On each Pro Flight Instrument Panel (FIP), there are six physical buttons (S1 to S6) located on the left hand side of the LCD screen, which are predefined as:
The functions of these buttons are defined in the SaiFlightSimX.xml file under C:\Program Files (x86)\Saitek\DirectOutput directory as described in Tweak 1 (see below).
Saitek’s Pro Flight Instrument Panel (FIP) comes with an XML file that defines the order of gauges to be shown when starting up. The default order is:
Altimeter<-> Airspeed<-> Attitude
<-> Compass <-> Turn Indicator <-> Vertical Speed
This order is also true to the sequence of gauge starting when more than one FIP are included in the system. By editing the XML file, the order of the six gauges to be shown can be arranged as desired.
Here are the steps:
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT under [Display] section of fsx.CFG controls video hardware’s texture transfer rate.
Default value is 40.
If a graphics card comes with 1GB or even 2GB video memory, you may try increasing the value for a smoother display quality.
In FSX, there are many views one can choose from and cycle through by pressing S (next category) and A (next view in category) on the keyboard, including Cockpit (2D), Virtual Cockpit (3D), Locked Spot, FlyBy, Top-Down, etc. Often there are views that we seldom or never use, however.
Steps below will get rid some of them for good.
Option 1:
1) Locate Cameras.cfg (x:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX) and make a backup of it
2) Open the file and you will find 11 Camera Definition sectons inside
3) Just delete the Camera Definition section(s) you don’t need
4) Save and Exit
FSX Banking Camera is a very interesting utility that can change the viewing angle of virtual cockpit while the aircraft is banking. It is, in some way, like a simplified version of Natural Point’s TrackIR.
Unlike TrackIR, it doesn’t need any hardware and won’t cause any FPS dropping. Moreover, it is free.
The program can be downloaded from the developer’s website which includes more information about the program.
Autogen objects are defined by default.xml under FSX’s Autogen folder. Many third-party sceneries during installation will add new objects to the file, making it bigger and bigger.
Here’s a quick and easy way to reduce the size of it and bring some improvements, especially to low- to mid-end computers.
1) Locate default.xml in the Autogen folder of the Microsoft Flight Simulator X directory (x:\Microsoft Flight Simulator X\Autogen)
2) Backup the file first for safety sake
3) Open the file with Notepad
I’ve given up the card after using it for 5 days. It is hardly conceivable that such a high-end graphic card is a crap to FSX!
Indeed, it has pros:
1. Better depth of field compared to my previous ASUS Matrix HD5870
2. Framerate is about 3 to 5% more than Matrix 5870
3. It generates less heat and relatively quieter
However, two intolerable problems with this card are:
1. Texture become incurably blurry
2. FSX crashes frequently
In the past few days, I have tried all different tweaks, including BP=0, RejectThreshold, etc, etc. After a lot tweakings, I can manage to have it running FSX smoothly; but, blurry land texture was unpreventable and the worst thing was: FSX crashed uncontrollably.
It is possible to resize the GPS window during any flight session. However, it will resume to its default value once FSX is terminated.
To make the change permanent:
Just purchased the newly released ASUS GTX580 Direct CU II card to replace my current ASUS HD5870 Matrix Platinum card.
I bought the HD5870 for two reasons:
* allows connecting to 3 displays (I only have one currently, however)
* GTX480 was reported very hot and noisy.
Although I am getting average 41 FPS in most sceneries with the HD5870, some micro-stutters and under 20 FPS performance within dense areas reamin the barrier for my system to break. As nVidia card is generally agreed to be better for FSX and reviews of GTX580 show that the new card is now cooler and less noisy (especially the modify Direct CU II version), I decided to wait no more to find out the true side of it myself.
FS Times 