Silly question in the subject line, I know. But I'm curious as to why my system runs FS9 so well, when others don't.First off, Here's my specs:Pentium 3 600mhz512MB SDramATI Radeon 7200 64MB videoSound blaster LIVE! 5.1Now, I'll grant you that I've disabled many of WinXP pro's non-essential services. I've also got a few minor tweaks in FS9, such as the smaller cloud textures. I've also got my display sliders in FS9 set around the mid-point, so it doesn't look as good as it could, but I'm more of a "smooth flight" kinda guy anyway and don't care much about the outside "eye candy". So long as the sim works, I always say...Normally, I'll get between 20 and 25 fps in FS9 COF. At highly detailed airports, such as LAX, it may drop to around 18 fps. The only time I really get a performance hit is during heavy weather, with lots of clouds. Then the machine may drop as low as 9-10 fps. Which is still very flyable, and the hit doesn't usually last too long.So I'm just curious as to why this rig will run with almost equal performance to some peoples 1.5 - 2 gig machines with 128MB vid cards. At my VA, I get people emailing me all the time about how I do that... Well, I just load FS and go.I am not (yet) using the "folder compression" tweak that's been discussed in other threads and I haven't overclocked anything...

I think it depends on how spoilt you are with high-end hardware. Those who are used to playing with a 3 GHz CPU and the latest videocard will find it unaccpetable to see one single stutter or to have to turn down scenery/weather quality a notch or two.I tried FS2004 on my secondary computer:Athlon 950 Mhz, 384MB RAM, 32MB Matrox G400 DH videocard and if I turned down some sliders and played at 800x600 is was fairly smooth. Still, I prefer to play it on my 2.2 GHz Athlon with the Radeon 9700 Pro :-lol

Hi,How much AI are you running? what addons, both aircraft and scenery are you using?.Like you state you are not an "eye candy" guy, how much AA and AF are you using, what res are you running at, there are just so many varibles, that it is difficult to compare systems.And, I dont care what anyone says, there is no way 9-10 fps is smooth.CheersDan.

Dan,Then I guess I don't know what I am talking about, because I think 10 fps is pretty smooth on my beast.

I used to think 10 FPS was OK. Now it's barely enough for me to make a good landing. In fact, today when I was flying I thought it was kind of sluggish. Checked the FPS and was getting 22 :-lol

Hey, I didn't say smooth. I said "Flyable" LOLI don't use AI traffic. If I'm flying, I'm on VATSIM. Res settings are set at 1024x768 and use windowed mode.I've got a ton of addon's. The B200, PMDG etc. Those two planes I don't fly much if there's alot of traffic around me (VA flyin, for example) as they will increase the system load. But like I said, rest of the settings are set to about the mid-point.I just find it curious that I can get an average of around 15-18 fps, taking into account weather etc, when guys with more "powerfull" rigs are reporting far less...And hell, we all need something else to talk about! LOL

I get similar results on my system, probably a tad better since I have more of my sliders maxed.Having said that, likely you'd never be able to compare performance by someone's mention of system specs and fps count alone. As already said, some max every single slider because they expected their advanced hardware coupled with a sim with nearly two-year old code could run with peak performance.Sometimes, even a slight adjustment in a slider can yield incredible results. If you fly in the flight levels all the time, Autogen can be nixed (I hate it in cities I am familiar with--Phoenix for instance has few multi-story buildings outside of downtown, but Autogen makes it look like Brooklyn).If you fly in the Bush where traffic is rare, AI can be nixed.If you don't mind lower res, 800x600x32 saves quite a few fps on lower end graphics cards. I've posted screenshots a plenty and they look just as crisp as some of the cropped high-res photos, unretouched. And I'll take a lower res, stutter free, 20+ fps environment any day if it saves me $500 on a new system. $500 is a trip to Disneyland for my family. I digress....Water reflections off saves fps.Shadows off saves fps...But many who've invested a small fortune in their hardware have a no compromises attitude when it comes to MSFS and slider settings. Chris Willis has a system about double my speed, and I've compared notes with him. If he matches my settings, he easily averages in the 40's with his performance. So our systems may be slow and getting good performance, but a faster system with our slider settings would get stellar performance...

I don't think yours is any better. You simply got used to many compromises that other would find unacceptable these days. One of my machines is even worse than yours (P3 500, 192 MB) and I also can get FS9 to run smoothly but I am not going to brag about quality of graphics, type of addon aircraft that "work" on this system or overall game enjoyment.Michael J.http://www.reality-xp.com/community/nr/rsc/rxp-higher.jpg

People can tweak and tinker all they want, but the bottom line is the graphic sliders are going to be the only way to impact framerates with any kind of significance.

"Why does my system work better then others?"Because you don't care about the graphics you see outside the cockpit.Greg

>"Why does my system work better then others?">>Because you don't care about the graphics you see outside the>cockpit.>>GregMate, you just hit the nail on the headDan.

"Because you don't care about the graphics you see outside the cockpit."I do disagree with this one--no smiley after that one, but I don't think you meant it to be as rude as it sounds. I think it pushes a misconception that our visual experiences are so different from others with faster systems. I've been posting screenshots here a long time, and if I compare them (and the reported performance) vs. others here, I've seen nothing with ONE exception that would convince me a Cray was needed for my simming pleasure.What's that one exception? When I see these shots with AI galore, and realistic representations of airports with all the airlines parked at the right gates. THAT's worth an upgrade for if your flying slants towards an AI rich environment. But everything else--pretty clouds, nice cities, stutter free simming--has always been present on my rig and I fly hour after hour in an environment as rich as any I've seen displayed here. I recently posted pics at EHAM--minus the AI and rather cruddy Autogen, but I'd challenge anyone to say that the graphics weren't up to snuff. And, I was getting 20+ fps at a highly detailed airport...-John

The bottom line of all this ( and several hundred other posts/threads here and elsewhere about comparative performance) can I think be summed up in a very few statements...............1: Beauty is in the eye of the beholder( what pleases one person may look like rubbish to another)2: No two systems are identical- even those with the same hardware/software can , and probably will, perform differently.3:I think we all have to accept that FS will give widely differing results - there is no magic combination of hardware/ software/ settings that is guaranteed to produce a given performance standard ( to most this seems to mean high fps).Just my opinion.Dave

I'll ellaborate, John.When the original poster wrote this: "...but I'm more of a "smooth flight" kinda guy anyway and don't care much about the outside "eye candy"." I can only hope he has no plans to go on to RL flight experience. If he bought the sim to play only as a game, then he has every right to be happy with the performance he gets from his rig. But some of us use this sim as a procedural training aid to our RL flying, and it can be very useful if used properly.Clearly he spends much more time staring at the panel than he does looking at the "eye candy". While for gaming this is fine, but in RL such a practice (and denial of situational awareness) can be deadly. And I don't recommend that anyone who might be interested in RL flying follow such a practice.I in no way took it upon myself to judge the original poster's reasons for using this sim. If he is only interested in using it as a game, then so be it. But if he wishes to use it as any sort of a training aid for a future in RL flying, then I recommend that he rethink his acceptance of the performance he gets from his current rig.To each his own,Greg

>Clearly he spends much more time staring at the panel than he>does looking at the "eye candy". While for gaming this is>fine, but in RL such a practice (and denial of situational>awareness) can be deadly. This is the most bizarre comment in this whole thread. Actually for "gaming" you tend to look outside far more. And professional PC-based trainers like Elite, OnTop, Jeppesen (not to mention a sit-in simulator at my FBO that costs $60/hour) ask you to stare at the panel far more than outside (there is even no such thing as 'outside' world in some of them).Michael J.