Comments on: FSX Video Performance Testing – Quad-Core QX6850, 8800GTX SLI, 4GB RAM and Vista 64 bit

By: Sam Marsh

Sam Marsh — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:00:21 +0000

Hi There, I have a similar setup with dual 8800GTX cards, 4GB of Dominator 8500, QX6800 CPU, Dual 74GB Raptors Striped.

I find my FPS and behavior similar to yours as well. One question though, have you had any stuttering issues? if you have, how have you corrected it in YOUR setup? It seems very slight and constant. I disable just about everything on the OS, but does not seem to alleviate it… Wonder if you have tinkered with increasing the FSX.exe process priority and/or FSX config file…

By: Kris Wilgos

Kris Wilgos — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 00:07:20 +0000

Nice site. I am building a FSX capable computer. I will use a 3.16 GHz E8500 processor, as in all the test setups I’ve seen the quads don’t increase frps, so it would be a waste of money. SLI also doesn’t help, so it will be a single card, but I am not certain which. 9800 GX2 has the same frps as the Ultra, and in another test (Tom’s) the Ultra is just .6 frps faster than the GTX. Since I like the single-GPU simplicity and better cooling designs of the Ultra and the GTX, I am leaning towards them. Or perhaps the 9800 GX2 will future-proof my PC, like FS 11… What do you think?

By: Jonny

Jonny — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 02:59:41 +0000

You have an impressive machine, but I think a 8800gtx sli system is over the top for the FSX. The Flight Simulator does not need a fast graphics card, it’s just CPU limited. I do not see any differences when I run the FSX in high resulutions with AA and AF or in lower resuluions with no AA and AF selected. In contrast to this, reducing the traffic options or autogen has a much bigger effect.
But, off course, you have done nothing wrong with your CPU which is defenately fast enough to handle the FSX, as your framerates show.

By: nick

nick — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 17:08:19 +0000

Thanks for the comments. I see frame rates of about 25-30 around the ground and 50+ at higher altitudes. This is with most of the graphics settings maxed out although autogen density and traffic levels backed off a bit (as these are big CPU hogs). These figures are for flying around 99% of the world… obviously if one tries to buzz NYC the fps goes down a bit.

So far I haven’t had too many major issues with Vista (knock on wood) although there are certainly some things I find very annoying. For a start, Vista asking special permission anytime it does anything is very annoying… that’s not well programed security that’s just Microsoft saying ‘Hey, from now on if something breaks we can just say it’s your fault since you clicked OK.’

By: Craig

Craig — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 04:21:38 +0000

Very nice site. Thanks for taking the time to document your thoughts. I went through this in 2006, I ended up with a dual core extreme (water cooled) with an NVidia 8800 card.

I was going to set up SLI, but I haven’t done it just yet (the card is just sitting in the box).

My main issues were driver issues. At the time Nvidia was change the drivers weekly.

Also was the Vista issue. I finally backed off from Vista.

I would really like to read a summary re-cap. Youve done and excellent job with the web site.

What kind of frame rates to you get with the new rig?