New system, great FPS but ...

[WebbPA]

... the clouds are killing me.

In the last couple of months I got a memory upgrade to 768Mb and installed XP/SP2.  Still have the old NVidia TNT-64 video card.

I lock the frame rates at 18 - please don't argue with me about this because I have heard it all and that's the way I'm going to do it.

With the memory upgrade I was able to move all of my graphic sliders up close to maximum with no loss of frame rates ... until I hit some clouds.  Then they drop to 6-10 FPS.

It doesn't seem to make any difference whether cloud density is set at 30 or 100%, and I installed an alternate cloud package from RealityXP.  They may look a little better, I haven't decided yet, but the .bmp's are the same size as MS's so I doubt the performance is any better.

Any tips?

[microlight]

Hi Jim. You won't hear any arguments from me about locking the frame rate - I have mine locked at 20. I'll try the RealityXP clouds and see what happens.

I fly with real-world weather pretty much constantly and heavy clouds take their toll on my system too (2gHz, 512mB memory, Radeon 9200). My sliders are maxed but with normal scenery density and clouds, mine runs happily at 18-19 fps.

I'd decided that the only way to improve this was to replace the graphics card,.Upgrade has had to take its place behind USB2.0, DVD burner etc. so it hasn't happened yet. So I echo Jim's request - anybody know of a less currency-intensive alternative? I've tried increasing the virtual memory but I'm not sure that it made any difference. I haven't yet tried software that shuts down all processes except the essential ones - does this really work? (Can't remember the name of it anyhow!)

Thanks all...

[microlight]

Update - RealityXP clouds seems to make zero difference to frame rates, so it's probably worth keeping if you like the effect. You might want to try Flight Water Pro for replacement sea textures - much better than the original MS texture - and also no frame rate hit (on  my system).

Hey, here's a thought - would downsizing the bitmaps from 256x256 make any difference?

[eno]

FSAutostart might be the answer do a search for it at Avsim. It takes a bit of fiddling to set up but the results are worth it 5-10 fps on a good machine.

[WebbPA]

I already use FSAutostart and it works great.  For microlight and anyone else that's interested here is the main page http://www.kensalter.com/fsautostart/

[microlight]

Thanks Jim - I'll try it out.

[_526th_Fireman]

Not at home or I would give you a direct link.

When I had FS2k2 loaded up, I used the cloud textures from FSSkyWorld (Think that's the name.)

These really do make a difference and looked better than the stock MS cloulds.

[WebbPA]

Please post the link when you get home because I have found a lot of references for it but no download links.

I had an epiphany, though, after reading this - why not just redraw/shrink the textures with Irfanview?  Other than having a million other things to do I may look into that this weekend.

[_526th_Fireman]

When I get home, in about 1 1/2 hrs., I will give you the link.

There are lots of cloud textures you would have to tackle if you go the option you mentioned at the end of your post Webb.

In CFS2, I used Martin Wright's DXTBmp program to redo some acft. textures that were way up there. It worked great.

Ah, I just Googled it and here ya go Webb:

http://fsw.simflight.com/     This is one great program, the guy does excellent work.

[microlight]

I tried the RealityXP clouds, and they do make a difference to having the M$ clouds. Along with Flight Water Pro, the external shots are transformed. (Both easily found if you google for them.)

I tried re-sizing the texture bmps from 256x256 to 64x64 and it made no difference to the frame rates.

I also tried using FSAutostart, but that made no noticeable difference either.

Oh well.

[WebbPA]

Thanks, Fireman, I found it.

Hmmm.  Looks like I may have to read the instructions for this one, but the textures look a little smaller.

All I can really tell you about autostart is that the principle is amazingly simple - free up memory and CPU cycles and your sim should perform better.  I have measured the memory and CPU after using it - it needs to be tweaked for each indivudual system - and it does what it says it will do.  Whether the principle  will translate into a noticeable difference in performance is purely subjective.

I simultaneously upgraded my memory and OS, then reinstalled FS with saved configurations, then installed autostart.  I'm sure the memory upgrade was the major factor in improvement but I have never run the upgraded system without autostart.