After reading all those FSX performance analysis threads, it finally hit me. See, those those video card manufactures publish spec of their cards. They all talk about data bus size, memory size, fill rates, etc. They never say how fast their GPUs run the shader programmers, or the number of shader instructions the GPU can execute per second, and we know that FS9 doesn't use shaders. So, well, to bring FSX to FS9 performance, last night I decide to do a little experiement. I downloaded RivaTuner and disable the pixel shader and vectex shader. Then fired up FSX. Guess, what FS9 performance with everything max out with no mod. I got to say this though, some of the lighting effects (like 2x water, wet runway, or anything needs shader) are gone.

wow - good catch - many will benefit no doubt. I'm sure it still looks better than fs9.regards,Markhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpgXPHomeSP2/FS9.1/3.2HT/1024mb/X700pro256

>After reading all those FSX performance analysis threads, it>finally hit me. See, those those video card manufactures>publish spec of their cards. They all talk about data bus>size, memory size, fill rates, etc. They never say how fast>their GPUs run the shader programmers, or the number of shader>instructions the GPU can execute per second, and we know that>FS9 doesn't use shaders. >>So, well, to bring FSX to FS9 performance, last night I decide>to do a little experiement. I downloaded RivaTuner and disable>the pixel shader and vectex shader. Then fired up FSX. Guess,>what FS9 performance with everything max out with no mod. I>got to say this though, some of the lighting effects (like 2x>water, wet runway, or anything needs shader) are gone.>>Screenie?Rivatuner is only nvidia correct? Anything similar for ATI? What does rivatuner do?What are your compy specs, and how many FPS did you get before riva and after?

What is RivaTuner? Plus would like to know before frames and after frames and your computer specs.Thanks,Bill

To disable shader for FSX go to your FSX directory and open display.cfg then search for your video card and add these lines :Shader20Plus=0UseShaders=0Seems that it will work, havent tried it yet

I thought FSX did use shaders.

Don't forget that 'FS9-like' performance in FSX would have to also include a flight model routine that wasn't anywhere near as good and less realistic environmental effects.So when you consider that - FS9-like performance - no thanks, I'll stick with the better attempt at the whole point of the thing: flight simulation.Which means for me there is only one reason that FS9 is still installed on my drive, and I can sum that up with four letters: PMD and G.

Wow. This is even better. Is MS even going to let us know what all those undocumented setting are?

Same as yours except with a slower processor (amd xp 2500+)

Not counting the fact that most of Europe and Canada coastline and water data is worse than FS9 and the 'desert' landclass, FSX is a real winner!....;)

Why must you try to hijack a topic? Go complain in one of the complaint threads. These guys are working here and your type of post is just a waste.duttonhttp://dutton.fsblogger.com/

Took the words right out of my mouth dutton. Good find would it work if I added those entries to the fsx.cfg itself under my videocard? I can't find it in the display.cfgAndrew

Tried it-it does work-but I lost my taxiway signs-just white squares (maybe that is why some video cards don't show them),chrome effects, and probably some other stuff.It did make better performance though.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

display.cfg is located where FSX.EXE is, try searching for it because it must exists at your comp.Also i do recommend to everyone to leave SHADERS ON because if you turn it off the game will look worse and frame rate will be lower, it will depend on what videocard you got.Here did some test and performance with shaders ON is 10% higher and looks 100% better! :DIf you guys want to max out your frame rates do the following :-Reduce texture resolution to 50% for clouds, buildings and trees-Rename default.xml to default.bak at AutoGen folder-Use this variables at fsx.cfg :TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=400TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=3000You can try different values until you get a good frame rate.Also with this tweak you can use at MAX both Scenery and Autogen, what will be missing? only a HIGH polygon count buildings that are created by default.xml config that eats about 40% of your system bandwidth and memory.

Dutton,Not a complaint really, just an observation in relation to the post above regarding 'realism'.I would suggest that there are a few more reasons for keeping an Fs9 install on a system other than the letters PMD & G......