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"Upgrading" from FSX to FS9 (Read 8913 times)
Reply #15 - Jan 5th, 2011 at 12:44pm

Mr._Ryan   Offline
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Here's the thing I'm finding as I'm comparing FSX to FS9: I saw a lot of youtube videos of people that have gotten FS9 to almost look like FSX in terms of graphics; I have Ground Environment, Real Environment, FS Global 2010, Ultimate Terrain and on and on and on installed, all of the sliders maxed, and I can't get it to look even close. My suspicion is that the videos on youtube are of small areas where the user has super-detailed scenery, and that for the rest of his FS9 "world" it looks a lot like mine. Am I wrong? What gives? I thought with all the addons I would at least get it to look close.

 
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Reply #16 - Jan 5th, 2011 at 2:11pm

Capt.Propwash   Offline
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if YOU made that video... by that video FS9 "IS" better than FSX in terms of scenery.

I am just starting to play around with installing Ground Environment Pro, but I am finding that their "textures" in MY sim are Absolutely NOTHING like what they show on their website.

http://www.simviation.com/phpupload/uploads/1294278170.jpg
(image copied from environments.flight1.net in order to be shown here; could not hotlink to their page)   --- Thousands and Thousands of 3D houses (autogen)

now while i have Ground Environment Pro, Ultimate Terrain USA // CANADA/ALASKA, REX 2004 installed... every single slider to the right EXCEPT MIP MAP=4... i still only get the default sparse placement of houses/buildings. 

I thought Ground Environment Pro would MURDER my frames with the addition of billions of houses (most of which would be outside the "rendered scenery area" up close to me) but still.. only default placing of houses.   

Am I missing a step somewhere??? 
 

The thoughts and expressions contained in the post above are solely my own, and not necessarily those of Simviation.com, its Moderators, its Staff, its Members, or other guests. They can not, are not, and will not be held liable for any thoughts, or expressions, or posts that I have made, or will make in the future.

Computer Specs:: Acer Aspire Laptop..Win7 Home Premium 64-bit (sp1), AMD Athlon II X2 P340 (Dual Core) [2.2 Ghz], ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250 (256mb), 4GB DDR3......FS9.1(sp3) / FSX (sp2)..... Ultimate Terrain X, Ground Environment X, REX, FTX ORBX PNW-PFJ-NRM-CRM, OZx, Tongass Fjords, Misty Moorings
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Reply #17 - Jan 5th, 2011 at 2:29pm

Mr._Ryan   Offline
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Capt.Propwash wrote on Jan 5th, 2011 at 2:11pm:
if YOU made that video... by that video FS9 "IS" better than FSX in terms of scenery.

I am just starting to play around with installing Ground Environment Pro, but I am finding that their "textures" in MY sim are Absolutely NOTHING like what they show on their website.

http://www.simviation.com/phpupload/uploads/1294278170.jpg
(image copied from environments.flight1.net in order to be shown here; could not hotlink to their page)   --- Thousands and Thousands of 3D houses (autogen)

now while i have Ground Environment Pro, Ultimate Terrain USA // CANADA/ALASKA, REX 2004 installed... every single slider to the right EXCEPT MIP MAP=4... i still only get the default sparse placement of houses/buildings. 

I thought Ground Environment Pro would MURDER my frames with the addition of billions of houses (most of which would be outside the "rendered scenery area" up close to me) but still.. only default placing of houses.   

Am I missing a step somewhere??? 


That video is the one that made me think I could get FS9 to look like FSX; it's not mine. And you and I are on the exact same page - I installed all that crap and there is minimal difference between FS9 with all the addons (several hundred dollars' worth, I might add) and stock FS9. In FSX you see the difference immediately - in FS9 I see barely any difference at all.

So you and I are looking for an answer to the same question - hopefully someone has it.
 
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Reply #18 - Jan 5th, 2011 at 3:50pm

Daube   Offline
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Mr._Ryan wrote on Jan 5th, 2011 at 12:44pm:
Here's the thing I'm finding as I'm comparing FSX to FS9: I saw a lot of youtube videos of people that have gotten FS9 to almost look like FSX in terms of graphics; I have Ground Environment, Real Environment, FS Global 2010, Ultimate Terrain and on and on and on installed, all of the sliders maxed, and I can't get it to look even close. My suspicion is that the videos on youtube are of small areas where the user has super-detailed scenery, and that for the rest of his FS9 "world" it looks a lot like mine. Am I wrong? What gives? I thought with all the addons I would at least get it to look close.



There are only very few addons that can make specific FS9 places look as good as in FSX. Mainly, the concerned areas are the sky and the airports.

  • The sky in FS9 is quite the same as in FSX, really. So if you provide FS9 with nice sky and clouds textures, it will look just as good as FSX with the same sky and cloud textures.
  • The airports sceneries usually consist of buildings and photoreal ground. If they used the "3D ground" technique (displaying a flat 3D object with a very nice ground texture/photo on it, on top of the default sim ground), then there is no ground texture resolution limitations anymore, and for that airport you can get something looking as detailled, crisp and precise as in FSX.


However, there are places where the magic won't work.
The most obvious one is the water. No matter how many REX textures you fill in your FS9, the seas will never look as good as in FSX. On some angles, where the reflection is not visible, you can get close (with good sea ground textures), but then again you'll be limited by the waterclass which is less detailled than in FSX, causing a quicker "chess" effect due to repetitive textures.

Same goes for the "normal" (out of airports) areas. You won't be able to get crisp textures on the ground, and the limited variety of landclasses will cause the same problem as described above for the water. Also the autogen will not look as dense in cities or forests.

However, most of those limitations are not really relevant for those who pilot big liners at high altitude and land only in big airports. The ground crisp textures will be there at takeoff and landing, and they will get a pleasant sky to sail. Meshes or ground/water textures are not that important in such flights, but performance is a big bonus, a bonus that FSX can hardly provide, even on the best machines, especially on major airports. IFR is where FS9 rules Smiley

 
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Reply #19 - Jan 6th, 2011 at 8:05am

EVVFCX   Offline
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I'm guessing I'm the odd one out!

Out of the box I prefer fsx: Why? because I'm only getting 1 to 2 fps difference between the two and for the better graphics in fsx I now prefer it, plus, I've been passing my older flight sims onto colleagues at work to get them interested in flights sims so no longer have fs2002 or fs9/fs2004 disks at home.

Overall my fps is poor anyway compared to what others mention here but I've not gone through any of Nicks sim tweaking methods.

regards

Steve

RIP flight sim 1 by Sublogic Grin
 

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So far my number of landings either passenger or pilot equal my number of takeoffs, but that is due to change Smiley
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Reply #20 - Jan 9th, 2011 at 12:45pm

hhomebrewer   Offline
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Mr._Ryan wrote on Dec 29th, 2010 at 2:09pm:
I was reading a post in another section of the forum and someone mentioned something I had never thought of - running FS2004 instead of FSX. It makes some sense; instead of upgrading your PC for tons of money to run FSX well, just switch to FS2004. Does FSX really require that much more RAM/CPU power, etc. than FS9? My specs:

Intel Quad core @2.66GHz
4 GB RAM
Nvidia GeForce 9800GTX+ (512 MB)

I can get 30 fps with decent settings on FSX, but I have to keep the traffic low and there are definitely tradeoffs. How much better would my system run FS9?

I would greatly appreciate anyone's input.

fraps says I'm  getting a solid, rock-steady 60 fps out of what you see below. I see no reason to downgrade to FSX. I was only able to get around 25-28 fps when trying to enjoy FSX. Tried for about two weeks to come to love it. Never did. Took it off. Never looked back...
 

I am homebrewer. I had 633 posts when for some unknown reason, my account disappeared...
AMD Phenom II X4 940 (Deneb), Asus M3N72-D motherboard, 2 x nVidia 8800GTS @640MB RAM, 1 x Seagate Barracuda 500Gb HDD (storage), 1 x Western Digital Black 250Gb HDD (boot), 12Gb 800Mhz G.Skill RAM (5-5-5-18), 2x Sony DVD writers, 28-inch ViewSonic monitor given to me by my computer guru, FS2004, Windows 7 Professional (64-bit), 850-watt Thermaltake modular p/s, 7 x 120mm fans to cool it...
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Reply #21 - Jan 9th, 2011 at 1:22pm

Steve M   Offline
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EVVFCX wrote on Jan 6th, 2011 at 8:05am:
I'm guessing I'm the odd one out!

Out of the box I prefer fsx: Why? because I'm only getting 1 to 2 fps difference between the two and for the better graphics in fsx I now prefer it, plus, I've been passing my older flight sims onto colleagues at work to get them interested in flights sims so no longer have fs2002 or fs9/fs2004 disks at home.

Overall my fps is poor anyway compared to what others mention here but I've not gone through any of Nicks sim tweaking methods.

regards

Steve

RIP flight sim 1 by Sublogic Grin



My FS9 is sitting on a shelf. I too have FSX and it looks and runs just fine. In FS9 I got amazing framerates, but even locking the frames at 20 I had serious jaggies and blurry scenery even at a standstill on the tarmac. My wings looked like Wilma Flintstones hemline. After 3 days of reading, adjusting and tweaking and posting, No luck. For me, at least, I'll be sticking with FSX, IL2,MS CFS2 and a few others, all of which run fine on my system.  Tongue
 

...
Flying with twins is a lot of fun..
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Reply #22 - Jan 10th, 2011 at 12:27am

snippyfsxer   Offline
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Whenever I start mentally calculating how many hundreds of dollars I would have to spend on enhancements to make FS9 look as good as FSX, I realize that if I wanted to go back to FS9, I could probably achieve a similar result by simply lowering my sliders in FSX.  There are several great features of FS9 that I miss.  Fade in/Fade out Autogen, better compatibility with 3rd party Weather Engines....On the other hand, I realize that most of the airplanes that I found were the greatest thing in the world back in the old days, with 2D cockpits, just wouldn't make the bar in the world of Accusim, and some of the sophistication today that is exclusively FSX.  I know because I've tried it...that old SSTSIM Concorde, for instance, just doesn't measure up, once you've used the FSLabs one in the VC, even though it was awesome back then.

How does FS9, burdened up with all of the bells and whistles and running on ONE PROCESSOR Core, compare, performance wise, with FSX running on 4 or 6 Cores, similarly embellished with extensive addons?  Not being sarcastic, that is a serious question.  Its possible that one day, if FSX pisses me off enough, that I might embark upon such a project...but I would like to know in advance if it would be worth it.
 
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Reply #23 - Jan 10th, 2011 at 5:50am

Daube   Offline
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Of course it's a matter of personnal standards. There are still some simmers who prefer 2D panels, even for VFR flights. In any case, even in FS9 you already get a good load of very good looking virtual cockpits, so even the VC-only pilots could get satisfied in FS9, provided they ignore the lack of smoothness of the gauges. I flew FS9 for 3 full years, and I enjoyed it as much as I could. I never had payware in it, because at that time there were very few planes that could motivate me to spend money. The realistic planes were mostly liners, and I was not flying them seriously enough in FS9 to feel the need for paywares. I was more interested in VFR exploration flights. I was about to spend some money on Holger Sandmann's sceneries, but then FSX appeared.

Concerning the functionnalities that you mentionned, the autogen fade in/out is indeed missed in FSX, but the autogen density compensates a lot. The 3rd party weather engines now exist both freeware and payware. And whatever you do, once you've made a flight with a you even just started an Accusim aircraft on the tarmac, there's not way back to FS9.

And your remark about the limitation of FSX graphic settings to match FS9 quality is very valid. With my previous computer (Q6600@2,75GHz, 3 Gb RAM, 8800GTX), when I was limiting the settings to FS9 quality, I could maintain a solid 40 FPS flying over Seattle Tacoma. It was a valid solution for IFR flights to major airport, but unfortunately it was not valid at all for VFR flights, because those limitations were just deleting the advantages of FSX over FS9 scenery. Fortunately, the performance impact if the "VFR" areas (out of major airports/cities) was not that big and even an old computer like mine could provide a very smooth experience.
 
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Reply #24 - Jan 13th, 2011 at 11:08pm

ctanner   Offline
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bought an HP  i7 quad core, 6gb ram, 1gb  ATI video card plus new 23" lcd monitor, loaded FSX, ran well, scenery downloads are few and far  between for my area of interest, dumped FSX and went back to 2004, sure runs sweet on this machine, just having a few scenery library addon problems with windows 7 I never encountered with XP.
Upgrading to FS9 from FSX is the way to go as far as I'm concerned, cheers
 
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Reply #25 - Jan 16th, 2011 at 11:12am

fred39   Offline
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FS9 I fly it becauseI run everything at max and get these results :- !,500ft

...

...

...

Over Seattle at2,500ft

...

Fred39
 
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Reply #26 - Jan 16th, 2011 at 11:26am

Steve M   Offline
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fred39 wrote on Jan 16th, 2011 at 11:12am:
FS9 I fly it becauseI run everything at max and get these results :- !,500ft

[img]

[img]

[img]

Over Seattle at2,500ft

[img]

Fred39


Welcome to Simv. Maybe it's from compression but the horizen line in #1 and the aircraft in the last one has a case of jaggies. These are things I can't bear and my reason for shelving FS9.
 

...
Flying with twins is a lot of fun..
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Reply #27 - Jan 16th, 2011 at 11:53am

fred39   Offline
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No Jaggies my end I do not suffer from them no stutter or hang ups just good flying ??
It must be your end ?????
I have FSX installed as well why pay more money for addons when I'm OK with FS9?????

Fred39
 
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Reply #28 - Jan 16th, 2011 at 12:04pm

Steve M   Offline
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It's all about what your happy with, I like the extra details I get from FSX. (I currently don't use any addons except GEX)
 

...
Flying with twins is a lot of fun..
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Reply #29 - Jan 16th, 2011 at 6:36pm

Daube   Offline
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fred39 wrote on Jan 16th, 2011 at 11:53am:
No Jaggies my end I do not suffer from them no stutter or hang ups just good flying ??
It must be your end ?????

I see jaggies on the horizon as well, but they are visible on the first shot only. The horizon looks like a stairway. Perhaps it's the fault of the program you use for resizing your screenshots, or perhaps your antialiasing is not set high enough.

Quote:
I have FSX installed as well why pay more money for addons when I'm OK with FS9?????

As said before, it all depends on the addons you're looking for.
If you like the addons that you can get in FS9, then that's perfectly fine. A lot of simmers are in the same exact situation, they are satisfied with what they get with FS9 so they have no reason to switch to FSX.
But some people need something more than what FS9 can bring.
 
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