I want to know if having the sounds from the birds and other things on takes fps ?

All you can do is try it out with the sounds off and see what benefit you get on the FPS. Since the birds are sound and not visual I would imagine not but you never know!

The ambient sounds have minimal impact on fsp.Its high poly &/or moving objects that would create the most demand. I find that I can not fly into Brisbane or Melbourne without turning off detail, my machine just turns into a slide show. I will not be buying anymore larger airports, its pointless for me.

Personally, I usually turn off the sounds in the control panel for the specific airport. No way I am gonna hear birds chirping once I got the virtual headset on and the engine is running. Just the other day, I noticed I forgot to do that at Fall City, and heard the birds signing along when I was downwind at about 1000' AGL...

Once I have been for a walk around with "Bob", taken a few pics etc. I actually turn everything off on the CP. Which beggers the question why do I buy Airports in the 1st place. Well, got to start & finish somewhere I suppose.

The sounds are just silly and completely unrealistic so I turn them off for all airports. It's a shame they don't only work when you are sitting on the ground with the engine off - for those few moments ambient sounds would be quite a nice touch but to hear birds tweeting and telephones ringing at 1000 feet with the burners on is ridiculous. The same goes for the robotic grass and trees - it just makes it look more like a game to me and makes me more aware of the limitations of FSX. People flow I can tolerate in some places but most of the Orbx airfileds I fly out of are very small and would have very few if any people wandering around like that in real life.The best thing to do if you have the time is to try all the options in FTX Central one by one until you find the right balance.

I agree. I've always liked the sounds but when you hear dogs barking over the noise of a Caranodo 185 at full throttle, it is pretty clear that something is not quite right. :( I do enjoy them otherwise.Kind regards,

I like the sounds mostly to add character to the location and they don't seem to take up FPS, there is one at S43 by runway 33R which sounds like an aircraft taking off which I am going to try to disable because more than once it has made me think I made a runway incursion while something was trying to land and had to wave off, but then see there is no aircraft nearby and it is just part of the ambient sounds (at least it seems so).

The sounds are nice when you are getting into the cockpit, but when you start the engines, they should be gone. I also noticed sounds (which you might not even notice when you are walking on the airport) while I was on downwind or approach. Odd. Luckily you get the control panels to set things to your liking. And I also hear engine sounds when there is no one around. It's a nice gimmick but that's it.

we should have an option for the sounds to turn off when the engine is on

I want to know if having the sounds from the birds and other things on takes fps ?

Likely none. Sound engine is very easy on frames in FSX and really uses little to no CPU resources.

I agree. I've always liked the sounds but when you hear dogs barking over the noise of a Caranodo 185 at full throttle, it is pretty clear that something is not quite right. :( I do enjoy them otherwise.Kind regards,

+1

we should have an option for the sounds to turn off when the engine is on

I doubt that FSX has this kind of possiblity within it's heavily dated sound engine.