First run

[artimrj]

I already owned FSX, since it came out. I already have about $2k invested in to it with PMDG and other high tech add-ons and hardware including yoke and pedals and joystick and throttle. So for $5 I figured I would check this out if only to see what FSX looks and acts like in a virgin state. I have 78 gig of add-ons in my original FSX.

I fired it up and the first thing it does is build a scenery database. Then it does it's auto config thing for you. It set up my graphics details to ULTRA on everything! A little bit shocking to me. So I left them alone and got into a small plane and took off. My FPS was set at unlimited and I was bouncing around between 55 and 85 FPS. I have never had FPS that high before, but my 50 some gig of scenery and meshes and REX and weather are not installed.

None of my configs for joystick or yoke worked correctly. It had my fuel mixture lever as my rudder control. I had it in the back position and started spinning in a circle! Saw the rudder completely turned out in an external view. So I have that task ahead of me. I hate reconfiguring input devices...

The scenery looked good, flying was seamless, no stutters or lags, just smooth flying.

I am going to see if I can add the scenery to it from the other FSX install. I believe that will work since I already reference scenery packs on several drives. I own all the Mega Sceneries from PC Aviator and a slew of airports. FS Genesis meshes are going to go in soon too.

All in all it appears to be the same. It runs great in virgin state, we shall see what happens as I bloat it up.

[GSkid]

That's great Bob! I've yet to download and try it out. It's a pretty big download and I'm only at 3Mb speed right now. I was looking at those Mega Scenery packs. It's really hard to choose a scenery company cuz a lot of them look good. I wish there was some site that compared scenery from different vendors to give them grades and the pluses and minuses of each to make an informed decision.

Thanks for making this sub-section. Once I finally get this running, I'll report my frame rates. I haven't played this sim in 25 years!!

[DrewG]

If your looking for a good scenery pack the Orbx Pacific Northwest scenery is stunning. Plus with the freeware addons they have that go with it, one of the best overall scenery packages.

[artimrj]

So I am flying my B17 around Pittsburgh and I look down and see traffic moving on the roads! I never saw that before. Teeny little cars zooming down the roads. As I said, the default settings for me were ULTRA something. So I decided to take a closer look at what they really were. To my surprise they were not maxed out, but barely on at all. The terrain mesh was only half way up and other items were not even close to maxed out including AI traffic. So I started cranking it up. I now have everything turned up to about 75% and I get lows of 45 FPS and highs of only 60-62. Everything is still smooth flying, not too much tree popping. Occasional micro pause as a big chunk of forest loads in.

Was looking at the online play. You can make your own server that is private. It is using Steam now since gamespy is gone. I also grabbed a new copy of FSHost. Will be looking into that, but with Steam having the server and also able to voice chat it might be worthless. Have to see how it flies online.

When I first opened my VA years ago, a bunch of us used to fly online and have BS sessions. We would basically pick a spot on the world and then play follow the leader with whatever planes we chose for that run. Was pretty cool one day in B52s. We had a nice formation going for a while.

[NYWhiskey]

Remember the custom P51s you made with our call signs Bob? I have to find mine. I had a good video of me, Rob Reedy, and Jim flying the DC3s but I can't find it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2g1pNtR8bmE

[GSkid]

Hey NYWhiskey....

Why does the propeller on that one plane look weird in the video? Is it missing the correct texture? Looks like a bunch of propeller "X" shapes.
'

[artimrj]

Hey NYWhiskey....

Why does the propeller on that one plane look weird in the video? Is it missing the correct texture? Looks like a bunch of propeller "X" shapes.
'

That's what FS Host does playing online. His wheels are missing also.

[NYWhiskey]

Yea, the missing wheels were from fshost but I think the prop was from something I was playing around with, I forget what it was.

[GSkid]

Well I did my first run...

At 1360x768, I cranked everything on every single graphics tab up to max... meshes, clouds, DX10 preview, AA, draw distance, etc.. etc. The only thing I didn't check, select or slide to max is the slider for how often the weather changes. Otherwise....if it could be maxed, it was maxed.

I flew the default free flight set up with that powered hang glider ultralight. On my new laptop I got 60-80 fps and when diving in closer to the ground, I got in the low 100fps+ range at times. I only played it briefly to get some quick frame rate numbers to report. I used my Xbox 360 controller to fly.

I noticed the water flashed briefly for a second and I don't think it was lightning. No storms in sight. Almost like a brief water-texture blanking. I also noticed what appeared to be a little screen tearing at times with ground scenery in turns. I didn't see a v-sync option that I recall. May have to try and force it in the Nvidia control panel if I can. I'll chime in more when I've played the sim longer.

UPDATE: Flew Las Vegas. Plenty of Z-fighting on some buildings and other places. Plenty of screen tearing. I got about 30-55fps here with 40fps on average.