What To Upgrade For Fs2004?

[fwerff 70]

Ok, In another topic I requested advise on how to setup the HD partitions in the best way possible.The response I got were a bit dissapointing in the way that the general expectation is that it will not give me the performance improvement I hoped for.I know I may be asking to much, but in FS2004, I have all settings maxed, 100% AI with various traffic addons, lots of addon scenery's and aircraft.Now when I'm for instance approaching Aerosoft's EDDF2008 with the LDS767 or PMDG 744, framerate drops to at or below (!) 10fps.Eventhough FS still remains some sort of smooth, I would feel more comfortable if I would see it higher; preferably 15+ fps.Also, the combination of UT and FSGlobal still causes numerous blurries.I have spend much time in searching forums for tweaks and I have incorporated the majority of them.My rig maybe not high-end anymore, for FS9 I still feel it should be more than sufficient.A tweak I'm currently considering is creating a dual-boot system with one XP installation dedicated for FS9. This XP installation will be stripped down to the minimum required using XPLite.As I currently don't have much of a budget (150EUR max) to invest in significant upgrades, I would like to get some advise in a) what to upgrade, :( how people feel my fps is compared to my system and c) how people feel about the dual-boot tweak.My system specs:WinXP Pro SP3AMD Athlon64 FX60 oc-ed to 2.8GHz2Gb CORSAIR PC3200 TWINX DDR RAMASUS A8N SLi Premium MOBO2x160GB + 2x320GBASUS 8600GT 512MB Silent Graphics Card (running a 1680x1050 22" Samsung 226CW)Sorry to get you all busy with my posts, but considering the era FS9 was developed vs my system, I feel somewhat frustrated when I do not get at least dubble-digit framerates at all times.... (I'm not chasing the FPS genie, but feel the critical lower limit for a smooth simulation is at around 15 fps...)Regards,Frank

[Guest D17S]

You might compare your AMD dual at 2.8 to a Core2 at ~ 2.4Ghz. That's not a bad system, even by today's standards. For FS9, that's in the performance range of a Q6600 at stock speeds (FS9 will only use 1 core of Any CPU). Your current hardware bottleneck is the Vcard. There's a BiG difference between an 8600 and an 8800GT. That's your only hardware upgrade option. The HD route won't help. The 9800GTs are just re-labeled 8800Gts, so find a the cheapest 8800GT you can. That's your best hardware best-bet.

[fwerff 70]

There's a BiG difference between an 8600 and an 8800GT.

Does that also go for FS9? I mean; I always thought that with FS9 the videocard is only responsible for 5% or so of the total performance.... Any suggestion on choice between 256MB and 512MB?Thanks for your help!Regards,Frank

[january 19]

-------I know I may be asking to much, but in FS2004, I have all settings maxed, 100% AI with various traffic addons, lots of addon scenery's and aircraft.Now when I'm for instance approaching Aerosoft's EDDF2008 with the LDS767 or PMDG 744, framerate drops to at or below (!) 10fps.Frank

---------------Frank- Try retarding a few FS9 settings. AutoGen for example is a FPS killer yet does nothing but place trees and two storey stone houses alongside runways! Good riddance! Set Scenery Complexity to normal and Clouds=Simple. Then you might also reduce the AI setting a bit and set FPS=Unlimited.With these adjustments I get 16-24 FPS rock steady, on a much older system than yours (AMD 1.8Ghz) PLUS I'm running TRIPLE views/monitors on GeForce FX5200 GPUs. Deleting the secondary monitors so I'm back to "single monitor tunnel vision", will jump FPS to the 30-50 range. And with Ultimate Terrain and Ground Environment add ons running full blast, they compensate nicely for the reduced FS settings! Alex Reid

[Guest D17S]

The 8800GT is your only hardware upgrade available. The 8800GT with 512MB is the one to get. For FS9 (and X) you must have at least the 8800GT, but any card higher than the 8800GT will not help any further. So, get the 8800GT, update the driver, then delete the FS9.cfg file. It will rebuild on the 1st program start. For instance, my Core2 at 3.6/9800GT(X+) runs FS9 with the PMDG 744 and their new MD11 (beta) flat out. That'd be the same as an AMD athlon at ~ 4.20. I really don't know if that AMD will run fs9 like that at 2.8Ghz. You may just be up against your hardware limits , even in FS9. Turning down sliders and/or getting that 8800GT are about your only options.

[fwerff 70]

Thanks for all your input!Just ordered myself a ASUS EN8800GT 512MB, so lets see where it takes me...Hope I get it before Christmas, but the way the Dutch Post works these days will probably result in a post-Christmas arrival.After reading also all the great comments on my other posts about RAID 0 arrays, I have decided to drop the RAID and built a dual boot system with a stripped XP + FS9 + all addons on a dedicated 320Gb HD unit.On the other HD's I'll build a "normal" system for home and office use.Thanks again for all your help.Will come back to this post to inform you about the results (might take a few weeks before everything has been setup again).Regards,Frank

[Guest JAS39]

don't get the 256mb version...........get atleast the 512mb version..........