You can have my copy of FS2004

[Guest RichD]

When you pry it out of my cold dead fingers. A couple of days ago I was ready to uninstall FS2004 and go back to 2002 but I decided to do some more tweaks and give it another day or two. I'm glad I did. I bought it the day it was released and since I'm retired I get to play a lot so I have spent many hours trying to get it to run right. I had several graphic problems right out of the box and I was able to fix most of them by changing settings. The problem was I couldn't get it to run smooth and look good. I have a fairly fast computer, P4 2.8 800FBS, Geforce4 Ti4200 128M, 512M DDR400 memory so my expectations were fairly high. After many hours of moving sliders and changing my video card settings I decided yesterday to start over. I reloaded my original drivers (4351) reset everything back to default and started over. Several hours later I was flying with a big smile on my face. The resolution was set at 1600x1200 and FSAA was OFF. AutoGen was set to Very dense, scenery set to very dense, clouds set to medium, AI traffic to 50% and everything else set to max. My frame rate is locked at 24 and it stays there except for very large cities where it drops to 18 or 19. Turns are smooth and the scenery looks great. The real key was turning FSAA off. My card just won't handle it. I have a 19" monitor so the 1600x1200 looks great. During all of my previous testing I had not tried that combination. This sim when it is running right blows FS2002 out of the water. If you don't like what you see, change it. There are so many combinations you could move sliders for a year and not hit them all. But don't do what I did, I was convinced that I had to have AA turned on to get a good result so that's how I did all of my testing. I was wrong.Richard

[Guest TOMCAT]

>...I was convinced that I had to have AA turned on to get a>good result so that's how I did all of my testing. I was>wrong.>>RichardHi Richard,that's a valid point for users of the GF4Ti-series. For me it's been pretty much the same running FS 2002 with complex addon planes like Flight One's Piper Meridian and detailed scenery on my machine (PIV 2.4/1 GB RAM/GF 4 Ti4200 128 MB/most sliders maxxed out). The Geforce 4 cards are simply not capable of handling the FSAA in an acceptable manner concerning performance.I've also experienced various graphics glitches such as messed up menus, distorted or smeared onscreen messages and strange mipmapping and anisotropic filtering results with AA enabled (results varied with the frequent driver releases by Nvidia but it never worked flawlessly). That feature of my video card turned out to be completely useless for me. It wasn't limited to FS - it also more or less messed up the graphics of other games such as Train Simulator or Operation Flashpoint. No good here either.Thank you for confirming that it is pretty much the same with COF - won't bother messing around with AA. I will also go for 1600x1200 resolution as I did in FS 2002. Hope it will still look good with 1280x1024 on my new 18"-TFT...I'd recommend to anyone owning a GF 4 Ti-video card and encountering dissatisfying framerates or any kind of graphics problems in any game: Don't use FSAA at all - go for a higer res instead. And please no flames, this is just my experience and it did well for me. If you're happy with GF4 and FSAA - stay with it.Regards Thomas :-wave

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Rich, I'm happy that you have things running the way you like.I pretty much went through the same roller-coaster routine from despair to total delight... interestingly, I ended up in a different place..I really do like AA, especially for the outside view of the aircraft, and I was reluctant to give it up.. as I've documented in some other thread, the GF4-4200 card is quite capable of AA without performance loss, at least with the settings that I have chosen (the same ones I used in FS2002 BTW..)Like you, I started with the 43.51 drivers that worked great in FS2002.. immediately, I had menu problems in full screen mode.. not good.I did try all of the newer driver releases, no joy..Then, based on a post in this forum, I went back to my trusty old 30.82 drivers and things quickly got better, much better. Menu problems: gone..I've enabled 2xAA through the display driver, 4xAF through Rivatuner and also the 60 Hz display refresh fix through Rivatuner.I'm flying the Dreamfleet Archer with fps locked at 25 fps and totally like this new sim.. no more going back to FS2002!Ti4200-128 at 1280x960x32 with 30.82 drivers, P4 2.4 WinXP 512 Meg.

[Guest stevehow]

BERTjust wondering how you got the Archer working in Fs2004.couldn't get it to install when i tried it. best wishes steve

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

I believe I copied over the aircraft folder, the gauge file(s) and the sound/archer folder. There were also some Archer files in the FS2002 root which I copied over, but I do not believe that they make a difference..I do not recall any issues (I also have the Cardinal and Golden Eagle working, but there I had to comment out the GPS in the panel.cfg and replace with the FS9 GPS).

[Guest RichD]

Question, Is your card a 8X AGP? I tried the 30.82 drivers and had several system crashes. Just didn't like my system at all. Richard

[Guest TOMCAT]

Hmmm,nice information - thanks Bert.I have to confess that I ignored the 29.xx drivers that came with my MSI card and omitted any trials with the 30ies. Ever since then I've been exclusively messing around with the 40ies series drivers on my fast machine. And as you also stated - no joy at all.As far as you seem to run almost the same system specs - processor, memory, video card and OS - and your fps DO look fairly impressive: Could you please give me a hint where I can find your aforementioned settings? Just in case I might need them with my new TFT ;-) . I don't visit these forums too regularly so I missed that thread.CU Thomas :-wave

[Guest stevehow]

thanks bertunfortunately ive uninstalled Fs2002..ill wait for the patch for the archer....getting withdrawal syptoms.friend of mine owns the real piper archer (well him and 5 others)after going up with him it was the first payware aircraft i bought.. that and Fsnavigator really miss both of them... best wishes steve

[Guest RichD]

SteveYou can install the Archer in FS9. You need to create a FS2002.cfg file and put it in you Main FS9 folder. It can be a blank file. Then point the install program to FS9 and you should be good to go. I have it running in FS9 and everything works fine.Richard

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

Thomas, suggest you go to www.guru3d.com and download both the 30.82 drivers and the latest version of Rivatuner.The earlier drivers did not have the Anisotropic Filtering settings and the refresh rate fix in pulldown tabs.. so you have to use a slightly more cumbersome way to get at these settings, namely run Rivatuner and use the "customize" function. Not hard to do, just tedious..Overall, I really like the visuals with 2xAA and 4xAF selected.. but this is very personal and you should choose what looks good to you.I also recommend the following (can be found in the FAQ for this forum..) Open your fs9.cfg file, and modify the following lines:TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=9.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.50000TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=This is the default radius in textures for all rings, default is 2.5TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=This is the radius used for the inner ring when the extended texture ring is turned on, default is 4.0Happy flying!

[Guest stevehow]

fantasticthanks alotappreciate your helpif you were standing next to me ..i would probably kiss you..lol best wishes steve

[Guest JonP01]

Bert,I notice you are using 2 x AA, 4 x AF with the 30.82 drivers. This never worked for me in FS2002 because the ATC text and red overlay test was blurred and "ghosted" (fixed with driver 42.30 or later). This became a real pain when I used Abacus's VFR program, because there was blurred red text all over the screen. Are you getting any blurred red text or ATC text in FS2004 with your combination of 30.82 driver and the associated settings?

[Guest Ken_Salter]

No PDA allowed in forums...:-lol http://saltydogfly2.avsim.net/images/avsim_sig.jpg"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

[JSACKS 0]

Richard:Touche ! Your settings and results are virtually identical to mine with similar hardware except I have 1024 RDRAM (but fat lotta good that is!). You came to the same conclusion as me the other day when I posted "Got FSAA? Turn it off!"I re-enabled FSAA today and no dice. FPS knackered in cumulus, down to 7 to 12 from 16 to 19. My cap is 22 fps and it works well. I use leaked nVidia 45.20 and works great. My only remaining issues are the inability to undock in full screen mode and the absence of any sound at all when I load a 2-D cockpit until I hit the throttle wheel on my MS FFB2 stick (!)Other than this, FS2004 is looking fantastic.Thanks for starting this threa. Good to have one's judgment validated thus.JS

[Bert Pieke 7,584]

No, all is clear..