I just plunked down my $5.00 to reserve my copy at the local store and am as giddy as a schoolboy waiting for it to arrive. I just have to have that tin....But anyway, besides the really cool planes that are included. I want to ask the beta testers, which features cause the biggest frame rate loss.I am running a Celeron 600 with a 64MB Nvidea Geforce 4 video card and 320 Megs of Ram.I am running FS2002 pretty satisfactorily with the Frame Rate counter locked on 15,The biggest hits I have are Reflections and T and L.AI TrafficAutogen Scenery.Cloud density.What I would like to know is this. I am running a very modest system. Have any of the beta testers tested on a modest system, and what "issues" would cause the biggest Frame Rate Hit? Also, can I expect similar performance as FS2002? Thanks in advance.Will Thomas

Wow....Three threads today, asking exactly the same question. The short answer is the "hits" in FS2004 are much the same as FS2002. You can enjoy the weather and enjoy the visual richness of it with little performance hit--as long as you steer away from real weather or dynamic weather, and control the thickness of the cloud layers yourself. Do a search in the screenshots forum under my Avsim ID (JohnCI). You'll find at least a few shots with nice detail, and the "Bean" counter running. From the specs that follow, you'll see my system is less worthy than yours--I only have a GeF/2. But my faster cpu likely compensates for it a bit....Regards,

You'd see a MASSIVE difference if you ditched that Celeron and got a mid range P4 or Athlon and motherboard...Ryan

Well... That's mostly the same. Whereas 3d clouds will maybe suck your frames. O' course also AutoGen as well as AI, like always... What should be different?

A fairly inexpensive AMD Duron 1.2 Ghz is in the works, but I have to con the ole lady out of the cash.My current system has a very propriatary case, and motherboard. (It's actually a rack mount server) so upgrading it is really not an issue. Thanks for the vine.Will.

For me I never use AI, for one their stupid and fly into you on approach, second they eat up lots of frames. If I want traffic I go on Squawkbox.

>You can enjoy the weather and enjoy the visual>richness of it with little performance hit--as long as you>steer away from real weather or dynamic weatherHi John,What do you mean by this? Do you mean, for example, selecting one of the weather themes but then moving that weather rate of change slider all the way to the left?

Three Things partner!!!!!Rain, Snow, and heavy AI traffic!Sincerely,Dennis D. Mullert

"Do you mean, for example, selecting one of the weather themes but then moving that weather rate of change slider all the way to the left?"On slower systems, I even suggest staying away from the themes. Set weather manually, so you can control the cloud layers and coverage. I found the themes eat performance on slower systems, mostly because they can "go to town" with the cloud coverage. Dynamic weather just adds to the problem.You can scale cloud detail settings, but once you start getting into T-storms going to FL350, and anything beyond 3/8ths coverage, performance can go down the drain. The cloud types that give the biggest hit are T-Storms and cumulus. But I can still get 20-25 fps with 2/8ths t-storm coverage. 2/8ths populates the sky with a fair amount of weather when you're dealing with t-storms.

Hi, Do not expect miracle without having a basic 1.2ghz, 512 ram gforce4 128 meg.You will have to reduce many slider to half or to full left to get 20 fps stable lower than 1.2 ghz-Autogen and weather affect more fps with full slider to right than fs2002 because they have been redone and they are more realistic, you cannot have better frame rate with those implementation no matter who is the programmer works on these on the earth, you have to leave with it, or you can use 2d clouds.-Reflection affect also but not by much.Recommended system:lowP4 1.2 ghz, 512 ram, gforce4 TI 4200 128 meg or Ati line.MidP4 2.4ghz, 512/1024 ram, 128 gforce 4 or Ati mid line.HighP4 3.2ghz, 512/1024 ram, 256 gforce 4 or Ati tops line.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs