Simviation Forum - New laptop doesn't run FSX all that well

Oct 20^th, 2010 at 10:03am

brettt777 Offline
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Gadsden, AL

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Posts: 313

I have a new Asus G73 laptop that has an i7 720QM processor, Mobility Radeon HD 5870 with 1gb of GDDR5, 8gb of system ram and running Windows 7 Home Premium. These specs are way better than my old Dell XPS 710 and while the laptop blows the Dell away on every other sim or game I can run on it, for some reason FSX doesn't run any better at all. I keep having to turn down the graphics quality more and more. Sometimes it is silky smooth but other times when it's somewhat graphic intense (like a high speed canyon run through the Grand Canyon) I can barely get 10-12 fps out of it. This thing runs everything else at least half again as fast as the Dell with all graphic settings maxed out but for some reason I can't get FSX to run smoothly. I did alot of homework before I got this laptop and everyone said you can run even the newest games at max settings and it's silky smooth. That is apparently true for everything except FSX. So what am I missing? Should I use the DX10 setting? I've tried everything I can think of but I am sure there are other things that can be done. Thanks in advance.

P.S. yes I do have it in turbo mode.

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Reply #1 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 10:33am

tcco94 Offline
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Go Avs!
Bay Area, California

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Posts: 4241

I have a laptop and I used to run FSX, until I realized my laptop couldn't handle it. My best suggestion is to move down to FS9...

Sincerely, Tyler

www.tylerconnell.com
http://www.phoenixva.org/index.php/profile/view/PVA1557

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Reply #2 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 11:08am

Fozzer Offline
Colonel
An elderly FS 2004 addict!
Hereford. England. EGBS.

Posts: 24861

Desktop/Tower

v Laptop

...>>>

http://205.252.250.26/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1287263065

Paul...G-BPLF...FS 2004... Cool

...!

Dell Dimension 5000 BTX Tower. Win7 Home Edition, 32 Bit. Intel Pentium 4, dual 2.8 GHz. 2.5GB RAM, nVidia GF 9500GT 1GB. SATA 500GB + 80GB. Philips 17" LCD Monitor. Micronet ADSL Modem only. Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. FS 2004 + FSX. Briggs and Stratton Petrol Lawn Mower...Motor Bikes. Gas Cooker... and lots of musical instruments!.... ...!
Yamaha MO6,MM6,DX7,DX11,DX21,DX100,MK100,EMT10,PSR400,PSS780,Roland GW-8L v2,TR505,Casio MT-205,Korg CX3v2 dual manual,+ Leslie 760,M-Audio Prokeys88,KeyRig,Cubase,Keyfax4,Guitars,Orchestral,Baroque,Renaissance,Medieval Instruments.

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Reply #3 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 11:24am

brettt777 Offline
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Gadsden, AL

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Posts: 313

Okay maybe I'm not understanding something. The laptop has way better specs than my old desktop and it runs everything else I throw at it on max settings with no problem; better than the desktop every thought about doing. But even with that much power it won't run FSX any better than the desktop, because it's just a laptop??? Huh

If I had a desktop with similar specs, would it run better? I'm not doubting anyone, I just don't understand how this can be. But then, while I do know a good bit about PC's I am certainly no expert.

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Reply #4 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 12:33pm

Fozzer Offline
Colonel
An elderly FS 2004 addict!
Hereford. England. EGBS.

Posts: 24861

Dave's specification for running FSX...>>>

"FSX WebShots
Intel Core i7 Extreme Processor 965, 4GHz/8MB L3 Cache, Asus P6T Deluxe V2 Intel X58 Chipset Cross
Fire & SLI Supported, Mushkin Redline 6GB (3X2GB) Memory, eVGA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 285, Vista 64".

My Desktop computer would never be able to run my copy of FSX satisfactorily without involving considerable additional expense in upgrading all my Hardware*, which is why I concentrate on enjoying my copy of FS 2004 instead.

Paul...G-BPLF..FS 2004...without tears... Cool

...!

* difficult/impossible to do with a Laptop Computer?

Dell Dimension 5000 BTX Tower. Win7 Home Edition, 32 Bit. Intel Pentium 4, dual 2.8 GHz. 2.5GB RAM, nVidia GF 9500GT 1GB. SATA 500GB + 80GB. Philips 17" LCD Monitor. Micronet ADSL Modem only. Saitek Cyborg Evo Force. FS 2004 + FSX. Briggs and Stratton Petrol Lawn Mower...Motor Bikes. Gas Cooker... and lots of musical instruments!.... ...!
Yamaha MO6,MM6,DX7,DX11,DX21,DX100,MK100,EMT10,PSR400,PSS780,Roland GW-8L v2,TR505,Casio MT-205,Korg CX3v2 dual manual,+ Leslie 760,M-Audio Prokeys88,KeyRig,Cubase,Keyfax4,Guitars,Orchestral,Baroque,Renaissance,Medieval Instruments.

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Reply #5 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 3:26pm

Thai09 Offline
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I Like Flight Simulation!

Gender:
Posts: 144

Hi Brett...

I have the exact same Asus, and it runs FSX really well!

There are a few things you need to be aware of:

1. Are you absolutely sure Turbo Boost is working?

Hit "delete" when you boot, and check the setting...

1.a DONT USE ASUS POWER4GEAR! Make your own powerplan with Max. Performance

2. Where did you install FSX?

I have the Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB for the OS and a 500 GB Western Digital Black for FSX only.

3. Install FSX as per NickN´s guide (s)

4. A few of the much discussed Bojote tweaks from Avsim can be used, BP=0, and a few others. Do a bit of experimenting.

5. This machine get´s awfully hot! Try a BIOS update to Version 211, but follow the instructions carefully here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/507287-asus-g73jh-bio...

6. I´ve found that unticking Core 1 with Task Manager helps with temps on this core - and performance in FSX... - , it reaches well into 80 C!

7. ATI 5870: Use Application (set in FSX) controlled Anisotropic Filtering and AA. Set the rest in Catalyst Center and pls. be modest, nobody runs FSX with max. IQ or settings!

There are other settings and tweaks, but try these first and see how it works...

Off course you cannot run maxed settings in FSX, be modest and you´ll be surprised how well FSX will perform.

I connected a 32" LG 1920x1080 yesterday, and it performs and looks amazing!

Good luck with this monster "Notebook".

Oh forgot! Bojotes VSync tweak is a must...

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Reply #6 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 3:34pm

brettt777 Offline
Colonel
Gadsden, AL

Gender:
Posts: 313

Thai09 wrote on Oct 20^th, 2010 at 3:26pm:

Hi Brett...

I have the exact same Asus, and it runs FSX really well!

There are a few things you need to be aware of:

1. Are you absolutely sure Turbo Boost is working?

Hit "delete" when you boot, and check the setting...

2. Where did you install FSX?

I have the Seagate Momentus XT 500 GB for the OS and a 500 GB Western Digital Black for FSX only.

3. Install FSX as per NickN´s guide (s)

4. A few of the much discussed Bojote tweaks from Avsim can be used, BP=0, and a few others. Do a bit of experimenting.

5. This machine get´s awfully hot! Try a BIOS update to Version 211, but follow the instructions carefully here:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/asus-gaming-notebook-forum/507287-asus-g73jh-bio...

6. I´ve found that unticking Core 1 with Task Manager helps with temps on this core, it reaches well into 80 C!

7. ATI 5870: Use Application controlled Anisotropic Filtering and AA. Set the rest in Catalyst Center.

There are other settings and tweaks, but try these first and see what you get.

Off course you cannot run maxed settings in FSX, be modest and you´ll be surprised how well FSX will perform.

I connected a 32" LG 1920x1080 yesterday, and it performs and looks amazing!

Good luck with this monster "Notebook".

Oh forgot! Bojotes VSync tweak is a must...

Wow, this is the kind of info I was looking for. I will definitely look into this. Thanks a million to all of you. Thai09, have you experimented at all with any overclocking of the G73 CPU or GPU?

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Reply #7 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 3:41pm

Thai09 Offline
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Not the cpu, yet... It get´s awfully hot with Turbo Boost already!

The ATI 5870 you can clock to about 750 / 1100, but the gain is minimal, FSX being CPU dependent...

Again, try it out, but be careful with the temps, it hits 80 C very easy, and maybe it´s fine, haven´t had too many BSOD or GSOD´s.

Use the AMD GPU Clock Tool:

http://downloads.guru3d.com/AMD-GPU-Clock-Tool-v0.9.8-download-1985.html

Wink

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Reply #8 - Oct 20^th, 2010 at 9:18pm

brettt777 Offline
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Gadsden, AL

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Posts: 313

Thai09 wrote on Oct 20^th, 2010 at 3:26pm:

Hi Brett...

6. I´ve found that unticking Core 1 with Task Manager helps with temps on this core - and performance in FSX... - , it reaches well into 80 C!

I am not sure what you mean by this one. I don't see anything about Core 1 in the task manager.

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Reply #9 - Oct 21^st, 2010 at 3:01am

Thai09 Offline
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I Like Flight Simulation!

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Open Task Manager > Processes

Right click FSX.exe (You have to start FSX) scroll down to Set Affinity

There you will be able to set Processor Affinity, if you need it of course!

Currently I´m in Bangkok, Thailand, and it´s hot here...

Haven´t tried a Cooler Pad yet, will do later and see if the temps go down.

Cool

PS: The main reason I talk about temps is that apparently Turbo Boost switches off if the CPU reaches close to 80C, and it does that very easy in FSX...

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Reply #10 - Oct 21^st, 2010 at 9:36am

brettt777 Offline
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Gadsden, AL

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Posts: 313

Okay I played with a few of the settings you suggested last night and actualy got FSX to run quite well on fairly high graphics settings. The key seemed to be the Direct X 10. Without it I was running at maybe 10-12 fps and the graphics didn't even look all that impressive. With DX10 on, I was at 25-30 almost all the time and it looked great (except for where there were shadows on the ground or on my aircraft. Will try it with shadows turned off). The problem I have with this setup is that the textures don't come up on a good number of my planes. The plane comes up and functions properly but it's all white or grey, no textures at all. Alot of them work but alot of them don't and there are a few that partially work; some of the textures are there and some aren't. I am guessing that maybe some of the textures are DXT1 or whatever and need to be changed to some other format, DXT3 or something...?
BTW, visited Bangkok many years ago. Thailand is a neat place.

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Reply #11 - Oct 21^st, 2010 at 10:16am

Thai09 Offline
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I Like Flight Simulation!

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Posts: 144

The "Pro´s" don´t recommend DX 10 with FSX, it's broken!

Get the latest DX 9 update here:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=2da43d38-db71-4c1b-b...

DX10 is a preview, as mentioned in the menu, not finished at all.

Ground Shadows is a heavy FPS hitter, same with Cars and Airport Ground Vehicles!

Also keep Air Traffic at max. 30-35%

My best advise?

Use the 2 hours to read, read and read again here, and then of course apply what you learned:

http://www.simforums.com/forums/win-xp64-and-windows7-help_topic34141_page1.html

Yep, it´s a great place, Thailand. Cool

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Reply #12 - Oct 21^st, 2010 at 1:12pm