i find that too.. i can fly in mountains with pretty complex scenery, and extreme autogen.. land at all the small strips. I max out at 24 and it stickbut any large airport and i get bad fps as low as 10. even basic airports like cyyc hurt my framerate

I find the exact same problem at heathrow. I can taxi fine but as soon as i line up on the runway and start t/o roll frames go to 1 fps. They become absolutely fine once I am airborne.I tested with 0% AI and did not get the problem. Looks like a sound card issue. Will try today with disabling sound but with AI enabled..Let's see.These are the real easter eggs MS has left for us to discover in FS9!!

hiho simmers ... have the same problem with my brand new copy of FS2004 ... seems do depend not on hardware configs but maybe following is (hope not final) solution http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/dcforum/DC...mID21/3631.html ... no time to test it yet but maybe sombody look for it p.s.: sry for bad english :)

Why am I not surprised that an SB card causes problems inside FS. Wasn't there a problem in FS98 or 2000 with the SB cards?

I just made a landing at kslc with the pmdg737.The framerate during the app was 19.1 -19.9(locked at 20).During taxi I had 20 fps.But when I turned to the terminal it dropped to 14-16 .In spot plane view I get 20 fps looking in every direction until I look at the middle of the terminal building(back to 15).I tried this from several positions and the frame rate drop only occurs when looking at the terminal in sw direction.When looking at it from the S or W or E there is no drop.This is as weird as it can get.Have Fun James

Anyone try that fix poseted on flightsim's msg board? Results?

Well, after many hours of trying to get this Sim to run, I know now, it will never run like FS2002, because FS2004 simulates FS2000.I've tried everything, but FS2004 does not like 2D panels, and something at the airports (yes even the small ones) kill FPS.I've tried all the texture fixes, all the FS9.cfg tweaks, but nothing really helps. The visuals have been turned way down compared to FS2002, and yet the FPS are way down ..Conclusion: All the taxi signs are killing frame rates. This Sim is un-tweakable...

Hi,- I also get frame rate drop in approaches, but I get a smooth flight with AutoGen OFF, maybe the objects have lots of polygons, maybe the texture are heavy, not sure, but for now my autogen is OFF;- I like to set my scenery complexity all to the right and it affects the approaches, but there is something else killing the frame rate in airports, maybe the Taxiway signs ??? maybe the runway texture ??? Maybe, because I tried an approach with scenery complexity to sparse and frame rate dropped in approach, my AI is 50%;- Is there a way to tell FS to draw airport object only when taxing (very close) ???My machine is a Athlon XP2400+, 1gb RAM Crucial DDR333, Radeon 9800pro.Thanks,Ulisses

I don't have an lack of smoothness in large terminal approaches, provided my traffic is down to abou 40%, and there aren't multiple clouds layers. I am running at high density on clouds ful 3d clouds and one layer is fine but beyond that it picks away at my steady 22 fps lock. Landing is totally fine everywhere I have been, except Sea Tac was a litte boggy due to weather plus all that water and cityscape. Other big terms are pretty well locked on 22.Noel

Guys try this. Do a circuit around Seattle International with the GPS OFF the whole time and then try one with it on. I cannot believe the difference on my system. As soon as I turn the GPS on and even when I close the window it's stutter ville and poor framerates. Trust me- try it. Looks like I'm not fling with the GPS. :( That GPS is a cpu hog! I have an xp1600, but was considering a xp2400. I'm curious though to see if this happens to folks with faster processors as well. I'm exploring a way to turn the GPS off once the window is closed. It's going to take some programming though- I bet.Todd

I'm really glad to see this thread. I have a high end system (P4 3.06, 1gb RDRAM, ATI9700, etc) and this is the ONLY perfomance related issue I've had with FS2004- but its a very frustrating one, as I know you need smooth FPS of at least 25 to replicate control inputs on final approach.I get super smooth, locked at 30fps most anywhere I fly at any altitude, until I'm heading toward that runway, when I want those frames as smooth as can be. I even use the lowres runway, autogen and cloud textures, too no great improvement.Maybe the strangest thing is that I have no FPS problems at all taking off from the very runways where I experience 25% slowdown on approach. If it was a taxiway sign issue or whatever, you'd thing you'd have the problem all the time at that runway.Best,Joel

Do a test with autogen OFF and tell me what you think...If it is not better, do another test with ATC at 0%...Still problems, reduze the Scenery complexity (another test)...Maybe can see how FS2004 works in different systems.Ulisses

Has anyone tried to adjust sound acceleration? Don't have time now, but will try tonight.Seems like this thread is evry much on point:http://www.flightsimnetwork.com/dcforum/DC...mID21/3631.htmlJoel

Sound accel has never made a difference for me--not even 1 fps. The more I study this, the more it seems the problem is the FS2000 panel problem risen from the dead. If I fly with the panel full screen, I lose 5-7 fps. The mini-panel, 2-3 fps. No panel? No loss of performance. In FS2002, it didn't matter--my fps stayed the same with or without the panel displayed--unless it was some complex third party panel with a bunch of custom gauges. Also, the panels only seem to hurt performance in turns...-John

John,You may recall offering me some advice, along with others, when FS2004 was first released via mail order (before the MS release date) when I posted a thread about my attempts to fix the studders I was seeing. The suggestion was more memory as I was only running 256mb. I took that advice and now I'm running at 512mb PC800 memory plus I added a PowerLeap adapter to my Dell 8100 so I could pump the processor up to a P4 2.6ghz.The results after $490? Smoother flight when the sim is not studdering and the ability to move the cloud sliders a little bit further to the right.So, I found it somewhat ironic that the community is back to the original point of that thread - studders and how to fix them.I've fiddled with the DX9b settings, the FS9 settings, my aperture setting, video drivers, and so on. I've even tried boosting program process priority in the OS. Nothing helps fix the studders. I'm especially concerned when I read that people with top of the line systems have the same studders because it points to a flaw in the program that cannot be overcome by raw CPU/memory fixes.One thing I can say with certainty is the taxiway signs are not related to the approach studders, but they may contribute at larger airports. I've recently begun a tour of my state and there are hundreds of private fields with nothing more than a dirt strip. No buildings, no signs, zilch except for that texture that indicates wear on the ground. On approach, the same studders occur as when approaching a full scale airport. I also see studders shortly after touchdown and then smoothness from then on (if you don't count the bumps on the landing gear from the dirt runway). :)I won't rehash the same things already mentioned in this thread, but I do want to offer an observation. I have found the more takeoffs and landings I make, the worse the studders become.As I said, I'm conducting a tour of my state and that means touch and gos from one field to the next, one airport after the next. This involves mostly small private dirt strips and plenty of paved airports with taxiways. Without changing any settings and without doing anything to make the sim reload (the progressive bar appearing), I can see a slow degradation in the smoothness of the approaches, the landings, and the takeoffs. In fact, after a couple hours of airport hopping, the studders begin to creep into the taxi operations at those airports I elect to do a full stop landing.As a temporary fix, when the studders progress too far, I flush my system memory by saving my flight, shutting down the sim and then restarting the sim. After loading my saved flight, the sim runs very smoothly... that is until I make my first approach. Then the cycle starts all over again. But what is interesting is the first approach has very minimal studders, especially if I save my flight in midair and no takeoff is involved after resetting.All other aspects of my flight are great. I have no complaints about the flight between airports, the frames are very smooth.Can anyone else replicate the degradation effect? Has anyone experimented with saving and resetting the sim prior to an approach to see if the approach is smoother (studders still there, but less significant)? I would think this would only be noticable to people doing many landings during the same sim run. People making one takeoff, flight and landing would probably not see the slowdown effect.The approach studders may not be a show-stopper for MS, but it certainly is worse than the turning studders observed in FS2000. The community really jumped on MS about that one. It will be interesting to see what MS does about the approach studders considering approaches are a fundamental portion of the EVERYONE'S flying.BruceDell 8100 w/PowerLeap 2.6ghz512mb PC800GeForce3 Ti500DirectX 9.0bSB Live