Hello all.I wanted to post this question in the PMDG forum because this is the plane that I want to have good performance with. I currently have a P4 1.6 with 128mb of video ram (Nvidia Geforce 4), 512mb RAM. I am getting about 7 to 12 fps depending on weather. Quite choppy. Firstly let me say that I expect this kind of performance from such a complicated plane... I accept that. What are you folks getting for fps with lets say 1024x960 screen resolution. I would like to achieve AT LEAST a steady 20 fps with default scenerey and cloud settings on LANDING. My performance at FL350 is fine. I have tried tweaks like "clean start" listed in this forum but the reality is I just need more horse power....the question is how much?P.S. a forum search just resulted in mostly complaints about FPS, not what people were getting.Thanks AllChris

I get 10-15 during landing and 20+ in cruise with the PMDG planes. 100% 3D clouds, max ground textures, and mid most other settings. I have a Athlon XP 2000+ overclocked slightly, 1gb PC2100 RAM, ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128mb video card also overclocked slightly. Our CPUs are what are holding us back I think. I can change the grahics settings from low to max with nearly no change in FPS when on the ground at KSEA with a bunch of ProjectAI planes around. When this is occuring, my CPU usage is maxed at 100%. I think your RAM SHOULD be ok, and your video card isn't horrible, but your CPU could use the upgrade the most I think. An Athlon64 3.2gb would suit you just fine :)Hope that helps!

Well, with your PC specs it would probably be a killer to you. Just take your current framerates and cut them in half, that's what you'll be getting. In order to achieve fair/good performance, I would suggest upgrade your CPU (and possibly your motherboard if needed) to something more powerful such as an Intel Pentium 4 2.6+ Ghz or AMD Athlon XP 2200+. Anything higher than what I recommended would perform better, but those should be the minimum. You can get a good motherboard for about $50 and an Intel P4 2.8 for about $120 or AMD Athlon 2200 for about $60. Sorry to make this all bad news, but now days once you buy a PC, there will always be something better. Nick B.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg--AMD Athlon XP 3200+ @ 2.25 Ghz (405 mhz FSB)Soyo VIA KT600 Dragon PlusnVidia GeForce FX 5200 128 mb2 x 512 PC400100 GB Western DigitalMicrosoft Sidewinder Precision 2

With my P4 at 2.4 GHz, 2 GB RAM, and a ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 128 (AGP 8x), I keep my frames locked at 24, and get it all the time EXCEPT for 12-18 on approach and landing.I have 50% traffic (My Traffic 2004), and most of the sliders fully maxed.I'm hoping that an upgrade to a 3.2 GHz CPU will give me 24 fps all the time.

Thank you for your responces! I get my posted frame rates while using the PMDG 737ng on 2d view only. Not bad but I agree with all of you...it is a processor speed issue. I will investigate that and see you in FPS Heaven!Chris

An upgrade to 3.2 should at least give you 30+ fps. My AMD Athlon XP 3200 is about as fast as a P4 3.0 gives me an average of 30 on the ground with 100% traffic.Nick B.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg--AMD Athlon XP 3200+ @ 2.25 Ghz (405 mhz FSB)Soyo VIA KT600 Dragon PlusnVidia GeForce FX 5200 128 mb2 x 512 PC400100 GB Western DigitalMicrosoft Sidewinder Precision 2

:( I'm not nice, I have everything there is beyond maxed and get 17-20 but thats all I need to fly nicely. 100% everything with increased visual distance is pretty brutal on a machine. Don't believe everything you read, you can *still* kill any machine made with FS9 configurations. I do not use the frame rate limiter that disables things behind the scene giving you a false perception of your frame rates.I suppose I could tone stuff down and get faster frame rates, but whats the point of faster frame rates vs visual detail?P4 3.2/800 + Asus P4C800-E + Raid0 array + SB Aud/2 + ATI 9800XT + 1 GB ram.Ray

I agree. There is simply no machine that can swallow a mouthfull of FS9. I have the settings pretty much at default, with traffic maxed, and several addons and I get somewhere around 18 average on the ground. I have Project AI installed with every available livery and every AFCAD, so there is "traffic-O-houlihan" at every airport (don't ask). I find the weather is what slaughters me.One thing that really sucks is that the framerates will just jump around from 10-25 in no consistent pattern, so it's hard to tell sometimes. It is however COMPLETELY flyable- I don't care about crappy framerates on the ground, as taxing doesn't require great framerates. In the air, I'm locked at 25, and it jumps from 22-25, regardless of the weather. I haven't done real tweaking- such as the autogen stuff. In the default aircraft, it's maxed all the time. Heck, it will get up to 70 with the default. But they blow anyway (expect the 172, which is fun).

hey there,not sure but i think what

Well,I have a Dell Dimension 8300 3.2Ghz W/ 2GB DDR and an Nvidia 5950 256 Ultra. I'm running in windowed mode with two monitors W/the overhead, FMC, and throttle quadrant undocked and resized on the second display. I also run Activesky 2004 and have downloaded the cloud performance fix which works very nicely. FPS locked to 30 but they're bouncing from 15-25 in flight through variable cloud layers and hold relatively stable near 12-15 on approach as long as there isn't too much weather. AI traffic is set to 50% and all my sliders are in the mid range including cloud visibility settings. I have autogen scenery turned completely off due to MSFT's crappy programing. I find autogen will slowly eat away system resoucres throughout the flight and performance will degrade considerably. I have AA turned completely off, Render to texture is UNchecked, MIP mapping is at 5, lights set to 8 and filtering is set to Trilinner. I think one area of improvement would be giving FS9 it's own partition but I haven't done that yet. I would love to fly completely in the VC but I don't think we're there yet with the current hardware available. My performance for some reason is abysmal in the VC.. I get 2FPS so for now I just use the 2D. which is pretty smooth.I actually expected more from this machine but I haven't gone so far as to tweak any FS9.CFG settings as I really have no idea what I'm doing there and don't want to mess anything up that would force me to re-install.Anyone have any other suggestions lets have'em! :)

Yes..Another suggestion for everyone is to turn 'OFF' the airports and Wpt's on your ND screen. You don't really need these if you have your flt plan in your FMC anyways. I find that turning off these and especially the 'airports' function greatly increase my framerates.Regards,JackKGSP

With my config, 35fps is locked, windowed usually reaches as much as 35fps, in heavy scenery, around 20. If heavy weather, rain, clouds, AND addon scenery and landing, and say some traffic on the ground, it *can* drop as low as 8-10fps.But all in all, I can say: very satisfied. And, it's not choppy, landings are very realistic to perform, even if FPS are low (no stuttering of any kind).

EDIT: in heavy scenery, if full screen, 1280x960.

Word Not Allowed,That's pretty remarkable performance. Whats your secrect? My system is is pretty much bleeding edge and you're NG is flying circles around me :) Where do you think the bottleneck in my set up is? What optimization tweaks have you done? I'm dying to know. Much appreciated!

Hey Paul,It's hard to say what's the secret. I have basically tweaked every possible aspect of my system. From overclocking, to optimizing system, spreading everything over more HDDs (FS9 has it's own HDD, not only partition), and swap file also, which is coming to use sometimes even though I have 1GB RAM.If you want to discuss in more detail, maybe Email me over avsim.com board? I don't know what yours set is...