You Can Have Your Cake and Eat it - Part II

[Guest wathomas777]

Very good post, but I can't help but wonder how much of your success hinges on FSUIPC and applying additional visibility limits due to weather conditions.If FSUIPC can dynamically change visibility to free up some frames for clouds, then it might just be the best 20 bucks a person can spend on this game....And my previous objections to him going payware would vaporize....Just a thought.

[MikeAdamo 51]

Thanks!FSUIPC does have an impact on frames if you set-up customized weather but, from what I've been seeing, as soon as I load in weather from the Internet, it seems to by-pass FSUIPC and over-rides my vis settings. I'm still testing this out but, as of last night, I had my vis set to 10nm in clear, cloud, overcast and raining and the MS downloaded weather overrode or just didn't pick-up on the FSUIPC settings.Next stop is Pete's support forum!Mikehttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/boeingsig.jpg

[Guest CargoMun]

Thats touching a subject I've heard someone mention before. That the FS2004 version of FSUIPC and its weather tweaks doesnt apply to the build in weather from the sim i.e. downloaded or manually created.Apparently it only works on addon weather such as Activesky and such.Surface wind set at 1 in FSUIPC and such wouldnt work either - wich in effect killed off my use of the program in one short stroke lol :D

[Howiefly13 30]

Mike,Thank you very much for all your hard work on this subject. I really appreciate it and will certainly try most of your advice.Howard

[Guest Lobaeux4]

Mike,Used your suggestions, and my sim is flying great. Still get a little low on frames when in a high traffic area, with download wx, and the Grabowski ERJ panel, but it's still flyable and the sim looks fantastic. Very happy, probably the best post about FS2004 yet!!

[Guest]

Thanks you for the great tips and your time, Mike.I tried them.But with my GeForce2 card, I cannot get more than 3 to 5 FPS with broken clouds 5/8, although the system is a P4 3.06Ghz and 1MB Ram.Also tried several drivers, but performance does not improve.Anything else to be done (besides getting a new card), or is there still hope to find some tweak for the graphics card, or in the cfg files, or elsewehere?Any comments?MarceloSantiago, Chile Posted on Friday Aug.08, 3:40pm EDT

[Guest daveg4otu]

Regards startup menu items and turning them(or those you don't need ) off, have a look at this site ---http://www.pacs-portal.co.ukThere you either view or download an alphabetical list of all items that may appear in your startup menu.It include details of many undesirable bits and pieces you may pick up unknowingly on the internet(Spyware etc) as well as details of all the "essential" processes that your PC needs to run properly.One word of warning -the full list is more than 110 A4 pages when printed off(if you want a permanent handbook for this).Each item listed is categorised as "Normally required for Startup","Not required-can be started manually","Users Choice, and"Definateley not required"(this last one includes Viruses,adware etc).The list on the website is regularly updated.Dave

[Vulcan 14]

Hi Marcelo,I have a much less powerful CPU than you but similar RAM and graphics card and my frame rates are not down that low.If you would like to compare notes please send me a private msg.Cheers

[KERNEL32 492]

Youre not alone my friend, unlike FS2002, FS2004 is "seemingly" video card friendly much more so than processor hungry. Sooooooo... I have a GeForce3 and 2.27Ghz P4 and I'm not getting much better than you are... 6-12 fps, but i managed to overclock the ol video card to the max and im getting 8-16 in major populated areas. In the boonies I'm getting a solid 20 locked at 20 though, and waiting for smoke to come bellowing out the side of this wrig lol

[Guest Nathan Palmer]

I went from a gForce3 to a FX5600 golden limited and saw great improvement. What I've come to conclude is visuals weigh heavy on your video card and AI load down your CPU. Turn off all your sliders and run a test of frames while nothing on in scattered skies. Then max out AI and see how hard your CPU works and reduces frames. Turn off AI and max out the eye candy. After that you can get an idea of which is bogging down your frames more. IS your video card weak or do you feel that its your CPU. If its your CPU then keep AI low and find your happy spot with the eye candy and vis-versa. For me I have a P4 2gig and found that I can run the eye candy higher than mid but keep the AI just over mid since my video card has more power than my CPU when it comes to workload. Im sure this has all been flogged to death prior but feel that if one keeps in mind that CPU and video cards do there own thing and help out after that you kind of want to get an idea of which is pulling there weight and helping out where your frames loss is happening by turning down the sliders that is the true cause.NP

[Guest OneTinSoldier]

Hi Mike,I just wanted to say thanks for your tweaking tutorial. I was getting single digit fps when in/near or looking at cities when close enough for the buildings to be drawn. Now I am getting fps in the teens. :) I still get single digits when I the city has bodies of water near/around it. But then, I have left my sliders turned up all the way, except a the cloud ones. Other than cities, my framerate is very good.Thanks again!Jimmy RichardsOne Tin Soldier

[JSACKS 0]

Mike:A great post, done professionally and thoughtfully. Thanks and well done. I printed out your posts and used them tonight. I've not done all you did but you gave me some ideas which I used.I am very much happier with the way FS2004 runs now. I am especially satisfied with no FSAA since this has boosted frames very much for me. I have a res of 1600x1200x32 @85 Hz on a medium high end DELL and dual monitors. And with your advice and my own experimentation, I've had frames with massive cumulus coverage ranging up to 32 - 35 although I capped at 22 and generally get 22 all the time now except for dense clouds where it falls to 16-19 which is still good.My only remaining bug is AI traffic which is at 50% and I wish I could increase it to 100%, but the fps hit is too big to accept. Never mind, FS2004 fairly rocks now.Anyway, thanks again for your dedication and sharing spirit.Cheers!JS

[MikeAdamo 51]

Hi All,THANK YOU!!!!You all made this post very worth while and I'm happy to have helped!!Now, go on and enjoy your flying!! :-)Mikehttp://www.members.shaw.ca/madamo/boeingsig.jpg

[Francois_Dumas 10]

Hi Mike,Chris Willis pointed me to your thread. Excellent work and a very welcome bit of information for all new FS9 users I am sure. Thanks for all the work on this!Francois:-outta Francois :-wave[table border=0 cellpadding=10 cellspacing=0][tr][td valign=bottom" align="center]"At home in the wild"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][link:avsim.com/alaska/alaska_052.htm]Don's Alaskan Bush Charters]"Beavers Lead the Way"[/td][td valign=bottom" align="center][br][tr][td valign=top" align="center]http://www.fssupport.com/images/moose4.gif[/td][td valign="top" align="left" colspan=2][/td][tr][/table

[Guest PaulL01]

>Hi Cargomun,>>>TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4 <-->>I borrowed that from my FS2002.cfg file. I can't find the>printout I made of that tweak from way back when but I seem to>remember that the vaule of 4 gave crisper looking ground>textures. I'll dig up the original post and confirm that. You>can try both values and see which one gives you better>detail.>>Thanks for the kind words!!!>>MikeHi Mike,Excellent work!Levels=1/2/3/4 etc., Level=2 improves things below the Aircratf as seen in outside views a bit with slight performance hit, level=3 still a tad better but even more of a hit, going all the way to 4 is not worth the extra hit as there is nothing much you can see different when running the sim, and since you are talking performance here, I would reccomend no more than levels=2. You also might want to turn on Trilevel filtering as it will help the night lights a great deal visually speaking as well as all other filtering AF etc, therewill be hit so judge for yourself.Nice Work! :)