FS2004 Settings Question - Searched but not found

[MikeAdamo 51]

Hi All,This request goes out to the beta testers among us and those who say that FS2004/FS9/FS COF works flawlessly on their system. Can SOMEONE please post their settings they use to get the constant, steady frame rates I've been reading about here? I tried searching through the forums and came up empty handed with something detailed and to the EXACT position of the sliders. Don't worry about your and my system not being the same, any combination I can try won't hurt!!I purchased the latest edition on Wednesday and have YET to get it to run smoothly. To apease those that may assume I have a low end system, my specs can be found towards the bottom of this post. I was able to run FS2002 with ALL sliders MAXXED out and I was able to get a constant 25fps in areas of little AI. In places like Seattle or LAX the frames would drop to 10-12 but that was primarily on the ground. In the air, ALWAYS in the high 20's even in storm clouds.I do know that the 3D clouds are causing me the most problems and MS' responce to those not being able to run the 3D clouds is to settle for those pan-cake looking 2D clouds. Unless I'm doing something terribly wrong, 2D clouds always look flat and lifless.Many of you know that I've been around for many, many years on these forums and I don't usually gripe for nothing. Please help me!!!!!!!!Thanks and before I forget - here are my system specs:Dell 8250P4 2.8APG in BIOS set at 256MB (tried 128 and 64 - no diff)512MB RamATI 9700TX w/128 RAM - Cat 3.6 drivers and tweaked with Rage3d TweakerSB Audigy2 card - latest driversMS Sidewinder2 yokeWindows Task Manager20 processes running with a commit charge of 138M / 994MCommit Charge (K)Total: 141112Limit: 1017896Peak: 150068MS Config Start-up1 application running which controls my ATI Tweaker. Takes up 2,712Khttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/boeingsig.jpg

[John_Cillis 2,406]

Without seeing your post, I coincidentally posted a thread in the sceenshots forum with my settings.... I hope it serves as a place for you to start Mike...-John

[Geofa 108]

There was a post a few days ago that I participated in that showed some specs-I can't find it either though-but it should be out there.First-from the back of my memory-try the defaults on your video driver. I seem to remember that the sim plans on that.On my setup which is not as anywhere as good as yours-I use no AA(huge hit), have mip mapping about half. Autogen will also take a hit but I run mine full anyway.I'd investigate further but I am on my way to Oshkosh-no time :-)Good luck and hopefully someone else can help.

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, Performance Boost -Enable the T&L will increase your performance near 4 fps-AntialasingThe Antialasing inside fs2004, will reduce alot your performance, uncheck from the fs2004 and only use the Antialasing from external tweaker or from your driver display setting, (you may disbled to have the best frame rate)Better performance in 2d panel mode and others area.By disabled the AGP Texture Acceleration, your performance will increase specialy with 2d panel and others area. (You will not nead to turn of the AGP Texture Acceleration under your DirectX, it's the same function inside fs9.cfg)In your fs9.cfg under:(DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200 with AGP8X.0)Mode=1024x768x32TriLinear=1TextureAGP=0 <------------------------- Add this linePanelAsTexture=0 <--------------------- Add this lineBy adding the PanelAsTexture line, your performance will even increase specialy with 2d panel 3rd party aircraft, it may cause 2-d panels to blank out if you've enabled AA inside FS2004, uncheck AA in fs2004, and enabling AA from your prefered tweaker or your driver display setting. Special thank to JohnCi for the PanelAsTexture=0In my fs2004 all to full except the shadows,(ultra high ms setting clouds), 40 mil clouds, clouds percentage to 100%, mesh 85, I get 20 fps stable some drop on some situation with huges weather, but still smoooth.P4 2.53 ghz at 533 Mhz, Kingston 512 ram 333, P4P800 8x Asus board 533/800fsb, Asus gforce4 128 mb 4200 8xMy dedault AGP Aperture in the BIOS, was set at 64mb, never had any problems at all.You may check your Audigy driver card if this cause lost of fps, by pressing Q and Q again, see your frame rate.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Guest]

>Can SOMEONE please post their settings they use to get>the constant, steady frame rates I've been reading about here?I have a system a bit below yours (a Dell 8200 upgraded to 2.4, and a Radeon 9500 Pro). I am not able to acheve a constant fps in heavy clouds unless I crank the 3d cloud slider down to 20% or so. My solution to this problem is just to avoid heavy clouds for the time being, or to pop into the menu and adjust the 3d slider when there is overcast. I can run clouds if I disable anti-aliasing and filtering, but that is too much of a compromise.Downloaded weather, with multiple cloud layers and such, seems to be much more of a performance drain than the weather themes.So, how are your fps outside of weather. What resolutions have you been running at?I have settled on 1280x960 with 2xAA and 4x Anisotropic filtering as my "sweet spot". 1600x1200 works pretty good, but can be a bit inconsistent.My Settings with Fs2004: SCENERY: Terrain Mesh=70, Texture Size=High, Terrain Detail=Land Only, Water Effects=High, Scenery Compexity=Dense, Autogen Density=Normal. AIRCRAFT: Reflections=Uncheked, Aircraft Cast Shadows=Checked, Landing Lights=Checked. WEATHER: Sight Distance=60mi, Cloud Draw distance=50mi, 3-d cloud percentage=70, Cloud Coverage Density=Maximum. HARDWARE: Target Frame Rate=20, Render to Texture=Checked, Transform and Lighting=Checked, Anti-Aliasing=Unchecked (2x enabled via driver), Mip-mapping quality=4, Hardware-rendered lights=6, Global Texture Size=Massive. Traffic=70%These settings give me a pretty steady fps on approach to complex airports such as KLAX and KSEA. As I said, in heavy clouds, I need to turn down the 3-cloud percentage slider. In light clouds I can crank it up to 100%. I like to keep the coverage at maximum to maintain a proper overcast.Except for the clouds, these settings are pretty consistent with what I used in FS2002. I actually get better performance around complex airports than I did with that version. Go figure.The high autogen settings are much denser this time around ... I think "normal" is about the same as the old "Dense". I have found an FPS penalty with high autogen, which wasn't the case with FS2002.The more AA and AF you use, the bigger the cost with 3d clouds,You mention having your AGP Aperature set to 256MB. I'd really recommend turning it down. It may not improve your FPS, but I think you will end up getting stutters with it that high (I sure did).

[Bearracing 3]

Mike,My system is considerably less powerful than yours, so my settings are vastly reduced from what you probably can run at, but I found that using the default display settings to work best for me. With FS2000/FS2002, Microsoft only gave you the choices of 3 or 4 default display settings (low, medium, high, I think were the choices), but FS2004 gives you several options and I've had the best results using "medium high" on my system. I keep my fps locked at 16 and when I watch the live fps it pretty much stays at 15.9 fps (limited up against my 16 fps lock). With my setting at the default "medium high" FS2004 stays very smooth and fluid, but if I attempt anything higher, I start to notice things, so for flying its "medium high" for screenshots its "ultra high"!You might try experimenting with the default display settings until you get the maximum detail without sacrificing smoothness.My system:custom built unit:AMD 1.2Ghz processor512MB SDRAM128MB ATI 9700 Pro video card133 motherboardBear!

[Guest]

Chris.........couple of questions. First of all, having a great time getting to know FS9 but as with everything else, if I can make it better, I'll try anything.A little confused on a couple issues you bring up here. First of all, what is "T&L"? Have been looking for something remotely similar to this and no luck.Secondly, when I checked my DirectX set up, I am advised that the AGP Texture Acceleration is not available. Why is this? I have a Geoforce 4 Ti4200 card which is brand new, so I'm not sure if AGP Acceleration is available with this card. I have noticed the frame hit with 2d panels, especially the default B-737 panel which I don't remember experiencing with FS2002. Will that edit to the FS9 config file remedy this issue? If so, at what expense to effects/graphics?Thanks for any assistance.Mark

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi Mark, "I am advised that the AGP Texture Acceleration is not available. Why is this? I have a Geoforce 4 Ti4200 card which is brand new, so I'm not sure if AGP Acceleration is available with this card. ``ALL latest card on the market SHOULD have the AGP Acceleration availablility in directX, and this have nothing to do with fs2004.resintall directX and Reinstall the latest Nvidia official driver 44.03 (I have the same card Gforce4 Ti4200 128 meg)"I have noticed the frame hit with 2d panels, "See my post above with these to improvr frame rate in 2d panelTextureAGP=0 <------------------------- Add this linePanelAsTexture=0 <--------------------- Add this lineT&l is in fs2004 display settingTransform and linghting, enable them.ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[MikeAdamo 51]

Hi All,Thanks to all who came to my aid!!! I tried some of the suggestions and for the most part, the fastest performance gain came from using "Simple clouds". No matter what I did, so long as those 3D clouds were enabled, my system crawled along at a meager 5 - 12 FPS. The second I enabled the "simple clouds" I was able to MAX out every single slider and lock my frame rate at 25 and there it would stay. I'm dissapointed that I won't be able to take in the fantastic volumetric clouds and because of that, I'm suffering from buyers regret. Oh well - onward and upward as they say.PS - Here's a little screeny of FS9 in action near Banff, Albertahttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/27476.jpghttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/boeingsig.jpg

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi Mike, "Simple clouds". No matter what I did, so long as those 3D clouds `Because you are using Antialasing which degrade ALOT of frame rate on 3d clouds. You can easly use 3d clouds with your system. I do not have this problems with the full 3d clouds and get lower frame rate like you have. ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[MikeAdamo 51]

Hi Chris,I have AA disabled in FS2004 and I only use 2xAA in my control panel. I have tried ANSIO set at default, 2:1 Forced, 4:1 Forced , 8:1 Forced and 16:1 Forced with the same results. I set my Radeon card to the factory defaults and still have poor performance with 3D clouds enabled.At least I now know what is the main problem (for lack of a better term) is with Flight Sim. I'm confidant that with time and some luck, I'll find the sweet spot and will have 3D clouds enabled. The ONE thing I WILL not do is re-install WindowsXP and Flightsim. That is simpy not an option right now.Thanks for the tips Chris!!! I may be calling on you again for more help :-)Mikehttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/boeingsig.jpg