MS Flight Sim X

PandaZ3 · Oct 26, 2006, 01:27 AM

I drove down to Fry's Monday expecting to buy MS Flight Simulator X Deluxe, but all they had was standard at $35. That's great for grandparents buying a game for one of their little Buckaroos, but what enthusiast wants to be saddled with half a game? Best Buy didn't have it either. I have zero interest in getting it shipped to me or I could have gotten it at the Egg or one of the gaming sites.

Seems whoever orders software at the retail sites has no clue.

Customgamer1 · Oct 26, 2006, 02:02 AM

I hate the Deluxe games no matter what the game is. Why spend the extra $10-20 more for the same game? I guess you get a extra dvd telling you about the making of the game and all that bs but I just don't really see the need.

Buts thats just my 2 cents lol

Thats to bad no one has it.

PandaZ3 · Oct 26, 2006, 03:18 AM

You get 2 DVDs with both

Standard

18 aircraft
40 detailed airports
28 detailed cities
30 missions

Deluxe

24 aircraft
45 detailed airports
38 detailed cities
50 missions
Tower Controller

but the real deal is the Garmin G1000 glass panel with the deluxe and that is important to me.

SFOSOK · Oct 26, 2006, 03:38 AM

Judging by ur video cards though, you shouldn't be able to run it well.

PandaZ3 · Oct 26, 2006, 03:57 AM

Well no trouble with 2004 and here are the system requirements, if my 6800 GS (485/1100) or X850 Pro (540/1180) can't handle it it will be a sign to get a new card.

System requirements

Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista
Processor: 1.0 Ghz
RAM: Windows XP SP2 - 256MB, Windows Vista – 512MB
Hard Drive: 14GB
Video Card: 32MB DirectX 9 compatible
Other: DX9 hardware compatibility and audio board with speakers and/or headphones
Online/Multiplayer Requirements: 56.6 kbps or better for online play

Tipstaff · Oct 26, 2006, 04:26 AM

Trust me on this one: those specs Microsoft has posted, complete BS. You will need to turn settings down.. way down in order to get the game to run at anything close to 25 frames per second on those specs.

At my store I have the following system I've been testing out (a system, btw, meant to play this game specifically):

Intel DG965SS board
Intel D 945 CPU (3.4Ghz, dual core)
2Gigs of 667mhz DDR2 (2x1GB, dual channel)
BFG 7950GT 512mb video card
Seagate 320gb SATA hard drive (7200.10, 16mb cache)
XP Pro SP2 (fully tweaked out, and optimized)

As a test I also tried a Core 2 E6400, and an ATI X800GTO. Of note, I also ran the NGO ATI 1.6.6 Optmized driver for the ATI card, and the latest NGO Optmized driver for the nVidia card.

I ran with that setup, no Anti-aliasing, 1024x768, everything on high (there is an ultra high above this one) except the plaines on ultra high, bilinear filtering, and no frame limiting. All I could muster was 15 frames per second at best. Yes, that is 15 fps. Reduce the settings to medium high, and you will gain another 5 fps.

As soon as I dropped in the Core 2 E6400 (and cuz the Core 2 runs better with 533mhz DDR2, or 800mhz DDR2 and above, I decided to underclock the ram) I gained 10 fps when on high settings, 15 when set to medium high. Now the game averages about 20-25 fps. I tell you, I was surpised to see that a simple change from a dual core P4 running at 3.4Ghz (800mhz bus) to a Core 2 E6400 had such a drastic effect on fps.

Now for the fun part. I ran the same setups again, but with the ATI X800GT. First test was with everything on high running the P4 which I got 7-9 fps, then with the Core 2 which doubled the scores to 15 fps. Again, a simple CPU change makeing a huge difference.

In any case I found that MSFX is highly CPU bound, and even if you have a fast as hell video card you need a damn good processor so that it doesn't bottleneck the system. Also, ram speed does have an effect too.. even if minor (2-4 fps difference), but in this game every frame per second counts.

PandaZ3 · Oct 26, 2006, 04:34 AM

Well I can put a PCI-E card into my ASRock and the 4400 is at 2.5 per core it has a lot of Ram and I think a X1950XTX would look good in it, but I will try it first, no money for a video card just right now, but in a couple of weeks...

~~bobbytomorow~~ · Oct 26, 2006, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SFOSOK

Judging by ur video cards though, you shouldn't be able to run it well.

**temeteus82** · Oct 26, 2006, 06:57 AM

anyone know does FSX support AGEIA PhysX??

Tipstaff · Oct 26, 2006, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by temeteus82

anyone know does FSX support AGEIA PhysX??

Nope.

I mean.. nope.. it doesn't.

**temeteus82** · Oct 26, 2006, 11:11 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tipstaff

Nope.

I mean.. nope.. it doesn't.

damm... FSX eats loads of CPU power to render all the terrain in use. So I would say that we have to wait fot the Core 2 Quad to run it at ultimate settings

Rigger Rigby · Oct 26, 2006, 03:09 PM

I personally can't wait to get my hands on FSX! (Will be buying soon-ish hopefully) Even though there arn't any brilliant new features it looks as though it has improved in almost evry aspect since 2004!

Sandok · Oct 26, 2006, 03:21 PM

The demo killed my rig so no thank you...

ET3D · Oct 26, 2006, 03:43 PM

I tried the demo, and it looked bad. I had expected more.

BWX · Oct 26, 2006, 04:17 PM

Even the commercial on TV looks like it's running at about 15 FPS with stuttering.. LOL..

PandaZ3 · Oct 27, 2006, 01:06 AM

I found a Copy of Deluxe at Costco and now I have it on both machines. I did not mess with the game settings and so I believe it defaulted to some MS Derived settings. I can see the gages clearly, but it blurs the panel where the placards and such are. Runs without having the CD in though. That's cool. I may have to figure a way to sneak a new video card into my cell....The Warden keeps a weather eye for contraband!, Now if it were for her computers...

Mackshot · Oct 28, 2006, 04:23 PM

I am a little surprised for a new game with heavy CPU requirements I would have expected it to utilise both cores of a duel core cpu.....or on mine it doesnt....am I missing something or does someone know if there is a setting to allow it to use both cpu cores???

Toshiba P100_221
512 mb GF 7900
Centrino Duo 2Ghz
Acer 2416 w LCD

PandaZ3 · Oct 28, 2006, 05:01 PM

I don't know and I did not check on my X2 machine to see, I do know that the 2 gig of Ram seems to make a difference. It seems obvious to me that this simulator was really aimed at the top 1% of the computers out there. I knew that were sandbagging on the requirements, but I really thought that I had overkill on the actual needs... I was wrong, Love the program though

Tipstaff · Oct 28, 2006, 11:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mackshot

I am a little surprised for a new game with heavy CPU requirements I would have expected it to utilise both cores of a duel core cpu.....or on mine it doesnt....am I missing something or does someone know if there is a setting to allow it to use both cpu cores???

You guys might be interested in THIS article. The blog is run by the lead designer of MSF series, Paul Lange. In particular, the 3rd paragraph of that article talks about the multi-processor plans, and DX10.

Mackshot · Oct 29, 2006, 04:00 PM

Thanks for that snippet Tipstaff. Good info and insight into the workings and thoughts of guys in the know. Duel CPU support on the horizon......and a bunch of other stuff.
Cheers

PandaZ3 · Oct 29, 2006, 04:14 PM

here is a tweak Guide

http://members.cox.net/spambait/FSXTweakGuide.pdf

Tipstaff · Oct 30, 2006, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PandaZ3

here is a tweak Guide

http://members.cox.net/spambait/FSXTweakGuide.pdf

I didn't even think that the default.xml rename/delete trick would still work. Awesome find, Panda.

me972 · Nov 12, 2006, 12:31 PM

I just installed the game -delux version..

with the hardware I have i left every setting on default.
changed the resolution to 1280X1024 and deleted the autogen.xml file.

and the game is running perfectly at about 40fps..
I've was scared reading all the reviews on this game killing any machine on this plannet..
I just wanted to say that giving up a little on the quality and playing with default settings is also great and that people dont really need to go out and buy new rigs just for this game.

ho.. almost forgot.. I have AAX2 and AAFX2 on manualy on in the driver side.
and the filter set on trilinear .

so.. I'm good for now...I'm gonna try pushing some of the settigns to high and more to fine tune this game to my rig ..
I'll let you guys know how it goes later..

regards
me972

PandaZ3 · Nov 12, 2006, 02:10 PM

Mine seems to run well, I have good onboard sound with the new ASRock 939 Dual VSTA board, but I may have to put my audigy 2 Value in to use the MS Sidwinder Precision joystick with Win XP X64, so I haven't used FSX, much. (I am not interested in using the keyboard and mouse alternative...takes all the fun out of it to me)

I will try a bit more to get my joystick working.

me972 · Nov 12, 2006, 02:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PandaZ3

Mine seems to run well, I have good onboard sound with the new ASRock 939 Dual VSTA board, but I may have to put my audigy 2 Value in to use the MS Sidwinder Precision joystick with Win XP X64, so I haven't used FSX, much. (I am not interested in using the keyboard and mouse alternative...takes all the fun out of it to me)

I will try a bit more to get my joystick working.

I'm using the same Joystick but I have the USB version that has a MIDI to USB converter.

when I get home this evening I'll be playing some more to test the system.. since the installation was done late last night at about 1am.. and I had to get up for work this morning.. :-)

PandaZ3 · Nov 12, 2006, 03:03 PM

I have done two or three things that may have upset the apple Cart. (1) I changed to a beta SP2 for X64. (2) I switched Motherboards from Dual Sata-2 to Dual VSTA. (3) I changed from a Audigy 2 Value to the onboard C-Media 6501 sound.

Actually I just wanted to see if this onboard was an improvement over the old onboard (It is noticeably better) but ..

I just realized I had not run Driver cleaner for the Audigy...

Anyways I can't seem to get the gameport configuration for my old MS Sidewinder 3D Pro

If it persists I'll just re-install the Audigy 2 Value.

Oct 26, 2006, 01:27 AM	#1
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	MS Flight Sim X I drove down to Fry's Monday expecting to buy MS Flight Simulator X Deluxe, but all they had was standard at $35. That's great for grandparents buying a game for one of their little Buckaroos, but what enthusiast wants to be saddled with half a game? Best Buy didn't have it either. I have zero interest in getting it shipped to me or I could have gotten it at the Egg or one of the gaming sites. Seems whoever orders software at the retail sites has no clue. __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Oct 26, 2006, 02:02 AM	#2
Customgamer1 Fell off the tech wagon Join Date: Jan 2004 Location: Wisconsin Posts: 2,273 Rep Power: 74 System Specs	I hate the Deluxe games no matter what the game is. Why spend the extra $10-20 more for the same game? I guess you get a extra dvd telling you about the making of the game and all that bs but I just don't really see the need. Buts thats just my 2 cents lol Thats to bad no one has it. __________________ Asus Laptop: 2.5 Intel Core 2 Duo, 4gigs DDR 2, Windows 7 64bit! Windows 7 > OSX!

Oct 26, 2006, 03:18 AM	Thread Starter #3
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	You get 2 DVDs with both Standard 18 aircraft 40 detailed airports 28 detailed cities 30 missions Deluxe 24 aircraft 45 detailed airports 38 detailed cities 50 missions Tower Controller but the real deal is the Garmin G1000 glass panel with the deluxe and that is important to me. __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS Last edited by PandaZ3; Oct 26, 2006 at 03:24 AM.

Oct 26, 2006, 03:38 AM	#4
SFOSOK 939 Goin Strong Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Ontario Posts: 7,033 Rep Power: 90 System Specs	Judging by ur video cards though, you shouldn't be able to run it well. __________________ Warning - Explicit Content Preceeding METAL!!

Oct 26, 2006, 03:57 AM	Thread Starter #5
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	Well no trouble with 2004 and here are the system requirements, if my 6800 GS (485/1100) or X850 Pro (540/1180) can't handle it it will be a sign to get a new card. System requirements Windows XP SP2 / Windows Vista Processor: 1.0 Ghz RAM: Windows XP SP2 - 256MB, Windows Vista – 512MB Hard Drive: 14GB Video Card: 32MB DirectX 9 compatible Other: DX9 hardware compatibility and audio board with speakers and/or headphones Online/Multiplayer Requirements: 56.6 kbps or better for online play __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Oct 26, 2006, 04:26 AM	#6
Tipstaff HardwareHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2002 Location: Real capital of Canada: Torauna Posts: 6,773 Rep Power: 190 System Specs	Trust me on this one: those specs Microsoft has posted, complete BS. You will need to turn settings down.. way down in order to get the game to run at anything close to 25 frames per second on those specs. At my store I have the following system I've been testing out (a system, btw, meant to play this game specifically): Intel DG965SS board Intel D 945 CPU (3.4Ghz, dual core) 2Gigs of 667mhz DDR2 (2x1GB, dual channel) BFG 7950GT 512mb video card Seagate 320gb SATA hard drive (7200.10, 16mb cache) XP Pro SP2 (fully tweaked out, and optimized) As a test I also tried a Core 2 E6400, and an ATI X800GTO. Of note, I also ran the NGO ATI 1.6.6 Optmized driver for the ATI card, and the latest NGO Optmized driver for the nVidia card. I ran with that setup, no Anti-aliasing, 1024x768, everything on high (there is an ultra high above this one) except the plaines on ultra high, bilinear filtering, and no frame limiting. All I could muster was 15 frames per second at best. Yes, that is 15 fps. Reduce the settings to medium high, and you will gain another 5 fps. As soon as I dropped in the Core 2 E6400 (and cuz the Core 2 runs better with 533mhz DDR2, or 800mhz DDR2 and above, I decided to underclock the ram) I gained 10 fps when on high settings, 15 when set to medium high. Now the game averages about 20-25 fps. I tell you, I was surpised to see that a simple change from a dual core P4 running at 3.4Ghz (800mhz bus) to a Core 2 E6400 had such a drastic effect on fps. Now for the fun part. I ran the same setups again, but with the ATI X800GT. First test was with everything on high running the P4 which I got 7-9 fps, then with the Core 2 which doubled the scores to 15 fps. Again, a simple CPU change makeing a huge difference. In any case I found that MSFX is highly CPU bound, and even if you have a fast as hell video card you need a damn good processor so that it doesn't bottleneck the system. Also, ram speed does have an effect too.. even if minor (2-4 fps difference), but in this game every frame per second counts. __________________ Portal: The Flash Version _________________________________ Brain: So, you sacked the cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker? Mr. Sackett: The second cocky khaki Kicky Sack sock plucker I've sacked since the sixth sitting sheet slitter got sick. Last edited by Tipstaff; Oct 26, 2006 at 06:50 AM.

Oct 26, 2006, 04:34 AM	Thread Starter #7
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	Well I can put a PCI-E card into my ASRock and the 4400 is at 2.5 per core it has a lot of Ram and I think a X1950XTX would look good in it, but I will try it first, no money for a video card just right now, but in a couple of weeks... __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Oct 26, 2006, 03:09 PM	#12
Rigger Rigby DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 1 Rep Power: 0	I personally can't wait to get my hands on FSX! (Will be buying soon-ish hopefully) Even though there arn't any brilliant new features it looks as though it has improved in almost evry aspect since 2004!

Oct 26, 2006, 03:21 PM	#13
Sandok DriverHeaven Extreme Member Join Date: Jul 2004 Posts: 9,472 Rep Power: 0	The demo killed my rig so no thank you...

Oct 26, 2006, 03:43 PM	#14
ET3D Hopeless Dreamer Join Date: Aug 2003 Location: Dreamland, near the pool of infinite graphics cards Posts: 3,057 Rep Power: 105 System Specs	I tried the demo, and it looked bad. I had expected more.

Oct 26, 2006, 04:17 PM	#15
BWX unplugged Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: USNY Posts: 19,669 Rep Power: 110 System Specs	Even the commercial on TV looks like it's running at about 15 FPS with stuttering.. LOL..

Oct 27, 2006, 01:06 AM	Thread Starter #16
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	I found a Copy of Deluxe at Costco and now I have it on both machines. I did not mess with the game settings and so I believe it defaulted to some MS Derived settings. I can see the gages clearly, but it blurs the panel where the placards and such are. Runs without having the CD in though. That's cool. I may have to figure a way to sneak a new video card into my cell....The Warden keeps a weather eye for contraband!, Now if it were for her computers... __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Oct 28, 2006, 04:23 PM	#17
Mackshot DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	I am a little surprised for a new game with heavy CPU requirements I would have expected it to utilise both cores of a duel core cpu.....or on mine it doesnt....am I missing something or does someone know if there is a setting to allow it to use both cpu cores??? Toshiba P100_221 512 mb GF 7900 Centrino Duo 2Ghz Acer 2416 w LCD

Oct 28, 2006, 05:01 PM	Thread Starter #18
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	I don't know and I did not check on my X2 machine to see, I do know that the 2 gig of Ram seems to make a difference. It seems obvious to me that this simulator was really aimed at the top 1% of the computers out there. I knew that were sandbagging on the requirements, but I really thought that I had overkill on the actual needs... I was wrong, Love the program though __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Oct 29, 2006, 04:00 PM	#20
Mackshot DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2006 Posts: 2 Rep Power: 0	Thanks for that snippet Tipstaff. Good info and insight into the workings and thoughts of guys in the know. Duel CPU support on the horizon......and a bunch of other stuff. Cheers

Oct 29, 2006, 04:14 PM	Thread Starter #21
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	here is a tweak Guide http://members.cox.net/spambait/FSXTweakGuide.pdf __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Nov 12, 2006, 12:31 PM	#23
me972 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 696 Rep Power: 0	quick question I just installed the game -delux version.. with the hardware I have i left every setting on default. changed the resolution to 1280X1024 and deleted the autogen.xml file. and the game is running perfectly at about 40fps.. I've was scared reading all the reviews on this game killing any machine on this plannet.. I just wanted to say that giving up a little on the quality and playing with default settings is also great and that people dont really need to go out and buy new rigs just for this game. ho.. almost forgot.. I have AAX2 and AAFX2 on manualy on in the driver side. and the filter set on trilinear . so.. I'm good for now...I'm gonna try pushing some of the settigns to high and more to fine tune this game to my rig .. I'll let you guys know how it goes later.. regards me972 __________________ Intel 2600K - ASRock Fatality1 Pro(Gen3) -16GB Ram 8-8-8-24 - M4 128GB

Nov 12, 2006, 02:10 PM	Thread Starter #24
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	Mine seems to run well, I have good onboard sound with the new ASRock 939 Dual VSTA board, but I may have to put my audigy 2 Value in to use the MS Sidwinder Precision joystick with Win XP X64, so I haven't used FSX, much. (I am not interested in using the keyboard and mouse alternative...takes all the fun out of it to me) I will try a bit more to get my joystick working. __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS

Nov 12, 2006, 03:03 PM	Thread Starter #26
PandaZ3 HardwareHeaven Senior Member Join Date: Nov 2002 Location: Cornelius, Oregon Posts: 419 Rep Power: 0	I have done two or three things that may have upset the apple Cart. (1) I changed to a beta SP2 for X64. (2) I switched Motherboards from Dual Sata-2 to Dual VSTA. (3) I changed from a Audigy 2 Value to the onboard C-Media 6501 sound. Actually I just wanted to see if this onboard was an improvement over the old onboard (It is noticeably better) but .. I just realized I had not run Driver cleaner for the Audigy... Anyways I can't seem to get the gameport configuration for my old MS Sidewinder 3D Pro If it persists I'll just re-install the Audigy 2 Value. __________________ It has to be Plugged In? To electricity? Video cards in house, 5770, 4650, HD 3870, X1950 XTX, X1900 XTX, X1900 XT and X1900 Crossfire, 2 X1800 XT's, X850 Pro, X800 Pro, AIW 9600XT, 9600 Pro, 9550 SE, 9200, 7000. XFX 6800 GS