Which is it?

[Scotch]

Hello all,

I am having FS problems and the answer is NOT "Turn down the realism and detail".  Having said that...

The program works very well in flight but when landing and sometimes at take off it tends to freeze up. Very up-setting after a three hour flight only to feeeze up 100' from touch down then crashing (the plane not the program).

It also seems that the graphics needs to catch up. I will get blank patches where it seems the game can

[bm]

Its on the weak side, What make is it? ie. celeron, P4, Athlon, Athlon XP

What are your other specs?

[Scotch]

Ok,

Here is what I know. It is an Intel 4 1.7GHz processor with 256 MB RAM and a Nvidia GE Force 2 MX/MX 400 vid card.

Kevin

[Gixer]

FS9 eats computers alive  ;D  Your specs will run it though you may have to run quite a low res/detail level.  What happens if you turn the detail right down does the game still crash?

Sounds to me like as your approaching the runway your FPS is dropping to under 1fps thus one moment your in the air the next your crashed.

If you could afford it then an upgrade bundle (Mobo, CPU and ram) would be a good choice.  If not I would get another 256ram to make your total 512 and get a 128ddr graphics card of some kind.  It all depends on your budget.  Give us an estimate of how much yuo can afford to spend and we have a go at seeing what we can find.

[Gixer]

Also press Shift+Z three times and it will display a lot of info in red writing at the top of your screen.  One of these being your current FPS (Frames Per Second)  Ideally you do not want this dropping below 20-25 at any time.

[bm]

Yes I'm afraid the problem here is the Intel P4 1.7Ghz, 256Mb RAM, GF2 MX400  :o

You will have to set the settings to as low as you can get them in order to be able to fly. What make is the PC, does it have an AGP slot?

I would think a new graphics card would be the best solution to upgrade, but if you don't have an AGP a new PC (mobo, CPU & RAM) is your only real choise - that depends on what you want to do.

[Delta_]

Your best bet for upgrade is to get a new GFX card, get something pretty decent like a 9600 series or 5700 series.  Then if your funds stretch further put a bit more RAM in to take you to 512MB.  

What FSB does your motherboard go to, then we can determine which processor is best.  

[Scotch]

Thanks for the info,

Last night I went out and bought a GeForce FX5600 (budget) and that helped but now looks like an old 8mm movie. The image is "grainy" (everything looks like its painted on sand) and jumps like it's missing every other frame.

So I started with re-setting all of the defaults then oney by one adding detail and such.  So now I have the frame rate at 75 and all of the detail set to medium and very dense. I guess that is what I am going to get but tonight I am going back and get more RAM and see if that helps any more.

I don't know about replacsing a MB or CPU. I would assume it is as easy as swapping out a card only it is THE card. I'll look into that option at another time.

Thank you again for the info.
Scotch