Great results for slow system

[Guest aca_dia]

As promised by a few others I am getting the same or better FPS in 2004 when compared with 2002. I have 3D clouds off and im running at 1024X768X32 with 30% scenery, 100% aircraft, and most other normal video settings. Getting solid rates in the low to mid 20's.I usually fly with solid overcast 200'agl to 10000'agl and use FS for real world instrument practice. In those conditions and using ATC as well as the new Garmin 500 im sitting in the 30FPS range.So other slow pokes out there FS2004 seems no worse than 2004 if you keep the settings at a reasonable level. (Even with no 3D clouds the WX looks much better than in 2002 and the lighting seems better as well).PIII 800512MBGeForce 4 128mb

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Thanks for your post.... It's nice to hear that from users. I felt I went out on quite a limb sharing my results coming out of the beta, so posts like yours help make me feel the effort was worthwhile...

[Guest wathomas777]

Yes, I have found the same thing. At first I was dissapointed, but now I am pretty happy. However on slow poke machines like mine, there are Definitely some tweaks needed:1. Forget 3d Clouds. I've tried all combos and none of them really make me happy. Turning off 3d clouds gives me so much more overhead to do other things, it is hard to justify their cost in FPS (especially with a 600Mhz Celeron)2. AI Traffic no more than 25 to 30%. In heavy traffic areas, I dial it down even further.3. Everything else, is pretty much the skies the limit. I have found very little difference in settings for Scenery Complexity, and Autogen. The amount of Autogen in the highest mode is almost insane. I was approaching Bremerton with storms in the back ground, Max scenery complexity and Autogen, and flew over an entire "forest" of trees on approach and rarely dipped below 10FPS. (Thats where the sim loses it's smoothness for me)4. Mesh complexity also costs very little.5. T&L must be on. For my MX420 PCI card, turning off T&L gives me a hit.Overall, I can comfortably fly in most scenarios and when I want smoother flight, I do dial down Autogen and Complexity to more sane levels, but The real frame killers in this game seem to be the 3d clouds and AI traffic. When I upgrade the system, I will add those to the mix, but until then, I couldn't be happier.