Hello OTS,The pictures of your flights are great! Thanks for sharing them with the rest of us.The question I have is exactly what you have installed on your computer in FS9 to get such great results?What would you recommend that I install?Your input is much appreicated.Hollister

Bumping.

Hi Guys,I am very pleased to hear that you like my screenshots! I feel it is a great compliment to be asked such a question. :DThe answer is it's an...Ancient Chinese Secret[/font size]:-lolOk, just kidding! Of course. First, let me say that I look at other people's screenshots and I see quite a number of people who have really great looking screenshots too. I do not have a corner on the market for getting great looking results. ;-)I have worked hard at trying to get the best I can though. So, have you guys looked at my 'FS2004 and WinXP Optimization Guide V2'?? It's in the Hardware Discussion subsection of this forum. I made it to try and help people get better performance from FS2004. In there I show what I have tweaks I have done to my 'FS9.CFG' file, thanks to many people who posted them in the Tips and Tricks. And some of those tweaks are for better looking results. I have not posted any screenshots in quite some time, so now I will continue on and say the following as to why you may have asked such a question about my first screenshots in months.Another big part is thanks to the payware and freeware addons I have installed. For instance...TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20I don't believe the number 20 there would do much without me having the higher detailed(than default) 38 DEM Mesh by FSGenesis.Secondly, I recently added a couple of other addons. One of which is FScene textures by Ruud Faber. These textures are fairly expensive. But depending on one's opinion they may be worth it, as they are also very nice. I think he is quite the artist. You have to buy them according to what Season you want them for. You do get a discount if you buy all 4 Seasons for USA and Canada, which is what I did. It came to 60 EUR! :-eek If I'm not mistaken, they were even more expensive some months ago in the past.From my screenshot forum post, with the addition of authors/filenames/links...Many addons at work here.FSGenesis US Mesh and Landclass - Justin Tyme - http://portal.fsgenesis.net/FScene Textures - Ruud Faber - www.fscene.comColorado Lakes Project - Carlyle Sharpe - Avsim library, 4 files starting with: colorado_lakes_project_1.zipUSA Roads - Flight1 - www.flight1.comLee Hetherington's TCAS II 7.0 Gauge - Avsim library: ilh_tcas_v4.zip - My guide to install it: tcas_ii_7.0_installation_guide.zipand the...Lancair Legacy 2000! - Robert Christopher - legacy5.zip (great 2D Panel replacement at www.flightsim.com : legacypn.zip - IIRC, I think you need to add the Virtual Cockpit sections back into the panel.cfg file though.)Then, there's more I didn't mention in my post...Water Enviroment - Bill and Lynn Lyons - fs9wat2a.zip - You only have to have your Water slider set to 'High' to get the bump map effects. You still benefit from installing this even if you don't set your water slider to high. If your system can handle the water slider set to high, then great!Mike Cruachan's Water recommendations - http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...topic_id=163638 Mike's guide includes Bill and Lynn Lyons water enviroment above as well as Johan de Vries and Ed Truthan's: oceansfx.zip, oceanstx.zip, and ofx20sa.zipAirport Enviroment Upgrade 6.0 - Chris Arrington - aeu6.zipFS2Night v1 - Chris Arrington - fs2night.zipAirport Lighting - Mark Poole - airport_lighting.zipModified 2004 Skytextures - Nils Danielsson - fs9skytext.zipReal Stars - Norbert Pachner Vienna - real_stars.zipAll of those and maybe even more I didn't include(like Chris Willis Clouds FPS fix v2 - FS Sky World), must be taken into account. And of course, the guys who made them must be thanked for making our sim even better! :7 Thank You Guys!!!Those are mostly the reasons that I believe you found my screenshots to look as good as they do. And I do hope I have explained what you should do(see my guide) and files to install(or purchase) to get as good of results yourselves, with the possible exception of one thing, my sim's settings. which is what I will end this post with. ;-)-----------------------------------------------------------------My settings are 1600x1200 resolution, 4X AA(in-game AA unchecked), and in-game Trilinear Filtering.. I use MyTraffic 2004 with AI Traffic at 100%. Everything else in the sim is turned on and up all the way, sliders full right except the following...Terrain Complexity(Mesh): 85%Autogen: Very Dense (I'm also using a file in the Avsim library named: fs9xml.zip)Water: Medium slider settingNot all my Weather sliders are full right...Sight distance: 100 mi.Cloud draw distance: 60 mi.(The following are turned on and up all the way. I use Chris Willis 32-bit clouds FPS fix v2))3-D cloud percentage: 100Detailed Clouds checked.Cloud coverage density: Maximum(100%)My average FPS is usually 23.6. I have it locked at 24. If I lock it a little higher I get some more FPS but then the FPS jumps around more. I do not get an average of 23.6 FPS when I am around large cities with complex airports(dense scenery), but it is still not too bad even in those areas, certainly flyable for me. Simflyers airports and even FlyTampa's Miami(KMIA) are another story.-----------------------------------------------------------------Think I've done enough tweaking and installing addons?!?! :-lol I spent considerable time making this post and realize I have probably just made another guide of sorts. Just pointing out a lot of excellent addons, other guides, and where to get them and/or what the filenames are is all I've done though.I hope it helps! :-sun1JimSystem Specs:Intel 3.4C(C = Northwood) on Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, 1 GB Muskin '222' Special PC3200 RAM, NEC MultiSync FE2111SB 22" Monitor, ATI Radeon 9700 Pro Videocard with v4.6 Catalyst Drivers, DirectX 9.0b, Creative Audigy2 Soundcard, 250 GB w/8 MB Cache Western Digital HDD, WinXP Pro SP1

Perhaps you should move the text of this post into the Tips and Tricks forum :)

Hi Fred,Perhaps you are right. :) I will proceed to post this in there. Whew! I just need a break for a few minutes! Hehe.Cheers,Jim

Jim,LOL! Take your time :-hah

Jim,Thanks a million for taking the time on a Sunday afternoon to write such a detailed post of all the things you've done and installed to get such great results from FS9.I am going to print out your execellent post and re-read it. This is very interesting and exciting to say the least.Thanks again!Hollister

Hi Hollister,Your welcome and I'm glad to hear you're excited. :) If you decide to do all the things I have listed in there it will take you quite a bit of time(and money too). Anyway, I hope it helps you out! Just to let you know, I pretty much copied and pasted my post as a guide that is now in the Tips and Tricks subsection of this from as suggested by Fred Clausen. ;)Cheers,Jim