strange-video card performance answer?

[Donstim 109]

>Edit: I have to say that I have become a little sceptical>about the importance of the entries in the Display.cfg file. I>am now reasonably sure that when the sim was in development>the programmers had received reports about some issues with>certain graphics cards that were in use around that time. To>ensure compatibility with as many cards as possible, switches>were placed in the Display.cfg file to disable any troublesome>features as applied to those cards. Like everyone else, I have>played around with the various suggestions and seeing little>or no changes in performance, eventually decided to try the>effect of deleting the Display.cfg file. Result: No change,>but this may simply be because my card was not in production>at the time the sim was released and so any entries were>irrelevant. The file remains deleted - although I have kept a>copy, just in case!>I think you've finally got it! Now, if only everyone else would see this and stop wasting their time with editing the display.cfg file. Oops, I really didn't want to bump this thread.Don S.

[Guest slapshot]

Its worked for me! I didn't gain any FPS but my Picture is sharp now! I would say its a 25% improvement!Before my scenery use to flicker on the horizon! Not anymore!my card is the Winfast Geforece4 Ti4200 card with 128 DDR AGPx8.Pete

[Cruachan 705]

Hey, spoilsport, we're going for the record here ;)Mike

[Guest Bob Z]

DonThank you. You are correct. This is true for both the display.cfg and fs9.cfg 'diplay line' tweaks.To our Christmas gift recievers:I don't want to see any people who have just recieved COF for Christmas go off on the wrong track. At the time this thread was started I had a GF2 GPU which really could not handle the sim and was really hoping that this idea would help. I will add, without unnecessary modesty, that I rather quickly figured out that it would not.That is not to say that this thread was a waste of time or that it was not enlightening, because when there is a problem all ideas are good ideas and even if not entirely accurate can lead in directions which are productive, or at least add to the knowledge base.For people looking for performance improvements, the following will absolutely help.* Chris's cloud fixes.I now have an FX59000U and it handles the stock clouds rather easily, but I still use Chris's clouds because the textures are more than acceptable and still are worth an FPS or two and almost certainly more in heavy weather situations.* Removal or modification of the DEFAULT.XML file.I have mine modified to take out the 'urban' objects but still have the 'rural' in place. This adds about 3 FPS around large cities, but still gives the barns, silos etc.These are the two tweaks I use and they will give you a rather impressive performance improvement at very little cost and effort.* Don't do any addons unles you have first done some research; emphasis on 'search'. There is plenty of info available on this forum, as well as others. The chances are that someone has already been there, done that.* Possibly (aaagghhh) more PC/GPU horsepower.

[Cruachan 705]

In GeofA's original post way way up there, he stated:----------------------------------------------------------------"I have a Geforece4 Ti4200 card. One of the strange things I have found with fs2004 is it doesn't seem to matter where I put sliders-performance remains the same whether maxed or minned out.Out of curiousity I started digging around the fs9.cfg and display.cfg files.In my fs9.cfg I saw it named my video card:NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200.0e.g. the entry in fs9.cfg was:DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200.0Only problem is-I looked in the display.cfg file and found no entry that matched this?!I then changed the entry in fs9.cfg to:DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XPWhoah! What a change! Turning the autogen slider from max to min now has a huge impact!! (turning autogen from max to min changes my fps at my detailed home airport from over 20 to 10-before this never saw a difference!). Sliders make a huge impact now!"---------------------------------------------------------------Now, I am certain what Geof witnessed was entirely true and, indeed, must have seemed miraculous at the time, but the reason for the dramatic changes noted in the sim were probably more prozaic than perhaps some have come to believe.When Geof made those changes in the fs9.cfg file all it did was force the sim at the next runtime to reinitialize the links between the sim, his graphics card and, I suspect, DirectX. I haven't checked through this thread but perhaps Geof might be able to recall whether another instance of (DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200.0) appeared further down the fs9.cfg file contents. If so, it would support my contention that the above was true and his 'amended' entry taken from the Display.cfg file could be safely deleted as it was serving no purpose. The sim would continue to function with all sliders functioning.My belief is that many of those who have been experiencing improvements as a result of this 'modification' have done so for the reasons I have outlined. Furthermore, I believe MS missed this one as I have noted that when I update a graphic driver set I now routinely have to carry out the procedure as described in my reply to Robert. If I fail to do so then I end up with multiple entries in the fs9.cfg file. The sim's performance remains good and consistent as a consequence and all sliders work as the designers intended.The golden rule, therefore, is to ensure that immediately following a change of graphics card or updating a card's driver set you should do the following:1. Examine fs9.cfg and delete the old entry/entries before running FS. I am not certain whether the physical position of fresh entries is important but for the sake of consistency it might be as well to reposition the newly created relevant lines, again, as described in my reply to Robert.OR, better still, I would recommend for reliable results:2. Following my guidance to Robert and delete fs9.cfg (after making a copy) thus allowing FS2004 to look at the changes afresh. Then reassemble by editing your copied fs9.cfg file.Hope I haven't stood on any toes but maybe, you're right, perhaps this thread has now finally passed its sell by date.Mike :-wave

[ejoiner 21]

Oh. OK... BUMP then.Eric

[Guest wycliffe1]

Ok After reading this astounding post this morning in work, I've finally got home and made the changes suggested. My gfx card is The NVidia Geforce FX 5200.I wasn't sure whether this would work but all I can say is holy cow. It seems to have made some difference I just flew the deafult Cessna over Seattle Tacoma and it was smooth as glass with FPS locked at 30 fps and producing 29's most of the way even on landing.I then took up the default 747 over Heathrow and once again very smooth. Still some adjusting to do but so far I'm impressed.How can something like this escape us for so long.Wycliffe

[Guest SoarPics]

I'm gonna jump on board here with the other "old timers" and reiterate that this tweak IS NOT A SILVER BULLET! GeofA certainly knows this sim better than most, but his discovery of this tweak has been misconstrued by many.What folks get when making this tweak is a lowering of numerous Display settings... that's where the performance gains are coming from. The most notable of these adjustments is video filtering. After making this tweak the sim defaults back to Bilinear Filtering, thus bypassing the Trilinear Filtering that so many of today's top GPU's can offer.I urge anyone who makes this tweak to record ALL of their in-sim display settings before doing so. Then after adding the tweak go back and check EVERYTHING in the Display settings. There will be changes that sacrifice IQ for FPS. If you're willing to make that sacrifice, then this tweak might be one you wish to implement.The Display.cfg file is used when originally installing the sim to allow the software to be configured for any number of graphics cards. That's it. To prove this, remove the Display.cfg from the FS9 folder and go fly. You won't see any change from what your previous Display settings were.I don't fly with the Display.cfg anymore (since late August). Once it see's your video card during install, it's usefullness is over. The only time one would need it after original install is during a video card change or sim reinstall (the latter of course would create an entirely new Display.cfg). When making video driver changes I always hand edit the new driver level into the FS9.cfg. This is currently what my FS9.cfg shows for my video card and driver level:{DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9700 PRO (Omega 2.5.04) .0}<--- should be square bracketsThat's all you need to edit... make sure your video card is shown correctly, and that your current driver level is correct.If your FS9.cfg doesn't show your video card/driver level correctly, then go back through this thread and learn how to hand edit that info into your FS9.cfg. After that, you'll be done.Sorry folks... and sorry to Geof. This seemed promising when first discovered, but alas there is no magic involved here.Cheers,

[Guest Bob Z]

You wrote:-------------------------------------------------------------I urge anyone who makes this tweak to record ALL of their in-sim display settings before doing so. Then after adding the tweak go back and check EVERYTHING in the Display settings. There will be changes that sacrifice IQ for FPS. If you're willing to make that sacrifice, then this tweak might be one you wish to implement.---------------------------------------------------------------Yes, indeed.Or they can reduce the slider and check box settings via the normal FS9 dialog boxes. It amounts to pretty much the same thing with the difference being that if you use the sliders you have a choice rather than FS9 plugging in the defaults.

[Guest babewatcher]

GeofaI happen to have a radeon ATI Pro 128 and after reading the comments and suggestions of others decided to give it a try.First I looked in the FS9 cfg. and found the following[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9800 PRO .0]Mode=1152x864x32TriLinear=1AntiAlias=1I then checked the display cfg file inside the FS9 folder and found nothing listed for my card so then added the following to my display config.;---------------------------------------------------------------------; ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 2k/XP;---------------------------------------------------------------------[00001002:00004E48:ati2dvag.dll]Disable=1[00001002:00004E48:ati2dvag.dll.1]MinDriverRev=6.14.0001.6307Disable=2Thats it I made no changes to the FS9 Config file. I loaded up the program and what a difference. Much improved frame rates and smoother transitions between views and a lot less stuttering. I cant believe it to be as simple as this. It seems for the first time that FS9 is using my video card the way it should. I for one have not had any display settings decreased in fact the picture that Im looking at now looks a hell of a lot better without the shimmering.Nice work, My hats off to ya Don:-beerchug

[cat 2]

Gee, won't the kids love this when they find it!Peter Sydney Australia

[Guest SoarPics]

Don... the reason for this is because the 9800 series cards were not around when MS released the sim. So there was no listing for your card in the Display.cfg (won't see one for the nVidia 5950, or the 5700, or...).The Display.cfg seemed like a good idea at the time. It is part of the sim's system that sets your Display settings the first time you install... does so by recognising the system's video card (and other hardware) and then places the sliders where it thinks they should be (and does a pretty good job, too). But as new video cards are released the sim will have no choice but to fall back to default video card references (which is pretty much just what GeofA did when he set his Display.cfg to replace the video card call for his missing 4200... there are still alot of folks asking why that card was not included in the original Display.cfg).Your Display.cfg is now up to date for your card because you've rewritten it (by adding the section for the 9800). If you go look in your FS9.cfg now you'll see the call for your card and driver (you may have to look around... it's added sort of willy nilly to the FS9.cfg).You could do the exact same thing by adding your video card and drivers to the FS9.cfg. That's the way I do it... saves me from editing one less .cfg file, and the card/driver call is placed where I want it in FS9.cfg (instead of willy nilly).Hope this helps,

[Guest babewatcher]

GregThanks for the info and it is understandable that FS9 wouldnt have info for a video card not yet out there. The fix for that is simple and does make a difference in frame rates and certainly reduces a lot of the stutters for me. I posted exactly what I did for others who may have 9800 cards as well. Bravo simmers You've done it again.Don:-)

[Guest Bob Z]

DonI certainly hope it works for you.What didn't quite fit the theory of missing entries is that there appears to be two XP catchall entries. One for ATI and one for Nvidia.The ATI one is labeled "ATI Radeon Win2K/XP"The Nvidia one is labeled "NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP"There's also two for WIN/ME.The type of file which contains entries in brackets and subentries followed by = (equal) signs is called a 'Profile'. The wording between the brackets is a key value. A program uses "some value" to access a Profile bracketed entry and if there is a match you get a corresponding true return code. If there is no match you get a 'no match' return code. If you get a match you can then access the sub (=) entries for that bracketed key. I believe that the "some value" mentioned above that FS9 uses to access the keys in the profile comes from the GPU registry entries. FS9 will first try to access a key using a value composed of Vendor ID, Device ID and Driver Name extracted from the registry. These are the values in the entry you made, seperated by colons.If it does not get a match using these 3 it will then use Driver Name only, and this is the key for the catchall entries for either Nvidia or ATI cards. You'll notice that the catchalls only have driver name between the brackets.If this supposition (and that's what it is, although a very strong one) is true then your AT9800 card was getting a match all along; on the catchall entry. The catchall entry for ATI is a bit more complex than the Nvidia one and lists two driver revisions.What I didn't notice till now is that the values under the revisions in the ATI catchall are different from those in your entry. I never believed that any cards were just 'falling thru the cracks' and still don't. The subentries in the catchall are possibly outdated or inaccurate for use with the 9800 and I hope that this is the explanation for your good results. I have only used Nvidia cards so am not familiar with ATI's past releases, so someone else might be able to decipher what changes and upgrades these driver revisions entailed.Also, if this scenario is true, it's simply astonishing that ATI would not have mentioned it. This complacent behaviour I could understand from stodgy MS, but not from a cutting edge GPU company that's in a horserace with Nvidia.Actually the accessing as a whole is a bit more complex than the Vendor/Device/Driver combo. Some GPU cards in the cfg use driver name only and the Diamond Stealth 2 uses what appears to be it's GUID for access. Various other combinations are used for other cards but the Vendor/Device/Driver is the access schema for both ATI and Nvidia.It makes a lot more sense now and I hope your GPU gives you much happy flying.

[Steve Cannell 4]

Not to in any way diminish the benefits of this post to those new to this hobby but this topic has been discussed here many times before. Other games can benefit from this type of config file edit as well. Lock-On for example. CheersSteve