The Bufferpool Drug…

 

[EDITORIAL/RANT...or something like that] So I fell off the wagon again, the Bufferpool tweak wagon that is. My FSX.cfg file has been clean for about three months now, well, until last night…the lure of the Bufferpool tweak is just too strong. The funny thing is I am a big proponent against the tweak, and even actively discourage people from using it. But here I am yet again, believing that I can make the Bufferpool tweak somehow work.

(If not familiar with the Bufferpool tweak, see my Bufferpool tweak review - click here)

What caused this regression, I don’t know for sure. Perhaps the belief that with enough Bufferpool tinkering I will finally have the buttery smooth flight simulator I always wanted. Whatever the reason, this scenario is all too familiar. To my credit, it is actually working very well so far. I started with the token “Poolsize=0” setting which of course failed with far too many artifacts. Next some random settings, and finally, back to “Poolsize=390000000”. Life is good again and FSX feels as fluid as ever, stutters and pauses almost completely eliminated from my thoughts.

The real question of course…how long will this feeling last?  Right now it is as if I have conquered FSX performance, but I have been here before, many times actually. The inherent problem with the Bufferpool tweak is that it cannot be trusted. Somewhere, somehow, it will show its face, and it will be bad. It may be autogen artifacts that shoot to the sky like swords, it may be unacceptable stuttering at my favourite airport, it may be frequent pauses during longer flights or uncontrollable flickering in certain regions, I just don’t know. What I do know is this, there will be something, there always is.

The reason I always revert back to my clean FSX.cfg file can be summed up in one timeless adage, “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is”. I suspect another couple days and I will come across several Bufferpool side effects that will lead me back to my clean configuration file, back on the wagon per say. The fluidity achieved from this tweak can be amazing, just not amazing enough to counteract the other inevitable negative side effects. But until then, I am enjoying the feeling of this brilliant hobby, thanks to the lure of the Bufferpool tweak.