FS2004 - Performance as airports are approached - more observations

[Guest]

The strange thing on my system (2.0 GHz Pentium IV, 768MB DDR-RAM ,Nvidia GeForce 2/MX400 (Display Memory 64MB),SBLive! Player 5.1) is, that I get a smoother flying-experience than in FS2002 most of the time when I am actually FLYING but in 9 out of ten cases when I land the sim almost completely FREEZES (about 1 frame/MINUTE!!!). I have tested different things now (new drivers made the phenomenon only worse!) but could only improve things a bit. However I cannot solve the problem! It is really strange: I get very good frame rates(15-20fps) even when flying 100feet above Lago

[Guest]

I believe you guys have nailed the problem. Everything is fine until an approach is encountered. The best part! Todd

[Guest SoarPics]

I just retested the same scenario at the same airports as above. I left everything just as it was in the first test, except for disabling Aircraft Shadows. Though I did experience much the same as before (performance hit when landing to the west), the FR hit and stuttering weren't nearly as bad. Whereas before I experienced FR's between 8-12 with some nasty stuttering, the latest test revealed FR's in the 14-17 range and the stuttering was barely detectable.I can live without Aircraft Shadows.

[michal 44]

>I can live without Aircraft Shadows.I agree considering rather primitive and overdone way the shadows (of 3D objects) are generated.Michael J.

[Guest RobA]

John, My fps fall off about 25% when an airport is in view, small or large. Locked at 17 it goes down to 12. I'll find the best sweet spot eventually. :-) BTW, thanks for mentioning your work on Chuck Dome's Mirage. Think I'll go grab it and take a spin.Best, Rob

[Guest GamePlayer]

I have a problem similar to yours with frame rates. I took off from KDFW rwy 35 at 26 fps at the start then during my base my frame rate dipped to 13 if I looked at DFW from the left, then during final to rwy 17 I was getting 13 fps until then after I landed I went to the menu and changed my autogen setting from dense to off to dense and the frame rate was back to a normal 26. One thing I noticed is that there is still autogen scenery very far away but can only be visible if I zoom in and once I go to the menu and change the autogen setting those far away autogen objects are gone. However they are not very many autogen objects that are far away as I can see when zooming in 6x when the slow frame rate comes and so I don't understand why it get's a significant performance hit with a few objects far away that haven't disappeared. So try flying without autogen and if it works for you.

[Guest]

Hi Michel the shadows in flight sim are most probably depth map shadows of fairly low res in order to keep frame rates as high as possable. But yes shadows can of course affect frame rates as they have to be calculated and then renderd and that of course adds to thework ones card has to do draw every frame. Dan

[Hornit 3]

hmmm, very interesting, I will check on the shadow thing, but this frame hit on headings has a paralell to something I saw in the press beta which I dont see right now, visually. What I was noticing was a very faint line or ghosting of the textures at what seemed to be cardinal headings N,S,E,W. It didnt happen all the time but it was definitely noticeable. It was almost as if the sky was cut and a very thin line of reflection or texture smearing was evident if viewed from certain angles. It ran through the whole sim in a vertical fashion as I recall. I just wrote it off to a driver glitch with pre-release software and now I am wondering about whether or not this might have something to do with Soarpic's findings. I do agree its not likely but hey you never know!hornit

[Guest JeanLuc_]

John,you may consider having a closer look at the Reality XP FS2004 tweaker guide posted at avsim library a couple days ago.Compared to (or as well as) FS2002, FS2004 seems to "manage" a lot of things from the CPU which could be handled by the video card. It could be "legacy BGL code" and backward compatibility which is at the root of this.Altough quite "technical" at first glance, the Reality XP guide tries to categorize per hardware system components the FS2004 settings, in order for a user to balance the options, relying on the same hardware component one to the other (ex: video card pixel pipelines number), in order to avoid having some settings competing one with the other, and the automatic FPS loss.The guide depicted settings are also a good starting point for ANY CPU speed WITH fast video cards (latest generation Radeon or FX).In any case, it is important to set goals for your system: visual, speed, fluidity, and change the settings accordingly. But more importantly with FS2004, you have to set your settings to what your hardware is capable of, per component (not as a whole). This could mean that you may have to trade Autogen for Clouds for example, even though you like autogen. If your system can't handle it because how FS2004 is coded, it is locked.Hope this helps!

[FlyinMisfit 0]

to All,forgot to report this info. in previous post. thought it might help...latest drivers for video and sound cardslatest intel chipset and intel application accelator updates-latest mobo biosfps=locked at 25 autogen=normalAItraffic=75%visibility slider=60all other sliders maxxed and boxes checked3d cloud settings-all sliders maxxed except "cloud draw distance"=603d cloud percentage=100% 9700pro display settings...v-sync.= application preferenceTruform=offAA=4xAF=8xtexture preference=qualitymip-mapping=qualitygame and display res.=1280x1024x32/85hz.vertical refresh ratedirectx version=9.0bhope this helps. happy flyin, fm

[Guest SoarPics]

Just did a third and final test at the airports above, only at night. Not surprisingly, the results are the same.Any GA runway I tried between 22 and 29 yielded a FR drop of 1/4-1/3 my locked setting (20). All others had the FR pegged.I'm now humming the theme music to Twilight Zone. :-hmmm

[Hornit 3]

I can confirm this is happening with my system also, just did a few quick tests but it was repeatable, this is really wierd. Now what on earth could cause something like this to happen? I bet the boys at MS might want to hear about this one. Hornit

[John_Cillis 2,406]

JeanLuc...Thanks... I saw the site...the things mentioned are things most of us hashed out on the beta team once we received gold. This isn't a issue of performance per se. Even moving all sliders to their mins, performance around airports is worse than FS2002, even though a maxed FS2002 looks better than FS2004 at the minimums. I normally fly without Autogen and AI. And even without a cloud in the sky, approach an airport, and fps will fall off.Many don't notice it because they accept a lower fps lock, or they have a higher system. Normally, if I match up clear sky scenery quality between the two sims, FS2004 edges out FS2002, except around airports.If I had to guess, I suspect it may have something to do with the AFD data. Just a hunch....-John

[B777ER 2,486]

I din't have FS2004 yet but if I were you guys, I would detail a nice email to the MSFS team about this peculiar problem in regards to FR loss on certain headings. Sounds like a true bug.

[Guest]

>I can live without Aircraft Shadows.I, too, but the problem is that I ALWAYS have Aircraft Shadows disabled anyway (even in FS2002) because they affect frame-rates and are not absolutely *necessary* ! So I have no option here to improve frame-rates :-(