Now I know I can legitimately ask questions...I just have two of them if I may please.1. Can you confirm that selecting the "simple" clouds option tells the sim to display "2D" clouds, as in FS2002? This would seem to be a very attractive option for people such as me who were content with the FS2002 clouds on account of their negligible performance impact (even if they didn't look nearly as nice).2. The new GPS is supposedly a real performance hit. No suprise there. If such features as the moving colour map on the new GPS are disabled, does this lessen the performance hit?Thanks.

I don't know if I can answer fully your questions but I'll give it a try.There are lots of sliders-you will have to find the the ones that makes the best performance/visuals. On my machine the default clouds look great so I leave them alone. Also on my machine (athlon 2100+, geforce 4200ti, 512 megs ram) there seems to be little difference between putting the sliders all the way right and not-therefore I leave them mostly maxed-except clouds which I leave with the default.The gps might take a couple frame rate hit-not a big deal.....http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

Thanks Geof. Actually I notice our machines are virtually identical, so I think my last small hesitations in upgrading from FS2002 have now dissipated. I think the new sim will benefit a lot more this time around from a gee-whiz graphics card, but nothing much particularly takes my fancy right at present. I might wait till the next-next generation stuff comes out late this year or early next year.

I'll be quite content with my Athlon 1900XP/Geforce3Ti500. Don't see a real good reason to upgrade either. Performance (FS2004/FS2002) is much the same for mountain mesh sceneries that I prefer. But the terrain in FS9 is much improved.L.Adamson

Thanks Larry. I didn't realise you were another fine quality tester as well :) In what ways do you feel the terrain itself has improved (excepting any improvements in terrain mesh resolution - which I believe has improved in some places)? And what does that "terrain detail" slider actually do? It seems to be new - being independant to the adjustments available in FS2000 / FS2002. Thanks.

I use the GPS quite a bit and it does not take anything away from the simulator like the old model did (in FS2002, 2000). It is very comprehensive and works well from within any view with little or no FPS hit.

Thanks Kyle. Your observations just go to show that - once again - everyone is going to have to judge for themselves how well the sim will perform for them and what adjustments will be neccessary.

Jon...I found that the simple clouds didn't look like those in FS2002--they are very simple. I tried them, but found the performance gain was so small vs. careful application of 3-d clouds, that I stuck with the 3-d clouds. I did see a performance hit with the GPS. This can be reduced almost completely by leaving the GPS "hidden" when not using it. I say "almost completely", as I found when following a flight path with the GPS, there was a slight stutter every 10-15 seconds.I actually prefer the GPS offered by Flight 1, which came with their 421C. I've been unable to get it to work to this point, but I'm sure Flight 1 is working on the issue. I think the problems were created as Microsoft has added new functionality in the AFD data to support AI. Also, I saw a performance penalty even with the GPS under FS2002 at broader zoom ranges. Perhaps having a slow system made me more sensitive to that issue.-John

Thanks John. Maybe MS should have changed the cloud radio button descriptions to "extremely simple" and "normal" :-lol Oh well, it took quite a lot of time and effort to tweak FS2002 before I was happy with it, so I can't really expect FS2004 to work perfectly without the same sort of dedication (or even more).

i took a slightly large hit with the gps on, enough for me to notice the framerate difference1.33 ghz t-birdgeforce 3

If worst came to worst, people with very slow machines could try patching in the old GPS from FS2002. Sounds though like 1 ghz upwards machines should be reasonably OK with it in most cases.

JonI'm afraid the old GPS can't be patched in, due to the changes in AFD data I mentioned in my other reply. Unless a GPS functions off of an independent database, I believe only a GPS designed for FS2004 will work in FS2004. -John

OK. I wasn't thinking clearly. I originally thought that a stock FS2000/FS2002 aircraft with standard GPS would work in FS2004 if the aircraft folllowed the SDK. I guess the new gps gauge is an exact substitute for the old one in terms of filename, so any FS2000 / FS2002 will show up with the new gauge.

Regarding the GPS, the frame rate hit on my machine ain't too big, that's ok here.I damn love it's great functionality... Huh. :-hahRegards,http://www.flightfactory-simulations.com/i...enne_Banner.jpg

JohnCi said... "I found that the simple clouds didn't look like those in FS2002--they are very simple. I tried them, but found the performance gain was so small vs. careful application of 3-d clouds, that I stuck with the 3-d clouds."------------I agree with John, the simple clouds are not FS2002 clouds. I also did not find a real performance gain when using them so I stick with the full 3D clouds.I will state that, in my personal opinion, depending on your system set-up, some higher settings seem to give better FPS. I believe this is because some lower settings use the CPU directly where as something like the 3D drawing of clouds would use your graphics card mainly. This has been seen through some settings that I have made changes to. It is a bit of a balancing act. I am sure more will be written on this from the hardware pro's down the line.