Thanks for the info.

Karsten, You're really giving us nothing to go on. Machine specs and FSX configuration settings would be most helpfull. Craig

sorry Craig,this is my fsx.cfg:"[sOUND]AmbientUIMusicVolume=-6.000000SOUND=1SOUND_QUALITY=2SOUND_LOD=0UISound=1AmbientUI=1[Display]ChangeTime=4.000000TransitionTime=4.000000ActiveWindowTitleTextColor=255,255,255ActiveWindowTitleBackGroundColor=0,28,140,64NonActiveWindowTitleTextColor=255,255,255NonActiveWindowTitleBackGroundColor=24,33,87,64InfoUpperRightTextColor=255,0,0InfoUpperRightBackGroundColor=0,0,0,0InfoLowerLeftTextColor=255,255,255InfoLowerLeftBackGroundColor=255,0,0,128InfoLowerRightTextColor=255,255,255InfoLowerRightBackGroundColor=255,0,0,128InfoBrakesEnable=TrueInfoParkingBrakesEnable=TrueInfoPauseEnable=TrueInfoSlewEnable=TrueInfoStallEnable=TrueInfoOverspeedEnable=TrueBLOOM_EFFECTS=0SKINNED_ANIMATIONS=1TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=21WideViewAspect=FalseTERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=800TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=3000[Main]User Objects=Airplane, HelicopterSimObjectPaths.0=SimObjectsAirplanesSimObjectPaths.1=SimObjectsRotorcraftSimObjectPaths.2=SimObjectsGroundVehiclesSimObjectPaths.3=SimObjectsBoatsSimObjectPaths.4=SimObjectsAnimalsSimObjectPaths.5=SimObjectsMiscHideMenuNormal=0HideMenuFullscreen=1FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=0.30Location=124,107,1156,876,.DISPLAY1Maximized=0[bufferPools]PoolSize=5000000[PANELS]IMAGE_QUALITY=1QUICKTIPS=1PANEL_OPACITY=100PANEL_MASKING=1PANEL_STRETCHING=1UNITS_OF_MEASURE=1DEFAULT_VIEW=0[Weather]WindshieldPrecipitationEffects=1MinGustTime=10MaxGustTime=500MinGustRampSpeed=1MaxGustRampSpeed=200MinVarTime=5MaxVarTime=50MinVarRampSpeed=10MaxVarRampSpeed=75TurbulenceScale=1.000000WeatherServerAddress=fs2k.zone.comWeatherServerPort=80WeatherGraphDataInDialog=0AdjustForMagVarInDialog=1DynamicWeather=2DownloadWindsAloft=0DisableTurbulence=0CLOUD_DRAW_DISTANCE=3DETAILED_CLOUDS=1CLOUD_COVERAGE_DENSITY=6THERMAL_VISUALS=1[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9800 XT .0]Mode=1280x1024x32Anisotropic=1[CONTROLS]Controls_Default=StandardControls_Current=Standardforce_master_gain=10000force_stick_force_enabled=1force_stick_shaker_enabled=1force_gear_bump_enabled=1force_crash_enabled=1force_ground_bumps_enabled=1KBDAIL=64KBDELEV=64KBDRUD=64[TextInfo.1]Latitude=1,1Longitude=1,2Altitude=1,3Heading=1,4AirSpeed=1,5WindDirectionAndSpeed=1,6[TextInfo.2]FrameRate=1,1LockedFrameRate=1,2GForce=1,3FuelPercentage=1,4[TextInfo.3]Latitude=1,1Longitude=1,2Altitude=1,3Heading=1,4AirSpeed=1,5WindDirectionAndSpeed=1,6FrameRate=2,1LockedFrameRate=2,2GForce=2,3FuelPercentage=2,4[slewTextInfo.1]Latitude=1,1Longitude=1,2Altitude=1,3Heading=1,4AirSpeed=1,5[slewTextInfo.2]FrameRate=1,1LockedFrameRate=1,2[slewTextInfo.3]Latitude=1,1Longitude=1,2Altitude=1,3Heading=1,4AirSpeed=1,5FrameRate=2,1LockedFrameRate=2,2[DynamicHeadMovement]LonAccelOnHeadLon=-0.020000LonAccelOnHeadPitch=-0.010000RollAccelOnHeadLat=0.010000YawAccelOnHeadLat=-0.100000RollAccelOnHeadRoll=0.100000MaxHeadAngle=5.000000MaxHeadOffset=0.300000HeadMoveTimeConstant=1.000000[VirtualCopilot]VirtualCopilotActive=1[GRAPHICS]SHADER_CACHE_PRIMED=1TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=256NUM_LIGHTS=8AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=1AIRCRAFT_REFLECTIONS=1COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=0LANDING_LIGHTS=1AC_SELF_SHADOW=1EFFECTS_QUALITY=2GROUND_SHADOWS=0TEXTURE_QUALITY=3IMAGE_QUALITY=0See_Self=1Text_Scroll=1[uSERINTERFACE]PageID=2SHOW_MISSION_CAPTIONS=0PAUSE_ON_LOST_FOCUS=1PROMPT_ON_EXIT=1SITUATION=FLIGHTSOTHERFLTSIMMap_Orientation=2ShowAllACPaintSchemes=0SelectAircraftManufacturer=AllSelectAircraftPublisher=AllSelectAircraftType=AllOpenATCOnCreate=0[ATC]ShowATCText=1COMM_MSG_NONE_COLOR=FFFFFFFFCOMM_MSG_ATC_USER_COLOR=FFB6FFB6COMM_MSG_USER_ATC_COLOR=FFFFD21BCOMM_MSG_ATC_AI_COLOR=FF00FF00COMM_MSG_AI_ATC_COLOR=FFFF7840AutoOpenAirTrafficWindow=1UsePilotVoice=1PilotVoice=0[PointOfInterestSystem]CycleSetting=0[sCENERY]LENSFLARE=1DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=1IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=3[TrafficManager]AirlineDensity=74GADensity=0FreewayDensity=15ShipsAndFerriesDensity=55LeisureBoatsDensity=46IFROnly=0AIRPORT_SCENERY_DENSITY=4[TERRAIN]LOD_RADIUS=3.500000MESH_COMPLEXITY=43MESH_RESOLUTION=19TEXTURE_RESOLUTION=24AUTOGEN_DENSITY=2DETAIL_TEXTURE=1WATER_EFFECTS=3[AContain]ShowLabels=1ShowUserLabel=0ShowLabelManufacturer=1ShowLabelModel=1ShowLabelTailNumber=0ShowLabelDistance=1ShowLabelAltitude=1ShowLabelAirline=0ShowLabelAirlineAndFlightNumber=0ShowLabelFlightPlan=0ShowLabelContainerId=0ShowLabelAirspeed=0ShowLabelHeading=0LabelDelay=1000LabelColor=FFFF0000[iNTERNATIONAL]ASLAT=2ASLON=0MEASURE=1[REALISM]PFactor=1.000000Torque=1.000000GyroEffect=1.000000CrashTolerance=1.000000General=1.000000UnlimitedFuel=TrueTrueAirspeed=FalseAutoCoord=FalseRealMixture=FalseStressDamage=FalseGEffect=FalseManualLights=FalseGyroDrift=FalseCrashWithDyn=FalseCrashDetection=FalseAutoTrim=False[sIM]SYSCLOCK=1[sTARTUP]DEMO=0SHOW_OPENING_SCREEN=1STARTUP_DEMO=LoadWindow=1[FACILITIES]COUNTRY=STATE=CITY=GTL_BUTTON=1520[Misc]Com_Rate=7[Trusted]E:fsxGAUGESCessna.DLL.tlzraqutnkzhlthnwkutcownaotnckiozkaenkrq=2E:fsxGAUGESCessna172.DLL.krakocbiczekuhbhzaalctchbnornztzzzabuawe=2E:fsxGAUGESCessna182s.DLL.bokwnkeublbkhkeouaqkqhuetaoczaawonihkbrh=2E:fsxGAUGESCessnaWAlpha.DLL.lhueeqietnbkonnewzbtkrbhiaoocetkiucbnwqo=2E:fsxGAUGESBendix_King_Radio.DLL.hewkbqlkrrnhwcnbhuroeihhuilwbotqueeiqzal=2E:fsxGAUGESBell_206B.DLL.qlbbooataoziwinernkooozlubaeltaqawkzklqq=2E:fsxGAUGESMagnetic_Compass.DLL.aihkzetoqtwlcbcnnoqahhkrlztcihtlloiulhuu=2E:fsxGAUGES737-400.DLL.otoihotbrqhbhcaobrtzoizneoklrtiaoeqhtnbt=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPACessna208.GAU.erctewwhwocaowhzrcrawhucurznutrzoncirlbc=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPAPAD_DHC2_Instr.GAU.crtiwleoubotqcahorhbwnkuawwzlzkbqqouhebz=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPABK_radio.GAU.brkwikaruruwoloebbkiocrhzzkwueinwkatlbuu=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPAcad_kln90brored.GAU.uanrnalzacnalekqzhticieukowaqubtcicbkcee=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPADavtron.GAU.qohiocqitteequtztihlczinrtqtrazllecenaiu=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPAGH_Sound.GAU.uawebztoutzzhchrbkncwrecnkiucklucrnktauw=2E:fsxSimObjectsAirplanesDHC2_BeaverMK3T_C-FOPApanel.FOPARKG_fuelstat.GAU.bzaaaqaiehwrqcorrcwtiiwakailkacznlhctkib=2E:fsxGAUGESBoeingGeneric.DLL.wltctcqbrebqenhictbcwzwtwunowrzzoczlrluh=2[RWW_WEATHER_MAP]SHOW_AIRPORTS=0SHOW_VORS=0SHOW_NDBS=0SHOW_APPROACHES=0SHOW_INTERSECTIONS=0SHOW_VICTOR=0SHOW_JET=0SHOW_AIRSPACE=0SHOW_FLIGHTPLAN=1SHOW_WEATHERSTATIONS=1SHOW_WEATHERSYSTEMS=1SHOW_DATATAGS=1SHOW_TERRAIN=1[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce 7800 GS.0]Mode=1280x1024x32Anisotropic=1[MULTIPLAYER]condAccoutPassword=0"What computer spec did you mean ??Thanks for your patience, and i have all tweaks installed posted in this forum and on the other sidesCarsten

Actually there are several very good AGP graphics cards available with 512MB, there are some very good NVidia offerings you could look at.It's also rumoured that ATI will soon release a rather high-powered AGP card.The graphics market still has plenty of AGP offerings around and some very good cards with plenty of memory. Just take a look around at online retailers. For example there's a BFG GeForce 7600 GS OC 512MB DDR2 HDTV/DVI (AGP) - Retail (GX-031-BG) that's under

From previous exp it has been noted that if lowering or raising your setting has not apparent effect on your Frame rate then it is a processor bottle neck not Grphx card.good luck on that =)------If this was already posted sorry didnt read em all-----

I have to tell you that in my experience graphics card makes very little difference to the way fsx performs which is born out by the op. By the sounds of it, more than a few people here (the quiet ones) have come to the same conclusion as me. That is fsx needs cpu horsepower and imo it is very badly written as it makes very little (sorry 'no' ) use of the power of modern graphics cards.I have a 1900xt 512mb card and as far as fsx goes it was a waste of money, i think ms took fs9 and bunged a load of new textures and mesh in, plus the cars and boats and chucked it out for sale, i for one was hoping for a more modern product.Of topic, but vista is looking suspiciously like it has followed this route as well. With dx10 for added marketing power ooh another vista/fsx similarity.So basically i am not surprised at your findings and agree with the posts about cpu power.

Carsten, By machine specs I meant Graphics Card, Processor, RAM. Also after looking at your FSX Config file I can tell you that lowering the following settings will definitely give you better frame rates: You have the following set at high settings (at least they are high for my machine) Water-lower AI Traffic-lower Autogen-lower or none Other traffic-lower or 0 Craig

For those of you that have/are thinking of giving up on FSX - can I just check that you tried the disabling Shader2 tweak. That, combined with renaming Autogen/default.xml and adjusting the Terrain Settings for Autogen has transformed my FSX experience. My one year old PC (AMD 64 3700+ with 1.5GB Ram and ATI X800 256Mb GPU) was having difficulties (~10-12 FPS) in the Tokyo Heli Mission. After disabling shader 2 and switching of ALL water effects, I get frame rates around 18-20fps in built up areas with tons of autogen and about 15% traffic (cars, AI and boats). I have managed to get around 16-20 fps at KSEA with Scenery set to Very Dense (lots of Jetways, airport traffic etc). Originally I was getting around 7-9fps so I'm pleasantly surprised. If I fly away from built up areas I can turn water effects back to max and have lots of autogen and 20% traffic. This is a deal I can live with...I'm not totally sure why this works (for me) as well as it does but I remember seeing something somewhere about some of the Shader 2 effects requiring 2 passes before being displayable. If this is true then it is effectively cutting your frame rates in half.The information on tweaking display.cfg to disable shader 2 is here:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...ing_type=searchYou have to make sure you have followed the instructions properly because at first I thought I had done it correctly and it produced no effect. Once I reread the instructions and made sure I had specified the correct card ID and shader settings, it worked a treat. I have better performance than FS9 and a much richer environment. Please note that this only seems to give me good performance in built up areas if all water effects are turned off - others seem to get by without having to do this. I set my shader values to:Shader20Plus=10UseShaders=1PS. If you are not sure if you have set this up properly, try setting UseShaders=0 and you should find that the glass in cockpits seen in Spot View disappears. If it doesn't disappear then you need to try again with different ID settings.I think when DX10 and associated GPUs come out, these shader 2 effects will be more effectively handled by hardware and won't produce the frame rate hits we/I am seeing.If this doesn't work for you, I'm sorry I raised your hopes and wasted your time, it's just that its made my day/week.

FSX DOES NOT need either a 4+ GHZ or a Pentium to be playable. How exactly do you arrive at that conclusion? I find it quite playable on my machine. The sliders are there for a reason. I am enjoying it just fine on my machine: AMD64 3500 Venice ASUS A8N Deluxe mobo 2G RAM 7900GT OC Craig

Buying a new AGP graphics card sounds like a bad idea to me, as it's pretty much a dead-end street as far as PC technology is going, in the long run you are going to want/need a pci-x card; just bear in mind that there will doubtless be plenty of add-ons coming for FSX, and (FSX processor demands aside) the increased throughput that pci-x offers is going to be needed.I think it's fairly apparent that bridged twin graphics cards is going to be, if not a requirement for FSX, then at least desirable. So personally the next system I'm going to build is #### sure going to have twin pci-x cards; I can already hear my bank manager panicking :-)

I'd also pay attention to mobo chipset, front side bus speed, and memory speed as well as CPU, CPU Mhz, Main memory size, graphics bus type, GPU, and GPU memory.FSX thrashes the CPU and memory more than the GPU so having a mobo with 400Mhz DDR is half as good as a mobo with 800Mhz DDR.

This tweak will also make any default model that includes wingflex to display two sets of wings, which looks rather silly to say the least.The wingflex feature reiles on shader 2.0 support to work......

Tdragger has already stated that SLI / dual GPU solution could not be implemented for FSX without losing multi monitor support.I doubt FSX will ever take advantage of SLI / Crossfire based on this info......

>Would the slower 7600GS 512mb actually give me>a better frame rate than the 7600? I'm agp, with a athlon>2000 xp so I think there is a finite line in upgrading>graphics without upgrading the cpu (and I might be already>there for all I know). That's why I'm not looking at 7800GS or>X1950pro.Changing your gfx card will not help your framerate much, if any. As you suspect, you are limited by your cpu.For you, the cpu should be the thing you upgrade first. I know that's not what you want to hear but I just don't want you spending $200-$300 on a vid card that will get you 1-2 more fps in the sim.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2.5 ghz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (94.47), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

I just got the geforece 7600 gs 512 meg agp a few weeks ago.Though frame rates didn't change much-panning is extremely fast now, outside views load instantly, and smoothness increased-especially in turns. It was a noticable difference going from my 256k card-and of course the graphics look much better from my 2 year old card that it replaced.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg