Strong Vid card is only part of picture

[Gary R.]

In my experiments with FsAutostart the main lesson that comes to me is that a strong vid card alone can not gaurentee high average frame rates.  

You may ask how do i come to this conclusion just by using FsAutostart?  Elementary my dear Watsons. If FsAutostart improves performance by shutting down un-necessary resource leeches then its very obvious whats happening is that ram is being freed up.  If alll that released system memory means an extra 5-10 fps then its very clear that the vid card needs as much system ram flowing through the bus as it can get in order to do all it was designed to do.  Therefor the more ram available system wide the better that fancy new vid card will perform.  

I thought simply upgrading from the radeon 9200 to this nice new 6600GT would gaurentee me unbelievable performance.  I was disappointed.  It wasn't until I noticed by using FsAutostart that the card alone isn't enough and that with only 768 meg of system ram I definatley need more.  So for all of you out there thinking that blowing 200-400 USD will get you where you want to be think about more ram first.  If your running a gig n a half or 2 gig and yer frames still don't stay consistantly above 24fps then by all means get the best card you can afford but invest in the ram first.  Its a lot cheaper than the state of the art cards and you might just get where you need to be and save some cash.

[Gixer]

Hence I went and used the FS-GS service!!

These guys will teach you how to setup your PC for gaming.  Primarily aimed at getting the best out of FS2004 but what they do works wonders for your other games too.

As I have said many times before you could have the best setup ever, but if you have it setup/configured wrongly it will just not run smoothly (Harmonised)  Having that G/card will help out as it will boost your average FPS but what you need to do now is focus on getting your computer running as efficiently as possible so that data just flows without ever being held up (This is what system unification is about) that way you wont get stutters etc.

There are a few sites out there with so called 'Tweaks' etc for FS2004 but a lot off them you do not require.  These tweaks are used by people who cannot get their sim running well and think that by using them it will help.  It sometimes does but in some cases you may loose some autogen or loose image quality.

If your gonna spend big bucks on a g/card I would then thoroughly reccomend putting by the few extra dollars and getting your system setup by FS-GS.  Be prepared for a complete re-format though and possibly re-organising of partitions etc.  Also they will reccomend software (i.e. Anti-virus / firewall) that would have least impact on your PC's resources though it is up to you if you choose to get these, freeware alternatives are mentioned too so its not all spend spend spend.  I did have to purchase some new hardware too (Well i didn't but once stuff was explained I did) though you dont have too if you dont want too.  Though you will be explained everything and what is happening why things work better a certain way etc etc.

[Gixer]

Oh yeah 1gig of ram is just right for FS2004 and XP operating system  ;)   Just get that system flowing its data!!

[the_autopilot]

Thats abosolutely correct, there are other things that can bottleneck your comp.

In the case of memory, its not only the amount, but also the bus speed and latency. If your mobo supports dual channel, getting memory that supports that also helps.

Other things to consider are hard drive rpm's and corresponding seek times. 7200 rpm should be ok, anything slower could bottleneck the system.

Also, a good sound card can sometimes be helpful as it shifts cpu time to the card. This is especially true if you have 7.1 sound on the highest quality.

[GunnerMan]

Gixer how does this FS-GS service go about doing this to your system...I may try and use their services once I get new RAM but if I call them now they will say new ram and hang up on me lol so yeah My Ultra is im shure getting bottleneked by my RAM big time.. but it still runs good except FS we get the "noise" see my post in hardware..

[M.R.Maiornikov]

Yah can you please explain how does FS-GS works. You got my interest on this one. Also if it's not too hard can you post a link to their site.

P.S. Do you think they can do something about my computer?

Specs:Processor :1.40 gigahertz AMD Athlon XP
128 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache

mother board: Board: ECS L7VMM3 3.1
Bus Clock: 133 megahertz

40.05 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity

Ram: 512 MB of RAM

[Gixer]

Ok here is their site

http://WWW.FS-GS.com

The guy (Michael) who will go through the service with you is frequent on these forums.  Go into the payware Screenshot bit, his nick is Ramsa329.  Send him a PM on here or you can get his email addy from the FS-GS site.

I have explained kinda what the service will do.  Its called a process of system unification.  Doing this means the data will always flow freely, hence no stutters and a nice smooth sim and you usually end up with your sliders being higher than they were before too!

Gunnerman yes I would get some PC3200 in your system before trying things so your system is running at its optimum FSB (400)

Anyone else the best thing you can do is contact Michael.  He will go through your hardware setup with you before starting the service, thus he will tell you what you can gain etc or things that you should possibly change.  He will do his best to work around small problems etc but like I said be prepared for him to ask you to re-format!  Also I used MSN with Michael and spoke via Mic as its a lot easier this way, I think this may be one request he makes in that you talk rather than type, that way things are explained far better. So 56k people may have a slight problem there, best to emal him and ask.

Go check the site out though, has some screenies and info.  

[Scottler]

I've been tempted to give FSGS a shot, but to be honest, I'm not THAT unpleased with my current stuff.  It's just that I'm amazed at the shots you guys can get.  

One of my main concerns is the issue of framerates.  Gaming quality is measured in fps.  It's just the standard measure of how well you're running.  Full sliders with 3 fps sucks.  Full sliders with 80 fps, not so much.  But it seems (to me) that whenever someone mentions frames, everyone gets all defensive and simply says "It's not about frames, it's about unification and efficiency."

You can't blame guys for wondering what the result will be.  Framerates is all we've ever known.  

The ambiguity of FSGS is one of the major factors I haven't gone that route yet.  

[Gixer]

I say that because even really high spec systems will be dragged down to high 20's low 30's at places like KSEA.

With my system below and it all maxed default flight at KSEA returns me 22 FPS minimum (looking at AI and terminal) look any where else and it will go up to over 30 no probs.

[the_autopilot]

I say that because even really high spec systems will be dragged down to high 20's low 30's at places like KSEA.

With my system below and it all maxed default flight at KSEA returns me 22 FPS minimum (looking at AI and terminal) look any where else and it will go up to over 30 no probs.

I get around 40 fps at KSEA.

[FridayChild]

Gary is surely right in stating that a powerful video card is not enough to obtain consistently high frame rates. I'd just like to add some more to that.
The overall system performance, of which the frame rate in simulations is one of the possible measurements, is affected by almost EVERY component - hardware and software- in a system, and RAM is just one of them, and in some cases adding more would not substantially improve performance (oh and btw RAM doesn't exactly "flow through the bus"  ;)). Gary's been disappointed at the minor frame rate improvements after changing the video card, but other people could be equally disappointed by improvements obtained by adding some more RAM. It all depends on the performance of all the components combined. The CPU performance is very important, in facts it's maybe the most important element - provided that one has a decent video card and a fair amount of RAM. And don't forget the hard disk throughput when loading scenery. And surely closing background applications and terminating unneeded tasks and services will help. There is no single and easy operation to improve performance so don't rush to your local shop to buy a new video card or some more RAM until you've addressed the problem as a whole.

[the_autopilot]

Gary is surely right in stating that a powerful video card is not enough to obtain consistently high frame rates. I'd just like to add some more to that.
The overall system performance, of which the frame rate in simulations is one of the possible measurements, is affected by almost EVERY component - hardware and software- in a system, and RAM is just one of them, and in some cases adding more would not substantially improve performance (oh and btw RAM doesn't exactly "flow through the bus"  ;)). Gary's been disappointed at the minor frame rate improvements after changing the video card, but other people could be equally disappointed by improvements obtained by adding some more RAM. It all depends on the performance of all the components combined. The CPU performance is very important, in facts it's maybe the most important element - provided that one has a decent video card and a fair amount of RAM. And don't forget the hard disk throughput when loading scenery. And surely closing background applications and terminating unneeded tasks and services will help. There is no single and easy operation to improve performance so don't rush to your local shop to buy a new video card or some more RAM until you've addressed the problem as a whole.

Very well put.