Optimizing fps on my new P4 - How to do it?

[JSACKS 0]

Now that my P4 is up'n running, it is pretty stunning. I have a twin-view card and dual monitors. It is generally very smooth, but amazingly I still have to manage clouds (set to 50%), cloud densities, and AI traffic (also 50%) or else frames fall. With everything else maxed, the range using for example PSS 744s with default scenery is 16 to 26 fps, locked at 26. On ground at LAX in terminal area with trucks, etc., it may fall to 14-17; once in air, stabilizes quickly at 20-22, rising to cap of 26. Visual image is very smooth, not quite TV quality, but hugely improved over the P3. Is there a way to tweak things without getting too adventurous so I can raise the average fps? Also, should the cap be higher than 26?Appreciate any advice, thanks!JSSpex:DELL P4, 2.53 Ghz533 Mhz busTi-4600, nVidia 30.82 drivers512 Rambus RAM21" TRINITRON19" TRINITRONMS FFB2 stick1280x1024x32 bit res

[LAdamson 240]

I cap at 35 fps on my Athlon 1900XP/Geforce3Ti500. Don't always get it of course, but I do prefer higher fps when possible. I don't feel that 35 fps seems to take away from other resorces. I also run in 1600*1200*32 on my 22" monitor. I doubt you would have any problems with higher res and fps limits! BTW--- the desktop or cfg. file within FS2002 might need to be changed to achieve the higher res on the menu.L.Adamson

[JSACKS 0]

Does 35 fps cap result in anything being reduced or disappearing such as coastline or waves, etc? I wish I understood how this frame cap is supposed to really work!Thanks for responding.JS

[Tabs 2,790]

There's a GREAT article at www.lagoonline.com about how the frame cap actually works. Basically, if FS is not using your comp horsepower to produce more frames, it's working to load new textures, mesh, etc in the background. Setting the frame cap really high makes it work at nothing other than pure framerate, so you should set it somewhat conservatively - I have mine set at 25, and it works really well.I really hope MS dumps the FS engine and rewrites it from scratch soon... The renderer appears to be extremely ineffiecient - games like IL-2 and the upcomming LOMAC **scream** at a high FPS and look better than FS IMO. None of the new graphics technologies like pixel shaders, vertex shaders etc are taken advantage of in FS2002...

[Guest odog]

I heard the human eye cant detect the diff any higher than 30fps...so to your eyes 30 and 100 would look the same...If this is true why would you want to set any higher than 30? i lock at 25 and it seem smooth enough for me.

[Guest jaapverduijn]

"(...) If this is true (...)"It isn't. Jaap Verduijn.

[Tabs 2,790]

Roughly 72 FPS is where it starts to become undetectable to the human eye. You can see this just by setting your desktop refresh rate to 60Hz... You can clearly see the flicker from the screen redraw. Set it to 72Hz and the effect is MUCH less apparent - set it to 75 or 85Hz and it's completely undetectable and doesn't flicker. Your eyes will still be affected even though you can't see the flicker or sense the framrate though - I can't use 75Hz because my eyes start to hurt for some reason, so I use 85Hz, which "feels" easier on my eyes. Going higher that 85 also makes them hurt...

[JSACKS 0]

Ryan:nVidia says you can detect the diff up to 60 fps or so, so you are probably correct. My refresh is set to 100 on the 19" and "Optimal" on the 21" TRINITRONs. No glare, no flicker.My fps is capped at 26 or 27 now and it works well. Perhaps I'll just leave it at that. Thanks to you and others for jumping in.JS

[Guest]

F can mean 2 things....Fields and framesdo a search on persistance of vision....Richard GreenVATUSA4Events and VA Director

[FTD1949 0]

I'm still running a lowly AMD Athalon 600 with an ASUS GeForce2 32Mb vid card and have it locked at 20 with hardly ever a stutter.I have read and do believe that anything much above 20fps is hardly noticed by the human eye. You will get your best frame rates using the window mode as opposed to full screen.Most of your CPU is being used to generate the auto-gen scenery and the higher you have your scenery settings the more hit on frame rates.

[Midnight Music 252]

A great trick on any computer is to reduce the visibility range. I use fsuipc for that. I limit visibilty to no more than 20-30 miles and 10 miles for overcast, just like real life. It makes a huge difference.Lee

[JSACKS 0]

Lee:You are right. FSUIPC is a marvel. The default vis on Fs is just silly. JS

[Noel 4,483]

The Terrain Mesh Complexity slider is the most significant slider by far on my P3 1GHz machine. It is surprising to hear of what sounds to be not too robust performance on a machine roughly twice as potent as mine. I run FS at 1600 x 1200 x 32, or even higher at 1792 x 1344 x 32, and I have very steady performance locked at 22fps. Worse case scenario: certain kinds of clouds, winds, terrain density etc, it can bog down to 9 FPS, but this is rare. Taxiing around KLAS at dusk I get around 14-19. Taxiing around smaller airports it stays locked at 22. I have the Terrain Mesh Complexity slider to 80%. If I go to 100% I cut my FPS by 40% it seems. Other settings:Clouds 50%ATC 40%Autogen Very highScenery Complexity Very HighEverything else, including reflections, max exterior aircraft graphic quality, etc.I am stuck with lightweight GMAX aircraft to keep this good perf. PSS and DF stuff bogs it down too much.I am upgrading to P4 at over 3.00 GHz or morePC1066 RDRAMGeForce4 Ti4600 unless Radeon 9700 Pro proves to be a winner with FSNoel

[Guest]

Hi, how you did thatTIA

[Guest]

Take away Ground scenery cast shadows and you should get a lot more FPS's