This video demonstrates the exceptional performance you can reach if you setup and tune your FSX according to this guide.

These challenges are to be taken:

frame hungry aircraft PMDG Boeing 747

Mega airport Frankfurt EDDL RWY 07

rich autogen and road traffic settings

plenty of AI traffic

very bad weather conditions with heavy cloud cover and rainfall

Tuning of operating system Win7 64 bit:
Credits to Nick Needham

disable User Access Control UAC

install chipset driver, reboot, install the rest of the drivers

disable automatic updates

install latest DirectX update "dxwebsetup" (optional)

install latest C++ Library redistributables (32 bit version) "vcredist_x86" (optional)

turn off system restore

disable automatic disk defragmentation for the SSD

disable hibernate permanently

disable windows defender and kill it

reboot

Graphic card settings for optimized image quality:

Catalyst version 10.11

The main screen for the FSX has a native resolution of 1600 x 1200 pixel.

Use custom settings

Anti-aliasing - use application settings

Anti-aliasing mode - Super-Sampling-AA removes shimmering

Anisotropic filtering - use application settings

Mipmap - high quality

Vertical SYNC is off (FSX controlled)

Fine tuning the graphic card settings with the utility RadeonPro for optimized image quality:

These settings help to remove shimmering.

Installation of the flight simulator FSX and Acceleration

1) Create a directory called "FSX" on a suitable drive for the installation of the FSX. Install FSX into this directory.
Do not use the standard path suggested by the installer (C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Games\Microsoft Flight Simulator X).
Hence the User Account Control won't bother the FSX installation and operation.
Launch, activate and exit FSX. Shut down and restart the computer.

2) Install FSX Acceleration. This includes two service packs, i. e. SP 1 and SP2.
Launch, activate and exit FSX Acceleration. Shut down and rebstart the computer.
If you don't have FSX Acceleration then install SP1, fire up FSX, install SP2 and launch FSX.
Shut down and restart the computer.

This picture shows the installation of FSX and Acceleration. 49'246 files are contained in 1799 directories.

3) Switch FSX to windows mode with ALT + ENTER.

4) Defragment your magnetic disc drives. Solid state disks (SSDs) shall never be defragmented.

5) Backup this clean FSX installation (directory C:\FSX) to a large data disk.

6) Do not install any add-ons yet. Let's first optimise the FSX settings and implement some useful tweaks.

Tweaks with positive results on this platform.

Limitation of the frame rate fps.

It doesn't make sense if the PC calculates and draws the screen content with a rate of 50 fps and more. That is simply a waste of valuable computing power. Hence it's better to limit the frame rate enabling the simulation to run smoother and with better image quality. Hence we set internal FPS limitation to 30 frames per second (fps). On top of that we use an external FPS limiter from Marko Ludolph. You can download the file FPS_Limiter_0.2.rar and unpack it. Java should be installed on your computer to use this excellent limiter.

You can move the directory FPS_Limiter_0.2 into the FSX-directory (e. g. C:\FSX). Then you start the user interface FPS_Limiter_GUI.jar. You accept the preset maximum fps of 30, select "Search Executable" and point to the FSX.exe file. Pushing "create bat" will create the batch file you need to start the FPS_Limiter_0.2 and the simulator FSX.

You can increase and decrease the preset fps-limit on the fly using F12 and F11.

This setup should stabilize the frame rate and run the simulation smoother. More CPU power is available to do texture work and thus increase the image quality.

Using the Sandy Bridge processor i7-2600k you might also get good results without this limiter. Just test it with your test flights.

The following tweaks have been manually implemented by editing the FSX.CFG with a simple text editor:

[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1
This fixes a memory problem.
It allows FSX to manage more than 512 MB of video memory on WDDM1.0 and WDDM1.1 without making textures dissapear or consider them stale.
Credit to Jesus Altuve aka "Bojote".

[JOBSCHEDULER]
AffinityMask=244
This additional entry balances the FSX load better among the 8 threads of a quad processor with multithreading, i. e. the i7-2600k.
For the i5-2500k or other processors with 4 threads the corresponding value of the affinity mask would be 14.
Cores 0 and 1 reserved for other applications. Cores 2 and 3 are responsible for the main scheduler.
Cores 4 to 8  are responsible for loading of the terrain system (fibers) and for the texture manager and object batching (autogen).

[SCENERY]
SmallPartRejectRadius=4
This tweak informs FSX to only draw Autogen scenery that is larger than 3 pixels.
FSX default setting is to draw objects that are 2 pixels and larger in the Autogen.
This tweak will raise the minimum size of Autogen to be displayed.
So you are 'shifting' the balance in FSX making it more video card bound.

[MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=n [ n = 0.01 - 0.99 ]
This variable determines the amount of processor time given to loading scenery data as a fraction of the time spent rendering.
The default value is 0.33. This means that 33.3 % of the processor time is spent for the scenery loader and 66.6 % for the rendering of the graphics.
If you have blurries in your scenery then you can increase this value and devote more time for scenery loading.
Or, if you don't have a problem with the blurries and you want slightly higher frame rates, then you can use a smaller value.
Experiment with the number entered here and adjust them to your taste for a balance of quality and speed.
For true photoreal scenery depending on your PC specifications, you may need to set this value as high as 0.5 or even 0.7.
On this 4.8 GHz Sandy Bridge platform a value of 0.15 is suitable.
Credit to Microsoft.

[MAIN]
HideInfoText=1
This eliminates screen messages such as Cockpit View, Spot View, etc.

Tweaking & Tuning tool for FSX SP2 / Acceleration

You should verify and optimize your FSX.CFG file with Jesus Altuve's service at http://www.venetubo.com/fsx.html.
I got a great improvement when using this service. It's really worthwhile.
Credit to Jesus Altuve aka "Bojote".

FSX settings

The sim generates a FSX.CFG file with parameters appropriate to your platform. Let's call this the default settings.
We modify these default settings in order to get a very high image quality for photoreal sceneries
while maintaining a performance of > 30 frames per second (fps) in most of the situations.

We verify that we found the sweet spot for our system with standardised test flights with the default Cessna Skyhawk.
1) Seattle KBFI RWY 31L to harbor and back to Seattle KBFI.
2) Your favorite local flight, e. g. from Grenchen LSZG RW 25 to Bern-Belp LSZB RWY 14.

We verify that frame rate, smooth operation and image quality are all fine and nicely balanced.
We deactivate the virus protection engine when ever we are flying.

Global Texture Resolution (Globale Strukturauflösung) = very high - best displays photoreal textures
We select the native screen resolution (Vollbildauflösung).

Level of detail radius (Radius Detailgenauigkeit) = large - reduces blurring of textures
Mesh Complexity (Musterkomplexität) = 100 - better terrain definition
Mesh resolution = 5 m - required for top quality sceneries
Mesh resolution (Strukturauflösung) = 7 cm - sharpest roads and freeways
Water effects = high 2x = very good water display
Scenery Complexity (Szeneriekomplexität)= extremely dense - this is how the best sceneries are designed
Autogen Density (Automatisch generierte Dichte) = dense - best rame rate fps versus image detail

Very high traffic settings

These settings are the sweet spot for my platform for VFR flying with photoreal sceneries.
You might have different priorities and your system might behave differently.
Hence your milage may vary.
With suitbale testing you will find your personal sweet spot for your flight sim application.

Installation of Add-ons

We start with the global add-ons, then we install the regional and finally the local add-ons.

Global Add-ons

The RealAir Duke B60 is probably the best General Aviation aircraft out there.

At the bottom there is a worldwide mesh for the topography of the terrain, i. e. FS Global 2010.

Matterhorn - Switzerland

Clouds, water and runway textures are optimised with
Real Environment Xtreme (REX 2.0) - Theme Reality.

Coming: 2 pictures with great clouds and water.

The best weather engine out there is used for the download and presentation of weather in real time
i. e. Active Sky Evolution.

After testing various AI traffic products I selected Ultimate Traffic X.

Regional Add-ons

An optimized representation of the terrain and autgen objects is achieved with
Ground Environment X (GEX) North America and Europe.

Local Add-ons

Switzerland Professional X
Excellent VFR scenery with summer and winter textures.

Coming: 2 pictures of famous mountains: Matterhorn, Jungfrau

Small Swiss airports

Sitterdorf LSZV

Various photoreal sceneries such as VFR Germany, VFR France, Liguria, Tuscany

USA / Canada pacific northwest from Full Terrain Experience FTX.
This is probably the most stunning VFR scenery you can find.

Questions? Comments? Write eMail info@happy-art.ch Thank you!

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ © by happy art - design & programming by happy art - version 1.0