88: My FSX Tuning Part 2 – Display Card

After the initial setup in Part 1, the second thing to look at is now the display card because many issues of jagging, blurry, shimmering and stutter in FSX are all related to the settings of it.

My display card is an ASUS Matrix HD5870 over-clocked to 970MHz/5000MHz (default 894MHz / 4800MHz).  Current Catalyst driver installed is 11.8.

The focus of display card setting is to get the best balance between image quality and game performance.  The results below are decided based on many testings under various conditions.  However, further changes may still be needed as the tuning process goes.

87: My FSX Tuning Part 1 – Back to Basic

As stated in my last post regarding AMD 11.8 setting, due to the discrepancy to what I’ve been using for a long time, I’ve been re-tuning my whole system as if it was just newly installed.   This is the first of a series of posts regarding my tuning process, and the objective of the first step to reset most of my system back to the state as if they were just installed.

STEP 1: Preparation

a)     Backup fsx.CFG to fsx-Backup.CFG  (c:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX)

b)    Backup or capture images of the 3D Application Settings of the display card

86: Enable Hyper-Threading

Intel’s Hyper-threading Technology enables multiple threads to run on each core to efficiently using processor resources.  It could be turned ON or OFF through the BIOS setting.

Many simmers suggest to turn it OFF since some argue that hyper-threading generates extra heat which drags the performance of FSX.  Others report that stutters are experienced due to extensive collisions between threads.

However, in my case with an i7 930 CPU overclocked to 4.0GHz, with or without using AffinityMask, I find FSX is running smoother with the hyper-threading feature enabled.

Worth a try to decide whether Enable or Disable the Hyper-Threading is best for the sytem.

85: AMD Radeon Settings (11.8 Updated)

Just upgraded to version 11.8 a week ago and in my case the new driver brings a positive result — places where used to have stutters now become smoother even though no obvious increase in overall fps.

Two major changes in setting I use in the new driver are the enabling of 64X Tessellation and Surface Format Optimization. Both of them were causing some degrees of performance degradation.  Click here to see my earlier 11.7 setting.

84: fsx.CFG – DisablePreload

When FSX is started, the default flight is also starting to load simultaneously in the background by default.   It is designed to speed up the loading process subsequently.

However, if an FSX system has installed a lot of sceneries or the sceneries installed are large and demand a lot of resources (such as Orbx’s sceneries), it is very likely that one will encounter short hang-ups while changing airports and/or aircrafts or adjusting settings, due to the preloading process taken place in the background.

To get rid of this irritating short hang-up, one can include the following line in the [Main] section of fsx.CFG to suppress the preloading:

83: Some Good Tutorial Sites

Good tutorial sites touching various subjects and features related to FSX.

Angle of Attack

Chris Palmer created a comprehensive 90-day flight simming training course to simmers for free. It is particularly useful to beginners and all who want to polish up their aviating skills.

82: My TrackIR 5 Setting

Updated: 30-Dec-2011
Here is my setting for TrackIR 5 with TrackClipPro.  The emphasis is to get an optimized result causing no fatigue to eyes.

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Basic Settings:
•   Speed = 1
•   Smooth = 50

81: Maps – FTX AU Airports – Queensland + POIs

Queensland
Here is the last for the Airport Map of Australia.  Airports of Queensland from Orbx Default, Orbx Enhanced, OZx Enhanced and Ant’s Airplanes Enhanced Addons are inlcuded.

URL for Google Earth Network Link is the same as in Tasmania Map.

NOTE:  The URL for the Points of Interests in Australia, as shown below, is a separate file from the Airport Map.  Right Click to copy the link and add it to Google Earth.

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80: Maps – FTX AU Airports – New South Wales

New South Wales
Here is the Australia Airport Map for New South Wales with Orbx Default, Orbx Enhanced, OZx Enhanced and Ant’s Airplanes Enhanced Addons.

Add the AU Airport Map URL in Tasmania Map to Google Earth Network Link. Content has been updated with New South Wales airports.

Also included are Seaplane Bases in the country.