strange-video card performance answer?

[brucek 38]

Thanks Greg. Maybe some experimentation is in order :)Bruce.

[shermank 173]

once you get to your fs9.cfg...put a shortcut on your desk top...then you will always be able to access it when needed.sherm

[Guest SoarPics]

After prowling around in XP a bit more, I've found the device code without having to enter the registry. Access the ATI Control Panel, and then click on the "Adapter" tab.In the "Adapter Information" box is a line that shows the chip type. Mine reads:Chip Type: RADEON 9700 AGP (0x4E44)It is the "0x4E44" section that you are interested in.

[Guest LSangiovanni LIML]

The dual monitor support is disabled; but my PC has a dual Win98SEWin XP boot.Just one question: look in FS2004 menuoptionsdisplayhardwarehow is your video device named in there?ThanksLuigi ;-)

[Guest TOMCAT]

Uhh,strange things going on here and there:Your mentioned position on my system says - guess what: "Geforce4 Ti4200.0". This seems to be the internal hardware identification for the Geforce4 that's used by the system (WinXP here). So I just got the idea that FS9 - if it doesn't find a suitable entry in its display.cfg-file for what reason ever - reverts to that setting/identifier.But nevertheless my FS9.cfg still says:Mode=1152x864x32TriLinear=1These are the settings I applied after rebooting the sim for the very first time after Geofa's patch - and it seems to be consitent up to now. And running extremely smooooooth and welllll...Regards, Thomas :-wave

[virtualstuff 776]

Thanks for tip works on my G4 TI4200 128 mb XP2600+ 1gb ddrdifference between 4 till 8 fps :-hah o in 32 bit :-hahPlaying with the sliders now...Andr

[Guest coimbra]

Hi, And if you want to do it on Fs2002? I tried it but it returns to device=geforce 5600 FX ...Sugestions?harpsi

[Guest coimbra]

Hi, And if you want to do it on Fs2002? I tried it but it returns to device=geforce 5600 FX ...Sugestions?harpsi

[Guest cw1011]

See the FAQs above for the location of the now, well hidden config file.

[Guest PaulL01]

Hi Geofa,Interesting thread.Pardon if this has already been covered by some others, I am on the run and do not have time for a full Read of all the threads (2-3 days?),The important stuff is just below the intro: :-rollI believe the dispaly.cfg purpose is to disable/enable certain features and settings in FS of only those cards listed/flaged for compatibility/performance issues only. This would be similar to the FS2k2

[Guest]

GF4 Ti 4600 128Although in the FS9.cfg under displayIt read my card, i changed it to the windowxp fix.DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XPMode=1280x1024x32TextureAGP=0PanelAsTexture=0TriLinear=1And fixed it DID!.Changed my settings back to 1280x1024 32bitAnd then moved my FPS slider UP from 20 to 25.Autogen at normalWeather as per real world.Excellent works like a charm, far far better than beforeNow if i look way down in my FS9.cfg i notice a second entry for Displaythis one has my card name in it..but thats all.So I left it alone.DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4600.0Mode=1280x1024x32I am wondering if the first entry is driver orientatedWhile the second entry is actually the card itself?Or vice versaThe above was copied from my cfg after a test run.Shooterman

[Geofa 108]

As I said at the beginning-I am no expert in video issues. I was more interested as my original post indicated that moving the sliders one way or the other makes absolutely no difference in performance on my system. Doing the above technique seems to have caused the sliders to now work-and I was actually more interested in that aspect than the performance increases it seems to make which was unexpected.After doing the above-the sliders do make a difference e.g. moving autogen from none to all the way to the right can make a difference of 12+ fps. Before moving them from left to right made no difference at all. I would get a consistant 12 fps at a busy airport-now I can get a consistant 22 by turning the autogen all the way down.If it turns something down or off I sure can't see it-but I'll look closer and see if that is the case.In any case-it looks like something interesting to investigate. I certainly didn't expect the reports persons are giving when I made the original post! :-)http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Guest russell]

Guys!I believe you're all on the wrong track here. Stop for just a second, and take a look at what you're really changing.The original idea was to change a line something like this in the fs9.cfg file: [DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200.0]to something like this: [DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP]The reasoning was that the entry in the fs9.cfg file should have a matching entry in the display.cfg file. I believe this is completely false. And jason2112 already said this several posts up, in this same thread, but nobody really listened.If you look in the display.cfg file, you'll find this section:;----------------------------------------------------------------------; NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP;----------------------------------------------------------------------[nv4_disp.dll]Disable=1[nv4_disp.dll.1]MinDriverRev=5.13.01.1241Disable=2The problem is that the text "NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP" is not a config file "section", it's just a comment, because it has a semicolon in front of it. I don't work for Microsoft, but as a programmer I can almost guarantee you that that particular text string isn't used for anything at all, other than for humans to be able to find those lines more easily. The "sections" that FS9 will be looking for are the ones in square brackets. So when FS9 tries to find a setting in the display.cfg file for my particular video card, it doesn't search for "NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP", it searches for [nv4_disp.dll] or [nv4_disp.dll.1], and then looks at the lines just below that. Since those two section names are associated with the Nvidia video cards running on Windows 2000 and XP, some programmer at Microsoft put them next to each other in the file, and put a comment above them called "NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP", so he could find them more easily next time. The order of the sections makes absolutely no difference at all -- you could move the [nv4_disp.dll] section (and the lines immediately following it, up to the next section name) to any point in the file and it would still work exactly the same way. You could even delete all lines beginning with semicolons, and it would still work. The important parts are the parts in square brackets -- they're the only things that count.And FS9 knows that if you have a particular video card, it should look for particular section names in the display.cfg file. It doesn't care where the [nv4_disp.dll] section is, as long as it's in the file somewhere. But the point is that it's always going to look for that section, regardless of what the comment is above it, or where it is in the file.So I can hear you saying, "but why does it make a difference?" Let's take a look at the original two strings in the fs9.cfg file again: [DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200.0]and: [DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP]When FS9 starts up, I believe it's looking at your current video card (or cards, if you have multiple monitors), to find the name(s). On my machine, that name is "NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 200". You can find yours by going to Control Panel / Display / Settings. Then it looks for a section name in the fs9.cfg file that ends with that name and begins with "DISPLAY.Device.", and it finds the first line above (the extra ".0" at the end is often used to signify a particular copy of the setting, and in this case it's the 0th, or first, in programming speak, copy, so the extra ".0" can be ignored). Then it looks at all the values in that "section", which are all the lines immediately following, up until it finds the next section name (the next text in square brackets).Now, if you change that first line to anything at all (doesn't matter if it matches anything in the display.cfg file, or if you set it to "Display.Device.Mary had a little lamb"), you'll see that when you start FS9, it will have reverted back to the default settings. Why? Because you've just removed the entire section that it's looking for! It doesn't care about a section called "DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP", it only cares about a section name that matches up with the name of your current video card.Take a look inside FS9, at Options / Settings / Display / Hardware. The "Device name" drop-down list at the top lists your current video card(s). Notice that this doesn't change when you change the line in the fs9.cfg file. That's because this line matches with whatever video card you're currently using. Now, as others have pointed out, the first time you change the fs9.cfg file, it sets everything back to defaults. If you then reset all your settings to whatever you like, and click OK, and then re-open the fs9.cfg file (you don't even have to close FS9), you'll find that it's added a new section to the bottom of the file, with all the same settings you had before, and the same section name you had before. This is because since it didn't find the section name it was looking for, it loaded the game with the default settings. Then when you changed the settings, it wrote them out to the file again, at the bottom, with the same section name.That last part is the most important:It only looks for the section name matching with your video card. If it doesn't find it, it uses the defaults. If you then change the settings, it saves them back to the fs9.cfg file, but since the section it wants to save them to doesn't exist, it creates it again at the bottom of the file. The next time you start FS9, it'll read those new settings at the bottom of the file. It NEVER cares at all about the "NVIDIA Drivers on Win2K/XP" section, because that's not the name of your video card.So why are you seeing a difference?The only thing I can say to that is that when you reset everything back to defaults, and then set them to particular settings again, you're basically starting from scratch. Maybe one of the settings you changed was the magic one for your card, and this allowed you to find it. So in the end, if you found the right settings for your card, then that's good. But since those settings are back at the bottom of the file again, in the same section name you started with, it's just proof that the changes you made further up in the file are being totally ignored. They're just dead text strings that will never be used. For example, I could add my own section anywhere in the fs9.cfg file, and FS9 would happily ignore it, because it's not looking for that section:[This is my section name]This is a value=1This is another value=2Crash on startup=yesI would like this many frames per second=1000So... It was a good idea, and I'd love to find the right settings to make my system run better, but I don't believe this is it. I don't mean to rain on anyone's parade, but maybe if everyone understands better how these files work, we really can find a solution.Russell

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Bob,Excellent post!I wasn't able to find my graphics card, so using your tip about MSINFO32, I was able to search the display.cfg file for all entries that used my driver. I found one, copy and pasted it to the end of the display.cfg file and modified the line for my vendor and device.That is what the sim is looking for, not the comment fields that people are putting into their fs9.cfg files! If the Vendor and Device match what is in your registry, the sim has a match and uses the specs in that section of the display.cfg file.RenderToTexture, MinDriverRev, PanelAsTexture, TnL, and AntiAlias are all straight forward terms that we can understand. Does anyone know what the Disable=1 and Disable=2 variables do?Bruce

[Bruce Nicholson KMFR 20]

Russell,Do you know what the Disable=1 and Disable=2 settings do? I think that is the key to Geoff's success.I changed my display.cfg to handle my specific card using my Vendor ID and Device ID and added the Disable=1. I saw an improvement. So the Disable variable is doing something that is improving performance in the sim.So at the end of my display.cfg file I added:;----------------------------------------------------------------------; Nvidia RIVA TNT2 on Windows XP;----------------------------------------------------------------------[000010DE:0000002D:nv4_disp.dll]Disable=1RenderToTexture=0TnL=0I added the Render and TnL variables because that is how I was running the sim at my preferred settings. But adding the Disable=1 very positively helped.Bruce