FPS - the generally accepted convention loses me!

[barryward12345 0]

I have been flying FS2002 with a P3/1000, Geforce 2 MX machine - My FPS were never really that great anyway - so I set the slider to 20 and I have enjoyed FS2002 with this machine , even though there has been a bit of "stuttering" etc , at various airports around the world.Now I have built an AMD XP2400, Geforce 4 TI4200 based machine and am getting much higher FPS .Now I know that it is generally accepted convention in these forums that the FPS should be limited to some number --- BUT I am finding with this new machine , that if I leave the FPS set to unlimited , I am getting a much smoother and fluid ride. I have read this before and am now starting to agree with it.It is "said" that by limiting the FPS to some number, then the system can use resources to do other things - but I am afraid that so far I can see no difference in on screen appearance at all when I limit FPS . Rather, it seems that a limited FPS is in fact interfering with my experience with the Sim.So - is this accepted convention a "furphy"? ( my British and Australian colleagues will probably know what that means -- the Aussies certainly should unless they are younger than 15!! :)What say you? -- and I would really like to hear about actual experiences in this matter rather than "theory" .Barry

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

Are you fair dinkum? Actually, I have found very little difference between fixed or unlimited FPS on most systems I have seen FS2K2 on, hence supporting your theory that FPS fixing is a load of cods-wallop. :-hah

[vector 7]

BarryWell, you tempted me into having a go at setting my target to unlimited instead of 25 as it was previously and I have to say that I've noted quite a bit of improvement in the area of smoothness and fluidity. I tested it at an addon GA airfield with quite a bit of scenery as well as *up there* amongst 7/8 cumulus. Visibility was set to 5 miles and no autogen or AI aircraft.Previously, I was sceptical about some of the fps people were reporting in this forum but have to say that I think their claims are quite feasible. At my GA airport the fps never went below 55 and once airborned I was hitting anything between 125 and 140.For anyone interested my system is a 2.6 Ghz Toshiba Satellite laptop, 512 meg of RAM and GeForce 4 card with 64 meg onboard. Goodness knows what the system board is :-)David

[Gridley 257]

I really feel like english is my second language sometimes...

[Dark Moment 0]

May be all English, I fear (as were a number of Barry's ancestors, of course) ...."FAIR DINKUMFrom Stephen Wan, Australia:

[barryward12345 0]

>Barry>>Well, you tempted me into having a go at setting my target to>unlimited instead of 25 as it was previously and I have to say>that I've noted quite a bit of improvement in the area of>smoothness and fluidity. G'day David So it seems that you also have experienced a "better" fluidity in flight -- can you say that your flight experiece has been degraded in any way at all by using the slider set at unlimited? -- how is the eye candy? As I said in my previous post, I can see no difference at all -- except that it seems that I get a smoother flight when FPS are set to unlimited.Barry

[gosta 0]

Hi Barry,this appears to be one of those unsolved mysteries :). Until a couple of months ago I would have agreed with you that leaving the slider at unlimited would give the most fluid performance. This was certainly the case on my old 1GHz system. Limiting the frame rates even as low as 10 or 12 would introduce stutters. But then I upgraded to an Athlon XP3000+, and now the exact opposite is true, leaving the slider at unlimited will give me regular stutters, while locking it at 27 makes everything as smooth as silk.That's what happened on my systems, but I have no posibble explanation for this phenomenon...Cheers,Gosta.http://hifi.avsim.net/activesky/images/wxrebeta.jpg

[W2DR 1,860]

I agree Barry. I've never locked the FPS until recently. I ran with it unlimited for well over a year as that gave me, by far, the best performance. But a couple of months ago I found that setting it to 100 gave even better results that unlimited. I have no idea why. Maybe it's a system-specific thing. But I do know that both the unlimited and 100FPS settings are far better than any other setting(s) I've tried. Funny things these computers.....(P4 at 2.72Ghz, 512MB PC800, and Ti4200).Doug

[vector 7]

Hi BarryNo, my flight experience has not been degraded in any way by setting the target frame rate to unlimited. As for eye candy I haven't lost anything or gained anything either.I'm one of those people who flies mainly from a fixed base as most real small time GA pilots would do. With the fps set at 25 there were parts of my airfield where I would get very noticeable stutters because of the detailed scenery. Set at unlimited most of those stutters are gone and anything left is very minor. On average most of my sliders are set at 75 percent.David

[Guest]

You will NOT gain or loose anything visual by making an FPS limit.And it enhances my flight, because I can't fly a plane at 10 fps.I see a huge difference between 10 fps and 60 fps, 60 is MUCH better.

[Guest cwright]

Barry, from my experience the frame rate lock is extremely important if you suffer from dynamic blurred textures. This problem occurs when FS fails to update the scenery texture resolutions fast enough, so that you find yourself surrounded by ugly blurred textures. I use a frame rate lock of 16 FPS. This greatly improves the problem, but certainly doesn't eliminate it. Mine's a slow 800 Mhz. It may be that on significantly faster machines the frame rate lock is far less significant. And, as always, it will greatly depend on the individual system. Best regards, Chris

[Guest R5D4]

Here is a good article that explains fps lockhttp://www.lagoonline.com/ENG/articoli/art_1.asp?art=4(plus an advert for fsassist)

[Gridley 257]

Beautifully done! Thx.sg

[barryward12345 0]

>Here is a good article that explains fps lock>http://www.lagoonline.com/ENG/articoli/art_1.asp?art=4>(plus an advert for fsassist)Yes - a good explanation - although it still doesn't explain to me why I "feel" that I am not gaining anything by limiting the FPS. Maybe it is because I am not flying in areas where my unlimited setting is affecting the Sim.It DOES however give a very good explanation as to why we should vary our FPS and other settings for every flight we do - depending on the nauture of that flight. I know that I fon't -- and I wonder how many others actually do that.I intend to do some flights with different characters and will vary the settings according to the flight and see how it all looks.Barry

[Guest sb55mv]

Guy's.I think the general rule here is ''Suck It And See''whichever runs better on you're own sim,then keep it set at that,Steve,