How to make FSX Play run smoothly?

[SimGolf84]

I bought a new laptop that meets all of the specs i7-13700HX, Nvidia 4070, 32 gb ram, but it still lags and stutters with graphics set at medium.

Has anyone found a way to make it run smoothly? FSX 2020 works fine for me.

[jasonreg]

I know we all focus on the "glossy brochure" specs but there are many (many!) factors which come into play. First can you please provide the make and model of your laptop? With this we can be more specific. That said, I see you have the RTX 4070 - sounds great on the surface (and don't get me wrong, it is a decent card) - but in case you were not aware, the desktop version of the 4070 is about 43% faster than the mobile version (UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 4070 vs (Laptop)).

The min specs that Foresight publishes are for desktop versions of the GPUs so laptop users always need to be cautious comparing to these secs. If we compare the mobile RTX 4070 with the min card Foresight calls for "Quality/Optimal Performance", the RTX 3070ti you can see that your 4070 is still about 18% below this spec. (UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 3070-Ti vs 4070 (Laptop)). The 4070 mobile version is faster than min spec of RTX 3060 (32%) so you should be able to get something suitable working.

You do not say whether you are using 4K or 1080P but lowering the resolution might help. Knowing how you are displaying the video would help us as well (WUXGA projector taxes GPU much harder than Full HD). Lastly, the Laptop's environment (is the GPU using 8 or 16 lanes? / are you using anti-virus? / have you followed the graphics optimization recommendations from Foresight?) makes a huge difference.

Now all that said, you have a decent laptop - so there is no reason why you should not be able to adjust it to get a playable situation, I would start with searching for graphics optimization tips on this site and on the Foresight site. There are quite a few threads avail. Lastly though, FSX Play is known to be taxing on PCs/Laptops and it is depending on the user still a bit buggy. A lot of us are using GS Pro with much better results - and on higher graphics quality. It may be worth a look until Foresight sorts itself out.

Good Luck

[SimGolf84]

I know we all focus on the "glossy brochure" specs but there are many (many!) factors which come into play. First can you please provide the make and model of your laptop? With this we can be more specific. That said, I see you have the RTX 4070 - sounds great on the surface (and don't get me wrong, it is a decent card) - but in case you were not aware, the desktop version of the 4070 is about 43% faster than the mobile version (UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 4070 vs (Laptop)).

The min specs that Foresight publishes are for desktop versions of the GPUs so laptop users always need to be cautious comparing to these secs. If we compare the mobile RTX 4070 with the min card Foresight calls for "Quality/Optimal Performance", the RTX 3070ti you can see that your 4070 is still about 18% below this spec. (UserBenchmark: Nvidia RTX 3070-Ti vs 4070 (Laptop)). The 4070 mobile version is faster than min spec of RTX 3060 (32%) so you should be able to get something suitable working.

You do not say whether you are using 4K or 1080P but lowering the resolution might help. Knowing how you are displaying the video would help us as well (WUXGA projector taxes GPU much harder than Full HD). Lastly, the Laptop's environment (is the GPU using 8 or 16 lanes? / are you using anti-virus? / have you followed the graphics optimization recommendations from Foresight?) makes a huge difference.

Now all that said, you have a decent laptop - so there is no reason why you should not be able to adjust it to get a playable situation, I would start with searching for graphics optimization tips on this site and on the Foresight site. There are quite a few threads avail. Lastly though, FSX Play is known to be taxing on PCs/Laptops and it is depending on the user still a bit buggy. A lot of us are using GS Pro with much better results - and on higher graphics quality. It may be worth a look until Foresight sorts itself out.

Good Luck

I have an Alienware m16 r1 laptop. I play outside and don't use a projector just the laptop screen itself (wish my ceilings were taller). The screen resolution is 2560 x 1600. Not sure if gpu is using 8 or 16 lanes, will look into that and the graphics optimization.

I'll call Bushnell tomorrow and get the code for GS Pro. They emailed it to me but it was an error and not the right code.

I beta tested GS Pro early on and loved it.