Frame rate loss on 744 for FS9

[antic81 57]

Hi all,First off, great forum and fantastic products!I have been a long term user and visitor of this forum although I only recently registered in order to post.Recently I have noticed some changes in the way my 747-400 performs...I used to have pretty good frame rates in the high teens, but have noticed these have dropped off substantially.Firstly my system specs: I run a P4 3.2 Ghz, 2MB Corsiar XMS RAM, and a ATI 1950 Pro with 500 MB V Memory, my operating system is XP Sp2, all pretty middle of the road stuff.The version of the Queen of the Skies I have is the original (non-freight version) patched including the sound update.Now I have noticed that the drop occurs at a specific time, when I am in the VC, the frames are good until I plan a route, as soon as the route is drawn on the PFD the frames drop right down to 4 FPS some times.It didn't always do that, in fact one of the great things about this addon was the fact that the frames in the VC almost matched the 2D cockpit.I am wondering if this could be a memory leak of some kind?Another thing I have noticed is the way the aircraft loads, you know the message showing the status of the routes that comes up, AIRAC, I think its called, that seems to take much much longer than it used to, could this be part of the same problem?Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!Sorry for the hopelessly long post!Anthony

[FLEX1978 373]

Hey Anthony, Your specs are exactly the same as my old PC and that ran the CD version of the 747 without any problems average frames were 24-29 FPS all sliders right except cloud draw distance and 3D coverage.Ok firstly I found the x1950 is very fussy about drivers. These were my settings.Driver version = Omega 3.8.421 (tried about 10 other drivers)Anti aliasing = 6x (Temporal AA)A filtering = 16XMip Map = Quality check you that you have no spyware, take a look in Task manager and see what your Mem and CPU usage is.Try going to a remote airport. Loading the default Aircraft and then loading the 747 and see if the same thing happens when you plan a route. Failing that I guess a reinstall would be a last option.Anyway good luck.Rob

[antic81 57]

Hi Rob,Many thanks for the reply.I will look at the driver, I moved across from an Nvidia card for the first time to get the 1950 pro, I was told that it was the best card in the dying AGP market, my last upgrade was the final one possible for this trusty old machine.As this is the first time I am using ATI...ever, I am not really sure on the drivers, so thanks for the tip!As far as other aircraft go, the default ones are fine, locked at 25 fps most of the time, Level D's 767 is fine too, although I always did find that PMDG's VC worked better.The problem I have actually started before I upgraded, the frustrating thing is I cant remember when, in other words, it is hard to determine what may have caused it!If I was going to do a full re-install, what would the procedure be?I also have the PMDG 737 -600/700, should I uninstall that too?Also do you have any recommendations as to hot to clean out the old drivers, so I don't get any conflicts? I have heard that its not as easy as just going to uninstall them? Many thanks again!Anthony

[FLEX1978 373]

A full re-install should be the final option, and im sure the problem lies elsewhere. I don't own the 737 but I do know that you need to install both aircraft in a certain order, hopefully one of the 737 guys here could help you.I have driver cleaner pro to get rid of old drivers, however I have been Lazy and just removed drivers and installed new one's without going into Safe Mode etc never had any issues. There are so many tweaks in FS that I'm not sure what else to suggest... try and remember what was the last aircraft or scenery you installed defrag your Hard drive, and make sure you have both molex power connectors attached to you video card.Rob

[antic81 57]

Thanks again,I have both molex power conectors attached.The card is otherwise pretty good, I think the problem lies somewhere within my PMDG 747, and more specifically within the programing of the FMC.If I just do a few circuits in her, without planning a route, the frame rates are ok, high teens, but as soon as I program a route into the fmc and the route is displayed, even before I hit exucute, the frames drop right down.I guess what I will do is try the drivers you mentioned, then go for a full re-install, and re-patch, and then see any change.Will let you know though, thanks!Anthony