Frame Rate question, just curious...

[FlyingFinn2]

Hello guys, i just curious about the FPS in FS9, if someone have  a similar system....

AMD AthlonXP 3000+
Asus A7N8X-E Deluxe
Asus ATi Radeon 9800 XT
512mb Kingston 400Mhz
and all the other things, XP PRO SP1....

When i install FS9, the default settings are HIGH with
" dense " scenery... u know.

with original " high " settings, and clouds in High(default) and Aircraft in Very Hard, and Hardware with 1024x768x32 Windowed, FPS locked at 40, 6 ligths and Bilineal. and 4AA and 4AF.

With all these settings and Default 100% traffic and Afcads, my reference Airport is Kennedy and i get when i land there i get about 19-24, and them 40(max) in some places.

Good, but i can see Screenies in PAI forums and other sites, people with PAI or UT, with their afcads(thousands of gates) and traffic set to 100%.

Good, i tried it, ALL PAI airlines, all the afcads, and traffic in 100%, i get 13-16 FPS when i landing in kennedy, and with UT is impossible, 12-15 FPS.
People play with these FPS? This FPS is normal for my system and these traffic and detail settings?
And someone can get good FPS with Ultra High settings and all UT traffic in 100%???

If possible, someone with similar system can post here opinions, because i dont know if is normal or i have something wrong.( never had problems with any other game).

Well, thanks guys!!

[bm]

Hi Flying finn!

AI is I think the main FPS killer as you say.

I was quite sure that the FPS Fly2e was getting over Seattle airport with his new monster Alienware were impossible. After a complete reformat I am shocked how much my PC's performance had degraded over time, I am now running FS9 over Seattle airport, full settings (nothing extra installed) at 25FPS solid locked! This is with Norton AV Running + A local area network with ICS and about 30 processes running. Question is, how long will it last? Not long if I install all the guff I had last time including all the PAI airliners!

My specs:
P4c 3.2Ghz
Asus P4C800 Deluxe
Ati 9800XT
1024Mb Corsair DDR-XMS

Thing is its nice to see all the proper airlines, I suppose you have to strike a balance somehow.

[Gixer]

Maybe try lowering your Locked FPS to 30max, human eye cant tell the difference above 30 anyhow.  The theory is this saves on a bit of CPU power.  

As said AI is a bit of an FPS killer so are clouds and water effects.  Try turning off the water effects first as I would rather have AI and pretty clouds than nice water.  Its just finding that happy medium.

On the specs side of things well you only have 512 ram, 1gig would probably help out a bit specially as XP munches up 200meg of your ram before you even start FS9.  The FSB of that XP3000+ cpu is only 333MHz and you have 400MHz ram (PC3200) Is it good quality ram like Corsair, Geil, OCz??  If its good stuff and you know how you may be able to tighten your ram timings.  This would give an improvement too as your ram works better.  

I did this, you can buy PC2700 Latency ram but the Corsair stuff is basically PC3200chips with pre-programmed timings.  I picked up 3200 stuff a lot cheaper than the Low Latency stuff an set the timings myself in BIOS.   You Could also probably notch up your FSB a bit to make it 350-360 this too would give you a small performance increase.  

As for me getting good FPS with high settings No-Way, my PC Spec is extremely similar to yours (see sig) but I only have a GF4 Ti4600 which is holdin me back.  Now where is my dam FX 6800Ultra its been on pre-order far to long now and I want it  ;D

[FlyingFinn2]

Ahhh ok, i tried reduce some things, with Ultra high settings as base. the AUTOGEN, CLOUDS and Shadows in Buildings is BIG FPS killer. I have now autogen in low and clouds in minimun and voila.....( look at the link).
I will try tweak my system.

Yes, my 3000+ is 333Mhz but my RAM is High Quality,
Kingston 512mb 400Mhz CL 2.5. I tried do something in bios with memory but it crashed if someone can help me how i can inprove my RAM?

Here a pic of Dallas Ft.Worth from the air, before i get 21 now.... look!  with PAI 100% Traffic.
http://www.telefonica.net/web/ff2/kofw.jpg

[Gixer]

I would say you may have lowered a few to many things there  ;D  I am sure you could run max autogen, but I agree with turnin down the clouds slightly.

As for your ram in your BIOS there will be some timing settings one after the other i.e.

8
3
3
2.5

These are what you alter to get it to work more efficiently.

5 . 2 . 2 . 2 .  Is really harsh settings. Aim for this and if it crashes you will have to slacken the timings a bit.

The lower the numbers the better.  It purely is a matter of trying it out and seeing what you can get.  If its Kingston HyperX stuff you should get nice tight timings if its normal you might not get quite as tight.

[bm]

I have today experimented a bit adding things onto FS today, I must warn you to be very carefull!

Before adding Active camera I was getting the framerates mentioned above at seattle. Afterwards I was struggling to get near 20!

Good thing I had taken a copy of my install before I started -  Thats a major performance decrease. Just trying to say there are other things to look at before overclocking

[FlyingFinn2]

Ok, i changed the timings in Bios, no crashes.
5
2
2
2T

Is this correct?
Is this overclocking? can someone explain what i did?

My landings in KJFK now is at 26-30 pretty good.. same settings..but nah, 1 FPS extra

[Gixer]

Well it is o-clocking in a way, but its not dangerous at all.  It gets dangerous when you start playing with voltages and stuff which increase heat or upping your FSB etc to get higher clock speeds, thus somtimes causing unstability.

Altering your ram timings is just a minor tweak really and most people with good quality ram could probably do it a bit, specially those who have brought PC3200 ram to run with a FSB333MHz CPU.  That is the main reason I brought this ram so I could set the timings really tight.