between FPS and real time.Case in point:Last night I was experimenting with FS9 on my lowly 1.4 Athlon, 512MB, trying to alleviate some of the scenery "jitters" looking down from 3000'in the Baron. I describe "jitters" as a very fast slide show. I had my FPS locked at 15, which is the same as I had in FS2K2. FS2K2 was smoother. I moved the slider to unlimited and WOW, FS9 was the most fluid I have ever seen. I kept it at unlimited and proceeded to load a new flight from KAVP to KORH. When I applied full throttle for takeoff roll, the DC-9 I had selected crept down the runway, or at least it seemed to, taking forever longer to reach rotational speed than in FS2K2. I couldn't adjust the payload on this 3rd party AC with the sim dropping me back to the desktop, so I reduced my fuel load to have just enough fuel to make it to KORH. I was still overweight according to FS9. I then switched AC to the default 737 and rollout was a tad better, but still seemed slow. No overweight problem with the default AC. My question is this. Do increased FPS have any bearing on what seems like a slow road to China! Very smooth, but execution takes a long time. I did get off the ground with both AC, but could have read a book waiting for V1 to arrive.CheersChris

Hi Chris,I'm no expert on this but:If you move your fps to unlimited, then you are essentially asking the application to remove some of the scenery detail (LOD) and/or AI traffic to achieve that required framerate. This is why we set our fps to a low value, so as not to have the app limit the simulation. I'm wondering if that is what was occurring when you moved your fps to unlimited?Once again, no expert, but interested in better frame-rates.Bruce.

Actually, setting the slider to unlimited won't remove a thing from the scenery detail... I wish the sim were that smart, and juggled detail according to our wishes--CFS 2 did, and there's even an AutoLOD flag in FS2002.cfg and FS9.cfg. I've never seen it do anything....What locking is supposed to do is to yield more cpu time for other tasks, and it also minimize the effect that wide swings in fps can have on the eye. A good example of this is ORD--looking to the west away from the terminals and turning back with the airport and skyline in view, your fps can fall by more than half. This could be perceived as a "stutter" by some. By locking the fps, the wide variation is seen less, and the eye is almost "fooled" into thinking flight is fluid. Often, I see the lock set too low, even though a system can tolerate more. I find 25fps the best compromise--it works well, although I've watered down some FS2004 settings to average that.As to the slow takeoff roll, I haven't noticed any link between the takeoff roll and fps. I've had my fps as high as 30 at some smaller airports, and as low as 12 at DFW--arguably the most challenging airport in FS2004, fps wise. But since 12fps is choppier, it seems like I'm accelerating faster, as the difference in speed between frames is greater.

Thanks John, for clearing that up for me :)Bruce.