Thanks to all the input here, and especially to bojote, for the discovery of compatibility mode - I now can pull continuous knife-edge over BFI, with lots of traffic, fair weather, pretty high settings without pauses. .. in addition I also "unclocked" the gpu and changed the proc o/c from 20/200 to 23/180. Here are the important setting for my system:[Display]BLOOM_EFFECTS=0SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=60UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=25WideViewAspect=True[bUFFERPOOLS]poolsize=0[Main]FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.33 // 66[JOBSCHEDULER]AffinityMask=14[sCENERY]LENSFLARE=0DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5[TERRAIN]LOD_RADIUS=4.500000MESH_COMPLEXITY=80MESH_RESOLUTION=21TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=27AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4DETAIL_TEXTURE=1WATER_EFFECTS=1TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=1500TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=2500[TrafficManager]AirlineDensity=40GADensity=39FreewayDensity=20ShipsAndFerriesDensity=0LeisureBoatsDensity=0IFROnly=0AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=0[GRAPHICS]SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1693458432TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024 NUM_LIGHTS=8AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=0AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1LANDING_LIGHTS=1AC_SELF_SHADOW=0EFFECTS_QUALITY=2GROUND_SHADOWS=0TEXTURE_QUALITY=3IMAGE_QUALITY=0See_Self=1Text_Scroll=1SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED_10=1693458432D3D10=0[WEATHER]CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3DETAILED_CLOUDS=1CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=8THERMAL_VISUALS=0

compatibility mode

Remember its NOT a tweak! compatibility mode simply reverts to WDDM1.0 which is a more 'mature' driver architecture, which translates on more stable (and possibly slower) operation. And yes... BOTH, BP=0 and Vista Compatibility mode (Win7) appear to be abolutely stable on any circumstance I try... so far, IMPOSIBLE to crash (not even with full sliders, full res, AA, AF...) amazing.

Guys, forgive me interrupting your scientific discussion, is there anything useful from the above I could use? I'm on WinXP SP3, E8600@4Gb and 9800GTX+, 1680x1050. And comparing my settings with the previous poster: 1) I have no [bUFFERPOOLS] 2) I have no AffinityMask setting in my cfg (anyway why is it needed after SP2?).3) Also Paul J sets his Mesh_Complexity @80 and Mesh_Resolution @21, whereas mine are 100 & 22 correspondingly, and my DDR2 system is not that fast by today's standards. Is there anything I could save with Mesh settings without losing too much in the gfx? What's the reason changing these 2? I fly mainly lighter jets like EagleSoft's CX, FT's ERJ-145v2, E-190 and F1's Super80. Should I worry changing anything as per above at all? Or this discussion is very much specific to W7/Vista and 64-bit O/S?Thanks,Dirk.

I did some more observations running Tileproxy this morning and found that this tweak seems to have its limits. My FSX and Tileproxy are configured to manage flights of up to 320KTS groundspeed when BP is set at 5000000. The textures stay sharp throughout such a flight. With the BP=0 tweak, I start to get blurred textures as my groundspeed increases. I flew the same route with the A/P following the same gps track, with BP=0 and BP=5000000. The latter had sharp textures all the way up to reaching my cruise altitude of FL220. The BP=0 setting started to see blurred textures a few minutes into the flight.I think for me I would use this tweak depending on my intent. If I am going to fly a long, fast flight with Tileproxy, I'd probably fly with BP set at 5000000. If flying over default scenery or slower flights with Tileproxy, I would probably be OK with the tweak. I haven't seen texture corruption, but I'd say there's some limits when a lot of textures are being thrashed about, such as with Tileproxy.-John

is very much specific to W7/Vista and 64-bit O/S?

people with both 32/64 OSes Vista/Win7 or even XP have had success.Common denomitator? 1GB Cards, Healthy Systems (if you pay close attention, most of those having success keep their systems in top shape, have high end machines and are knowledgable in hardware/software). Also, people who keep trying the tweak until it works for themAs one poster previously mentioned, try it... if it doesn't work, revert back.. there's no harm in trying... BTW, the very first time I tried BP=0 was with WindowsXP 32-Bit, 512MB ATI Card and my old PC and it worked beautifuly!!! the only thing I always do on my FSX installs is LOCK the framerate and try changing TBM (they are both related)

I start to get blurred textures as my groundspeed increases.

Hi John, Question: Do you lock your frame rate? if so, do you use the fiber frame fraction line in your FSX.cfg? what values?

Hi Everyone,I've seen a few posts in regards to artifacts, I had the same problem while panning, it turned out to be the AffinityMask setting. My system does not like a setting of 7. Once I removed this setting from FSX's config file the artifacts were completly gone.I am using the AffinityMask setting again at 12. I get one to two momentary artifacts while panning, not that big of a deal. But I do see an increase of 5fps using AffinityMask so I'll keep using it.

Mike,Curious on one thing (never thought I would participate in this thread). Any reason why using =12 for an i7? Do you have HT enabled (or not) in the BIOS?Based on another (older) thread, I used =254 (i7 940 W7 64b) and noticed quite an improvement. IF i read it all correctly, I see core 2-8 (HT enabled) working on FSX while core 1 is not busy. Hope this is not an hijack... but how could this thread be hijacked anyways!!

You can always tell if you should lock your FPS. If your props and panning look herky-jerky. 30 seems to be a good setting.BP=0 is an interesting setting and allows us to disable a caching scheme that seems to be no longer relevant on todays systems.IMOjja

Hi John, Question: Do you lock your frame rate? if so, do you use the fiber frame fraction line in your FSX.cfg? what values?

Yes, my framerate is locked at 30. My FFTF value is .15. It's lower than what many use, but as I noted in my previous post I've optimized my system around Tileproxy for the most part and I get great performance with this value. Increasing it tends to degrade my performance with Tileproxy. I wouldn't go with a lower locked framerate to support the BP tweak--defeats the purpose IMHO when I am already getting 30 fps on my Tileproxy flights without the tweak. Yet as I noted earlier, over the default scenery the tweak is working great or over intense detailed scenery like Venice. For me it's simply a matter of turning the tweak on based on what I intend to do with FSX.-John

Yes, my framerate is locked at 30. My FFTF value is .15.

I lock mine at 25, and my FFTF value is .25 and found it to be a good balance between performance and texture loading.BTW John, the reason I came up with those values (in case you want to try yourself) was to establish the FPS where CPU0 (or CPU2 if using AffinityMask=12) would reach 100%. As you know, the FIRST CPU in FSX is always maxed out. However, you can 'thottle it' when using Unlimited frames with the Frame Rate limiter program. Doing so, you can see 'where' FSX reaches 100%, in my case (and under my add-ons and scenery settings) it was around 29 FPS where FSX would reach 100%, so, I decided to LOCK (inside FSX, not using FPS Limiter) the FPS to 25 (leaving a little room for texture loading via FFTF, which ONLY affects the first CPU)FFTF .15 was good, but too many blurries.. 0.25 seemed like a good balance, at least, on my setup. I've never quite understood why some people claim FFTF does not have any affect on performance, when it fact it does, regardless of system (multi or single core) evidently it DOES have more impact on a single core, because lowering this values allows you to put less stress on the only CPU your are using, but, this is the SAME case for Multi-core on the FIRST CPU (which is always maxed out) what FSX does is use those 'CPU cycles' for texture loading! thats why EVEN IF YOU LOCK your FPS in FSX to 10 FPS, the first CPU is always maxed out! evidently you understood this :)

BTW, the very first time I tried BP=0 was with WindowsXP 32-Bit, 512MB ATI Card and my old PC and it worked beautifuly!!! the only thing I always do on my FSX installs is LOCK the framerate and try changing TBM (they are both related)

Thanks, since I'm on similar hardware I'll definitely try it. I can't remember what is TBM and if it is TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT it's set on 70 here. Is 70 ok if I'm going to try BP=0 / FPS=30?Dirk.

Thanks, since I'm on similar hardware I'll definitely try it. I can't remember what is TBM and if it is TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT it's set on 70 here. Is 70 ok if I'm going to try BP=0 / FPS=30?Dirk.

With your hardware, I would definitely try a lower frame lock.. try 25, then go higher if you don't like it.

Amazing! it worksBP=0 No more stutters anywhereI7 Win7 64 Nvidia GTX285

Amazing! it worksBP=0 No more stutters anywhereI7 Win7 64 Nvidia GTX285

What's your GTX285?1 or 2 Gb.?

Amazing! it worksBP=0 No more stutters anywhereI7 Win7 64 Nvidia GTX285

I like to quantify "performance" as frame rate minimum (this variable for me has to be somewhere over 20 at a minimum) + smoothness + image quality, essentially. I use FPS Limiter, usually set at 30 and that is where she sits most the time. If a performance score of 1.0 = total perfection, then I was at somewhere around .92 with aircraft as light as the Super MD-80 Pro, and maybe .86 with the behemoth PMDG 747 I have now, playing with the BP=0 has improved this by maybe .4 or so overall score. Not earth shattering because I enjoyed gr8 performance already. I did find BP of 1,000,000 to be best in this regard, instead of 0, so far I think. Overall, a nice tweak. Texture Max Load seems best still at 80. FFTF I have at .33, but haven't played with it for years.Noel