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JimmiG

Totally compressing FS2004 works wonders and much smoother.

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Guest

I tried compressing FS2004, the whole FS2004 folder, so the whole flight sim is now Compressed down to 2.86 Gbytes. What I have found is the works wonders for FS2004. This is what I have noticed big time:1. Faster loading of FS2004, as well as senery files etc2. Less disk access3. steader Framerates which makes FS2004 a hell of a lot smoother4. When the senery becomes clear, the clarity is a lot better, and is much sharper further out. I found for a moment I do get the blurs, then it becomes clear after a split second or so, but clears itself up a lot faster, and is sharper at a much further distant once it become clear.Compressing FS2004 is well worth it and I think the biggest twink yet for FS2004. It is like a whole new sim on my computer, and so much smoother in everyway, from framerates, to much better and sharper draw distant, as well as any blurs when they clear up are a hell of a lot better. Would be interesting to here any feedback from anyone else who has tried it, and my computer is only a 1 Ghz Duron, and would expect much better results on faster computer than mine.

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Guest ScottPilot

Hmmm....This doesn't make sense to me. Usually disk compression decreases performance of programs because the compressed files must be de-compressed before they can be used.I'm not saying that I doubt your results, it just seems strange that disk compression would give you a boost in performance.I might give it a try just to see what happens since I have a PIII 1ghz machine. I get pretty good results now, but if I can pick up a few more FPS, its worth a try.Are you running on Windows XP Pro? If so, did you use the built in compression that XP has in it?Thanks,Scott :-)ATP/CFII - KCOS, in the real aviation world.

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Guest Colin_Francis

I do the same and it does work. Picked it up as a tip on pcaviator.com.au.Any fast machine benefits by the compression in terms of less movement by your HDD head in traversing the drive. The performance hit in compressing/decompressing data is easily handled by modern processors.

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Guest

what kind of frame rates are you getting, and how are you doing the compression? Are you compressing the entire partition, or just the FS9 directory? Sounds Interesting.Bill

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Guest Enzoblue

To do the compression in WinXP, just right click on the folder and go to Properties. In that box go to Advanced, check the compress box and follow along what it tells you.I did this and with the Mega Scenery files it saved me almost a full gigabyte. Took 30 mins to do though. My FPS in game went up about 5-9, which is the biggest boost any tweak has given me yet.Thanks Denodan :)

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Guest

I get a big boost in performance especially with 3D clouds. I can now run 3d clouds at 100% and the high setting and when flying thru them I stay in the upper teens when before I would get around 10-11fps. I wonder if we could just compress the texture folder and get the same results? Hmmm, What about adding aircraft later? Can you have compressed and uncompressed files in the same folder? I've never used Windows compression before but now I think I might start. I find it funny that this sim has the capacity to run great and extra smooth but we all have to work at it to get it to run smooth.Tim

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Guest Stamatis

"To do the compression in WinXP, just right click on the folder and go to Properties. In that box go to Advanced, check the compress box and follow along what it tells you."Is there a way to do this with Windows 98SE?Stamatis

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Guest

I don't really notice higher framerates as such, but notice smoother framerates, so on average I guess I have picked up an increase of framerates which makes FS2004 a lot smoother and steader than I had before I compressed it. The scenery also updates better a lot better, get a bit of blurs, but they quickly goes away and a lot sharper overall, with an increased area of sharpness. So it is really updating my scenery a lot faster and more effciently now since it is compressed. From what I did read, if you read my past post about HD compression and hints to make FS2002 run better it did say the biggest gains in framerates are if your using a 1.6 Ghz processor, so think the faster the processor the better this works, but for a 1 Ghz processor there is an improvment, not only in framerates but as the scenery updates as well when flying. Also HD access is less, so you get less HD pauses. I do keep my framerates locked at 20 fps seems to help more so now with FS2004 compressed then before it was compressed. So think the compression has freed up more resoruces or something anyway to be able to update your scenery a lot faster and quicker.Also if your using Win98 then if you can go to XP home, or Pro as NTFS has far better compression, and a lot more reliable than win 98, don't know how well it works with win98, as I am using win XP home edition. Search for my other tips further back, as I listed a number of recommeded tips.All I know is it works, and FS2004 is like a new Flightsim, with improvments to loading times, framerates, and much better scenery updates and efficeny. All I have used was the standard XP compression, compressed the whole FS2004 folder itself, not any partion etc. Will take about 30 minutes, but if you have a faster HD the compression time may be less than this.

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Guest daveg4otu

As far as I can see - the compression option is only available on NTFS systems.My FAT32 installation XP/Pro doesn't seem to have that option.Can anyone confirm(or deny) this?Dave

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Tried it and could not see any difference in frame rates or smoothness around clouds. Still jerky...P4 1.9/1GB RAM/WinXp and of course a stinky OEM Geforce2 MX400 64MB.Maybe it benefits users with better video cards...Bill

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Guest Buffman_1

What effect will this tweak have on new downloads; aircraft, scenery, etc? Will they have to be compressed also when loaded into the files?My system is not handling 2004 very good at all. With sliders all the way to the left I get pretty good framerates but when the sky and clouds come into my line of sight they drop to 5.5-8.0. Nice fluffy clouds are much more hard on framerates than stormy weather.I would like to try this tweak but would really like to know in advance what effect it is going to have on downloaded filesThanks.Bob

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Guest danowat

LOL, what a complete load of tosh, how on earth can compressing your folders make the sim run quicker.Some people will try anything.Dan.

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>LOL, what a complete load of tosh, how on earth can>compressing your folders make the sim run quicker.>>Some people will try anything.>>Dan.:-bang Its called desperation :-) But I agree it really doesnt make sense from a techinical point. If anything it would slow things down.Bill

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