Low framerates in VC. What to upgrade?

[Guest schimmi]

Hi!I am experiencing low framerates (around 10 fps and often less) in the PMDG (upgraded to 800/900) using the virtual cockpit (in 2D cockpit it's around 17-20 fps). This especially happens with airports (like Munich from German Airports) in sight. My scenery sliders are mostly moved to the max, "medium high" clouds though. The only really successfull way to increase the framerate to around 20 fps is to reduce the scenery complexity slider a lot (but then everything gets ugly). Changing gfx card settings (anti aliasing, filtering and so on) does not help to get the fps above 15. I normally use the resolution 1280x960, but also in 800x600 the framerate doesn't get above 15. AI traffic is disabled completely. Dynamic scenery is at "normal". VC quality at "maximum". LCD refresh at 5. Switching between rainy weather and clear sky only is a matter of a 2 fps change.My machine specs:ATI Radeon 9600XT 256 MB (with latest Catalyst)1GB DDRASUS A7N8X-X NForce2 (sadly only with single channel RAM access, latest Nvidia drivers)Athlon XP 2600+ (overclocked to 2800)SB Live PlayerI played a lot with different settings, as written above, without much success in increasing the framerate substantially. Now I wonder which part of the system is the main bottleneck. Any guess what a 9800pro would give me? Or what about the CPU and a dual channel RAM mainboard? I just want to have a system which is able to display the VC in German Airports with a decent framerate. I would be happy to hear your suggestions.Thanks in advance Schimmi

[Guest georg]

Its strange that you are having so low frame with your machine. I have a bit worst videocard and getting a lot more than you. Actually you should check your ATI AGP settings, some motherboards are not allowing AGP at all in first case and if its turned to off from 8x, your whole game is like 3x slower. It happened to me with new computer and now I have a lot better performance in FS. I got it working by updating motherboard chipset drivers.

[Guest schimmi]

Hi!At least the ATI "Smartgart" tab tells me that 8x AGP and "fast write" is activated. As your system looks similar, can you do me a favor? Please startup with the PMDG 737-800, VC model, no cabin, clear sky, Chicago intl KORD, runway 32, daylight.My settings:Scenery: "very high"Airplane: "very high"Weather: "Medium - high"Hardware: everything to the right, bilinear, "normal" in the ATI 3D tabSound: mediumResolution: 1280x960x32 in a maximized windowMy FPS:In 2D cockpit, cold and dark cockpit: around 35 FPSIn VC, 1.0 zoom, cold and dark: around 25 FPSIn VC, 0.31 zoom, cold and dark: around 19 FPSIn VC, 0.31 zoom, bat switch on, gnd pwr on: around 18 FPSThe airport isn't very complex compared to Munich with German Airports. So 18 FPS is not very much in my eyes. Of course there is no framerate limit in the settings. Just for comparison, it would be nice to hear some values from similar systems.Thank you very much in advanceSchimmiP.S.: I wonder whether there is any proper FS2004 benchmark. The only one, I found via google, was "FS2004 Benchmark" that I saw at fsfreeware.com. But it was a broken link.

[Guest steven van leeuwen]

Hi there!I've got the same problem. My framerates in VC are below 10 sometimes. Even in 2D cockpit I never reach 20 fpsI checked the Video Card settings and it says BUS Type: AGP 8X (Current 8X) Side Band: OnThe System I am flying on is hardly two weeks old:GeForce FX5700 256MbAMD Athlon 3000+512 MB RamSo how to improve the FPS? I never fly with the settings full opened, everything is between medium-high

[Guest georg]

Im getting 18-26 fps in your configuration depending to which direction Im looking, I cant sent reso to 1280, its 1024 because of my monitor, but thats not the biggest factor.

[Guest steven van leeuwen]

Ahaa ok, thkns for helping us out.I think it isn't my system then, because you also work with a 3.0 Ghz processor. I will just try to avoide busy add-on airports when flying with VC ;)Regards,Steven

[Guest B1900 Mech]

Try setting your system performance under your Bios advanced tab to aggressive. I had to do this to enable dual channel DDR on my rig.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/82630.jpg

[Guest zip]

Hi,first suggestion: Visit the main MSFS simulator forum and look for the tweaks - a lot of people have experienced problems with FS and trust me, it's not the hardware (ok, well, sometimes it's the video drivers). That forum has a lot of very good suggestions, some of which have made a huge difference for me.From the experience with my own AMD FX51 processor, dual channel memory will give you almost a 2x performance increase, especially with graphics. I found that out because I placed my memory in the wrong slots, just because the documentation that came with my board was, well, not as good as PMDG's.Highly recommend dual channel to get the full performance out of your very good system.Cheers,

[N520AT 3]

If you have Anti-Aliasing on, turn it off....My friend was having terrible FPS in all planes with a top notch system...He then turned off AA, and his FPS are where they should be.:-)