The video card makes the difference!

[Guest]

Trip,Ahhh, thanks, thought I was missin' the good stuff :-) Any chance you'd post your card settings (understand if that's not done around here)? And what *does* that mysterious Additional Properties button lead to? Sorry for the newbie q's, not new to FS, but as regards higher-end vid cards I'm completely ignorant, though I'm getting more knowledgeable over at Madonion (though game performance doesn't seem to be the point, crank those benchmarks!)At the moment, I'm finding 4xAA with texture sharpening actually seems to look better and is faster than 4xS. For the mipmapping, I don't see a big enough difference to lose the fps, so I have it set for Best Perf. Have no idea what to do with AF settings, though none of 'em seem to adversely affect things (saw your(?) note on reset to zero, maybe that's it). BIOS AGP is @ 256MB, though once again, hard to tell if that's effective, likewise texture accel on/off from dxdiag. Whether I've got optimal settings or not, FS is an entirely new experience now. Visuals almost completely 'shimmer' free, precision flight control, solid 24-30FPS in the cities, wow :-) Even L.A. isn't half-bad ;-)jb

[Guest FlyerNL]

Question:I got now:P1.4 GHZ128MBGF 2 MX400I want to upgrade my computer with RAM or a new vid card.What would be most effective ???Thanx,FlyerNL

[Guest PhilC]

I would say RAM. Don't know anything about the MX400 video card.

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Do both...first, add 256 Meg of RAM. It will make everything work much smoother..and is very inexpensive.then, if you want to spend the money, get a Geforce4 4200 card..I just upgraded from a Geforce 2MX and it makes everything look much more realistic as well as adding some fluidity to flight (no big FPS jump though) so keep your expectations in check..

[Guest]

That's what's so interesting about the whole video setting "thingie" jb, it's all a matter of personal taste and there really are no optimal settings. We all argue about the different settings. And we try to convince each other that our setings work better than someone elses. But, when all is said and done, the only thing that really matters if how the screen looks to you. But, then again, all the fiddling around and the arguing is half the fun :-) . I'll share what I do to get the things the way I like them. But don't ask me why they are set that way 'cause I don't have a clue. All I know is that's the way it looks best to me. I've changed the {TERRAIN} section of the fs2002.CFG file so it looks like this:[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=1.000000'TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1'TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=2.500000'TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.000000'TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=60.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=40.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4 The vertex level change was a result of Justin Tyme's advice to get really high-resolution mesh to display properly and the other three lines were changed to improve the terrain texture detail when looking toward the horizon. I have also tweaked the drivers just a bit to get the level of detail in the ground scenery to where I like it. I have set the Level Of Detail (LOD) bias to -.5, FSAA is set to 4sX, and anisotropic filtering is set to level 8. (You'll need RivaTuner to get the LOD set to a negative value). None of the other driver settings have been touched. And I really have no clue what the Additional Properties button does. It's blanked out here also.TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward 64MB GF4 Ti4200 300/57040.41's DX8.1 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 13089http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4330740

[Guest]

If it's a choice between one or the other, buy the RAM. If you are running Win98 increasing the physical RAM to 384 will virtually eliminate the swap file useage. If you are using WinXP, you'll have to take the total to 512MB to get the same result. But whatever you add will bring about an immediate, noticeable improvement. Your framerate won't increase but everything is going to be much smoother and most all of the little "stutters" you now see should disappear.TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward 64MB GF4 Ti4200 300/57040.41's DX8.1 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 13089http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4330740

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Trip.. a question for you..I really like my new GF4 4200 which displays much more realistic landscapes than my trusty old GF2MX was capable of, and I now fly in 32 bit color vs 16 before etc... but...one thing I am noticing much more than before is that my video card and my disk drive have struck up a friendship and constantly feel the need to talk to each other.. little quick bursts every few seconds.. it is not enough to disrupt the smoothness of the scenery, but I hear the drive and see the darn little light come on..I do not recall this constant need for disk drive access from my previous card.. with 384Meg main memory and Win98SE, I do not come close to using the swap file, as a matter of fact, I believe that the memory footprint has gotten smaller since the video card swap..On your rig, do you have disk drive access every few seconds while flying?My setup.. a bit dated, but works great..Celeron1000, 440BX chipset, 384Meg, GF4 4200 128Meg, Win98SE,dedicated IBM 7200RPM drive for FS, Soundblaster 128PCI etc..

[Guest]

No, I don't see any abnormal activity Bert. The drive lights up for the usual changes of texture or scenery but nothing frequent or periodic. How did you determine the cause to be the video card? Are you sure it's not just scenery-driven changes?TripNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800Gainward 64MB GF4 Ti4200 300/57040.41's DX8.1 WinXP ProInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU3DMark2001SE = 13089http://service.madonion.com/compare?2k1=4330740

[Guest]

Trip,Thanks for taking the time to post that, I'll see what er, flies there for me . You're right, the tweaking can be half the fun, or drive ya crazy ;-) I get the feeling that even if we all had 4GHz machines we'd still be looking for that extra nanoFPS.jb

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Trip, it may be as simple as "more scenery displayed" equals "more data transmitted".. Yes, scenery complexity makes a difference, flying over water does quiet things right down..But I simply do not recall the drive light coming on every few seconds when say, flying over the San Francisco Bay Area scenery and even continuing for a while after landing.. as if it still has not filled up the total 128 Megs and is determined to keep trying..All in all I am very happy with the visual improvements and am learning to ignore the drive light. It may have been like that with the old card.. but I do not think so.. scenery tended to load more in bursts than in dribbles..

[Guest Stamatis]

"You'll need RivaTuner to get the LOD set to a negative value"So this problem is still there?And please correct me if I am wrong, but do you still need to run a patch first for Riva Tuner to be able to change the LOD ?Stamatis