How to get 144hz and my is FSX not fully using my GPU?

[What Zitt Tooya]

Hello,

I just bought the FXS premium edition. I'm running everything at max graphics as well as max graphics from REX 4. When I do a free flight, the game seems to be getting 30-40FPS (I haven't benchmarked and I want over 60FPS) and I believe it is not running 144HZ.

Also, my GPU is heating up to only 40 degrees at low fan settings, so I feel like FSX is not fully utilizing my GPU and/or CPU.

My PC Settings: Nothing is overclocked

- GTX 980Ti Superclocked w/ACX 6GB RAM
- i7-4770K
- 32GB RAM
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Asus 144hz monitor (display port)

Am I doing something wrong? Is it me or is my PC not allocating its max potential to the game?

[TextRich]

This game's codebase hasn't been updated since 2007. It is very processor dependent, and generally uses only one core. It only uses a little bit of graphic cards (I get pretty much the same result with a GTX 970 and a GT 610). I have an i7-4790K and 32 GB RAM. I get 30-40 FPS away from cities and 15-30 FPS near/in cities.

Oh, the fun part is that the sim is 32 bit, so you can't use more than 4 GB of physical memory with it. If you run too many add-ons within the sim, either the sim or the entire computer will crash. Let's not get into the fact that it has good DirectX 9 but beta DirectX 10 and no DirectX 11.

So it is not you and it is not the PC. It is the sim. It is a great, great sim but in its current form it will never get optimized for modern computers.

[What Zitt Tooya]

*cries* Well $50 wasted I guess. Still, G2A saved my $40

[Araripe]

Just because you can't run it at 144 FPS+, it does not mean that FSX is a waste of money. 30 fps are more than enough for flight simulators. It's all about finding the perfect airplane addon for you and having hours and hours of fun with it. I was not an airplane guy myself, until I met the Aerosoft Airbus Bundle and decided to learn how to fly them. 500 hours played so far, average of 4-5 hours a day and no regrets at all. This game is amazing once you find a good reason to play it. Don't give up on FSX yet, mate.

[What Zitt Tooya]

thanks for the advice, but I saw XP11 released not too long ago. It looks great! I'll wait for that to go on sale. In the mean time I'll keep playing FSX.

[Araripe]

Ye, X-Plane 11 came out recently. It's a great game, but still lacks high quality addons, which is sad, given the capabilities of the new engine. It's really hard to understand why most of FSX study-level airplanes look way better than their counterparts for X-Plane 11, developed by different teams. I can't understand why (bad 3d artists maybe?). A clear example of it is a comparison between the Aerosoft Airbus (or even the FSLabs A320-X) with the JAR Designs A320 for X-Plane 11. It's a massive difference, and you notice it right away. FSX still got the hottest cockpits, and that's why I still play it. X-Plane 11, on the other hand, is clearly the future of virtual aviation. The physics are amazing, and so are the light effects and autogen. It's a matter of waiting for good stuff to come. Should take a while, as addon development is quite complex. But I am patient

[What Zitt Tooya]

interesting points. I'll also keep an eye on it.

[denPes]

I almost have the same setup. I have a 4770k, but my gpu is only a 970gtx.

Now, your game obviously can be viewed in 144hz, since that's a monitor configuration. You can't set that in any game. You can only influence FPS in the game settings.

But 144hz, means nothing if your game is running at low fps. Depending on the addons, on my machine FSX can be run at >60 fps. But not close to the big cities.

ingame cap your fps to 60, to reduce framedrops, and perhaps select the high performance powerplan in windows, to keep that cpu running at the highest frequency. That might give you the most smooth fps.

However you will never reach 144 fps to match that 144hz monitor of yours. The game is tool old for that.

[Araripe]

Even if the game were optimized, 144 fps is not achievable in flight sims at all (not with any hardware below 8000$). Not even X-Plane 11, unless you want to play with potato graphics. It's not like CSGO or most FPS games anyway. 30 fps is more than enough for a fluid experience. Trust me.

[rjlfry]

I would also recomened frame rate limit 30 fps iv`e used it for fs8 and fs9 the sim will be trying to cache the scenery ahead of you, and having fps jumping around will make your cpu and gpu work harder to keep up, most long term simmers use it in fact they should call frp`s testosterone that all it`s used for bragging rights, flight simmulator is not a first person shooter game were you only cache the first level exit and cache the next level.

[lostpawn]

Originally posted by BF Bullpup:

This game's codebase hasn't been updated since 2007. It is very processor dependent, and generally uses only one core. It only uses a little bit of graphic cards (I get pretty much the same result with a GTX 970 and a GT 610). I have an i7-4790K and 32 GB RAM. I get 30-40 FPS away from cities and 15-30 FPS near/in cities.

Oh, the fun part is that the sim is 32 bit, so you can't use more than 4 GB of physical memory with it. If you run too many add-ons within the sim, either the sim or the entire computer will crash. Let's not get into the fact that it has good DirectX 9 but beta DirectX 10 and no DirectX 11.

So it is not you and it is not the PC. It is the sim. It is a great, great sim but in its current form it will never get optimized for modern computers.

i got a bunch of toposims and now it is out of memory, so i uninstalled some stuff and cut back my graphics to very dense as opposed to extremly dense, hopefully this solves the issue. anyone else have this happen to them?

[TextRich]

Try unchecking the Toposims you don't need for a particular flight fromthe Scenery Library (that is, I assume you can uncheck them after installing them through Steam). I know that works for FS Global 2010, which I have and use.

Yes, running out of memory due to too many add-ons is common for FSX users. That is why some people want 64-bit flight sims like X-Plane that do not have the 4 GB memory limitation.

[mike]

I use FS Config editor from SourceForge as it allows you to group scenery files and enable only the ones you use in a flight. As already mentioned, make sure you are running all cores. Check you have an entry in your fsx.cfg file [GRAPHICS] for HIMEMFIX = 1 (Not sure if this is a default setting in FSX:SE). I have a large number of ORBX scenery add-ons and airports as well as 3rd party aircraft. I also use REX Textures. My system is nowhere near your specs and I don't have any problems achieving smooth scrolling (30+ FPS) while using fairly high settings. I don't limit my framerate. You can also google 'fsx tweaks' (there are plenty of them) however, be careful when applying them as some can be real killers.

[What Zitt Tooya]

@mike

I checked "FSX>Config" and opened it with notepad. I CTRL+F searched for "Graphics" as well as "Himefix" and nothing showed up.

[What Zitt Tooya]

@BF Bullpup, I just checked the Scenery Library and there is not "Toposims"

[mike]

Hi Sniper.

You should have a section in fsx.cfg called [GRAPHICS]. If not, add:

[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1
ForceFullScreenVSync=1

Save it and try it. I'm surprised you don't have a [GRAPHICS] section. You are probably looking in the right location however, just check - fsx.cfg is located in: <drive>\Users\<User>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX. Your scenery file (scenery.cfg) is located in <drive>:\ProgramData\Microsoft\FSX.

Also, when you start FSX, go into 'Settings' and set up FSX according to your desires. Be sure you save a copy.

Have a read of this link - http://www.simforums.com/forums/the-fsx-computer-system-the-bible-by-nickn_topic46211.html as it contains some great information on setting up FSX.

Thx