Well, i maxed everything except didn't use AA just anis at 4x visibility at 90 mi. and did these to the config file..[DISPLAY.Device.NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600.0]Mode=800x600x32PanelAsTexture=0TextureAGP=0 TriLinear=1MipBias=5[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=22TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=400[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=80.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=3TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=9.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=0It actually run better now go figure.Im going to try that burnintest file.

Are you happy with 800x600 ? Try a higher resolution, like 1024x768 or 1280x1024.How is your Anisotropic Filter and Texture/Image Quality in video settings (windows) ?Reduce your Texture Bandwidth to 40, in some systems a high value can cause stutters.Try to reduce some sliders, like:terrain complexity to 60scenery complexity to denseautogen to nornalVis to 60miCloud Drawn to 60mi3D Clouds to 50%coverage MediumSome systems work better with T&L ON, others OFF, do a test.Change the global texture quality to medium or high.Change ATC to 0 and test...Some ideas...so you can find what is making your system slow.Ulisses

Actually, the program was at the lowest settings! I changed them to higher settings and the problems for the most part went away except for sound stutters. heres my test results...assMark BurnInTest Log file - http://www.passmark.com========================================================*** Unlicensed Shareware Version ***Network Name: ****************Date: 09/12/03Time: 11:04:48Operating system: Windows XPNumber of CPU: 1CPU manufacturer: GenuineIntelCPU type: Intel® Pentium® 4 CPU 2.53GHzCPU features: MMX SSE SSE2 CPU Serial #: Not available or disabledCPU1 speed: 2532.9 MHzCPU Level 2 Cache: 512KBRAM: 1072472064 BytesVideo card: NVIDIA GeForce FX 5600Video resolution: 800x600x32Test Start time: Fri Sep 12 10:48:49 2003Test Stop time: Fri Sep 12 11:03:29 2003Test Duration: 000h 14m 40sTemperature (Min / Current / Max): 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0Temperature (Min / Current / Max): 0.0 / 0.0 / 0.0Test Name Cycles Operations Errors Last Error CPU - Maths 103 175484300 0 No errors CPU - MMX / SSE 150 249203508 0 No errors Memory (RAM) 0 636264448 0 No errors 2D Graphics 1 8218 0 No errors Disk (A:) 81 6635520 0 No errors Disk (C:) 0 1123549184 0 No errors Network 1 16 132640 0 No errors CD/DVD (D:) 1 435671416 0 No errors Sound 24 13505625 24 Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI fileDETAILED ERROR LOG:2003-09-12 10:48:48, Status, PassMark BurnInTest V3.2 Pro 10012003-09-12 10:48:48, Status, Test run started2003-09-12 10:49:19, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:49:56, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:50:32, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:51:09, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:51:45, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:52:21, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:52:58, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:53:34, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:54:11, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:54:48, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:55:24, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:56:01, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:56:37, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:57:14, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:57:51, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:58:27, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:59:04, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 10:59:40, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:00:17, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:00:53, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:01:30, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:02:07, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:02:43, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:03:20, Sound, Could not open MIDI Sequencer or MIDI file2003-09-12 11:03:32, Status, Test run stoppedI think my probs are sound related, any ideas?

don't worry, your system looks good, MIDI wasn't opened, not a problem....Ulisses

Do you have the sounds quality set at high? You might try lowering it to lowest quality...http://saltydogfly2.avsim.net/images/avsim_sig.jpg"Ah, the Luftwaffe - the Washington Generals of the History Channel." - Homer Simpson

Hi,Have you considered doing a complete format reinstall of your operating system? It could be that there is a underlying problem within your OS such as a dormant driver that is corrupting everything. If you are using the FX NVIDIA card go download the 45.33 drivers 9http://download.guru3d.com/pafiledb.php?action=category&id=10) these were released specifically to fix issues with the FX. The detonator 50 series will be out at the end of the month as well so let

done that..

done that actually...waiting for the 50.xx series though.

Dear 747drvr, I'm totally with you. Unacceptable stutters, crashes, freezes, etc...I've tried everything. I mean EVERYTHING. I have good knowledge of both HW and SW. I've been building my own systems for a few years now. I sometimes give people advice on PC matters. I've spent hours fiddling to optimize, sometimes with modest success, others with total defeat. I have a good idea of what works and what doesn't. I'm sick of this "upgrade my system, buy a new game, discover I need to upgrade again to play it, so I upgrade my system..., and so on". Major software and hardware houses have today created the greatest "legal" conspiracy, outside of any reasonable marketing law; we all know how addictive a good looking game can be, and the tricks it can play with our minds. Nobody truly needs 3 gigahertz of processing power. We are put in the conditions of needing to buy new technology. This might sound old, but is, oh, so true. That said, I'm really upset with the way fs2004 runs on my rig. I mean, it runs REALLY bad. I suspect rush, poor programming and greed to mix it all up. They've got my money again. I could have gotten a private pilot's license by now.My system should have almost full control of fs2004. It's exactly the other way round.AthlonXP 2600+ on Epox 8KHA+512Mb PC2100 RAM256Mb sapphire ati radeon 9800pro SBLive!plusa great deal of frustration and the strong temptation of giving it all up.Let's keep up the discussion.WE are the reason for all this business to exist in the first place.Luca

Probably won't help, but the other night I set this like you have it and my FPS went from 20 to 12. PanelAsTexture=0Deleted this line, and FPS right back to 20. Don't know what this is supposed to do, but it really surprised me.My system is a Dell 8200 (P4 2.8 and 9700 PRO).Phill

Well you simply can't get good performance with FS2004 all the time because of the autogen bug. Did you try removing the Default.xml file? Without removing this file, my framerate can drop to 10 FPS after flying for a while. After deleting the file, I get 25+ almost all the time.It's a shame we have to remove this file because flying over the SE of US at 3000 ft. is boring without the addditional autogen. Still not a word from Microsoft about this :-ukliam

Guys,I'm running FS9 (great to hear version numbers quoted again...) on two systems. Numero uno is pretty close to 747drvr's - P4 2.4GHz 533MHz FSB, GeForce Ti4200 (8x AGP) and 512Mb DDR333 RAM. All settings maxed Seattle is flyable, but not what I'd call good. The other is an Athlon XP 2000+, 8KHA+ (I think, we sell a lot of Epox boards and this thing is pretty old now), GeForce Ti4200 (4x AGP) 1Gb DDR333 RAM, so it's similar to Lurk's system. This I have to turn stuff down to about 60% on to get good frame rates at busy places, but it IS 1GHz down on the P4 and half the video bandwidth! But the point is FS9 runs well on both without any tweaking apart from internal settings (which hardly counts as tweaking!). It's got to a system issue. What's running in the background? For those not in the know - hold down control and alt and press del then pick task manager if you are running 2K or XP. Look at third column (labelled CPU in 2k) this shows what percentage of "cpu occupancy" a process is using. Anything bar FS9.exe soaking your clock cycles? As a rough guide any more than 15 processes and I reckon you've got too much running in the background. Windows 2K/XP default to around 30 processes running. Most are useful, some are pointless on a general purpose machine and some are actually a secutiry risk. You NEED about 8 for Windows to work, apparently. Search the net for instructions on optimising Windows - it's rather too big a topic for here.Also, you got a virus scanner, right? And a spyware scanner (I use Adaware)? You'd be amazed at how much CPU time some malware/spyware uses to do nothing useful.I reckon you're better off tweaking your system before start tweaking a programme. On a test system (P4 2.4GHz, Intel PESV motherboard, 256Mb DDR333 RAM and GeForce Ti4200) we achieved a benchmarked 30% performance increase over the default install just from tweaking Windows.The above is good advice to anybody running serious games, by the way. A thought for Lurk in particular, my FS9 stability problems all disapeared when I got rid of the no-cd patch. No crashes since.Laurie

Hmmmm.....I've been drooling over FS2k4 for weeks now, but with my 600mhz and 128RAM and God-only-knows what make of vid card, I think I'll stick with 2k2...Seems with all the hassles people have been having, and their high-end machines, I don't stand a chance.As for up-grading, I've a better chance being allowed to go drinking with the Playboy bunnies!!!!Allblack

No other process other than fs when I run it.I use that system for fs and nothing else.No virus scanner don't need it.I don't think its greed but maybe rushing it would apply.They ask people about the sim then we have it two months later. They should start to ask now. And then build the new one. give them time to iron out obvious bugs(autogen,etc)before release then beta test it for three four mos. then fix the probs that came out for another two mos.then release it. It then would be very nice with minimal problems.But please don't speak for the majority of users having no problems, you don't know that nor do I if they do or don't. All I know is yesterday where I live I called the store where I bought it from and asked if I could return it before I changed my mind and keep it waiting for the autogen fix patch. The clerk told me that fs is the fastest selling game hes got, but also the most returned so go figure.

Laurie....Being a system admin, I know how easy it is for others to misunderstand what you're saying and get the idea you're trying to put them down. I know that's not your intent. So they know whether they are in your ballpark performance wise or not, why don't you try this scenario:Max out all sliders, but leave AI set at say 50pct, shadows Off, Res 1280x1024 or higher, and Autogen at Dense. Set yourself on finals to ORD 9R, about 2 miles out, with your fps slider at unlimited, using the 737 with the 2-d panel. Post a shot of your fps in FS2004 (and FS2002), if you still have it. Just leave the clouds set to cirrus.I know you mean well in your post, but also know you're not speaking to a bunch of people who aren't versed in the art of tweaking every last ounce of performance out of their systems. I discount my reasons for sticking with FS2002 as somewhat different from theirs--my slower system is certainly the cause of my preference for FS2002.But I'll tell ya, some of the numbers I'm seeing are very close to those reported by higher end systems. Why is that? My system runs at a third of their speed. Could it be that perhaps FS2004 isn't taking full advantage of the faster cpu's? That's why I'm interested in your numbers. You seem to be a new "face" here, so you may well be able to post some objective stats (backed up with a couple of screenshots) that explain your performance.You cite some excellent points--I remind users every few weeks of spyware and the virus risk. But what I've seen myself with FS2004 is more of a change made to the program to assist with the new "eye candy" added--a change that has some negative consequences where fluidity is most important, like on finals. Also, I see a lot of well meaning people like Chris who never quite get a handle on replicating some of the issues reported--they always change a few of the parameters along the way. Some for instance are running at 16 bit, others 32 bit, some with Autogen, some without, etc..... Anyway, I'm curious to see some examples of your performance. I think what is causing people to back off of FS9 isn't based on fps alone--it's more based on a combination of things they could get away with in FS2002, but can't in FS9...Regards,John