Hi there all for your swift replies. Yes I get about 16 or 17 FPS in the default B737 and about 6 to max 7 FPS in PMDG B737NGs. Yup I am flying without the 3D and virtual cabins. I cannot imagine how lousy the frame rates will be with them. maybe 1 FPS? AKA portrait of the panel? How about doing like what Eaglesoft has done with their corporate jet and create a "lite" version of your panels in the future for those of us with slower coms. My graphics card is a ATI Radeon IGP 340M with a shared 32 MB of memory. I just installed Direct X 9.0c AND STILL NO improvement.Please advise guys,DArren

Darren, sorry to say but by what you just said, you laptop really can't do this! The only way I guess you could try would be to turn everything right down, and I mean right down. EVERYTHING! Shut off all background programs while in the sim aswell, have nothing open except the necessarys (ie FS9.exe and explorer.exe;)) I personally don't see much point in a "lite" version of the PMDG 737 panel. It's designed to be as close to the real thing as possible...which makes it just a tad complex! Sadly, I don't think your laptop is up to FS9 really, let alone the 737NG!Just my opinion, don't take it the wrong way!

> While the PLI is not there, the AOAindication on the>PFD option IS, certainly we are not missing the>function that the PLI gives.>Hi Randy,Actually, the AOA indicator does not provide equivalent functionality to the PLI indication. The PLI indication shows the pitch attitude corresponding to stick shaker activation, while the AOA indicator shows the angle-of-attack for stick shaker activation. Also, the PLI is on the primary flight display that the pilot will be using as the primary instrument for flight control during heads-down flight.Don S.

Unfortuantely 32mn is not a lot of breathing room in the 3d world.Basically you're going to have to have all your sliders at a minimum. I'd also remove all the files for the side, rear, front/side, rear/side parts of the views (Or just never look out anything but straight ahead.) What you want to try to do is minimize the amount of loading/unloading of textures from your video card's memory. This is the cause of the many blips you're likely seeing. I'd also recommnd going out and finding the "performance clouds" and using the smallest size set you can. Another thing I would avoid doing is going into spot view. Every time you go into spot view if the external texture is not currently in the video card's memory it will be loaded from system memory or disk. And everytime it's loaded onto your graphics card something else is being pushed off to make room.

That is true. PLIs are only present when flaps are not up, while they show a pitch *limit*, technically we know to avoid extreme pitch angles over 25 degrees as established in SOPS and the FCTM. I'm not trying to lesson their importance, I really want this on the 737 because it IS there for a good reason on the RW bird. One other note is that on certain NGs the AOA indicator is a "digital" round readout on the PFD (Upper right hand corner) and is also a heads down item.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/88315.jpghttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/88316.jpg Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4][h3]P M D G's 747-400[/h3][h4]coming to a runway near you[/h4][/font color]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)AMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |

Thanks to all for your kinda advises. Silly me. I forgot to slide the gauge FPS down as well. it was at 15 FPS that was why it was like 3 or 4 FPS in the FS2004. Now with clear weather I can get up to 18 to 19 FPS sometimes. Really cool huh? I dint even remove any of the panels. now my FPS for gauge is 6 so my gaige now suffer but not the overall FPS.Regrads,Darren

Now the only thing remaining is to patch the sim for the missing PLIs, and improve the graphcs further by what you mentioned before reducing the polygons? and the diversion airport problem with the FMC. After that we are in business! Hopefully a patch for all these will come out before the release of the B747-400 as these are lacking problems tat have been around since the beginning of the PMDG 737 program.Regards,Darren

>>>I think can be recommended to BOEING for cockpit familiarisation too for budding B737NGs pilots.<<

Yeah i think that this is one of the best panels for flight sim i have ever had. But unfortunately it is also the most frame rate intensive. I was just using PIC B767 in FS2002 before i completely switched to FS2004 last week. Frame rates on the PIC are so much better than those on the PMDG B737 and it also contained almost or if not as much details as the PMDG B737NGs. I think there must be a way to improve on the frame rates. Hopefully when the PLIs are added the frame rate problem will be addressed as well. Just check out all the reviews on this package out there. None talks about "great frame rates". All says that this is an excellent package BUT "poor frame rates".Regards,Darren

Sorry Darren, I get a constant 23-25FPS in flight and with default scenery even with a lot of clouds. The worst I get is around 10-15 at Las Vegas Mccarran but I have a lot of extra detailed scenery there. Its very flyable at those frame rates. You do have a bug about a small detail though. Bob K.

Hi there Bob, Like what people said that I am using a laptop so I shouldnt be even flying the PMDG B737NGs at all. If I do it is almost a slide show now at the max 8 FPS and if I fly around changi it is what 3 FPS? I love the panel but it is absolutely unflyable on a laptop. SO people out there now reading this if you plan to run it on a laptop dont buy it. Otherwise will have the same problems as me. And all frame rates quoted are with default scenery and very few clouds.Regrads,Darren

I also wonder if PMDG is going to release and update that can change the radio number colors, I saw it in my dvd that The color was the same as in the MCP

Nothing wrong with radio colors, trust me the pilots on the team who fly the NG know what they look like ;-) Guys- I think some in this thread got the wrong impression from optimized and downgraded the panels. First, the panels have improved visually! Look at the main panel and tell me where it has less? Optimizing usally means making the total file size for the aircraft smaller. Now if any of you have used photoshop or another graphic program you know that one can minimize a screenshot by reducing qaulity yet does not look any different than before but you now can post it on avsim ;-). Another area is the displays. One guy made mention of how smoothly PIC runs. Well I can tell you years ago PIC was just as tough to run as some have now with the NG! Of course PIC does NOT have vector gauges which gives you those wonderfully clear and crisp displays but at a price. PMDG gave us a slider option here so when you rig can handle it just turn it up. Right now I run the displays all the way up with no issues but then again I am not too bad in the computer department... Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4][h3]P M D G's 747-400[/h3][h4]coming to a runway near you[/h4][/font color]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)AMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |

Hi there Randy, I just fired up FS2004 with all of my laptop graphics card sliders at performance to max. This mean cutting down the details. BTW forgive me I am not an expert on this but i can hardly see any difference between the "vector gauges" used in the PMDG B737 and the PIC B767 panel where the frame rates were so much better. At the same resolution the PMDG frame rates were about half of those on the PIC B767 under any condition in FS2002. When I start up the PMDG B737NG in FS2004 just now and dont do anything else at all on my computer i can get up to 20 FPS but this will soon drop to 4 or 5 FPS after about 30 minutes or so on the sim. WHy is this so? How come people stopped developing gauges the normal way that it was meant to be and now with these "vector gauges" that suck the life out of our graphics cards?Regards,Darren

Maybe you are not looking close enough at the gauges Darren, There is a world of difference in quality of the displayed gauges. Technology moves forward, when you have the ZOOM panel open or use a gauge pop up you can plainly see what realisticly modelled gauges should look like. PMDG are certainly not the first to use this and will not be the last. It is standard in high quality FS add-ons. The gauges are only one part of what causes FPS loss. The whole AFDS system draws much and it has too to be able to calculate various things like the NG and also the FMC. We cannot just say "Those gauges are the single cause of FPS loss" on such a complex aircraft simulation as this. Why you are running out of ram causing FPS loss after 30 minutes can be anything frankly. From other add-ons running, scenery and weather etc. Like I stated in my other post, running PIC 2 years ago was not an easy thing as is PMDG now, you seem ot keep comparing the two now and it's not a fair comparison in regards to performance. Even FS 2004 is different than fs2002 for frame rates. Anyways, I run PMDG at great FPS either at startup or after hours of flying. Not everyone has the same setups so it's impossible to know why others have issues. CPU, Graphic card, RAM, Windows stability and version, the list is endless and so are the variations... Best Wishes,[h4]Randy J. Smith[/h4][h3]P M D G's 747-400[/h3][h4]coming to a runway near you[/h4][/font color]Caution! Not a real pilot, but do play one on TV ;-)AMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |