FS 2004- for simmers with modest systems

[Guest]

Hi guys,Last night I installed FS 2004 on my "ancient" system:HP Pavilion PIII 733384 MB SDRAM16MB Riva TNT206.11 driversAt Seattle with sliders at default setting in the Cessna 172 I got 9 FPS on the ground during takeoff and 12 FPS in the air. Ground texturing was sparse as were autogen and scenery objects. I decided to throw all sliders to the right and the result was a predictable 5 FPS, not bad considering, but not acceptable for regular flying.After that quick fight I moved to the beautifully rendered Princess Juliana, and to my surprise performance jumped to about 13 FPS. In the Cessna it was very flyable. And remember this is with sliders maxed out.I then tried Dulles with "building storms" checked in the weather themes. Though performance took the hit I expected, it was still fairly smooth 4-5 FPS and quite manageable. Incidentally, the clouds are vastly better, the skies are gorgeous, and the turbulence is just right.So, if I can tweak the settings to improve performance without losing too much detail I'll be a very happy simmer.I realize the inadequacy of my video card, but upgrading has proved difficult. I would need to upgrade my power supply first, but HP uses proprietary supplies which cost 2-3 times generic brands.I welcome any other suggestions to improve performance.Joe

[peppy197 165]

There are cheap generic NVidia FX 5200 128DDR cards out there that will double your machine performance

[Gridley 257]

This is an overstatement, but somewhat correct: that 16mb card is a real bottle neck if you're maxing sliders - you simply don't have the video memory to handle that many high res textures. Turn down the max texture size sliders and see what happens. Then, buy a 64mb radeon 9500 or something cheap. A new case/power/motherboard/p4/512MB ram should only set you back about $500...

[Guest]

Thanks guys.I definately need a new video card, but almost all new cards require a 250W or better power supply. My power supply is rated at 185W and upgrading that has proved difficult.A new system is the only real answer. A new video card would help, but it can't overcome a slow processor.