I think we all have a case of severe slideritis.

[Guest wathomas777]

I have read complaint, after complaint. I even complained a bit when I had my 600Mhz not perform quite the way I wanted to. I suffered a bit of a let down, when I tried to fly the McKinley Tour flight only to find my 2400 Athlon be able to only push single digit frame rates through 4 layers of dense cumulus.(sp?)Then it really hit me. You know, when you have one of those V-8 moments and you pop yourself on the head?Slideritis. I had it. We all have it.Some of my fellow "oldtimers" here have the benefit of perspective, and I must admit I had lost that as well.Every and I mean EVERY single version of Flight Simulator was taxing, to every computuer that was around during release. Think about it. The original Microsoft Flight Simulator, was commonly used as a benchmark. For years, FS2 was used by magazines to benchmark turbo equipped XT based PC's with EGA graphics. As VGA started to take hold, MS was one of the first out of the gate. Remember FS3 and 4 with the beautiful fully shaded runways? No more ugly vector graphics? How about FS5 (for Dos) and FS5.1 (for DOS on CD-ROM) which gave us our first glimpse of bit mapped textures. Huge Ugly blocks which looked so much better at several thousand feet or more.FS6 (FSW95) was the first Windows 95 based Flight Simulator and we remember how it brought Windows to it's knees.FS6.1 (FS98) was the first to use 3d Accelerated graphics, and while that was monumental, we still needed powerful computers. And some choice areas, such as Lake Chelan, or Hoover Dam, Actually had some scenery based on DEM's. FS7 Introduced us to Mesh Scenery, and Mount Rainier was never again a grey and white pyramid.FS8 Introduced coastlines, Autogen, and ATCAnd Now FS9!!!!Some of us have been simming since Commodore 64 and IBM XT days, and still we are SHOCKED!!! when the latest version of Flight Sim whips our state of the art machinery like a red headed step child!!!Perhaps it was Quake. Quake Benchmarks changed our view of the world. As processors and vid card performanced increased, we kept basing performance on First Person Shooters. Quake, Half Life, Quake 3, Serious Sam. And our cards were measured by how many frames it could pump out. Any thing less than 30 was considered TOO SLOW.So now, we come from our Quake induced buzz and see our super system struggle to push 20 FPS on a flight sim....Talk about a letdown. But let us take one thing into consideration. Flight Sim is not meant to run 60FPS. In fact, I have run FS98 on my laptop at work and peg the FPS meter to 99, and it is unflyable. Why, because every 3 seconds or so, the thing JERKS horribly. It's as if the Sim is running to fast, and the textures can't load fast enough to update the sim, so it does the herky jerky....The fact is, the sliders are not there to push full right.Think of the sliders as a fulcrum point or balance point. FS9 does a good job at detecting your card and system and coming up with "defaults". These are values that the Sim feels your system can handle reasonably, most of the time. For every slider we inch to the right, one has to come back to the left. They're not equally weighted, but they are weighted just the same. I challenge ANYONE to name a system today, that can push this simulator at above 20FPS in all areas and with all sliders left under the most extreme weather.It can't be done. So stop worrying about it. There was some "slop" built in for future hardware. The "normal" settings for FS9 are easily comparable to the highest settings for FS2002. Even 50 Percent Mesh in FS9 looks to be as complex as 100 percent in FS2002.I know it's hard guys, but try and balance the scales. Will there be a time that your performance takes a dive and you are disappointed? Sure, but that's when you change the fulcrum point. If your bush flying in Alaska near the deck, then perhaps you should turn down the weather and AI traffic a bit.If AI traffic is your thing, try cutting back on Autogen or Complexity.And if IFR is you bag, then give Weather the Nod and cut back on Scenery Complexity, Autogen and AI Traffic.The point is you need to find the balance, the Sheng Fui. It's unreasonable to expect full sliders right, right now. FS9 was designed for most of us to be "normal" now. By the time FS10 ships, then our equipment should be on the verge of full sliders right, which we will then get a new version and find that Again, our beefy 10Ghz Pentium 6 just isn't up to the task.....Fly the sim, don't let it fly you.

[vector 7]

er, yes. I think I got this message a few hundred posts ago in this forum :-)Thanks anyway.David

[E 0]

> For years, FS2 was used by magazines to benchmark turbo equipped XT> based PC's with EGA graphics. As VGA started to take hold, MS was> one of the first out of the gate. Remember FS3 and 4 with the> beautiful fully shaded runways? No more ugly vector graphics?Hmmm, my FS][ had all that and performance. *grin* (the "*grin*" falls under the hint of "][" - *bigger grin*)Actually, I've only had one "problem" with FS... for awhile I had a stutter everytime a new wav (ATC) file was loaded. It subsequently went away for non-FS reasons.

[Guest]

I agree with everything you said except for the stutter that starts everytime the GPS is on as well as turned off. This is with 20 frames constant. Yes- frustration.Todd :)

[Guest dara]

I'm still using fs2000 on a P133 with all the sliders to the left and it still stutters most of the time and 6/7fps is the fastest it'll ever do. To be quite honest i dont see the problem i can still fly what and where i want, don't forget it is only a game!!Dara

[Geofa 108]

I call it the fuIII syndrome.Before fuIII sims came out with no sliders e.g. what you saw is what you got. Video drivers had no options. Simple, and few complaints.FuIII was the first program to have sliders for future growth. Of course everyone (myself included) looked at the sim with the default half sliders-considered it an improvement-and then immdediately turned the sliders all to the right to see what the sim could do.After seeing how amazing it looked with everything maxed out-one could hardly go back. Of course the downside was performance suffered-and the complaining started.The complaints :"I paid good money for this sim and shouldn't have to run it at only half stops"-"This sim runs too slow on my present high end computer" etc. etc.Something that was an advantage (sliders for future technology) suddenly became a disadvantage-and I think was the ultimate kiss of death for this fine sim in its time-a real shame.....I can only wonder at how the programmers felt at this innovative feature (sliders that allowed performance customization and growth for the future) ending up sending them all to the unemployment line.There are simply few ways for a programmer to add more code, more calculations, more features, and keep performance the same. Simple math-add one line to the code and there goes one more computing cycle.Perhaps by doing away completely with the slider page everyone could be satisfied with the same mediocre performance on a wide variety of machines. It would probably end many of the complaints-but we would all be stuck with a product with less innovation and no growth potential.Me-I would prefer the option to choose (sliders), and even have the ability to grow when I get my newer system in a year.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

[Hornit 3]

While I agree for the most part, its good to have sliders. Configuring to fly the way you like is good! I know I have posted a bunch about stuttering lately but I just cant understand why even at basic to low settings this thing is causing me fits with the occasional huge drop in frame rate seemingly out of the blue. I am pretty sure now there is something really wrong with how this sim and my hardware interact, but for the life of me I cant figure it out. I dont blame MS, you can never get it right on the huge array of different platforms we sim on. A p4 at 2.8ghz and 768mb ram coupled with a GF4 ti4200 128mb card should at least run this at 20 without these huge dips in frame rate. yes I expect to lose some in the heavy areas but on my system its almost unflyable. I guess Ill just turn it all down and try to enjoy it til the next upgrade! :)Hornit

[Guest RichD]

I posted here several days ago about the problems I had getting FS9 to run smooth on my computer. My problem was I insisted on using FSAA. When I turned that option off my problems were solved. I fly with most of my sliders maxed but if I fly in rough weather I need to move several of them left or I get single digit frame rates. This is on a P4 2.8, 800 FSB with a Ti 4200 128Mb card. I agree with your post completely. Everyone is hung up on frame rates and they really don't mean much until you get below 14 or 15. Then things begin to get jerky and the aircraft becomes hard to control. Turn down or turn off enough options to get the sim running smooth, then turn off your frame rate counter and have fun flying.Richard

[Chris Willis 8]

Hi, Every and I mean EVERY single version of Flight Simulator was taxing, to every computuer that was around during release. `"I challenge ANYONE to name a system today, that can push this simulator at above 20FPS in all areas and with all sliders left under the most extreme weather.It can't be done. So stop worrying about it. There was some "slop" built in for future hardware."It`s always the same thing on each Msfs release, I am wonder what`s all that fuzz about low frame rate.Fs2004 was built for two years, this is means, to have full capability of fs2004 on all situation, you will have to wait little for newer computer market availability to have the best performance on most situation. Bruce William said in interview, Each Msfs is based on actual mid and high end market computer, he said also they also tweak for running on lower system. (lower mean lower)Years 2001:Before fs2002 release computer market availibility, (computer used for fs2000):High end computerPIII1.2 ghz, 512 ram,, 64 meg Gforce 2,MidPIII800 mhz, 256 ram,, 64 meg Gforce 2run great, not at full detailsLowPIII450 mhz, 128 ram, 32 meg tnt2******It's time to upgrade from these system above even if the PIII1.2 ghz, 512 ram,, 64 meg Gforce 2, was not able to run fs2002 at full frame rate and full slide to right, before you start to get frustrated and post tons of post for fs2004.Years 2003:Before fs2004 release, computer market availibility:HighP4 3.2ghz, 512/1024 ram, 256 gforce 4/FX or Ati tops line.MidP4 2.4ghz, 512/1024 ram, 128 gforce 4 or Ati mid line.LowP4, 1.2 ghz, 512 ram, gforce 4 mx or Ati low line.Expect to see 4 ghz and 5 ghz and running fs2004 at full capacity on all situation, nothing have change.$$ Time to upgrade Again.Watch out fs2006 Sytem Market Expect to wait for newer computer market than these below to run fs2006 at full performance.Fs2006HighIntel P* 5.2 Ghz GIG RAMmidIntel P* 4.2 GHZ GIG RAMlowIntel P4 3.2ghz RAM Or most it's depend from Intel Speed worksHighIntel P* 6.2 GHZ GIG RAMmidIntel P* 5.2 Ghz GIG RAMLowIntel P* 4.2 GHZ RAM*256MB 3d Video Card and above ++Win98/Me not sure if these will sill be available in year 2006ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

[Hornit 3]

See my post "my Revelation" Gf Ti4200, I too have seen the light, turned off AA, go to high res and this sim just flies! I can live witha few small jaggies, it just aint that bad for what I get in smoothness. The Ti4200 cant hack AA in this sim, plain and simple.Hornit

[Guest SoarPics]

Just curious, Hornit...Now that you've found the source of your problems, what level of AA were you running? Did you have AA enabled in the Display properties page of the sim? Are you using one of the add-on tweakers (like RivaTuner)?

[Hornit 3]

AA is off in the sim and off in rivatuner. I am pretty agresive with the LOD and the Aniso though but this does not seem to affect my frame rate appreciably. It is EXTREMELY smooth with the AA all off. It just convinces me I need a new card If I want the AA, thats the bottom line, it just does not have enough horsepower or the right architecture to do it well in this sim. Its painfully obvious here with what i am seeing! At 1280x1024x32 bit it actually looks darn good, very few jaggies at all and I can really get some good scenery now. I was using 2XFSAA or 4X in Rivatuner. I never turned it on in the sim due to others posts in here about it. hornit

[Guest ssurjap]

Wow! Great post.I agree with you completely. I started FS with SubLogic's Flight Simulator (back when I had an Apple II+ computer). I thought it was pretty cool, despite the linear textures.When the Windows version came out with the better graphics, I thought it was pretty neat. When Aircraft and Scenery Designer came out for FS95, I thought it was the coolest thing because I can add runways, create airports, add towers, buildings, and I could fly the 747 (always my favourite).When the SoCal scenery came out (Wonder why they never continued it with other areas), I was really excited because I live in SoCal and I could see all the cool landmarks I was used to. I remember my favourite adventure in that one was the Southern California tour, where it took you to see the Queen Mary and the neat stuff all the way down to San Diego.FS2000 was cool because I could try out the Concorde.When FS2002 came out, I was really really excited because of AI traffic and ATC (which I always wished the earlier sims had). In fact, I was happy because I could run it on a PII 266 with a Riva TNT2 Ultra with no problems.Now with FS2004, I am really happy with it because of the vast improvements in weather, scenery, and ATC (plus I am using it on a mid-range system ).The point is, I didn't care (much) what FPS I was getting or whether things weren't there or they were in the wrong places. To tell you the truth, I never even knew about FPS until I started using FS2002 and joined AVSIM. I just enjoyed flying.Sure, I was a little frustrated with occasional stutters, but I tweaked it and now I'm getting very good framerates, thanks to Chris and his designs. (average 15-25 in heavy weather).