All,I have read through the FAQ at the head of this forum and implemented most of its suggestions. However I am still getting bad frame rates in areas that I should be getting better.My Hardware is...-3.0 Ghz P4 O/C'd to 3.3 Ghz-1Gb RAM-Sapphire 9800XT GRaphics card-SB Audigy Platinum Sound card.-Microsoft FF2 Joystick.No scenery add-ons.Sitting on the strip at KSEA in the 172 the frame rates are at 15-17. After taking off and making an immediate left hand turn towards the west to avoid the town. After about 2 mins, the frame rates drop to 11 fps. This doesn't seem right to me that the frames should drop down that far when I'm at 3000ft and looking towards some mountains. Could this be the Autogen Bug??Any body have some suggestions? I want to add things like Ultimate Traffic but I'm afraid that its going to turn the sim into a slide show.RegardsSteve Brown

Steve, From your computer specs, it looks like you should be in the 30-40 FPS range with that system. You did not say if you had all of the sim's setting to max or to default. Also, is your computer running a lot of programs in the background like anti-virus, internet connections, etc? While each of these might not be big power drains, putting them all together will make that P4 seem like a P3 1.5 GHz or what ever they were running back then.Terry

From my experience back ground stuff in windows don

Thanks for the replys guys.I have listed my specs below...External AA set 4x, AF 16xLatest Catalyst 4.4 DriversScenery TabSpecial Effects detail-HighTerrainTerrain MEsh Complexity-85Terrain TExture Size-HighTerrain Detail-Land OnlyWater Effects-HighDawn/Dusk Teture Blending-CheckedExtended Terrain Textures-CheckedScenery ObjectsScenery Complexity-Very DenseAutogen density-Very DenseAdd-On dynamic scenery-checked/NormalGround Scenery Castas Shadows-CheckedSun Glare-CheckedLens Flare-CheckedAircraft TabGlobal Aircraft Quality-HighVirtual cockpit gauge quality-HighReflections-CheckedAircraft Cast Shadows-CheckedLanding Lights-CheckedWeather TabSight Distance-120mi/192kmCloud draw distance-70mi/112km3-D cloud percentage-100Detailed clouds selectedcoverage density MaximumHardware TabTarget Frame Rate: 25Resolution: 1280 x 1024 x 32Render to Texture-Checked (I have tried this both ways and it doesn't make a difference)Transform and Lighting-CheckedAnti-Aliasing-UncheckedFiltering-TrilinearMIP Mapping Quality-4Hardware-rendered Lights-7Global Texture size-MassiveHope this gives you some more info.I don't have a lot of other background stuff running. Only Networking, and some other minor stuffThanks for your timeSteve Brown

Well with that settings your performance is definiatly normal.The first thing I would try to lower is anisotrophic filtering. 16x anisotrophic do take a huge toll on the performance. Also I would guess it look quite good at 8x anisotrophic too. Me I find 4x anisotrophic to be acceptable but I wouldn

Steve,Maybe a little late to respond BUT, I recently reinstalled my video drivers for my FX5900 Ultra. Suddenly I began getting frame rates in FS2K4 of 5-6 FPS whereas I had been getting 20 plus in the past. No matter what aircraft or situation, I never got framerates above 10. I did a lot of uninstalling/reinstalling and tweaking without solving my problem. Even deleted FS9 config and restarted. I then ran Sandra Pro to see if something was wrong with my system. One of the recommendations was to change my monitor refresh rate from 60 to a higher level. That was it! When I upgraded the video drivers, my monitor refresh rate changed from its normal high of 85 to 60. Now I receive much higher FPS when flying. I think the higher the refresh rate of your monitor, the higher FPS you will get when flying. Regards,Jim Young