P4 1.5 vs. P4 3.06 "disappointing results" - Pleas

[FlyinMisfit 0]

hi guys,sorry for the long read. trying to give as much info. as possible without being too long. i'm considering sending this system back for a refund. after seeing the "numbers" i think you'll understand why. not the performance gain i was expecting plain & simple. but i thought i'd get some advice from you "pc gurus" here first. sytem specs. old and new and fs2k2 results are as follows:new system specs.-no overclockingAlienware P4 3.06Asus P4T533-C Mobo. latest BIOS updates512MB PC1066 RDRamWD 80GB 8MBCache Hard DriveGeforce4 TI4600 - Nvidia 4072 WHQL driversSB Audigy - latest driversPioneer DVD RW DriveUSR 56k PCI ModemWinXP Home (SP1) NTFS file systemWinXP "tweaks" - (this applies to both systems)- 1. anti-virus is off and screen saver is off b4 running fs2k2. sytem restore turned off, run desktop cleanup is off, new GUI is off - using "classic windows" look instead. no difference in FPS with "msconfig" settings at default vs. blkvipers "msconfig" tweaked settings. www.blkviper.comold system specs.- no overclockingAlienware P4 1.5Intel D850GB Mobo. latest bios updates512MB PC800 RDRamIBM 60GB Hard DriveGeForce4 TI4600 Nvidia 4072 WHQL driversSB Audigy - latest driversPioneer DVD DriveUSR 56k PCI ModemWinXP Home (SP1) FAT32 file systemFS2K2 Config./Settings/Addons (this applies to both systems)Full Install,(the following line also applies to both systems) "game Res.1024x768x32, in the Nvidia control panel-4xs AA,with texture sharpening "checked". best image quality & all else is at default stgs". "All" sliders max.except "Visibility" - set at 60 miles and"Water Detail" - set to "None""All" Boxes checkedAddons- PSS World Airliners 747/777, Bill Molonys Atlanta Skyline & Airport Scenery, Cas Stephens "default" 747,777,737 replacement textures. still trying to remain calm here. the new system has been rock solid stable - no lockups, no crashes, no memory error msgs. of any type. my FS2K2 performance with the new system is just plain "Lousy". not much of a performance increase at all. the following are some FS2K2 performance examples:P4 3.06 system - FPS slider-Locked at 25. clear skies - no weather sitting on Rwy at Meigs Field (C-172)-"2D Cockpit View - FPS=24-25"Spot View" - FPS=17-20at KATL & KSEA (PSS 747)"Cockpit View" - FPS=23-25"Spot View" - FPS=14-20P4 1.5 System-sitting on Rwy. at Meigs (C-172)2D Cockpit View - FPS=21-25"Spot View" - FPS=13-18at KATL & KSEA PSS 747"Cockpit View" - FPS=20-25"Spot View" - FPS=12-18so guys, the big question is "what in the world is wrong here? am i expecting too much from this new system? i am at my wits end here.i would greatly appreciate some help/input here. i'm not a happy fs2k2 simmer at this point. again, thanks in advance for your help. happy flyin fm

[Guest pumrigar]

Hi,I upgraded from an Athlon XP 1900+ to a P4 2.8 with similar disappointing results. What made the big difference for me was replacing my GF4 4400 card with a Radeon 9700 Pro. That gave me a significant boost in framerate and smoothness. Trouble is that is an expensive card but I took the risk and it worked for me.Pesi

[Guest]

My guess would be your video card is the bottleneck. Why did you get a 4600Ti when all the reports show the ATI9700 runs twice the speed at 4xAA. I'd just call Alienware, ship the unit back and have them reformat it and install an ATI9700. But then, my first choice would have been to ship the old unit back for an upgrade. They would have replaced the processor, ram and video card for a whole lot less than a completely new unit. But then, hindsight is 20/20. Maybe you have another use for the old unit? While FS2k2 is CPU dependent, it's also GPU dependent and ram dependent. Just like all games are. Some more than others. FS2k2 certainly is no exception. What you're reporting is no surprise to me.

[Guest]

pumrigar; I'll bet your image quality improved considerably too with that 9700???

[Guest LonelyplanetXO]

I'm no guru, but my theory on the issue is that base performance is a set cost and from there, the price of improvement escalates exponentially.. I would expect that a 3.0 Ghz system wont produce twice the FPS of a 1.5 ghz, rather a small incremental gain - which is exactly what your tests show. It's a bit like building a racing car. Lets say, $100,000 will build a car that will lap Laguna Seca in 120 seconds. But the average time for the class is 118 seconds and the leader is doing it at 116.5seconds. Assuming driver ability is equal, the mid range cars probably cost $350,000 to build and the most competitive machine $850,000. The same applies with computers. Measure it in terms of dollars per frame. Getting 20FPS in FS might cost you $50 per frame. Getting 30 will require bigger better everything, so the cost might be $110 per frame. but if you want the very fastest you can, lets say 36fps, you will find the cost escalates to $250 per frame.LonelyplanetXO

[Guest GamePlayer]

Set your frame rate limit to unlimited and disable vsync and see what happens. I know that disabling vsync on my computer improved my frame rate.

[Guest BAW083]

Maybe he did it cos there a bit cheaper than the Radeon, and as a ATi customer their drivers and over all support isn't as good as nVidia's.nForce2 and a Radeon 9700 Pro... it is the dogs proverbials.

[FlyinMisfit 0]

hi guys,thanks for the quick replies. the gf4 was my first thoughts as well. i remember reading a post here at Avsim or at Flightsim some months ago where someone stated they upgraded to a gf4ti4600 saying the card "scaled like an olympian" at higher resolutions. also, considering the ti4600 is not much over a year old and from a compatability standpoint i thought it would be suffice. i have seen the reviews and benchmarks on the 9700. i honestly didn't think that the ti4600 would be that much of a bottleneck. Mgdbottled, the upgrade route i agree would've been the way go. but i'm giving it to one of my sisters. this hobby is rather expensive isn't it? btw, is it really necessary to reformat just to upgrade to the 9700? i hope i'm not wrong on that one as well. again, many thanks for the help. happy flyin fm

[Ed 0]

Hi,Just having built a new system, p4 2.4 with Asus motherboard, I have no problems getting 30 fps with everything maxed. I only have a Gforce 64 pro. One program that came with the motherboard is called Intel Application Accelerator which when I installed these drivers, made a world of difference. See if you have these drivers installed or not.Hope this helps.Ed

[kerosene31 349]

I'm not sure what the problem is, and I am no benchmark guru, but something is wrong with those numbers. You should see a better performance increase than what you are getting. First of all, you should not have to upgrade your video card already. The TI4600 is still the 2nd fastest card on the market. A few months ago I went from a P4 1.5 to a P4 2.26 and I got a noticable increase. I didn't run any numbers, but I can remember that using the Simflyers sceneries, my fps went from 6-8 to 10-15. Anyway just a few suggestions:Have you defragmented the hard drive fully? This is even necessary on a new machine. You may want to uninstall FS, defrag, then re-install and defrag again. A fragmented hd can cause some slowness in FS2002 (even if it isn't too bad). I do mine whenever it gets below 96%, even with NTFS.Also, try turning off anti-aliasing and see what that does to your frames. Third, change your fps lock slider to something higher. Bump it up to like 30 or so just to see if it changes anything. Seeing 21-25 fps with your lock at 25 isn't actually that unusual. Good luck - and if you can't get that system working better send it over to me and I'll try :)

[FlyinMisfit 0]

hi ED,the system did not come with the intel app. accel. installed. so that was one of the first things i did b4 installing any programs. thanks for the suggestion anyway. happy flyin, fm

[Guest]

Well, just wanted to say that I highly doubt that the GF 4600 is the problem. It should be more than sufficient for fs2k2. The only thing that might really bring it down is that u have set FSAA to its highest settings 4xs (i think its called that), try lowering this to quincox (again, too lazy to look it up in my settings :-)), i doubt u'll notice image quality decreasing too much. Then also try to lower Ansiotropic filtering to 2x, again image quality will suffer not too much. (at least i cant make out much of a difference). On my system ansiotropic filtering causes a much higher drop in fps than FSAA (with a GF4 4200 that is)Also, as stated above, try upping ur max fps slider to at least 30, coz with it being set at the same settings as with ur old system, its kinda clear ur fps wont improve much, ull most likely only notice it running a bit smoother.So to sum it up, turn off some of the performance draining features of in ur display properties, wont cause much of a quality loss, but certainly should enable ur system to run at 30 fps.Hope this helps.

[michal 44]

And the same aplies to real aircraft.Is upgrade from SR20 to turbocharged SR22 which increases speed by about 20 kts (or 12%) is worth the increase in price of about 25% ?Michael J.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[Guest]

""is it really necessary to reformat just to upgrade to the 9700? i hope i'm not wrong on that one as well.""No. If you ship it back to Alienware, they'll reformat it before they install the radeon unless you tell them not to and they probably will anyway. All you should have to pay for is the difference in cost between the two cards. If you just call them and order up a radeon, they'll charge your credit card for the entire price and credit you the Ti4600 when they receive it back.If you are considering trying the radeon yourself, just make sure you get all the nvidia stuff off first or you'll have major problems.

[Guest PaulL01]

You have a great rig, you just need video card help to run the AA and AF....The only fair way to compare the system vs system performance is to compare with Antialiasing trurned off (AA) and Anisotropic filtering (AF) (texture sharpening-via driver menu) also turned off- as this is all done on the video card and just one little difference in settings will give one system an unfair advantage over the other.That also would of course hold true for many settings in FS2k2, for instance when installed on your 3.GHz system Fs will load with default settings near max, things like mesh terrain detail, ground shadows etc. so ask yourself what settings you had been using in your old system, duplicate those in the new and re-compare.You should find a substantial gain. Still Fs2k2 will need at least a 3.6 GHz(intelP4-:( or 3.0GHz(XP-Tb) with a 9700pro or GFFX combo to really run most of the latest add-ons at completely satisfying FPS, we are very close, Ooops!!! FS2k4! :)I would take the advice to Talk to the vendor and tell them you are not satisfied with the system and that you want to return the whole system, don't let on that you are prepared to pay for an video card upgrade, let them make the offer, or at least ask them what options there may be, the 9700pro should run you about $120 more than your GFTI, you might also inquire about what GFFX they plan to offer as they are due out in February. but that will run you about $270 more untill the prices drop. :)