Post by Nathan Ford - HJG on Sept 3, 2017 7:46:15 GMT
I use the NicnN tweaks for FSX and swear by them. There are lots of tweaks for this and tweaks for that, but in most cases they create more problems than they help. So I keep my tweaks nice simple.
I have taken the following from the NickN bible to make it easier to look up.
NickN's bible.
Cheers Nathan
p.s. Note, as we will be turning Anti Aliasing off in FSX, you will need to set it on using your graphics driver
FSX INITIAL SETUP
Start FSX. Go to the settings area and follow this outline:
GRAPHICS TAB:
Target Frame Rate: 30 START AT 30
=============================================
This subject sparks a lot of controversy.. here is all you need to understand about Target Frame Rate and ignore anything else you have read:
Depending on how you use the sim and set up the application Nvidia Inspector, this will be either 30, 60 or 'unlimited'. IF you are not using the 1/2 Refresh rate setup that Nvidia Inspector provides, always remember that in heavy rendering areas such as large cities and airports and with hard hitting planes you may find 60 or 'unlimited' frame lock is better and when flying outside of large hubs and city locations, 30 is better.
This is a TEST AND SEE setting. ALWAYS Start at 30FPS locked
and above all: FORGET the frame counter! FSX is about SMOOTH not frames!
You 'gamers' need to get a life [sic] around that subject and stop telling people that 18-25 smooth frames is BAD. Even though FSX is a '3D render' application it is not a game, does not respond the same to hardware settings as a game and can not be setup and run like a game, it is a SIMULATION. A game uses predefined local maps and controls, FSX is constantly calculating real-time changes. Do not run FSX like a 'game'
==============================================
Full Screen Resolution: Set this to your monitors native resolution x32. Example, if you use a monitor that is designed for 1920x1200 set this to 1920x1200x32. You have to know what your monitors highest native resolution is and set this correctly
Filtering: Trilinear
Anti-aliasing: UNCHECK
Global Texture Resolution: 100% slider or Very High
Lens Flair: Your choice
Light Bloom: UNCHECK
Advanced Animations: CHECK
DirectX 10 Preview: UNCHECKED - we set our sim up in DX9 mode. If you have any intention of trying DX10 that is done AFTER DX9 mode is established and backed up. A well tuned DX9 sim that runs smooth with run smooth in DX10 mode as well!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AIRCRAFT TAB:
Set the Drop-Down to MED-HIGH then uncheck: Show cockpit Tool tips
---------------------------------------------------------------
SCENERY TAB:
Terrain and Water Sliders:
Level of Detail: 100%
Mesh Complexity: 100% Note: Core2 and slower systems can benefit from this being set lower, 70% can make a difference for you, all others 100%
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mesh Resolution: 10m
Texture Resolution: 7cm
NOTE: The reason we start out by setting the texture resolution above 1m is to force higher LOD clarity in the direct vicinity of the aircraft. This is NOT required but it does help keep the scenery under the aircraft far cleaner.
Also be aware that many higher resolution mesh products require a higher mesh resolution setting than the default of 38m. In order to run a 10m mesh resolution the texture resolution MUST be set higher than 1m or mesh resolution will revert back to 38m by default.
BUG ALERT: There is a bug in FSX whereby some scenery in spot locations of the world can display a "bleed through" of the underlying textures with 7cm texture resolution. This is a RARE bug to see but it can happen. The solution in these cases is to set texture resolution to either 60cm or 30cm.
------------------------------------------------------------
Water Effects: Low 2.x Please do not set this any higher!
Land Detail textures: Check
Scenery Objects Sliders:
Scenery Complexity: This is a slider you must work based on the sim performance. Start at 3/4 (Very Dense) and you can try 100% later. Exceptionally slower systems may need to start lower than Very Dense.
Autogen Density: This is a slider you must work based on the sim performance. Start at 3/4 (Very Dense) however you may need to drop this to (DENSE) if the performance is poor. It may also be possible to run 100% slider. Very slow systems may need to set this to NORMAL or SPARCE
Ground Scenery Shadows: Uncheck
Special Effects Detail: 100% (High)
------------------------------------------------------------------
WEATHER TAB:
Set the dropdown to ULTRA HIGH and then change the following:
Thermal visualizations: Natural
NOTE: The setting "NATURAL" will allow FSX to calculate conditions for thermals and it will also allow birds to appear where thermals are found. It can also involve thermal disturbances on approach of a runway IF the right conditions exist in FSX at the time of the landing. You can opt to leave this on NONE if you have issues with landing and thermals in FSX.
Leave the rest on default - do not slam 80 miles of cloud cover into a scene at this time. Raising that may be OK, but its done LATER after tuning so you can locate the source of performance drops
------------------------------------------------------------------
TRAFFIC TAB:
Airline and GA Traffic Sliders: These are performance killers and depends on if you use the default FSX traffic or a traffic addon. For default and to start out, set the Airline traffic to 45 and the GA traffic to 35. These can go up if the performance in FSX is ok, but I would suggest the max for both sliders be 59%
Slower systems; set both to 20/20
IF you use a traffic replacement program the sliders above should be set based on that addon
Airport Vehicle Density: Low
NOTE: In order to have the fuel truck services in FSX this must be set to at least MED however that will cost you in frames. I leave this at low for any system. If you wish to use it, remember its going to cost you in performance! I suggest this be set to LOW for now and then if its desired raise it later. That way you can see where you may be losing airport performance.
Low end systems, turn these OFF (0)
Aircraft Labels: Uncheck Show Aircraft labels
Road Vehicles: This is a performance killer. If you can do without cars set this to zero. If you want car traffic, 7% MAX, Any car traffic will cost in performance. I personally run ZERO
Low end systems set this to ZERO
Ships/Ferries/leisure boats: Set both sliders to 20%
Zero for very low-end systems
Click OK and close the settings and then close FSX. Your base slider and checkbox setup is now complete. Remember, the setting above should be FINE for just about any modern system to start out however there may be adjustments to these initial settings you must make based on your hardware in which I noted above what to deal with, primary is CARS (AUTOS), AUTOGEN, SCENERY COMPLEXITY and AI TRAFFIC. You should NOT need to change anything else at all!
FSX.cfg edits:
[MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.15 //- NOTE: This is system dependent! If you are pushing too much scenery this can BLUR the textures so you must experiment with this and scenery settings. This value can go lower (0.10-0.12) if you do not see any blurry ground textures.
[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=6.500000 //- NOTE: This will compensate for lowering FFTF and keep the highest LOD clear further from the aircraft, but remember that lowering FFTF is dropping terrain priority and if you are clocked running modern hardware, this can help without loss to texture clarity. Slower systems may need to run 4.5 (default) or can try 5.5 if you notice performance or blurs
[BUFFERPOOLS]
UsePools=1
Poolsize=8388608
RejectThreshold=126976
[Display]
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=120 //do NOT push this higher than 120. 80 or 120 is the setting for this and modern cards
additional...
[MAIN]
HideInfoText=1
DisablePreload=1
[DISPLAY]
WideViewAspect=True //for wide screen monitor
[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1 //this should be in ALL FSX.cfg files.. it was left out by Aces by mistake in SP2/Acceleration
THATS IT!... there is no other tweak I have EVER worked with that made a hill of beans difference in FSX and that BP=0 tweak causes more issues than it is WORTH .. I have seen plenty of tweaks that may work over one scenery situation.. and as soon as you fly out of it, you need another tweak to fix the first tweak that never should have been in the config to begin with. LOL
I have taken the following from the NickN bible to make it easier to look up.
NickN's bible.
Cheers Nathan
p.s. Note, as we will be turning Anti Aliasing off in FSX, you will need to set it on using your graphics driver
FSX INITIAL SETUP
Start FSX. Go to the settings area and follow this outline:
GRAPHICS TAB:
Target Frame Rate: 30 START AT 30
=============================================
This subject sparks a lot of controversy.. here is all you need to understand about Target Frame Rate and ignore anything else you have read:
Depending on how you use the sim and set up the application Nvidia Inspector, this will be either 30, 60 or 'unlimited'. IF you are not using the 1/2 Refresh rate setup that Nvidia Inspector provides, always remember that in heavy rendering areas such as large cities and airports and with hard hitting planes you may find 60 or 'unlimited' frame lock is better and when flying outside of large hubs and city locations, 30 is better.
This is a TEST AND SEE setting. ALWAYS Start at 30FPS locked
and above all: FORGET the frame counter! FSX is about SMOOTH not frames!
You 'gamers' need to get a life [sic] around that subject and stop telling people that 18-25 smooth frames is BAD. Even though FSX is a '3D render' application it is not a game, does not respond the same to hardware settings as a game and can not be setup and run like a game, it is a SIMULATION. A game uses predefined local maps and controls, FSX is constantly calculating real-time changes. Do not run FSX like a 'game'
==============================================
Full Screen Resolution: Set this to your monitors native resolution x32. Example, if you use a monitor that is designed for 1920x1200 set this to 1920x1200x32. You have to know what your monitors highest native resolution is and set this correctly
Filtering: Trilinear
Anti-aliasing: UNCHECK
Global Texture Resolution: 100% slider or Very High
Lens Flair: Your choice
Light Bloom: UNCHECK
Advanced Animations: CHECK
DirectX 10 Preview: UNCHECKED - we set our sim up in DX9 mode. If you have any intention of trying DX10 that is done AFTER DX9 mode is established and backed up. A well tuned DX9 sim that runs smooth with run smooth in DX10 mode as well!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
AIRCRAFT TAB:
Set the Drop-Down to MED-HIGH then uncheck: Show cockpit Tool tips
---------------------------------------------------------------
SCENERY TAB:
Terrain and Water Sliders:
Level of Detail: 100%
Mesh Complexity: 100% Note: Core2 and slower systems can benefit from this being set lower, 70% can make a difference for you, all others 100%
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Mesh Resolution: 10m
Texture Resolution: 7cm
NOTE: The reason we start out by setting the texture resolution above 1m is to force higher LOD clarity in the direct vicinity of the aircraft. This is NOT required but it does help keep the scenery under the aircraft far cleaner.
Also be aware that many higher resolution mesh products require a higher mesh resolution setting than the default of 38m. In order to run a 10m mesh resolution the texture resolution MUST be set higher than 1m or mesh resolution will revert back to 38m by default.
BUG ALERT: There is a bug in FSX whereby some scenery in spot locations of the world can display a "bleed through" of the underlying textures with 7cm texture resolution. This is a RARE bug to see but it can happen. The solution in these cases is to set texture resolution to either 60cm or 30cm.
------------------------------------------------------------
Water Effects: Low 2.x Please do not set this any higher!
Land Detail textures: Check
Scenery Objects Sliders:
Scenery Complexity: This is a slider you must work based on the sim performance. Start at 3/4 (Very Dense) and you can try 100% later. Exceptionally slower systems may need to start lower than Very Dense.
Autogen Density: This is a slider you must work based on the sim performance. Start at 3/4 (Very Dense) however you may need to drop this to (DENSE) if the performance is poor. It may also be possible to run 100% slider. Very slow systems may need to set this to NORMAL or SPARCE
Ground Scenery Shadows: Uncheck
Special Effects Detail: 100% (High)
------------------------------------------------------------------
WEATHER TAB:
Set the dropdown to ULTRA HIGH and then change the following:
Thermal visualizations: Natural
NOTE: The setting "NATURAL" will allow FSX to calculate conditions for thermals and it will also allow birds to appear where thermals are found. It can also involve thermal disturbances on approach of a runway IF the right conditions exist in FSX at the time of the landing. You can opt to leave this on NONE if you have issues with landing and thermals in FSX.
Leave the rest on default - do not slam 80 miles of cloud cover into a scene at this time. Raising that may be OK, but its done LATER after tuning so you can locate the source of performance drops
------------------------------------------------------------------
TRAFFIC TAB:
Airline and GA Traffic Sliders: These are performance killers and depends on if you use the default FSX traffic or a traffic addon. For default and to start out, set the Airline traffic to 45 and the GA traffic to 35. These can go up if the performance in FSX is ok, but I would suggest the max for both sliders be 59%
Slower systems; set both to 20/20
IF you use a traffic replacement program the sliders above should be set based on that addon
Airport Vehicle Density: Low
NOTE: In order to have the fuel truck services in FSX this must be set to at least MED however that will cost you in frames. I leave this at low for any system. If you wish to use it, remember its going to cost you in performance! I suggest this be set to LOW for now and then if its desired raise it later. That way you can see where you may be losing airport performance.
Low end systems, turn these OFF (0)
Aircraft Labels: Uncheck Show Aircraft labels
Road Vehicles: This is a performance killer. If you can do without cars set this to zero. If you want car traffic, 7% MAX, Any car traffic will cost in performance. I personally run ZERO
Low end systems set this to ZERO
Ships/Ferries/leisure boats: Set both sliders to 20%
Zero for very low-end systems
Click OK and close the settings and then close FSX. Your base slider and checkbox setup is now complete. Remember, the setting above should be FINE for just about any modern system to start out however there may be adjustments to these initial settings you must make based on your hardware in which I noted above what to deal with, primary is CARS (AUTOS), AUTOGEN, SCENERY COMPLEXITY and AI TRAFFIC. You should NOT need to change anything else at all!
FSX.cfg edits:
[MAIN]
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.15 //- NOTE: This is system dependent! If you are pushing too much scenery this can BLUR the textures so you must experiment with this and scenery settings. This value can go lower (0.10-0.12) if you do not see any blurry ground textures.
[TERRAIN]
LOD_RADIUS=6.500000 //- NOTE: This will compensate for lowering FFTF and keep the highest LOD clear further from the aircraft, but remember that lowering FFTF is dropping terrain priority and if you are clocked running modern hardware, this can help without loss to texture clarity. Slower systems may need to run 4.5 (default) or can try 5.5 if you notice performance or blurs
[BUFFERPOOLS]
UsePools=1
Poolsize=8388608
RejectThreshold=126976
[Display]
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=120 //do NOT push this higher than 120. 80 or 120 is the setting for this and modern cards
additional...
[MAIN]
HideInfoText=1
DisablePreload=1
[DISPLAY]
WideViewAspect=True //for wide screen monitor
[GRAPHICS]
HIGHMEMFIX=1 //this should be in ALL FSX.cfg files.. it was left out by Aces by mistake in SP2/Acceleration
THATS IT!... there is no other tweak I have EVER worked with that made a hill of beans difference in FSX and that BP=0 tweak causes more issues than it is WORTH .. I have seen plenty of tweaks that may work over one scenery situation.. and as soon as you fly out of it, you need another tweak to fix the first tweak that never should have been in the config to begin with. LOL