After doing some tests to find out what has the biggest effect on framerates in FS2004, I thought I make my findings public and let others comment.I use an Athlon 64 3400+ with 1GB RAM, WinXP Pro installed on a separate SATA drive, a Radeon 9800Pro and FS2004 installed on a Promise RAID of 2 disks. WinXP is tuned (e.g. I use 2 hardware profiles where in the one for FS all unnecessary services are disabled; further tweaks to e.g. increase CD ROM transfer rate etc. are implemented as well) and running pretty well. There's no software installed except "Virtual CD" which runs in the background (i.e. no virus scanners, firewalls etc.). XP and all drivers are up to date (I'm a little over-enthusiastic about this) of course. And, I have a 2 LCDs configuration (desktop expanded to 2nd monitor).The biggest hists on the framerate have:*) "detailed clouds"/"cloud density"*) everything that has to do with water effects (e.g. "terrain and water", or the slider for highly detailed water)*) AI traffic*) Many and/or complex gauges on the screen*) Any additional view (e.g. additional spot view) on either monitor*) VCs (in my opinion a too cumbersome thing to use for the serious simmer)*) over-detailed addon scenery (maybe bad design is a factor here too, there's lots of great complex scenery which has almost no impact to FPS whereas some "simple" freeware makes my FS crawl)All other settings such as those for the 3D adapter (e.g. anisotropic filter, anti aliasing), autogen, scenery complexity in general and so forth have only minor effects here on my computer. I could hardly see a difference in FPS between "everything off" and "everything on", so I'd say approx. 5 FPS alltogether.I don't have the latest and greatest hardware, but I now know the difference between an Athlon 2400+ with Radeon 9500Pro and 512MB and my current system. And I'd say the difference is not as big as the pure numbers would expect, so no doubling of FPS or so.I now must ask if the best and fastest hardware (esp. CPU and graphics adapter) currently available is used, would it be possible to set each and everything to maximum, and would FS2004 still stutter, and what could I expect on the FPS side?Andreas

"Stuttering" has more to do with configuration than with raw power. In other words, the most powerful system currently available can be reduced to a stuttering mess if its not defragged regularly, if it's loaded with intrusive spyware, has poorly installed drivers, etc. FS9 is a pretty demanding piece of software, but even so I'm able to run it very nicely on a P4-1.8/Geforce4Ti4200 system with the sliders closer to full right than full left. I'd imagine that if you had the top spec system money can currently buy and it was well configured for simming, you'd be able to get decent framerates with the sliders maxed. However, I'd imagine you'd still come across some circumstances where things slowed down some. I mean if you fly into a huge airport with lots of AI, heavy 3D cloud cover and rain, and tons of autogen and scenery - well thats a pretty demanding scenario...

Hi Andreas,Nice of you to post your findings here.It looks like you gave your testing a lot of thought but here are a few things to think about for running those types of test in FS as I see just a few things missing from your ahem..."greatest hits" figures:"Mesh detail" Followed by "Scenery cast shadows" should be included and put right up near the top...When testing the various parameters in FS to be fair and accurate it is good to find a good testing area, by that I mean an area that seems to have a good amount of everything in it: 3d objects, mountainous as well as flat terrain, Coastline etc. Also ATC/AI needs to be turned off the whole time unless you are just testing ATC/AI as these introduce a random FPS hit, same for the clouds, you have to use a static or clear weather setting to get even comparable results, including time of day.Edit:As for stuttering it is as Zevious(?) posted that it is configuration and driver related, with my FS box I run 100% stutter free but that can change with drivers or certain backround services running as well as bad installs etc., lately I had to revert back to 57.72 Drivers for my card as the latest 67.xx could not deliver. Hope that makes sense for you.

Hi,Having just upgraded my system, its yearly upgrade was due, I am extremely pleased with the way it handles.The things that still can have a big effect I find is aircraft shadows.Now, I like having shadows on my own aircraft, but when you have EGLL full to the brim of AI all of them shadows can have an effect on ANY system.As such, I have shadows turned off, BUT, if there was some way to remove the shadows from AI, and just have them on your own plane, that would be great.The other thing that can have quite an effect is "uneconomically" programmed addon scenery, I think it pays to test all addon scenery in a test folder, as some of it can be very bad for frames.Other than that I am more than happy flying around with all sliders to the right at 40+ fps.Dan.

I'd pretty much go along with all above regarding fps hits - with a couple of modifications to the list.I would put AI traffic at the top - at least on my system that is the thing that makes the most noticeable difference- luckily I very seldom use it as I tend to fly online ans - strangely - other traffic seen when online doesn't seem to have much effect on fps.TYhe other thing I would mention is " some addon aircraft"- there are the odd one or two that I have downloaded in the past that really do have a bad effect - for no discernable reason.Dave

Agree with your findings totally.For my part, I started to de-emphasize FPS a while back and aimed for fluidity and smooothness. Since completing the FS-GS tweak process, the sim is much smoooother. This is also thanks to FSAutostart which is a gem of a utility and that assists in recovering RAM on the fly as well as defragging it prior to opening FS9 for use. My fps have risen somewhat, but the smoothness is far superior now and even at 14 fps at a dense airport with heavy AI, the image looks fluid.Clouds remain the biggest fps killer, so I turn them down to 80% and have the other slider set to one below max.Water reflection I agree also knacker frames, but I love the effect and so I live with the impact.I find that POSKY a/c still stress the video card considerably and texture refill is always an issue with them.I don't know if ANY PC will allow you to turn all sliders up to 100% and have complete smoothness. Well, maybe if you spend $5K on a water-cooled system, perhaps,....but even then !JS