FS2004 Lighting issues

[crash_continental 0]

Upon purchasing a new computer (Q6600 Quad core, 2 Gs Ram, Win XP Pro) and a top-of-the-line nVidia 9800GX2 I was staggered to realize that there were still some FS2004 sceneries that run terribly on my system. I aim for 30FPS, which considering that games like Crysis and BioShock run easily at that target (with everything turned on) it seems frustrating that I can do worse in FS2004. I've tried many tricks and tips, all the usual fs9.cfg, defrag, etc. to little success. I am resigned to the fact that many scneries are just poorly coded... and that's fine, especially for freeware - for I can choose not to use them.However, when sceneries like cloud9's KLAX run poorly it really gets to me. Strangely, it seems to be mostly at night, and from what I can ascertain, around 'lighting' effects. I often find that if I can remove those effects from the scenery (especially ramp lights) my frames will suddenly jump up to 30 again. This is not always possible, however.So my question is; this there a known problem with these 'lighting' effects. And if so, any possible fixes for them out there?- daniel

[Guest Tiberius1250]

Daniel. Can't really add a yes or no to your problem because apart from a couple of AI aircraft and some altered config I have very little added on to my FS9.However, when I first had it running on my old really low spec setup I used to get lots of low FPS issues (another thread). My setup is nowhere near yours, way older...but although it runs FS far smoother than my old one and I can do the full weather effects and things without glitches and maintain the 30fps target 99% of the time, occasionally I still get a couple of seconds of bad stuttering at some (stock) airports when I get within 50ft of the runway, yes it seems worse when the night textures and lights are live. It's not the scenery itself because in the air I've got no fps problems...but some kind of contact detection thing which only happens sometimes and mostly at night.Seems odd that my rig is still way beyond the recommended specs on the box yet I still get a couple of issues as bad as in the early days..Sorry if this doesn't help you but thought I'd add my

[Mike T 208]

Daniel:Unfortunately, this is very sypmtomatic of your video drivers, especially when it comes to lighting effects which 'should' be heavily processed on the GPU.You've got a brand new card type which is less than 2 months old and with Nvidia's track record to date, I'd try different drivers starting with the newest and the backing out to older versions until you find the drivers that are giving you the best performance. Remember that as they fix bugs in an update it can break things and especially with something as finnicky as FS9 and FSX. Also, do a complete uninstall and clean (DC Driver Cleaner) before each driver load..I cannot STRESS this enough!!!Also, if YOU built your new system, get 3DMark and perform tests between the different drivers to find out if you are getting faster or slower. Case in point. With my new rig I built last month, I was getting ~15000 3Dmarks which is satisfactory. However, I cleaned out my ATI drivers, reinstalled and retweaked and now I am up to ~21000 3D Marks with no overclocking on the ATI card with the latest ATI drivers.I am sure that the 9800GX2 is a spectacular card, but when I was researching parts for my extreme-end system last month, I looked at the Nvidia 9800GX2 vs the ATI 3870X2. While the 9800x2 would have given me a few more FPS, the huge problems that Nvidia has been having with their drivers (so much so that people have been threatening a class action lawsuit, not to mention the problems many Nvidia owners are having with FSX, and Vista is a mess) I chose the ATI and have had absolutely no problems, spectular visuals and screaming performance. But then again, there are many people happily screaming along on NVidia with no problems, but too much hit and miss for me vs ATI.Also, what kind of MoBo chipset do you have? Is it a ATI Xfire chipset board or a Nvidia SLI chipset? So again, if your problem is with lights, look to your drivers, experiment and if you need help we're always here :-)Warm regards,Mike T.

[crash_continental 0]

Wow, thanks. You've certainly given me a lot to think about, and try.I had my system built for me by the guy in the shop, after trying to buy components that for it that would have made it a total mess. The guys at the store recommended the nVidia with XP, and ATI with Vista. Since I hate the Vista interface and have seen/heard some people's Vista nightmares, I wanted to stay away from it for at least a year, if not longer.My MoBo is an Asus P5K SE (P35 Chipset, whatever that means... I'm reading it from the box). I haven't installed any other drivers other than what my computer guy installed (having had a mess on my other system with my ATI drivers this way).About overclocking I know very little. Not sure how to achieve it on either my CPU or GPU, but would like to know more. The times I've looked into it, it's so quickly become such a gobbledygook of technical terms that I decided to lay off rather than accidentally screw up my system. Maybe I should look into it again?I'll work up my courage and dive into the old drivers test with 3DMark (and DC Driver Cleaner). Pray for me ;)Thanks for taking the time to share your knowledge with me.- daniel