More Frame Rates..... a puzzling problem

[JBaymore]

Hi.

I am having a problem with pretty low frame rates and I don't know WHY?  

I am running MS FS2002 Professional on a brand new setup using Windows XP (home) on a Pentium 4 box at 2.4 Gig clock speed with 512 Meg of ram, a 40 gig C drive that is only about 10 gig full (also a 200 gig E drive not used for MSFS except for preliminary download storage), a Geforce 2 MX / MX400 64 meg video card, screen resolution at 1024 x 768, 32 bit, Direct X 9, and a Soundblaster Live audio card.  All windows updates are current.... except for the one that was mentioned on this forum that slowed down the XP machine....which I deleted and got a tad better perfromance  ;D.

If I head out into the wilds of the yukon with about one AI plane within 40 n. miles passing by at angels 12 and flying the default C172...... in an area of totally autogen scenery (no add ons in sight) ..... I am only getting about 15 FPS!!!!!!!!!  If I go into Boston with a lot of AI traffic it drops to about 10 or so.  I have it supposedly "locked" at 40.... but that seems to make no difference.

Just about all the simulation setup sliders are at full settings.  I do not have anti aliasing on (it causes video problems if I do).  Most other option check boxes are on.  I have tried bi and tri level filtering.... no appreciable difference.

I see people here on the forum mentioning far lesser machines and getting frame rates that ar FAR better than mine with the sliders also all at maximum.

SO what the heck am I doing wrong???????

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.  

best,

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

[ozzy72]

John it sounds like you are overloading your graphics card. Bring the resolution down a notch or two, and also bring the scenery density down. This should improve your frame rates markedly.

Ozzy

[RIC_BARKER]

You should be getting better frames with that machine.

I'd recommend runing a BIOS ID utility (get it over at intels site) and find the exact chipset you're using (845PE maybe?). Once you have done that, download the latest drivers.

I recently had a similar experience with this sort of problem, and I saw over a 100% increase in performance. It seem my chipset drivers had become corrupted at some stage. Maybe your chipset drivers are not installed?

Ric B.

[Smoke2much]

Chipset Drivers?  What the heck are these?  I've not heard of them before and it looks like I need to get some.

Thanx for the infor Ric.

Will

[JBaymore]

Ric,

Thanks for the info.  Never heard of chipset drivers.  Are you actually talking about the videocard dirvers?


Ozzy,

I'd say that was an option if I were on a minimal machine....... but I hear of people with much less powerful machines getting 30-40- and even 50 FPS with the sliders in the same basic configuration.  So I think SOMETHING is up that is just not right at all.

This is a pain in the butt.  I got a fast machine on purpose  :).

Thanks.

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

[Kevin Jarvis]

First of all...set your frame rate at 20 or less.  Anything over that and your machine is robbing everything else to try and keep the frames at 40.  You won't notice any difference at 20 and then you'll free up a lot of resources.
Set your visibility to 60 instead of 80.
Plus the fact that you have all your sliders at max tells me your machine simple can't handle max settings.
You need to find settings which work well for where you fly.  Just b/c you have a fast machine doesn't mean the sim is going to work any better with the settings constantly fighting each other for resources.
Heck, I get better frames than you and I've only got an AMD 700.
KJ

[JBaymore]

Ric and all..........

So I'm now working on this.  Learned a bit in following Ric's advice.  Went to the Intel site and found some stuff that was helpful and that I had NO clue about.

I got the "Chipset ID" utility and ran it.  It said I have the 845E chipset with the 82845E memory controller and the 82801DB (ICH4) I/O controller, and that integrated graphics is "not detected or disabled" (more on that last one in a second).

The instructions on chipset updates said to download the XP home installer utility first and run it and then install the "Application Accelerator v. 2.3" update for Win XP home for this particular chipset.

I did so, and then ran a test of MSFS2002 to compare to the last test I did of frame rates .... the one which gave me only about a 15 FPS rate.  I selected a very similar scenario to the original test in the middle of nowhere with no AI traffic to speak of and no dense scenery or addons present.  I got a noticable and immediate improvement of frame rate to about 20 FPS!!!!!!!!!!!

Still not the huge improvement that I want......... but headed in the right direction.  Sorry Ric...... not the 100 percent improvement yet  ;).  I was hoping  ::).

In the KBOS (Boston) area with a lot of AI traffic around it still drops woefully to about 8 FPS.  Not great for good landings  :P.

The last item in the chipset ID utility has me wondering.  What exactly does that mean "not detected or disabled"?  What should I do about that?  I would bet that it has SOMETHING to do with the continuing slow frame rate.

There were a couple of graphics drivers on the Intel site ......but the chipset list for them didn't match what I have.  There was no graphics driver listed for the 845E chipset.

SO..... THANKS a lot Ric for pointing me in the right direction.  You da' man!

Now I am going to try a different NVidea driver for my GeForce 2 64 Meg MX / MX400 video card and see if that helps at all.

best,

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

PS.... hope this discussion info helps others too.

[SilverFox441]

The "integrated video not detected" is actually a good thing...don't worry about it. All it means is that you have a real video card and not one that is part of your mother board.

[Selbio]

[quote]

Ozzy,

I'd say that was an option if I were on a minimal machine....... but I hear of people with much less powerful machines getting 30-40- and even 50 FPS with the sliders in the same basic configuration.

[BFMF]

interesting, will have to check them out.

[JBaymore]

Selby,

WOW.... thanks for the extensive information!!!!!  ;D

I think that many if not most of my configuration is set up as that long list you gfave mentions..... but I'll go and check it out piece by piece soon.  THANKS!!!!!!!!!!!

To keep you all updated with my progress.........

I downloaded the latest Nvidea "Terminator" video drivers  (19 meg or so....at 56K....... over an hour download  >:( )....and installed it.  It is now version 4.4.03 dated 5/2/03.  That made a BIG change in the framerates when I am out in the boonies with little AI or dense scenery.  Now it is coming in at about 40 FPS if I let it go "unlimited".

I then downloaded the latest ASUS motherboard BIOS drivers ......just to be thorough..... and flashed the BIOS chip.  Could not see any appreciable change in framerate.  But at least I know I have the latest ones  ;).

However, in the dense Boston area with lots of AI traffic and city scenery and such, the framerate only improved a small tad........ where I got 6-7 before I am now consistrently getting 9-10 FPS.  Where I got 7-8 before I am now getting 10-12 FPS.  NOT as much as I wanted........ but at least still headed in the right direction.

In playing around with some OTHER factors I found that if in the FS2002 setup section on the hardware tab that if I changed the filtering to "none" that the frame rates got much WORSE!!!!!!  That surprised me a bit  :o.  With bi level filtering set I get the best framerates...... tri level moves it down too.  But for the sake of keeping all the tests I am doing somewhat uniform....I'll keep it at tri level for the duration of my "system playing"  ::).

If I could get the framerate up to about 15 in the Boston type environments....I'd be reasonably happy.  The difference between 8 and 10 FPS is VERY noticable.

I can't beleive that with this new P2 2.4G system that I can't get overall better framerates ........ even with the sliders maxed ............ it still doesn't make sense.  Not when others say they get great rates....with the same video card in a slower machine with an older processor.

So.... I'll keep plugging away and keep you all posted.  Bet others can benefit from all this stuff too.  Thanks to ALL who are reading and posting some suggestions here.

best,

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

[JBaymore]

Silverfox,

Thanks.  Yes...the motherboard hasd an integrated video display....that I DIDN'T want....and I put in the GeForce card.  So that is why that says that.  Thanks.

Makes sense now that you tell me  ;).

best,

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

[BFMF]

Is your Geforce video card PCI or AGP?

[Selbio]

JBaymore,

Also check the display setting in fs2002 in the hardware section and make sure that the option Transform and Lighting has is checked and have the frame rate slider where it says unlimited or  something like that.

I have noticed that limiting the fsp to 10 will lower system performance; however, if you set it to unlimited then the system performance will increase as much as the system can handle with any limitations(correct me if am wrong but I've been messing with this settings and this is what it seems like to me).

[Smoke2much]

Thanks Selby.

I've followed the steps you've outlined and I've attained an improvement of about 5FPS in all areas.

Cheers.

Will