Hi Gang,I've just upgraded to a new computer system and was excited to try out PMDG's FSX version of the 747. I'm currently experiencing pretty bad intermittent stuttering on the ground from the virtual cockpit, especially during turns. The sim isn't unflyable, but it's irritating enough to take away my enjoyment and send me screaming back to FS9 (frame rate heaven now). :)I have FSX + SP1 + Acceleration + SP2. I manually installed SP1, and I assume that SP2 is installed automatically with Acceleration? When I did my initial install of the FSX PMDG 747, the installer flagged a message that my version of FSX was more 'recent' than the PMDG recommended requirements of FSX SP1/Acceleration/SP2 (thought I had all this going already)??? Not sure what to make of that little missive, but it installed without a hitch afterwards.My hardware includes:CPU = Athlon 64 X2 6000+ Dual CoreVideo = Powercolor ATI X1950 Pro 256 meg PCIe2 GB Kingston HyperX RAM @DDR2 800Gigabyte AM2 Motherboard @2000MHZ HTT, Nvidia 570 SLi ChipsetOnboard Realtek HD Audio CodecWestern Digital 7200 rpm PATA hard drive 320 gbMy operating system:Windows XP Home SP2, all latest updates as of Feb 1, 2008I have all recent drivers for my Video Card and Motherboard.I've gone through the FSX frame rate tuning guide at PMDG ops and tried the tweaks there, as well as turning down my scenery sliders in FSX. Even though I am running on sparse scenery detail, no AI, and no autogen, I still get jerks and stutters. I am also running a 'clean' operating system while gaming and have no virus scanners loaded or unneeded programs running in the background whilst simming.I've additionally tried turning down the frame rate performance slider in the PMDG options menu for the virtual cockpit, and even at the lowest setting stuttering is not affected. Perhaps I need a more robust video card to run the FSX PMDG 747? I would think that my CPU should be pretty decent (it's one step away from the fastest dual core the AMD currently manufacters). Any help or advice you guys can offer would be greatly appreciated, thank a lot!-Dave Ketchum

Hi David,You really seem like an extremely intelligent individual and I can just bet you're just as handsome to boot! Plus I really like the name 'Dave' a lot. I'm straight BTW, just making a few candid observations. :)Hmmmmm - The onboard sound, could it be causing stutters?You have both GEX and UTX installed you say, wonder if they are causing problems? Autogen is off, we can rule that out. Ground textures too high in resolution maybe?Well, maybe someone will chime in on this thread. Try not to get any better looking! -D. K.

hi. i do recall seeing a thread somewhere that indicated how a 256meg video card is possibly a weak link there. if the machine is spending a lot of time uploading textures because it can't hold enough of them theoretically that could be an issue. i wish i could say for certain that it would help, however i use a 512meg 8800gt and i see an occaisional bit of stuttering anyway, although my cpu hasn't nearly the horsepower you are using. (my performance is ok, around 15-20 at airports and 25-35 at cruise altitudes)the biggest improvements i found were making the adjustments as suggested in the pmdg ops page, so if those haven't helped i'm not sure what other advice to offer except possibly trying the /3g memory switch as well. also i'd suggest searching for some threads about video card ram and fsx and see if anyone can really verify a substantial improvement in that regard.cheers,-andy crosby

Thanks Andy!Good advice. I'm going to install my old PCI Soundblaster Live! card and see if that helps anything too. I've a feeling these darn super-hi res textures in FSX are killing me. Oh well, FS9 hasn't been put out to pasture yet, but it would be cool to have all of the nice new features with FSX and the PMDG 747. I can't afford a new card anytime soon unfortunately. Thanks again,-Dave

Dave,even though FSX is mostly a CPU demanding software, your video card may very well be a weak link here. I'm afraid your card is a rather old one and to have more than 256MB of video memory could help as well.If you check the FSX benchmarks on Tomshardware you'll see that your card looses quite some FPS compared to the nVidia GeForce 8 series for example. You wouldn't need an 8800 Ultra, however for little money one of those newer GT cards might do wonders for you.Regards,Markus

I'm accepting donations for a new card - please send cash, checks, or money orders to...... :)Assuming the above won't work (worth a try), I'm stuck with my Powercolor X1950 Pro for the foreseeable future. Accepting my fate in this regard, I'm convinced that I can reduce the texture sizes in the WORLD/SCENERY folder via a batch file utility and image manipulating tools. I did this before with my old rig and actually got pretty good performance with G/A planes using an Athlon 2800+ single core. PMDG of course was out of the question then for FSX.I am trying to find Matt Fox's old batch file texture reducing utility (not easy as he has shut down his website apparently), but at any rate I believe I can achieve great things in this way. I'm talking about a 60-70 percent reduction in total individual texture sizes across the board with the memory/bandwidth savings this will entail. Of course, I won't have the super hi res textures native to FSX, but I don't really need them for flying a 747. For G/A it's great, but for heavy iron I'll take the lower resolution and performance gain.Also, I'm finding out that one can go out and pay big bucks for 3rd party texture updates like GEX and UTX, but these are prehistoric compared to Tileproxy. In addition to rendering accurately placed photoreal terrain, Tileproxy can increase performance exponentially by allowing lower res photoreal textures to be mapped over the default FSX terrain. It works wonderfully for G/A flying, but probably not so great at this time for something like a 747. Thanks for your reply!

Well, I know a lot of you guys have lost sleep worrying about my stuttering problem, and for this I do apologize. I appreciate the cards, letters, and flowers; the outpouring of love was truly overwhelming.I took it upon myself to climb into the default Cessna and fly to a nearby town on this morn. I had my scenery setting scaled way the heck back from experimenting with the PMDG FSX 747, and lo, the Cessna was stuttering (from the outside scenery perspective), almost or just as bad when flying the PMDG. I had smooth rates before installing GEX/UTX with the G/A planes.Hmmmmmm.....there will be some uninstalling going down on my side of the neighborhood tonight. It will be interesting to see what happens. -David Ketchum

Hi David, I have this Matt Fox texture Reducing file. Maybe we can achieve together a better performance in the PMDG VC. Do you know how to handle this tool ? regards Pascal

Hi David, I have this Matt Fox texture Reducing file. Maybe we can achieve together a better performance in the PMDG VC. Do you know how to handle this tool ? regards Pascal

Wth?? This topic is 3.5 years old!

Gee there has been lots of old threads being raised from the dead latley, not just here, but the MSFS forum as well. I'm glad Avsim was not around in 1952 <sigh>

Gee there has been lots of old threads being raised from the dead latley, not just here, but the MSFS forum as well. I'm glad Avsim was not around in 1952 <sigh>

Actually, those topics could be pretty interesting. Imagine a hardware thread discussing the hottest new vacuum tubes for your mainframe!

That would be fun Ken, "I think I need more memory, 64kb is not enough for FS1" Ahh those were the days, when a 386 cost the price of a small country.

I don't think the sound card upgrade will make a noticable difference, RAM and CPU are the main factors.A 9800GTX would probably do the biz.

Ahhh Jude, A 8800GT would be better :)

Ahhh Jude, A 8800GT would be better :)

Joke, right? The 9800GTX is an 8800GT. Actually It's slightly better performing.