Recommended Settings for Microsoft® Flight Simulator X

Below are the recommended settings for Microsoft® Flight Simulator X with Acceleration Expansion Pack (or Flight Simulator X Gold fully installed), based on our own experience, assuming that your computer meets the minimum system requirements. Please note that some of these settings, such as the unlimited fuel option, are required for the X-15A-2 SE addon only, due to its custom fuel management system that bypasses the simulator's own fuel management system. Of course, these settings may vary from system to system and experimentation is required.

Note to FSX: Steam® Edition Users

This section also applies to Flight Simulator X: Steam® Edition.

The X-15A-2 SE addon is now fully compatible with Flight Simulator X: Steam ® Edition. A new installer is available in our "Downloads" section (free for registered users). Refer to "Installing your Addon" for more details.

Known Issues in Flight Simulator X

If you experience "blue texture" flashes in FSX when the addon textures are loading, especially when in the virtual cockpit, we recommend disabling the DirectX® 10 Preview option in your "Display" settings ("Graphics" tab). FSX seems to perform better under DirectX® 9. This may also improve how the X-15 visual effects are displayed.

If the special visual effects don't look like the images in this documentation or simply disappear when viewed at certain angles, uncheck the Preview DirectX® 10 option box. Third-party free DirectX® 10 shader fixers are also available in Flight Simulation forums. Refer to "Special Visual Effects" for more details and options.

The font used in the system monitor panel may appear jagged under DirectX® 9. This seems to be a minor simulator issue. We don't know of any fix at this time.

We noticed that occasionally, and for no apparent reason, the frame rate would drop significantly (3-5 fps) at the beginning of a new flight in FSX. This would be clearly noticeable in the virtual cockpit. Of course, this is not normal and we believe it is a simulator issue, not an addon issue. It may occur when many changes are made at the beginning of a new flight, like changing the time and season and switching aircraft several times. If you didn't experienced slow rate issues with the X-15A-2 SE addon before, simply reset the flight to solve the issue.

If some parts on the external model are missing after loading a saved flight from the "Free Flight" page in FSX with the same aircraft that appear in the aircraft preview window, resetting the flight will return things to normal. This simulator issue has been resolved during the beta tests by going around it. Loading the same flight from the top menu bar did not create any issue so we don't know at this time what might have caused this anomaly.

It's been reported during the beta tests that some third-party addons or FS utilities may interfere with the correct installation of the X-15A-2 SE addon. These programs may also alter the appearance of your add-on aircraft by modifying the textures and the materials in the model files. If the different X-15A-2 aircraft variations are correctly displayed in the "Select Aircraft" page but you are unable to select any one of them, or worse if selecting them causes FSX to crash, suspect such third-party programs. For unknown reasons, these programs may prevent the addon's system DLLs from being "trusted" by FSX and the addon will not work. Remove these programs to solve the issue.

Optional Settings

Other optional settings require that you modify the "fsx.CFG" file located in "C:\Users\your name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX". It is not Xtreme Prototypes' policy to modify the user's "fsx.CFG" file during the installation process. So this needs to be done manually by the user.

Note (FSX: Steam® Edition): The "fsx_se.CFG" file is located in "C:\Users\your name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\FSX-SE".

Should you decide to change these settings, please make sure that you've made a backup copy of your original "fsx.CFG" (or "fsx_se.CFG) file and saved it in a safe place before proceeding:

To prevent the dynamic head movement in the virtual cockpit under strong acceleration, which may be very distracting when flying the X-15, you can make the following changes:

[DynamicHeadMovement]

LonAccelOnHeadLon=0.000000

LonAccelOnHeadPitch=0.000000

RollAccelOnHeadLat=0.000000

YawAccelOnHeadLat=0.000000

RollAccelOnHeadRoll=0.000000

MaxHeadAngle=0.000000

MaxHeadOffset=0.000000

HeadMoveTimeConstant=0.000000

If you have a widescreen monitor and feel you are too close to the main panel in the virtual cockpit even after zooming out or moving the seat aft, you can make the following change:

[Display]

WideViewAspect=True

Note: The special effects for Flight Simulator X are optimized for a wide-view aspect ratio. If you are using a standard-view aspect ratio, the effects may appear too small (or too thin). To solve this issue, simply replace the default effects with the ones included in the "FSX Steam Effects (1.65)" folder contained in the Special Effects Package. Visit the "Downloads" section on our website and download the Special Effects Package. Read the instructions included with the Special Effects Package. Refer to "Special Visual Effects" for more details.

Note: The special effects for Flight Simulator X: Steam® Edition are optimized for a standard-view aspect ratio. If you are using a wide-view aspect ratio, the effects may appear too big (or too large). To solve this issue, simply replace the default effects with the ones included in the "FSX P3Dv1 Effects (1.00)" folder contained in the Special Effects Package. Visit the "Downloads" section on our website and download the Special Effects Package. Read the instructions included with the Special Effects Package. Refer to "Special Visual Effects" for more details.

If you own a powerful computer equipped with a high-end video card, you can make the following changes to optimize the graphics (note that the X-15A-2 SE addon uses 2048 x 2048 textures):

[Display]

TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=80

[Graphics]

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=2048

[Graphics]

TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=4096

Note: If you still experience performance issues after optimizing your simulation platform, you may need to upgrade your computer system. Refer to "Minimum System Requirements".