Two Questions about FS2004

[Guest Scoobe]

I have two questions to ask for anyone who knows.1. How accurate is the frame rate counter. I wish they never included it, because it bursts my bubble. I thought I was getting consistantly fast frame rates until I turned it on for an entire flight. I found the frame rates on my P4 3.2, Geforce FX 5800, getting 13-15 at large airports (lots of Ai, building storms weather theme, all sliders max, no AA, 1280*1024). Yet the frame rate seems very smooth! In some cases, the FPS droped to 8 or 9 and still it looked smooth. I remember with FS2002, if it went below 13, it looked real choppy but this looks consistantly good, which makes me wonder if I should even bother turning the frame rate counter on at all.2.How much do the AI enhancement programs, ie My traffic, Ultimate Traffic, etc.. slow down the system. Im currently running My Traffic. It seems FS2004 runs much slower even if I turn down the amount of traffic to the same amount as what the default Ai would show. Is it because there are still many flights in the air all around the country that the program has to keep track of? or does the program only concern itself with Ai in the immediate area? Or is it a problem with Mytraffic?Thanks for any help.Rob

[W2DR 1,860]

Rob - Framerate counter accuracy is fine. But, like you, I wish they had never included it. And I, too, think the sim is smoother at lower framerates - or maybe I'm just getting older :-) . I've tried My Traffic and found it to be a framerate killer. Really lousy framerates most everywhere. about half the framerate of Ultimate Traffic with equal traffic densities. I don't know what the problem is but I've scrapped My Traffic for good.DougNorthwood 2.2a at 2.72Ghz (Intel HSF)Abit TH7II-R512MB Samsung 40ns PC800ATI 9800 128MB ProCat. 3,6's DX9a WinXP ProWD's 20GB, 20GB, 60GB, 120GB, 120GBInwin case / Enermax 431W PSU

[Guest Scoobe]

Thanks for the response.Im glad im not the only one who had a problem with MY Traffic. I just uninstalled My traffic and FS2004 and re-installed 2004 and now things are back to 25+fps. Ill wait and see what ultimate traffic comes up with. If not, The default Ai with repaints of real airlines will do just fine.Rob

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hello Doug,I would like to say a couple things. I agree that the framerate seems smoother at lower indicated framerates compared to FS2002. As to MyTraffic, I have to disagree, at least on my system. I get bad framerates when I am near, in, or look at cities. That is the only time I get a dramatic fps loss. I have seen a number of people with this complaint about MyTraffic. I since installing MyTraffic2004 I had turned it on at 85% and had yet to turn it off. After reading this post I decided now would be the time to turn it off and see what happened. No difference. My framerate stays at the fps I have it locked at, 25, unless I am in, around, or looking at a city. Turning off MyTraffic made no difference, even when approching an Airport with lots of traffic. I enjoy MyTraffic very much and will be keeping it, and keeping it turned on. The only thing I didn't enjoy was the process of upgrading it from v1.3 to 2004. The upgrade process is being looked into and is not an issue for new purchasers that get the full version. But the upgrade process had me doing what I would describe as, jumping through a few hoops. Many were having problems upgrading and not getting the BigTwins that were claimed would be included for free. Even though I got MyTraffic to install flawlessly(since I was a previous owner of BigTwins), I made some interesting comments about this issue on their support forum and claimed I would vote with my dollars elsewhere in the future if they did not make things right for the users having installation problems and did not get them the BigTwins that were said to be included with the upgrade. It was my opinion they were giving the cold shoulder to and about to stiff their loyal customers. I think they are about to give previous owners access to the full installation file for MyTraffic2004 which would certainly be the right thing to do. As for the framerate issue, I don't know what the problem could be, but I don't have it, as I have discovered, just after reading this post and checking it out.Sincerely,Jimmy RichardsOne Tin Soldier

[Guest Scoobe]

I wonder if the problem stems from not having the Big Twins upgrade. It seems most of the people having frame rate problems with My Traffic do not have the big twins upgrade and had to delete the blank aircraft. Maybe this would explain why some, like yourself, are getting good performance from it. I will wait and see what they decied to do as to include big twins as promised or not. If they do include it, I will try it again and see what it does. I noticed a funny thing with mytraffic. When I turned the traffic down to 10%, I still got 13-15 fps. I turned it up all the way, I still get 13-15 Fps. Uninstall it, and I get 25-30fps in the same airport. I really think its a bug with not having the Big Twins upgrade.Rob

[Guest Philip Olson]

I do not have My Traffic but I have taken all of my Project AI traffic and put it in FS9 and I can see no real degredation of the frame rates at all. In fact I am currently running both the stock AI and Project AI's stuff, needless to say I am shocked that the sim handles all of that traffic so well. Yes, I did lose a couple of FPS but nothing like in FS2002. The system that I am currently running FS9 on is a AMD XP2100 overclocked to 1.83 GHZ, 512 MB PC2700, Geforce TI 4600 so mine is not the speediest of the lot but handles the traffic very well, I also have all sliders pegged to the right and I maintain my locked FPS of 20 everywhere except dense cities and airports where I had a loss of FPS before I messed with the traffic.Philip Olson