Simviation Forums

I know that its common...but I have to post it anyway. (maybe it will be moved to general discussion?)

Im really dissapointed with my FPS. In the air at FL 340 with cleared weather I get 20.8 (locked at 21), but when I try to take of or land, not even at too busy airports, they fall down to 5-8 (which is really making it hard to do a smooth touchdown). And, of course, when I set the weather to overcast or thunderstorm it almost stands still (lets say 3-4). the 3d-clouds are set to 10%...why does this happen?? My specs are not soooo bad I think (Pentium IV, 2.66 GHz, 128 RAM, Geforce MX-400). I even tried to shut down windows while running FS9 but nothing improved. someone said you could improve your FPS by 8-10 by changing something in the BIOS...does anyone have a clue?

I have the same problem. :-/

Not sure about tweaking the bios, sounds kind of dangerous in my opinion.

It's primarily a vid card issue, but RAM could be a factor as well - you stated 128mb RAM in your brief specs; was that the total system or just for the card?  At the moment, I have the same GPU - it's far from spectacular, though it is bearable.

If buying a new card isn't an option, you'll have to make some quality sacrifices to improve your FPS, such as:

Changing the clouds from complex/3d to Simple, turning down the sight distance and changing the general scenery display settings until you find some improvement. Turning down the AI traffic density helps quite a bit as well.  It takes a lot of experimenting to find
the right settings.  

That said, your best option would be to get a new graphics card, and more RAM - you can get both a new card and a few RAM modules for well under $500.

Ijineda,

Check around the old messages in this and the hardware forum....... you are not alone.  With your specs... that is about normal... in fact... pretty good.  fs2004 is really tough on ALL parts of the system..... cpu, RAM, front side buss, hd access, and video card.

Right off I can suggest the first thing is you need at least 512 M of FAST RAM....... and a gig is better.  The video card needs upgrading too.  Min a 128 meg one... but chack the hardware forum and Tom's Hardware website to see that all 128 M cards are not equal.

Even with upgrading to maybe a ATI 9800 on the graphics card and a gig of ram don't expect miracles on the 2.66.  BTW... what's the front side buss?  

best,

.......................john

I had basically the same problem..My specs are below. I reccomend a better video card. But you can try below to see if it helps...

Then boy did I get lucky.
Went over to http://www.avsim.com/ and downloaded their Cloud Fix v.3. You can find it in the library section.
Now I am running at 120 mile view distance, draw at 60 miles, 100% clouds & Density at High !
Also I have the AI traffic set at 100 % (Strongly rec Project AI at http://www.projectai.com/ ) Really shocked me shen I saw all the planes on the ground !

And lastly I still can get 20fps at LAX ! WOW

Give them a try and backup before, just in-case you do not like it....

Spidious: so you're saying that with this cloud fix you're getting good fps with the nice rendering?

Can you afford 60 Euros or about 75$? www.fs-gs.com. Your time and money will be well spent.

Joe

The first thing that jumped out at me was your ram...if you're running XP, you definitely need more, as XP alone takes 128 just to run....so you don't have much (if any) left for FS9.

Other than that, it would depend on the memory of your video card...

Below are some screen shots.
I had to use the default 172 plane. Usually I fly the 182 Flight1. But it sucks even more fps using it. I have below the fair weather, building storms & real weather update version.  They area all using the 128x128 bitmap versions. You can use the larger versions for even more detail. Try all the versions and use which ever suits you...Remember that in a heavy AI area. They will drop even more. Due to ALL the other planes they have to draw...

I hope your RAM is faster than 133 Hz!  

133 MHz?

If you are looking to spend very little, get a 256 MB stick of RAM, and a GeForce FX5700Ultra or Geforce4 Ti4X00 (4200, 4400 or 4600). That should run you about 200 bucks, if you shop, even less

Guaranteed your video card is the problem here, though the system ram is under what I'd call minimums. It takes 128Mb to run Win XP properly, so take it from there. The MX400 card is ok for FS2K2 but not FS9.

I'll try that cloud fix, they look great don't you think?

If you are talking about my ram yes

and i suppose you have already unchecked 'limit frame rates" in FS? if i'm not mistaken the default is to limit frame rates to 30 fps to free up computer resources.

Spidious what FSB is you cpu running at?  if its different than your ram then it wont be running at its best.  Your ram is 266Mhz total but I am not sure of the FSB of the XP2700 cpu.

AMD's generally run poorly if the ram and cpu are not run at the same FSB.  1gig of ram is fine for running FS9 and XP operating system and you probably woulda been better off getting faster ram to be honest.

Out of the cheap old gen cards I would go for the following in this order : 9800pro, 9800, GF4 ti-4800, GF4 ti-4600.

If possible though stretch to one of the cheaper new gen cards, though it is possible to pick up second hand bargains on the cards I mentioned.

The 3D clouds will always be a big killer for most systems in FS9.  Look at my spec in my sig.  I can run any default weather system at KSEA with high res and AA / AF and not drop below 22FPS.  But throw in a Real Weather system which produces far far more cloud I can be down to 10FPS at 15000feet but looking at all the clouds!!!!   So the slower the system the more you have to turn down the clouds I am afraid.