Flight Simulator X Mac Pro

[dimme]

Well I just got a new MacPro 2.8 with an Geforce 8800 6GB ram. I installed XP Pro on a 2nd hard disk and installed flight simulator x and service pack 1 & 2. I was a bit disappointed when I set everything to medium high and turned off the traffic. My frame ate was around 20 but I would get freezes about every 30 seconds for about 1 or 2 seconds. My Macbook pro does better. I really don't want to spend the money on Vista 64 to us all the memory. I am think X-plane in OS X would be better. Are there any tricks that I am missing or is flight simulator X just another MS dog?

[aaronw1986]

Your MBP should not run it better. What resolution are you running it on with the mac pro. Maybe there is a significant difference?

[dimme]

Originally Posted by aaronw1986

Your MBP should not run it better. What resolution are you running it on with the mac pro. Maybe there is a significant difference?

I am using the default 1040x1280

[aaronw1986]

If they are running it at the same resolution, something is wrong. The mac pro should be outperforming the MBP. Are you using the standard video drivers from the Leopard disk on both computers?

[subaqua]

Originally Posted by dimme

Well I just got a new MacPro 2.8 with an Geforce 8800 6GB ram. I installed XP Pro on a 2nd hard disk and installed flight simulator x and service pack 1 & 2. I was a bit disappointed when I set everything to medium high and turned off the traffic. My frame ate was around 20 but I would get freezes about every 30 seconds for about 1 or 2 seconds. My Macbook pro does better. I really don't want to spend the money on Vista 64 to us all the memory. I am think X-plane in OS X would be better. Are there any tricks that I am missing or is flight simulator X just another MS dog?

I too have tried to get fsx running well on my 2008 mac pro with the 8800GT without any luck. I get 20-30 fps but I also get those annoying pauses every once in a while. Not what I expected given the 8 cores and the 8800 GT.

I have a mac pro 3,1 (2008) with 10GB of memory and a 8800 GT and installed xp professional on with bootcamp.

I suspect I have some driver issues but I'm not sure. I will probably try to re-install from scratch when I have a free weekend available :-)

[dimme]

Originally Posted by aaronw1986

If they are running it at the same resolution, something is wrong. The mac pro should be outperforming the MBP. Are you using the standard video drivers from the Leopard disk on both computers?

Yes the stock install of bootcamp form the disk that came with the macpro

[aaronw1986]

Also on the MBP, or are you using some kind of modified driver?

[dimme]

Originally Posted by aaronw1986

Also on the MBP, or are you using some kind of modified driver?

The only difference in on the MBP I used the 10.5 retail disk.

[Kilamite]

Got all the latest FSX updates too? SP2 fixed a lot of performance problems.

[dimme]

Check and double checked setting etc, I even copied the flight simulator folder from the macbook pro to the macpro and still the same result. Frame rates around 20 then they drop to 3 or 5 for a few seconds then back to 20. I really don't want to spend the $200 for Vista 64 and I not even sure that it will work any better. Also I am sometimes getting lockups when I go to the menus. I ran this program on a P4 2.8 with 2 GB ram and a ATI 128MB card and got better performance. A yes I have SP 1 & 2 installed. I wonder is it a driver or something odd in windows, other apps work fine but I really only use windows for this one game.
BTW X-plane works great on OS X smooth and good frame rates with high rendering options.

[RKEnnis]

I'm betting it's a driver issue.

I'm running FSX on my 2007 quad core 2.66 Mac Pro. I upgraded to the new ATI 2600 card, and am getting pretty decent performance. I don't recall all the details of my settings offhand, but most settings are at medium, or just below. I'm running at 1680x1050 and getting about 18-22 FPS, very solid. It drops down to 15 or so with some scenery, but I never see drops down to 1-5 fps.

Note that I DO have performance issues on the planes with the big dual Garmins. I'm getting maybe 10 FPS on those planes.

I'd say you should be getting way better performance than I am, with he Nvidia card you're using. I'm really thinking it's the video drivers...

[dimme]

I tried another nvida driver and still no difference.

[dubhe]

just get x-plane v.9 :-)

[Thunderbird8]

I have a brand new Mac Pro with the following setup:

Win XP 32 SP2 (so it will only see 2GB of my RAM)
8800GT
FSX with just SP1 installed.

I have been wary of installing SP2 to FSX as I had read of issues regarding this. My install of FSX is clean at the moment so I will go ahead and install SP2 and see if I get a dropoff in performance.

I get regularly 30fps (up to 60 if left unlimited) but do get the occasional stutter.

Also - I get a loading problem which I have posted here elsewhere but basically when I get the 'loading terrain data' message it freezes (if, and only if, i have already started a flight that session).

i will keep you updated.

[Thunderbird8]

After experimenting for a few weeks with a totally clean install of FSX with SP1 (specs in sig) (no add-ons) I decided to install SP2 last night and give it a whirl. This is what happened:

1. Yay! My 'loading terrain data' freezes (see another post by me) stopped completely! One up to Microsoft.

2. Boo! St-st-st-st-st-stutters are FAR more frequent now and that is very annoying indeed. I tweaked the display settings from min to max and back again and it still seems to happen even on low settings.

3. Boo! There is a horizontal 'shimmery' line similar to a water effect that goes across the screen when panning sometimes, don't like that either.

So - in conclusion, the sim itself as a program is more stable. The graphics performance is not. To be honest I would rather have to restart the sim for every flight ('loading terrain data' freeze) than put up with the stutters.

So, when my new VFR scenery arrives it's goodbye current installation, re-do with SP1 and I'm leaving it at that until I upgrade my Windows OS to Vista 64 - as you can see below mine is XP32 which will not see my extra RAM.

[dimme]

I reinstalled flight simulator X and installed SP1 & 2. Performance is pretty good BUT NOW I HAVE THE STUTTERS. I am about to give up. I do not want to spend $200 for Vista 64bit to fix this feature. I have Xplane 8.60 on my mac partition and I am falling in love with it again. If anyone has a cure for the stutters let me know.
Thanks

[Thunderbird8]

Ditto - I think as a short term solution I am going to remove then reinstall FSX and SP1 and leave it at that. I don't really care about autogen (except perhaps at airports) so I reckon that might be a good solution until I get V64. Obviously a shortcoming of this will be the one flight per session issue, but that isn't really a big deal.

Please let me know either on this thread or via PM if you discover anything new.

Cheers

[subaqua]

I see you experience fsx locking up when loading terrain data too; good ! I'm glad I'm not the only one.

Originally Posted by Thunderbird8

I have a brand new Mac Pro with the following setup:

Win XP 32 SP2 (so it will only see 2GB of my RAM)
8800GT
FSX with just SP1 installed.

I have been wary of installing SP2 to FSX as I had read of issues regarding this. My install of FSX is clean at the moment so I will go ahead and install SP2 and see if I get a dropoff in performance.

I get regularly 30fps (up to 60 if left unlimited) but do get the occasional stutter.

Also - I get a loading problem which I have posted here elsewhere but basically when I get the 'loading terrain data' message it freezes (if, and only if, i have already started a flight that session).

i will keep you updated.

[Thunderbird8]

It seems I'm not. I do feel better (a bit).

POST FIXES HERE!!!!

[dimme]

Amazing I got FSX working great on my Mac Pro. I get frame rates of 28 to 40 with most setting at ultra high (except traffic). I edited my FSX.cfg file to this...

AffinityMask=3
ChangeTime=4.000000
TransitionTime=4.000000
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=30
FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.70
DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce 8500 GT.0]
Mode=1680x1050x32
Anisotropic=1
AntiAlias=1
TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=512
SWAP_WAIT_TIMEOUT=30
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=300
TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=500
LOD_RADIUS=3.500000
[BUFFERPOOLS]
PoolSize=12000000

[Thunderbird8]

I know this is asking a lot but is there ay chance you could explain some of the changes you have made? I don't know anything about this type of thing and some background info would be useful.

Thanks.

[dimme]

Originally Posted by Thunderbird8

I know this is asking a lot but is there ay chance you could explain some of the changes you have made? I don't know anything about this type of thing and some background info would be useful.

Thanks.

I found all the info here
http://www.highflightsimulations.com/fsxcfg.html
I copied his tweaks listed at the bottom of the page. Worked for me. Let me know if it helps!

[Thunderbird8]

Thanks!

[dimme]

Ok so now that I have MS Flight Simulator working great, I am really enjoying the sim. I am running on XP 32 bit so I am only using 2 gigs of ram. If I go to a 64bit OS will I see great improvement in performance. I don't want to spend the $$$ on Vista 64 if I don't have to. I was given a copy of XP 64bit but there are so many driver issues it has been a big project just to get it installed. I am thinking of just staying with XP32. Any advice???

[liptonlover]

I don't know how to solve your problems except to switch to xplane which I highly advise. I have xplane and love it to death it's just so awesome! So many things you can mess with, you can make your own planes and scenery/objects, and the scenery it comes with is breathtaking. I use it just for the awesome sights I can see :lol: