Hello, I am thinking of getting a new computer. What options or accessories should I get to maximize the frame rates? I want to fly out of o'hare and other major cities without the screen pausing after every 3-4 frames. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.Thanks,aal763

And there is the rub. You can throw a lot of money at this sim and still not be happy. It depends on what you are after. On one end, a quad core with 4 GBs of ram on a 64 bit system(did I mention high end GPU) is a good place to start. On the other hand, my now middle-of-the-road system(and I just did an up-grade) does OK with most things maxed. And smaller systems can work well, also. Seems to be about knowing how to set up what you have, and not expecting too much. Then again, I don't think expecting more than 3-4 fps to be too much. Good kuck.Bob

>You can throw a lot of money at this>sim and still not be happy.Very true! *:-*Michael J.http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/9320/apollo17vf7.jpg

I get excellent frame rates with my present system. But I want to have the fastest machine possible. So I'm looking hard at the i7 9650OC (3.48)GB The video card is another matter. I have found by trial and error that the fastest video card for my machine is the 8800GTS (512MB). Others dispute that it is the fastest but I have used in this very computer, 8800GT (512MB) and the 8800GTX 768MB. I cant say why the 8800GTS runs faster but it is significant. (10-12)percent. It is possible that there are different CPU/GPU combos that get better rates. My present system is a Dell XP420 with an extreme QX6850 3.0 gig 4 Gig 800 Ram and a 8800GTS video card with a single (24" 1900 x 1200 32)resolution monitor.(Running at lower resolution does not increase my framerates. Using Seattle as a benchmark, The framerates that I get is as follows. With all sliders and scenery on ULTRA, Bilinear filter and lens flare not checked, and framerate set to *unliminted), 20-21 setting on the runway and taking off) and 24-26 over the city.with all set on Hi, I get Hi 30's and some 40's, Medium high, 50's and 60's and medium low, 100+Other airports that have little traffic and are not highly pixelized, I get in the thirties on the ULTRA settings.(*unlimited)If you have a comparable machine and are getting less, be sure to set you frame on unlimited and not 100 or 50 or something that you think would be adequate. Because I have found the unlimited setting gives a much better result.If I can get a system that would get 30+ FPS at Seattle , I would buy it. That's a 30 percent increase over what I have now. Also if I can do that it means that a system like the one I have know will become very reasonably priced.Also if anyone has a machine that get's better framerates than what I just posted, please post the specs.Blackie

>Hello, I am thinking of getting a new computer. What options>or accessories should I get to maximize the frame rates? I>want to fly out of o'hare and other major cities without the>screen pausing after every 3-4 frames. Any advice would be>greatly appreciated.>>Thanks,>aal763I lock at 30fps just about everywhere, yet in big cities near the airports it will often drop in the mid teens.It runs smooth as silk most of the time, I have a quad at 4Ghz, GTX280, a few tweaks in the fsx.cfg file on Vista 32.I love it, but if I wanted I could find a number of places where the frame rate could be better thats just FSX, follow NickN suggestions for best performance, you dont need all of them but none of them hurt :)

----"If I can get a system that would get 30+ FPS at Seattle , I would buy it. That's a 30 percent increase over what I have now."----------Save your money- just retard some FS sliders a bit & turn off the FPS counter display. Here is a pic from a 5 year old AMD 1.8 XP2200. Runs so nicely with Autogen off and Display at mid point- no plans to upgrade!Alex Reid National Aerobatics Team performs at Seattlehttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194513.jpg

>>I get excellent frame rates with my present system. But I want>to have the fastest machine possible. So I'm looking hard at>the i7 9650OC (3.48)GB Just to clarify: the processor you're referring to is the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition and it runs at 3.2GHz by default. A previous processor from Intel is named the Core 2 Quad 9650 which runs at 3.0GHz by default and can be had in both Extreme and non-Extreme editions (note: Extreme Edition CPUs are differentiated from their non-Extreme counterparts by their unlocked clock multiplier, which allows the user/system builder to adjust the clockspeed of the CPU without also overclocking the system interface and/or memory).>The video card is another matter. I>have found by trial and error that the fastest video card for>my machine is the 8800GTS (512MB). Others dispute that it is>the fastest but I have used in this very computer, 8800GT>(512MB) and the 8800GTX 768MB. I cant say why the 8800GTS runs>faster but it is significant. (10-12)percent. It is possible>that there are different CPU/GPU combos that get better rates.I believe I can explain this.MSFS has a rather primitive 3d engine in the sense that it does not make use of very many fragment shaders which are most commonly used in games for "effects" such as life-like water or fire or camera tricks like motion blur etc. Instead, FS tends to do things "the old way" of simply rendering triangles on the screen and filling them in with textures. Unfortunately, this is the opposite approach of virtually all other modern games which tend to make heavy use of these effects on top of the base method of "draw triangle, color, output to screen" (note: this is grossly over-simplified for the sake of laymen understanding). The makers of graphics cards saw this trend many years ago and decided to create chips which would excel at rendering these effects, as it is much easier for them to scale the performance of this aspect of 3d rendering than it is the other parts which are largely linear tasks. Specifically, triangle setup rate (literally as it sounds, the ability to "setup" a triangle in preparation to be drawn on the screen) is a purely linear task which has yet to be parallelized by any consumer graphics chip maker, so even the fastest graphics processor on the market can draw no more triangles per clock cycle than even the slowest graphics processor can (the rate is 1 triangle per cycle for every modern graphics processor). This means that FS' ability to draw frames is entirely dependent on the CPU's ability to issue commands to the graphics card, which is then in-turn limited by its own ability to process these commands in a completely linear fashion. This peformance is determined purely by the core clockspeed of the processor(s) in question, and the efficiency of the graphics driver. This is why we see Nvidia cards outperforming ATi cards in FS as they have a more efficient driver (for FS specifically, not necessarily true for other games like first person shooters). Also, within Nvidia's own line of graphics cards we observe the cards with the highest core clockspeeds delivering the best performance in FS. Tom's Hardware has illustrated this numerous times over the years with their VGA performance charts and FS9/FSX testing. Case-in-point: see the 8800 GTS/9800 GTX/GTX+ out-performing virtually all other cards in the Geforce family (thanks to their higher core clockspeeds) despite often having huge limitations in other areas such as bandwidth, pixel fill-rate, and shader throughput.

>Save your money- just retard some FS sliders a bit & turn off>the FPS counter display. >Here is a pic from a 5 year old AMD 1.8 XP2200. Runs so nicely>with Autogen off and Display at mid point- no plans to>upgrade!>Alex Reid >>National Aerobatics Team performs at Seattle>http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/194513.jpg>I mean no offense, but what you have posted looks like a shot from FS2002, and this is to be expected given the hardware you are running FS on. Simmers don't pay big money to turn graphics options down so far that the latest and greatest sim looks like the sim from a generation or two prior.But to each their own. As long as you're happy with it, that's ok! I just think many others might not be so happy with your suggestion.

Very good explanation. I know that on most all games other than FSX, the 8800GT ,8800GTX and some of the ATI cards out performs the 8800GTS. I could never figure out why. So is it fair to say, At this point in time, no one can actually say that there is any one fastest graphics card without qualifying it with the application that it's associated with? All opinions welcomeBlackie

>>Very good explanation. I know that on most all games other>than FSX, the 8800GT ,8800GTX and some of the ATI cards out>performs the 8800GTS. I haven't observed the 8800 GT out-performing the 8800 GTX in any but the most shader-bound applications (usually synthetic benchmarks like 3dmark 06/Vantage), but this is otherwise generally true.>I could never figure out why. So is it >fair to say, At this point in time, no one can actually say>that there is any one fastest graphics card without qualifying>it with the application that it's associated with? All>opinions welcome>>BlackieAbsolutely! There are so many aspects of performance nowadays you just can't say card x is always faster than card y anymore if we're talking about similarly-priced cards of the same generation.

Just to clarify: the processor you're referring to is the Core i7 965 Extreme Edition and it runs at 3.2GHz by default. A previous processor from Intel is named the Core 2 Quad 9650 which runs at 3.0GHz by default and can be had in both Extreme and non-Extreme editions (note: Extreme Edition CPUs are differentiated from their non-Extreme counterparts by their unlocked clock multiplier, which allows the user/system builder to adjust the clockspeed of the CPU without also overclocking the system interface and/or memorySorry about the extra 0 on my previous post. I was referring to the extreme i7 965 factory overclocked Level 1 3.48 GHZ. Taken fron Dell's website the extreme i7 965 factory overclocked level 2 is rated at 3.73 GHZ but they want a ton of money for them and I want to be sure they will do the job before I jump off the deep end. BlackieP.S. thanks of the heads up on the typo.

>Sorry about the extra 0 on my previous post. I was referring>to the extreme i7 965 factory overclocked Level 1 3.48 GHZ.>Taken fron Dell's website the extreme i7 965 factory>overclocked level 2 is rated at 3.73 GHZ but they want a ton>of money for them and I want to be sure they will do the job>before I jump off the deep end. >>Blackie>>P.S. thanks of the heads up on the typo.No problem, just want to make sure no one gets confused and wastes money on a product they didn't intend to buy :)Interesting bit about Dell's factory overclock levels. They sound rather weak, to be totally honest. Especially that first level. Intel's Turbo Boost feature found on the 965 EE automatically overclocks the processor to 3.33-3.46GHz depending on the processor load so I wonder if all they've done is enable this feature in the BIOS. The only reason to pay for a factory overclock in this case is if Dell would otherwise lock out access to the processor multiplier and base clock values in the BIOS. If you're considering purchasing such a system, I advise you call Dell and speak with a representative to clear this matter up before you purchase.Regards,Max

Techguy- no offense taken! My intent was, that once you have flown with a fully synched 48"/150

To heck with Dell, or any other "brand name"...any serious gamer/simmer builds their own rigs...it aint that hard.

>Techguy- no offense taken! My intent was, that once you have>flown with a fully synched 48"/150