FSX and Windows Vista problem..help please.

[brianw999]

I just bought a new supersonic dual core 2.4 gig, canine gonads nVidia graphics, 3 Gb RAM computer. "That'll cure FSX running slowly" I thought.

Loaded FSX, fired it up and .......it didn't recognise the Saitek Cyborg Evo Force joystick ! ( recognised and fully working in windows vista ). Actually, the stick was listed as being present in FSX, it just did'nt respond in the game. After a minute of trying to get it to work FSX crashed to a blue screen and I had to run the system recovery.

Not a happy bunny !!

I've downloaded the Vista 32 bit drivers for the stick, also installed Norton 360 Antivirus and set a restore point just in case.

Before I trawl through the myriad of troubleshooting advice on MS FSX site and reinstall FSX, has anyone else had Vista based problems ?

[brianw999]

Just in case its of use, the driver updates for the Saitek stick cured the problem. I am now a happy bunny getting 25-30 fps in FSX in some pretty high detail.

[pkonowrocki]

Just in case its of use, the driver updates for the Saitek stick cured the problem. I am now a happy bunny getting 25-30 fps in FSX in some pretty high detail.

Screenshots are more than neccessary Unless your a "just enjoy flying" type of person

[chrisburns]

Just in case its of use, the driver updates for the Saitek stick cured the problem. I am now a happy bunny getting 25-30 fps in FSX in some pretty high detail.

Interesting I have basically the same computer, thought I have an overclocked 768mb card and I get on average, 50-75 FPS.

[Airbus_A320]

Get rid of Vista, use XP.

I just built:
3.0ghz dual core (Intel)
512mb GeForce 8800GTS PCI-E 2.0
2gb DDR2 800 RAM
SATA 3gb/s 160GB HDD's

Besides filling up the other 2 memory slows with 2 more 1gb sticks of RAM to make 4gb, or having gotten a quad core CPU (wanted the faster speed instead of more cores) that's about as good of a PC you can have now a days. Installed FSX went into the video mode it has since I don't my new controllers yet (yoke, rudders, throttle, coming on Tuesday), and maxed the settings on every single slider along with 1600x1200 res. It ends up with about 8fps near the ground. Downloading the service patch now which should fix the frame rate issues. Only thing that bothers me is that I have so many FS2004 planes/scenery that I picked up way back when, and now I have to find the same stuff again for FSX. FS2004 is nice too, so I'll probably use both.

[brianw999]

Interesting I have basically the same computer, thought I have an overclocked 768mb card and I get on average, 50-75 FPS.

I should have said that I set the max FPS to 30. There's little point in going any higher as the human eye can't discern the difference with higher FPS. Basically, that's why cinema films project at around 25 - 30 FPS.

......and the Nvidia card (GeForce 8500) is a step or so down from the VERY latest.
Compared to what I used to have ( 3.2 Ghz P4, 1Gb RAM, ATI ???? card ) this one is a world different and runs everything to my complete satisfaction.

Get rid of Vista, use XP.

I thought about that. I bought a "Tower only" system from PC World and none of their current systems are available with XP, which I had on my previous system. I've heard about the various " Vista is crap" comments but I've also heard from people who have changed to Vista from XP and have had no problems. Makes decision making a bit difficult when you get varying opinions. I have to say that so far Vista is working very well for me. I don't have any really old software that won't work in Vista and the only problem that I've had is the joystick issue which was cured with a driver update.
One piece of advice I would give to any Vista user is to set a restore point after you've added software or hardware and are happy that all is well.
I learned this lesson from the joystick issue where I had to run a restore which put the system back to the "out of the box" status as I had not set a restore point after each software/hardware installation from new.