Simviation Forums

I could use some thoughts here on my problem........

I had an ATI 9600 pro video card and was quite unhappy with the framerates I was getting.

I honestly believe that the M$ flight sim series are mostly CPU driven with regard to frame rates.  Better video cards seem to give a prettier picture but the base frame rate does seem to stay the same.  This is based on the changes I saw in FS2k2 when upgrading from MX 200 64MB card to 5600 256MB card.  When I upgraded I started the sim in my old settings (75% ish) to view with awe the massive new FPS number.  I was disappointed to find that it was 2-3 FPS better.  I then maxed out the graphics at 1024*768 and it stayed the same....  I now run FS2k4 at 75% settings with AA at X8 and Anti wassit filtering at X4 and get 10-15 FPS on approach and 20-30 at all other times.  If the GPS is on it drops to 7-9 on approach.

The graphics look much better and the performance stays the same, it must be the CPU.

I ran 3d pro benchmarking on my system and tried various combinations of settings in an attempt to find the best settings for my system.  I scored between 200 and 2111 points, 2111 was with the card at factory settings with no tweaks applied.  I noted that throughout all of the tests I was getting the same scores from the CPU section, independant of any changes to the graphics card.

It would be beneficial to see what someone with a lower end cpu and higher end cpu gets in the same situation.

I will test my system at KBOS when I get home this morning and see what I get.  

Will

Will,

Thanks for the thought.

ATI Radeon 9800XT 256 Meg AGP video card (4X)

4x?? as in AGP 4x? if so, that might be a problem... probably your mobo doesnt support 8x AGP which in that case, i would get a new mobo too, not to expensive..

just looked up your motherboard at Asus, http://usa.asus.com/products/mb/socket4 ... erview.htm  your mobo only supports 4x AGP, i might look into getting a newer motherboard that supports it, just a thought

I think that the CPU bottle neck is a programming fault and not a CPU fault.  I have other games which are as graphic intensive as FS, some even more so.  

Swanny - what do you mean by AGP?

[quote]I think that the CPU bottle neck is a programming fault and not a CPU fault.

As I understand it...  An 2x AGP slot is Twice as fast as a PCI slot - a 4x AGP slot is 4 times as fast and so on.

When I get my joystick later on today I shall see what this PC can do! Initial experiments look extremely promising!

The 4X AGP slot is another thought.

But again I come back to the fact that some with older machines (that have only 4x or 2x or even 1x) slots seem from their posts here to be getting far better performance.

Fozzer....... turing the ai completely off gains me only about 1-2 fps.

best,

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

Did an experiment with a "low and slow" aircraft and a standardized flight.......

Screen resolution at 1024x768x32bit, refresh at 75Hz. Set the AA on the 9800XT to 4X and the ansio to 8X.

JBaymore,

I did not know your motherboard only supports 4x AGP.

JBaymore,

I'd recomend a new Motherboard that supports 8x AGP.

...a 400/800 Front Side Bus...and fit it out with at least 512 Mb of DDR ram, (expensive but fast).... ...!

Cheers... ...!
Paul.

Well, I'd recomend something like the Intel D865PERL or something similar...it runs about $140.

JBaymore,

I'm gonna try your flight and see what fps I get.

I'm a bit under your spec.

But, from What I've read, I think there is a prob somewhere.

Not many apps use the 8x AGP speed to advantage, 4x providing more than enough transfer bandwidth. But, still, it's possible the card or it's drivers are optimised for that. So I guess that cant be discounted.

Yuor 2.4 gig cpu on a 533mhz fsb seem quite adequate.

your RAM is slowish but 1 gig, so it seems ok.

I definitely smell a rat. There is a big diff in the performance of the two cards you specify.

Out of curiosity you could try my unofficial FS9 benchmark in these posts and do it at 1024x768x32

Also, my fs2002 runs 30-40% faster than fs9

GL, congo



ok, just did your flight a close as I could, 8x anisotrpic wouldnt display correctly so i did it at 4x, also i had antialiasing fully enabled.

on entry of first flight 10 fps, mountains around 20+
antialiasing off - double that.

second flight about 10- 15 fps the whole way. 10 0n approach.

Now, my card rates half of what your new one does, TI4200 8x AGP :  55    , ->    9800xt :  114

and you are supporting 8x aniso..... so maybe you are pretty spot on...... despite the 4 x   agp speed.

Weird thing was my final approach. about the same as yours, but I have a massive addon there, so..........

Note: I can turn down a few things and get nice graphics, but what really kills the TI4200 performance is the clouds, particularly with antialiasing them.

Just need to chime in here...

I upgraded my 9000pro to a 9700pro recently.

With the 9700pro, it looks like a brand new game.  However, the fps did not seem to improve very much, though slower aircraft run as fast as the default aircraft now.  Really it is just more consistent.  

Specs:  P4 2.1ghz
            512mb PC2700DDR
           At least 5 gigs left on HD
           Running XP pro, 1280x1024 res, 32bit textures,        all sliders maxed except for autogen and scenery complexity, which are at "dense"

Now, I get generally high-teens FPS, dipping extremely(to about 10-12)near larger cities and airports.  

In conclusion, I think that we need to locate what takes over near the large airports, be it RAM, CPU, or video card.

(sorry, just got back form my English midterm )

P.S.  My benchmark is approach into Heathrow facing the city, in VC.