Amazing! 2.53 Ghz and STILL prone to stutters....!

[JSACKS 0]

I have been experimenting with my P4 2.53 Ghz, Ti-4600, 512 RDRAM for 10 days now, spending about 20 hours simming here and there in various a/c over various sceneries and in various weather. I found that fps with Simflyers KIAD were good and smooth, but fps were not amazing. No stutters by day or night and all sliders maxed right except for ATC and Clouds (both at 60%). FSAA 2x.But I just installed the new Tahiti scenery and blow me down, frames fell momentarily as low as 13.5 over the seaplane dock with not much scenery around, rising to about 16-17 once they adjusted.In flying the beautiful FSD Cheyenne 400 over the western states, I had frames capped at 26 fps, but soon after I passed Denver and the Rockies came into view, frames fell to 18-19 and sometimes 16 at certain angles.There is some diff between VERY DENSE and EXTREMELY DENSE. On average, frames fall by 1-2/sec for each of Autogen and Scenery as you move from VERY to EXTREMELY. So in total, fps can fall from, say, 24 fps to 20 fps going from VERY to EXTREMELY.I've noted some folks disable AGP--I don't even know what this means or how to do this--to improve performance. I am just struck by the inconsistency of the PC's performance with scenery and textures in general. And this add-on scenery stuff is a nasty surprise.My sim settings are not much different from what they were on the older P3 with an ELSA GTS DDR card. I think the T&L is up to 8 from 6, and the autogen is up from VERY to EXTREMELY much of the time, but that's about it. Resolution remains the same. It's puzzling and a tad disappointing especially when I see so many with their smaller Athlons getting the same performance and without Ti-4600 cards. I know the measure of performance is how it looks to the eye but it just seems sickening to have this much h.p. and find that frames EVER fall below 20 anywhere in anything ! JS

[Guest christian]

This not much of a surprise really. Even though you have a great system, you can kill ANY system if you just throw enough at it to chew at. I have a slightly lower spec and while doing some experimental scenery design I managed to bog FS2002 down to 1-2 fps (I really had quite a few polygons though)!I think it's about time scenery designers start using framerate friendly design techniques such as using LOD models.As computers get more powerful, we tend to expect more and more of them, but still there is a limit. I predict that over the next year, people will learn that great looking scenery isn't everything, it also has to be framerate friendly, even with high spec systems. There is no use of airport scenery that has the most amazing detail, but bog framerates down to a level that landing becomes impossible, IMHO.Cheers, Christian

[Guest Eagle92395]

Many of these "microstutters" that people are noticing really may not have much to do with hardware. I believe that some of it is in the way MS codes their software. I (still) play MS Monster Truck Madness on occasion, and it's max resolution is 640x480... now on a 2.53 Ghz system w/ 512mg DDR it shouldn't be a problem.. but OCCASIONALLY it will be crazy and jump a frame or two... Also, I play Unreal Tournament a lot and sometimes it seems to go haywire on my and sprites will disappear, or bullets will pass right through characters, so maybe it's not all hardware problems.

[Guest]

JSACKS: Where are you running the terrain mesh slider? Try setting that about 90 percent instead of maxed out. I know just from reading these threads that that particular slider when slid past 90 percent is a real framerate killer. Also, I agree that there's probably some custom terrains/scenery that aren't optimized very well and probably wouldn't run good on a 3.5gig machine. Anyway, I'll know in a couple days. I ordered my Alienware before you ordered that Dell. It'll be a month ago next Sunday. They finally shipped it yesterday 3-day Fedex so I suppose I'll have to wait till Monday. Mine is a 2.53gig PIV also with 512mgs of PC1066 and the 9700 Pro 128mg video card. Hopefully it'll work??? Fingers crossed! If it does, no tinkering ever!!

[Guest]

I hear you! I just built basically the same system: P4 2.53, 512 PC2700 333DDR, PNY geforce 4 4600ti, and while I have pretty much everything maxed--with the exception of clouds and autogen, I still get quite-a-bit of stuttering. I don't know if it's the drivers--I've used 40.41's and 30.82's and get about the same out of both?I don't know if I have my video card setup right (what boxes to check and what not to check) The overall graphics are a lot cleaner and vivid, but the damn stuttering is really getting to me. My frame rates are usually very good at most places, I have it locked to 25 and rarely dip below that....only in high-density areas and with lots of weather......so everything has improved and I AM pleased.If anyone can offer more guidance for getting rid of the stutters, please let us know.BTW I do have AGP disabled in DXDIAG.Thanks for your time,Carl

[Guest]

I have the Soyo MB with 512 MB, Athlon Duron Xp1700+ and the Ti4600 graphics. I, too, have played around with all the settings, and the most significant factor that affected my framerates was the locked framerate value you set in FS2K2. I have found that the best setting (where the framerate does not flucuate more than 2 fps from the locked setting) is 18 FPS. Any other setting for me starts getting wide variances in framerates. Stutters very seldom happen. Now for the other settings:Most everything is maxed except Autogen and Scenery Complexity where I have it set to Very Dense. Resolution is set at 1280X1024X32. ATC is set at 50%. I am currently using the 30.81 Nvidia drivers. I have tried AGP Disabled and Enabled, and I see no measurable difference in performance to get all excited about, so I just left it Enabled.LOD is set to -5, Antialiasing is turned off totally in the Nvidia setings and within FS2K2.I would recommend doing some test flights with the new Dash-7 aircraft. I have no stutters with that baby, and it flies like a dream. With the settings I've used, you should also have a very smooth flight with that aircraft.Hope this helps you out somewhat.Keith

[Guest]

Sounds good....I will try those settings.How do you go about setting the LOD.....I can't find that anywhere?Thanks,Carl

[barryward12345 0]

> I predict that >over the next year, people will learn that great looking >scenery isn't everything, it also has to be framerate >friendly, even with high spec systems. There is no use of >airport scenery that has the most amazing detail, but bog >framerates down to a level that landing becomes impossible, >IMHO. ABSOLUTELY!!! For this reason, I have completely stopped downloading addon sceneries (except mesh) -- With the ones that are of airports that I am not familiar with , it does not matter if I don't have them -- and my local ones are so frame-rate unfriendly that I also don't bother with them.Barry

[Guest]

Carl,I know the latest version of ATuner (www.guru3d.com) allows you to adjust LOD and also supports the new 40.41 drivers. BTW - I also have turned off VSync with Atuner as well. Anistropic Filtering is set at 8X. Oh, and I believe I said earlier that Anistropic Filtering was turned off in the Nvidia settings, but I remember I put that at 4XS. I definitely left it unchecked in FS2K2 within the display settings.Hope you have a smooth and satisfying "stutterless" flight!Keith

[Wolfko 0]

Its very easy to get rid of these microstutters.Just empty your Temp folders and do a complete reboot of your system EVERYTIME before you start FS2002. Yes, and off course close all background programms (virus scanning etc.)Since I do this I have no stutters at all anymore!But If I leave the sytem running just for 30 minutes before I start FS2002, even if I do no work on my PC, the stutters are back.I'm pretty sure that the original poster did not reboot his whole system after installing the Tahiti scenery. This causes stutters and sometimes also much lower fps.RegardsWolfgang

[Guest Stamatis]

"Oh, and I believe I said earlier that Anistropic Filtering was turned off in the Nvidia settings, but I remember I put that at 4XS. I definitely left it unchecked in FS2K2 within the display settings."I think you may be mixing up Anisotropic filtering with Anti-Aliasing?I do not believe there is an entry for Anisotropic filtering within the FS2K2 display settings.Stamatis

[Guest]

I just knew someone would catch that before I had a chance to get to work and correct it. You are correct: I set the Antialiasing setting to 4xS and Anistropic to 8X within the ATuner software utility. Antialiasing remains "unchecked" within FS2K2.Sorry for my error in the earlier posting.Keith

[Guest]

Additional system info not previously included:System Specs:Operating System: Windows 2000 Professional, Service Pack 3 installed80 GB Hard Drive: 7200 rpm, NTFS formatted, not FAT32Soyo Dragon Plus MotherboardPrograms runnning in background: NoneOn-board Sound built within motherboardFS2K2 Info:Location: Zurich Switzerland (Switzerland landclass scenery installed)Add-on Scenery (e.g KLAX Simflyers) - FPS are less due to increase static scenery demands, but FPS seem to hold a minimum of 14-15 FPS on final to LAX, and around 9-11 FPS when viewing parked static aircraft parked at gates around the main terminal (Daytime flying).This should give you an overall glimpse of performance with an equivalent or higher performing CPU and grahics card.Keith

[Guest]

Wolfgang,What version of windows are you using, and how much RAM do you have? What you're describing is a way to make the swap file more efficient, but I'm thinking that running some of these new, high-end systems with oodles of RAM and Win2k/XP, there shouldn't be too much swapping anyway.Matt

[JETninja 0]

Stutters are often due to sound issues (and I'm very surprised this this thread has so many posts with out metioning it. It;s a common issue with all FS/CFS MS Sims)When you say On-Board sound....are you using that, or do you also have an add-on PCI Sound Card.If On-Board...what kind? (Basic AC-97 or 5.1 or ?) If add-on, what brand/model and drivers?Also, if your board uses VIA chipset, what version VIA AllIN1 are you using?Bios version?Remember, On-Board sound is using the Processor to due it's work...Proper add-on cards have their own, which free's up the CPU a lot.I use a Hercules Fortissmo II....I could find no other that had such low CPU hit, none of the BS bugs that plague the Sound Blaster line (crappy design, no BusMastering), and have never seen a sound related game problem with it. Works great also. If you need 5.1+ use the Game Theater XP (it's actually 6.1).I run a home made AthlonXP 1700 overclocked to XP2100, Gainward GeForce 2-Ti 64Mb overclocked to 290/480, 768MB DDR, and the other usual stuff (including 7 USB devices and 10 Fans! :D )Runs sweet...GeForce 4 Ti-4400 soon....