Hi there from MS FS developer...

[OwenHewitt]

Hi Gentlemen,

Just discovered your 'Smoke On' video - awesome work!! I saw you had an MSFS forum, so I thought that I would join in and give my two cents. I'm also an FS MVP, so if anyone here has something they need help with regarding MSFS, give me a shout - if I don't know the answer, I probably know who or where to turn to.

Best regards,

Owen

[Lawndart]

Thanks from stopping by Owen and welcome to our forums!

The Columbia 400 looks very impressive, but I'm also wondering how you got FSX to run smooth and look great at the same time (assuming you're running Windows XP and not Vista). Would you mind posting some of your favorite FSX tweaks in a post and your computer specs? As you mentioned in one of your earlier blogs, the most commonly asked FSX question is regarding FPS and from what we've seen and heard, FSX without Vista and a DX10 graphics card has been a horrible frame hog. Are there any tips you might be able to pass along to our users?

[Cinch]

Thanks Owen, Lilke the write up on our movie on your site! Thanks.

But one question, what system did they dev FSX for? Does it need 8 CPU's and a total of 4 gig video ram? LOL I can not get it to run worth anything on a system with a intel dual core e6600 and a 7950gx2. But just waiting on my 8800gtx to show up so I will see how that does, But I just had to ask. What Program do you use for making models for FS? Hope to hear from you more in our fourms!!

Cinch

[scking]

I got msfsx recently as well and have a hard time to get it to run smoothly.. wish I knew how to get a good fighter jet on it as well..

[OwenHewitt]

Thanks from stopping by Owen and welcome to our forums!

The Columbia 400 looks very impressive, but I'm also wondering how you got FSX to run smooth and look great at the same time (assuming you're running Windows XP and not Vista). Would you mind posting some of your favorite FSX tweaks in a post and your computer specs? As you mentioned in one of your earlier blogs, the most commonly asked FSX question is regarding FPS and from what we've seen and heard, FSX without Vista and a DX10 graphics card has been a horrible frame hog. Are there any tips you might be able to pass along to our users?

Hi Kris,

Thanks for the comments regarding the Columbia 400 - it's been a great project to work on!

FSX is a beast - that is evident by anyone who has tried it. They really planned well into the future to stay "cutting edge" with the hardware upgrades that will be available in the next 3 years or so. What I think is that they got a little too ambitious by putting this capability into the box. Personally, I think it would have been better to perhaps offered improvements incrementally based on the hardware that is or going to be available. But, alas, we are presented with what we have. A program that has huge potential, just that not many have the hardware to keep up with that potential. Thus comes the tweaks to get it to work for one's own PC...

My system is a Dell XPS Gen 4:
-Windows XP Pro
-3.46 GHz Pentium 4
-Two GB of DDR2 memory
-One 200 GByte SATA drive
-ATI's Radeon X1900 512 MB RAM
-Audigy Platinum sound card

It is not the latest and greatest PC available, as it is about a year and half old now. The tweaks that I have found to work best for me are to turn all vehicle traffic off, turn AI commercial and general aviation to 33%, and turn down ship AI to about 25%.

I also use these FSX.cfg tweaks:

[Main] section of FSX.cfg:

DisablePreload=1
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.25
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400

[TERRAIN] section of the FSX.cfg:

TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=600
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=600

Light Bloom is also a heavy performance feature, so generally I turn it off when I'm doing general flying, but I turn it on when I am capturing screen shots.

With these settings, I'm getting roughly 18-22 FPS consistently. I generally don't fly much around large cities (as there really aren't many near where I live), so that may have something to do with that, but I am happy with the performance i am getting where I do fly.

Best regards,

Owen

[OwenHewitt]

Thanks Owen, Lilke the write up on our movie on your site! Thanks.

But one question, what system did they dev FSX for? Does it need 8 CPU's and a total of 4 gig video ram? LOL I can not get it to run worth anything on a system with a intel dual core e6600 and a 7950gx2. But just waiting on my 8800gtx to show up so I will see how that does, But I just had to ask. What Program do you use for making models for FS? Hope to hear from you more in our fourms!!

Cinch

Hi Cinch,

Have a look at the reply I gave Kris... That might give you the answer you asked.

As far as what I use to develop MS FS 3rd party aircraft, it's a mixed bag of all sorts of applications:

Gmax and 3ds Max 8 - 3-D Mesh creation, mapping, and animation
Adobe Photoshop CS & Corel DRAW - Texture creation and editing
FS Panel Studio - gauge application in the virtual cockpit
FS Sound Studio - sound package editing for FS
Adobe Audition - raw sound file editing

I use others here and there, but those are my primary applications.

Best regards,

Owen