Hello,I've got a PIII 1 GHz, GeForce 2 GTS, Win XP PC and I am using FS 2002 in 1024x768 fullscreen mode. Especially when I am flying next to bigger airports like O'Hare, Charles-De-Gaulle or JFK, the frame rates sink extremely low up to 4 or 3 FPS. Any suggestions how to improve it without a big loss of quality?

hi shootercheck your ATC settings,dropping this by 10%can give you 2-3fps.also mesh complexity drop it by one notch,not a lot of difference in quality,but you'll gain 2-3fps.turn of anti-aliasing if you have this on best wishes stevemaybe another post with your current settings would be better

Hi, Shooter. Have you tried running the sim with the default settings in Display Options? Except for the resolution, the defaults should give you a nice compromise. See if it helps.

Hi,I have a similar system as yours and use to have the GeForce 2 GTS. I basically had to put all the sliders down and uncheck many options in order to get enough frame rates to have an average simming experience. I decided to purchase a GeForce 4 4600ti (128mb ddr) and now I have everything set to max and all options selected. With this new card I average 25 fpm at very busy airports and the fpm doubles once in the air or flying to smaller airports. My system is a PIII 1 GHz like yours and I have 512mb of pc133 SDRAM. With my recent graphics card update, I don't feel the need to update my system any further for the time being.Regards,Van Lhttp://www.yeodesigns.com/signatures/yeode...nner-van2-1.jpg[/img][/url]

ShooterI would uncheck the shadow options in the display settings. Both for scenery and aircraft. Have made a huge improvement on my .8 GHz machine.Hope it helps

Their is also a problem with the weather and Northeren France. When you have any weather enabled the FPS tanks big time. Try the default "European Airline Pilot" scenario and wait till your approach to Paris to see what I mean.

>Charles-De-Gaulle or JFK, the frame rates sink extremely low >up to 4 or 3 FPS. Any suggestions how to improve it without >a big loss of quality? There is no magic bullet. You cannot magically get better performance without sacrificing visuals or flight dynamics or something else.The only things that have minimal impact are the mesh complexity slider (set this to 60-70% which affects only the horizon and distant mesh detail), the ground object and aircraft shadows (you may miss them, but they cost more to render than they may be worth to you) and AI and autogen density (turning both down just a bit might give a decent improvement without missing too much).Anything else and you will see a deterioration.For best performance turn ALL scenery and aircraft detail sliders all the way down, turn off all display options, and run in the lowest resolution and colour depth available.It won't look like much, but it will show you the maximum performance your machine is capable of. If that's not enough, get another machine... If it is enough but you don't like what you see, turn sliders up until you do like what you see. If performance is not enough at that stage get another machine.It's as simple as that. Your hardware has limits. FS is a very heavy application that pushes the hardware to the limits it will go.If those limits are lower than your expectations either lower the expectations or get more powerfull hardware.

On my soap box here again: I really wish one of the major sim sites would do a comprehensive benchmark to settle the GPU vs. CPU debate. Seems like every time I convince myself that my next step is going to be a top-end graphics card, I read more posts that saying that a new card will do nothing for you; the common wisdom being that FS is CPU-bound. Then I read posts from other users who score big performance increases just by upgrading their card. I understand that there are many, many, many variables involved which can affect FPS but this is all the more reason for a benchmark to be done in a controlled environment. While 25+ FPS in congested areas would be highly untypical on a 1G rig, I would be very interested in what the results would be in a controlled environment.

Yes, maybe I need a better machine. I've deactivated the shadows and some other things, but it does not help really much. Maybe I'll try a better graphics card... I think I'll wait for the new GeForce FX.