A whole new world has been opened up

[Guest]

Sometime little things in life can bring a lot of joy and I am now seeing this for the first time with FS2002 and soon to be FSCOF.I just purchased a new PCIntel P4 @ 2.8 Ghz.512 MB Ram80 GB 7200 RPM ATA DRIVE128 MB Radeon ATI 9800Wow, what a difference. I can now load or run any scenery or plane I want and not have to worry about lousy frame rates that I saw on my slow, but dependable, PIII 450. I have all the sliders maxed, running very dense scenery addons and a fine Meljet 747 and I still see 30 + FPS. In the air, when I view the plane from underneath, the FPS shoot up well over 100. In some cases, I think I need to limit the framerates as the controls have now become over responsive.It really is a whole new and much better experience and provides much more enjoyment and satisfaction to the whole flight sim experience. Just my observations. I am sure others have experienced this same joy after an upgrade, although I do see stories of people who have had problems so I consider myself lucky.Hapy Flying,Mark

[Guest RSmith]

Congrats Mark. Went through the same feelings about 4 mths, ago. It "does" make a big difference in the enjoyment factor. I can't remember spending so little time on system tweaks, and getting back to flying - anywhere, anytime, any weather. Best simming yet !Enjoy your system, looks great !Ron

[Guest product]

Mark, Are you seeing 30+ FPS on the ground at dense airports, with AI and such maxed out? Or is that once you're at altitude? What sort of FPS do you see on landing approach?Best,Joel

[Guest]

Joel, Typically, at the default FS2002 airports like Heathrow, which is pretty desnse, with all sliders maxed and using the Meljet 747, I am seeing 26 - 30 FPS. I also had downloaded a scenery of Kansai international which when run on my old PIII 450 at normal density, gave me 5 FPS, with all sliders maxed, even aircraft shadows turned on (scenery shadows and relections are turned off) I am seeing 27+ FPS. This while using a pretty beefy plane in the Meljet model. I even have ATC set to 100 percent and Sound quality on high.On approach out a bit from the Airports I am seeing 40 - 50 FPS easily. Actually, I am quite surprised that I am getting performance this good. In addition, I have turned on AA and I have Anistrophic filtering set to 16X. The only negative I see is for some reason, when I preview the default MS planes in Choose a Flight, some of the graphics seem patchy however, when I actually get into the sim, the bitmaps are fine and I see no blurrys but the red text that comes up for FPS is a bit blurry as well as the text in the ATC window but it is readable. I think I can live with that, given the performance I am seeing. Happy Flying, Mark

[Guest Tumbleweed]

It's a great feeling isn't it?? Enjoy your new machine. :-)Erich

[Guest Bigshot]

Nice rig; if you got a DVD player with it, drop in your favorite movie. You'll be very impressed!

[Guest]

hi,just wonderin, & if u don't mind, how much did u get ur rig for? and from where?thanks,Al

[Guest product]

Mark, those are indeed extraordinary FPS figures, are you speaking of steady frames at those rates? I've got a P4 3.06 with 1mb of RDRAM, though with the ATI9700. Running at 1280x960x32 resolution, and never get anything approaching those numbers. From speaking with many others with systems similar/identical to mine, 20-30FPS on the ground with everything maxed at a big airport is considered super high, and I know of a guy with my system and the 9800 who only sees 15fps on the ground at O'hare. If I don't lock my FPS slider at 35 it will of course go way higher on occasion, but I prefer a steadier rate. So I'm trying to figure out what kind of magic you seem to have got in your system, anything different about your setup that I could try because I'm frankly a bit disappointed with mine.Best,Joel

[Guest]

The rig is a Dell Dimension 4600. Check out the Dell Web Site (www.dell.com), they have many different configurations but I think the base 4600 system, P4 @ 2.8 Ghz starts about $1100. That comes with a 64MB GeForce Card but so far, I highly recommend upgrading to the the ATI 9800 and getting at least 512 MB of RAM.As far as the frame rates go, It jumps between 26 - 30 at dense airports (Heathrow). For example, I have most sliders maxed, Autogen is 1 click below maxed. Even the freeware Kansai scenery which killed my PIII 450 is flying here!What is not onNo Scenery ShadowsVisibility is 60 miles although I limited that with FSUIPCI use Bi Linear FilteringWater Detail is minimalThat is it. I checked the system and it is running Direct X 9.0I have other applications running in the background as well. NAV is loaded but disabled. I have AA turned on from the Video Menu and Anistrophic Filtering.I dunno, I cannot explain it. I never expected such high frame rates with everything set the way it is. I even have ATC to 100 percent but I have not added in a lot of planes like I want to so the FPS will come down with thatThe ATI Driver is version 6.14.1 dated 2/20/03 so it is olderOther then that, I am still trying to figure out all the settings so as uncover more, I will let you know. Wondering if the Hyper Threading on the processor is bumping it up here???Anyway, the flight sim is finally a real joy now. Waiting for FSCOF!Mark

[Guest]

i cant wait to upgrage my rig.I get crappy 5-10 FPS if the scenery gets dense like at LA

[Guest Twister]

Go figure...After I defragmented my HD, partitioned it and performed a fresh install, I got a much better performance.I'm talking about an antiquated rig (PIII 450) - I wonder what this procedure would do to high-end systems.The trick here is NOT to install anything on the same partition EXCEPT FS2002.