hi all ive ordered a new system as below, what can i expect running PMDG 737 800 in VC modeo only on VATSIM?AMD Athlon

I have virtually the same system as you:AMD Athlon64 3400+ 900MSI K8N Neo2 Platinum motherboard (nforce 3)1GB Crucial DDR PC32001GB Kingmax DDR PC3200IBM 120GB ATA133some random dvd writer, no floppybuiltin sound (ac97)antec 400W powerSome antec caseGeForce 6600GT AGP cardMy settings in FS are 1280x1024x32 full screen, 4xAA 4xAntiostropicMost sliders maxedI have all FSGenesis terrain as well as Ultimate Terrain canadaOther addons that run in flight simulatorFSNavigator, FSUIPC Registered, ActiveSky 2004.5, and probably something else i'm forgetting. I use the FSW Hifps2 clouds. Also all PAI packages. And Active Camera. I'm kinda throwing a lot at it.The biggest hit from anything comes from ActiveSky and its weather.Some average frame rates (these are approximate, i don't remmeber exactly)In a 737-800 with virtual cockpit/cabin, in VC mode (all FPS capped at 20)no weather: between 15-20 average.high AI at an airport, no weather: 10-15 averagelots of clouds: 10-15 averageheavy clouds, overcast conditions: 5-15fps average. Weather can make a heck of a difference, often dropping the FPS in to the 6fps area for long periods of time on approaches into heavily trafficed areas. I almost always use the flat cockpit for approaches because of that, while using VC for in-flight.At any rate, its certainly livable most of the time. Approaches can be awful in VC, so if you use the 2D cockpit for that, you should be OK. 2D mode rarely drops below 15fps for me.I haven't done too much experimenting with lowering sliders because I prefer pretty pictures.Hope that helps somewhat.-stefan

hi therethanks alot for that i probably wont have all my sliders at max so i should be right, just wanna run in VC mode - i just want it to be smooth.

Let me know what sort of FPS you get. I suspect something in my system is causing me to get lower FPS than I should, and it'd be interesting to see how a similar system compares.Ours are about the same with what matters except for I have another gig of ram and I have a slightly faster processor, so we should get comparable results.-stefan

The best framerate helper I've found is a great suggestion to change in the fs9.cfg file texture_bandwidth_multi= to 0 instead of the extremely high numbers some people have suggested. Also to change the framerate limiter to unlimited. Try that and see how she runs, without AI or heavily detailed add-on airports you shouldn't have such framerate hit issues. I run 100% traffic with add-on airports and my system slows down considerably, it seems FS9 can only do so much with an ancient graphics engineAlso what drivers are you using? Are they the latest? Possibly try some beta drivers but be careful you don't mess up your system!

hi Stefan and Alexwell i got my system yesterday, did a flight from KLAX to KSFO in the 800 VC mode only, however when i left klax the f rates were good 20, but into sfo it was down below 10 for most of the time, there was some cloud but i cleared weather and i didnt make a different, so yes i am experiencing what you are Stefan, exactly as you stated with regards to f rate numbers.oh well i thought i could fly in VC with this set up, unfortunately not for long distances.i will try your suggestion Alex.

I recently got an admittedly totally different PC system to you, but even with a Radeon X850XT PE, 3.80 Ghz processor, and 1024 RAM, I get only moderate performance with any of the VC's in the NG range. The 2-D cockpit NGs fly very nicely with good frames all the time (range of 26 fps to my current cap of 32, although I've seen them at 50-70 at times in spot view when I uncap things), including t-storms and massive CB clouds at 100%, with 50% UT set. But the moment I load an NG with a VC, forget it; frames get chopped and in nasty wx with big clouds, they can sink to a range of 9-15 fps while looking out of the VC.Jonathan

Jonathani agree with you totally, i'm pretty disappointed that still with this upgrade i cannot fly 'smoothly' in VC PMDG 800 aircraft.