FSX is faster for me on Win 7
I have Windows 7 Ultimate running on the following hardware...
Gigabyte EX58-UD3R motherboard
Intel Core i7 920
2GB Crucial Ballistix DDR3
GeForce 8800GTX
TrackIR 4 Pro
... various hard drives, optical drive, yada yada yada...
... and I can honestly say that my performance in FSX has easily DOUBLED compared to WinXP and DX9!
Seriously, it's like I've rediscovered FSX all over again. I can't tell you all the detail settings off the top of my head because I'm at work currently, but here's how I used to run it under WinXP and DX9. (The basics.)
....Video settings....
Display resolution: 1680x1050 32bit
AA: 4x (forced ON at the driver level)
AF: application controlled (ON in FSX)
Triple Buffering: ON
Force Vertical Sync: ON
.....FSX settings.....
Global Texture Detail : Max
Detail radius: Small
Terrain Mesh Detail: 50
Terrain Resolution: 76m
Water: Mid 1.x
Aircraft: full 3d cockpit and all options ON except "aircraft casts shadows on itself"
Cloud draw distance: 60 mi. (detailed 3D clouds ON)
Scenery casts shadows: OFF
Scenery complexity: Normal (sometimes I'd set it to "Sparse" if flying over major cities)
Autogen density: Normal (sometimes I'd set it to "Sparse" if flying over major cities)
ZERO AI air traffic
ZERO ships
ZERO ground traffic (airport & road)
Sometimes I would turn the autogen up to "Dense" if I was flying out in the wilderness, like Alaska or whatever.
With those settings, I was LUCKY if I could squeeze out 20-30 fp/s in areas like Seattle, Denver, Miami, etc. Most of the time, it constantly fluctuated between 5 and 25 fp/s. I'd say the average was somewhere in the high teens. Out in the rural areas, I could get closer to 30 fp/s, but it still wasn't very consistent. (I had my framerate locked at 30 fps.) The general idea is that I was constantly just getting by with mild detail settings and just learning to live with the mediocre frame rates. If I ever got 30 fp/s consistently for any reason, it was like a "Wow! Lookit that!" sort of moment.
Now, I just reinstalled FSX the other day, installed both the service packs for it and installed my SceneryTech North America Landclass package...... and with those same settings as listed above, flying over Seattle, my framerate in FSX varies between 35 and 60 fp/s with the framerate lock set to "Unlimited".
If I lock it down to 40 fp/s, I can turn the Scenery Complexity and Autogen up to "Very Dense" and it will stay at or near 40 fp/s consistently. If I'm out in the rural areas, I have no trouble with cranking the Autogen up to "Extremely Dense". (Trying that on DX9 and XP, would have guaranteed me a slideshow of single-digit framerates.) The wild variating in the framerates is GONE. I also no longer see the ground textures scrambling to switch between low and high res as I look around the cockpit. I've added only about 5% to the AI air traffic, 10% to ground (airport) traffic and about 5% to ships and leisure boats but I am seeing slightly less consistent framerates with those settings. I also bumped up the Terrain Mesh from 50 to 75, my Cloud Draw Distance from 60mi. to 80mi, and the Water Detail from Mid 1.x to High 2.x. (Actually, I prefer the Mid 2.x).
Even though I'm far from maxed out and I'm sure it would go back to the slower framerates if I did max everything out, DX10/11 and Windows 7 gives me MUCH more "play room" when tweaking the graphics settings. And I haven't even tried some of the external file tweaks that are possible yet!
Thus, Windows 7 and DX10/11 definately get a huge thumbs up from me with FSX!
- S -