Been getting back into FSX again. Usually don't have too much of an issue with frames, relative happy. Now with some of the more taxing aircraft and scenery out there I do get some slower rates on occasion, around 10. My settings are close to max ( Autogen is at dense (i think), Scenery at dense)and Ai traffic at around 60. Last night I turned off aircraft shadows on ground and the same areas went up about 10 more FPS. I couldn't believe that one check made such a difference on my comp since I've been playing with other settings with not much change (i.e. Textures, Resolution, etc). I love the shadows but with that much difference I might have to keep them off. Do you experience the same?Sys:Asus P5ql-prointel 2.4 (clocked to 3.0)Asus GTX550

I keep them turned off on my rig anyway.I dont spend much time looking at shadows. Nice for screenshots though........

Been getting back into FSX again. Usually don't have too much of an issue with frames, relative happy. Now with some of the more taxing aircraft and scenery out there I do get some slower rates on occasion, around 10. My settings are close to max ( Autogen is at dense (i think), Scenery at dense)and Ai traffic at around 60. Last night I turned off aircraft shadows on ground and the same areas went up about 10 more FPS. I couldn't believe that one check made such a difference on my comp since I've been playing with other settings with not much change (i.e. Textures, Resolution, etc). I love the shadows but with that much difference I might have to keep them off. Do you experience the same?Sys:Asus P5ql-prointel 2.4 (clocked to 3.0)Asus GTX550

Yes also my experience. Shadows really kills performence

I've always turned off shadows on all versions of flightsim due to a lack of gain for the pain.IAN

Wow, I can't even imagine running WITHOUT shadows, looks terrible IMO. Then again I also run in DX10 mode for the shadows in the VC.Sad thing is, I design scenery and as such rely on the shadows for the final look of the scenery. I like the different shading on objects depending on the time of day. I hate adding fake shadows to objects, Then again the lighting engine in FS has always been crap, one of the reasons i am excited about XP10, the shadows look great.I spend a fair amount of time doing photography and digital rendering imagery, so i guess I am much more aware/critical of lighting and shadows than some.

FSX doesn't do the shadows with the GPU, that's why - it's all CPU and those are highly intensive calculations. If the engine had a true GPU-based dynamic lighting system instead of the archaic system of swapping out a ton of different textures to simulate levels of lighting this would be a non-issue. Look at the crazy shadow stuff in games like Battlefield 3 - runs great cause it's all on the GPU.