Am I getting the maximum return on my investment??

[Guest]

Overall I am pretty happy with my system but from time to time I wonder if there are some improvements I could make to get better performance. Here are my specs:WIN XP (home)AMD 2100 512 MB of DDRAMGeForce 2Ti 64 MB Video Card (40.** drivers)Soundblaster 5.1FPS locked at 15CH Yoke & Pro Throttle & PedalsAll sliders maxed except cloud density (75) and terrain distance (120)XP is set to Max performance, virtual memory is set to 512 min and 512 max. System is regularly defragged.The only add ons I run when I fly are game commander 2.1 and FSW Clouds. My AI is set at 100% and is mostly comprised of Project AI planes used with the default flight plans. At most airports I get a constant 15 FPS with a resulting smooth performance. But once there are about 3 or 4 AI planes at the airport the max FPS I am getting are about 8 or 9 which of course results in a jerky performance. Given this information - is this the best I should expect or should I be able to squeeze more out of this machine and if so what are some of the other things I can do to boost my FPS?? Thanks for the help!!

[Guest emergency_pants]

I would have thought that some extra ai planes wouldn't make such a big impact on An AthlonXP 2100+ and 512mb RAM.If it's slowing because of ai planes, maybe it's a polygon count thing... in which case it might be worth trading-in your GeForce2 for a GeForce 4 Ti instead.It's a thought. You have a nice setup, but I reckon the Graphics card doesn't really do it justice... and it might just squeeze the extra performance you need at the airports. It's all $$$ though. :)You could always reduce some of the sliders... I'm sure you have played with them already, but I find that some sliders can be reduced with very little visual impact... but reap quite a reward on FPS. Mesh complexity springs to mind, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head.Hope this helps.Cheers,Simon.

[Guest]

Yes, your graphics card is the only thing I'd recommend changing at this point. If you can't afford a Geforce4 Ti, the Radeon 8500LEs are very good value. I've just upgraded to one.Is there a reason you've set your virtual memory so high? With 512MB of RAM I can't imagine why you'd need more than 100MB of virtual RAM. If you have plenty of disk space it's not an issue, of course.

[Guest]

Thanks for the answers gentlemen. I do plan on upgrading the graphics card in a few weeks. The only reason I upped the virtual memory was because at the flightsime forum there was a thread suggesting that performance would increase as a result, I think (not sure) that I got about 1 or 2 FPS out of it.