for 3.8 OC!

I thought this would be enough the get smooth performance frorm FSX, sadly major airports and cities are no go zones for me because the fps but more importantly the smoothness of the sim degraded to the point where, well it was not something I could live with. 

After having read this tread and setting the affinity to 14, it has really improved the performance of fsx for me! While the fps hasn't increased much (maybe 3 to 4) its the smoothness that has really improved. So much so that now, sitting at YSSY rnw 16L, I get about 16 to 20fps. 

Performance at YMHB sitting at the rny facing north, I used to get choppy with about 17 to 20fps, worst if you flew over Hobart itself. Now, after the affinity tweak I get about 20 to 25fps and its 'like glass' so to speak.

Aircraft is the Citation X from feel there.

All my sliders are to the right except for autogen which is at very dense, water 2. and traffic all of which are at about 10%.

Anyway, I guess the point of my post was to: 1) say thanks for that affinity tweak tip its allowed me to start using major airports again and 2) share the performance I am getting from my Q6600.

Cheers,

Butch

[Jonny D]

Thanks for the reply guys, tried a bunch if the tips recommended....and combined (I applied them all at the same time) I am getting much better frames.....average 50 over country areas....except when I fly over a massive forest it can drop between 10-20fps and when I fly over a city the same....oh well better than nothing.

[Ken Hall]

I also found the affinity setting at 14 worked a charm, slight increase in frames but way smoother.

thanks for the info guys

cheers

[Butch]

I also forgot to mention I use a small batch file that starts FSX in 'realtime' priority = fsx.exe /realtime

Cheers,

Butch

[Grocs]

How does the fsx.exe /realtime help fps Butch?

[}SkOrPn--7]

Read post by FalconAF  and follow the weather section real close but read it all.

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1173797&postcount=20

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1174291&postcount=27

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1174299&postcount=31

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1174646&postcount=48

http://forums.flightsim.com/vbfs/showpost.php?p=1175295&postcount=53

Also turn off anything that is running that isn't required plus follow these guides

http://www.tweakguides.com/NVFORCE_1.html

http://www.tweakguides.com/TGTC.html

[Butch]

How does the fsx.exe /realtime help fps Butch?

It helps frame rates a little, but the real value is in the smoothness of the sim and by telling the os to process FSX in real time (priority) over other apps it makes things run smoother. Which is what really counts in my opinion...

You can edit the FSX short cut and add the line /realtime after fsx.exe  (I wouldn't recommend this for single core pc's as your pc will stop responding (immediately) to your commands and give you the impression its hung. In reality its just queued your inputs AFTER its processed FSX requests.

No problem with multi cores though!

Cheers

Butch

[Maurice_King]

There is something SERIOUSLY wrong if all 4 Cores are regularly hitting 100% . as for shareing the load.  in the Shortcut Properties  after the fsx.exe"  put +fullproc.  (DO NOT omit the full stop)  this will force FSX to use all available cores.

[Ken Hall]

how do you edit the FSX shortcut and add

full proc.  to it

cheers

[John Venema]

Hi Butch, silly question, but I can't seem to add the /realtime line to a batch or the shortcut; it seems to think it's loading a flight?

[Butch]

Hi Butch, silly question, but I can't seem to add the /realtime line to a batch or the shortcut; it seems to think it's loading a flight?

Opsss... I may have led you astray 

You'll need to create a txt file with the following fsx.exe /realtime then save the text file as fsx.bat (in the root dir of fsx)

Now open your shortcut to fsx and change it from fsx.exe to fsx.bat. Start fss and should be running in realtime. You can verify this by opening fsx in a window, start up task manager, under processes right click on fsx.exe and check at what priority its running.

Thanks for the fullproc. switch, I'll add that to my batch file and let you know how I go.

exp: fsx.exe /realtime /fullproc.

Sorry, its been a while since I did this...

Cheers,

Butch

[Maurice_King]

The Full Proc  MUST be added to the Desktop Shortcut OK fellas..

Right click on your Icon  and select Properties  then in the Command Line box at the top you shoud see "C:\Program Files\~ ETC ~\fsx.exe"

ETC + the complete path  if installed in a different Location for instance mine reads:- 

  [ "E:\program files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\fsx.exe" +fullproc. ]  DO NOT forget the full stop

So see how that works.

[John Venema]

/realtime does not work Mozza, but the +fullproc. flag is a bottler! Both cores on the lappy now maxxed out and a definite improvement. Strangely on that quad core in our office you and Timbo played with last December, it made it lock up.

[Ken Hall]

I can't find the command line, I have vista

cheers

[Butch]

/realtime does not work Mozza, but the +fullproc. flag is a bottler! Both cores on the lappy now maxxed out and a definite improvement. Strangely on that quad core in our office you and Timbo played with last December, it made it lock up.

Hi John,

Your all probably going to want to kill me now 

The actual string for the batch file is: 'start /realtime fsx.exe' that's for Windows XP.

It does the same thing as opening task manager, selecting processes tab, right clicking on fsx.exe -> priority-> and setting it to 'realtime'. With the batch file it does this everytime automatically.

I was at work this afternoon and not able to check it properly and I apologise for that! Anyway, in the course of this discussion I have tried to do some scientific (hah!) analysis of the affinity, realtime and fullproc. settings.

I was really surprised to see that affinity = 14 uses only 3 cores, core 0 is left idling away and the CPU never gets to 100% ever! It cant because we have just told FS that it can only use 3 cores.

Holy jumping cores batman!

I then tried affinity = 15 and was pleased to see all 4 cores contributing, often at 100%. There's is a big but! The fps at 15 was less that what I got with 14 and whats more, the sim wasn't as smooth. 

My head hurts batman, make them stop... but how can this be!

Here's a theory, by moving the primary core (the one that FS uses) to core #1 (as oppose to 0) it makes fsx run on a core that does not have to run the OS as well, thus giving you smoother frames because it starts from 0% utilisation. By doing so you forefeit the power of core 0, its mainly left running at 2~3% (running the os I presume) but its the flight experience that improves and becasue the other 2 cores are enought to handle the terrain loading without the user noticing the difference of one core missing you the user thinks that aff14 is better than sliced bread (which it is)!

Its a theory, but begs the question, is windows capable to routing OS overheads to the other 3 cores, #1, 2 & 3 if it sees that 0 is at 100% with FS? If it could do that then you wouldn't lose the utility of core 0. So rather than moving FS down the line so to speak, move the OS tasks down to 1, 2 & 3.

If someone can work this out I'd be interested in hearing from them! 

Dont take my word for it (given I have already burned my credibility on this thread twice) start FS in a window and start up task manager, click on performance tab and see how the cores are being utilised. Other three or two cores depending on your affinity setting only really come into play when you are loading all the fabulous FTX scenery.

I guess what would *really* help is if we get to the day that various parts of the main thread could be split up ie. weather on core 1, aircraft systems on core 2, world on core 3 and so on...

BTW, I have the screen shots, let me if you are interested and I will post them here.

One last question, because I dont think I got the fullproc. switch running, is it /+fullproc. or just /fullproc.

Cheers,

Butch

[Matthew Webb]

I can't find the command line, I have vista

cheers

I'm on Vista.  The only way to open FSX is though the "Games menu".

However, go to the FSX installation directory.  Typically:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X

Then right-click on FSX.exe and choose "Create shortcut".  A new file is created in that directory, which is the shortcut.  Copy that file to your desktop.  From there you can right-click on the shortcut and edit the target property.

Cheers,

Matt.

[dmrich28]

WOW! what a difference, it gained me about 6 frames/sec over Melbourne.

I still have too many processes running ( about 42)

running nHancer at 8xs Supersampling AA and 4x AF

I'll post a couple of screens next time I go up.

kinda getting tired of ActiveSky as well does anyone else think the weather is too extreme?

ie: looks like a very clear day in YMML area today and shows that way using default real time weather but turn on ActiveSky and clouds come in like crazy?

plus its a memory hog ( 3rd highest on my list)

Dave