I went through a bunch of posts to gather all of the changes people have suggested to getter better performance (i.e. Frames Per Second) from FS9. I decided to use 3DMark03 as my benchmarking tool. I list the score from 3DMark with each modification, with the average FPS from the four tests as well. I used the Balanced ATI settings for this test. I am not sure of the exact translation between this data and FPS in FS9. I just know that I do see a small FPS increase in FS9, and things seem somewhat smoother. I list the ATI 4.7 drivers because these came with SP2. I was disappointed though that many of the tweaks that have been suggested had no effect on my system. I did not try to overclock my CPU or memory.--------------------------My system is the following--------------------------Motherboard: Asus A7N8X nForce2 UltraCPU: AMD 3200+ 400 MHz FSBMemory: 1 GB Corsair PC 3200Video Card: 128 MB ATI 9800 Pro--------------------------Changes that had an effect--------------------------ATI Drivers 4.07: 5589 (70.7)ATI Drivers 4.11: 5739 (72.9)ATI Drivers 4.12: 5753 (73.3)GPU Overclocking: 5916 (74.4)End Programs: 5938 (75.0)ATI Drivers-----------It was nice to see validation that each version of the drivers gives slightly better performance.GPU Overclocking----------------I used a tool called ATITool for this. What I like about this tool is that you can have it compute the maximum core and memory speeds for you and it will adjust them downward if it detects any visual errors. My default speeds are 378/333 but I have overclocked the core and memory speeds to 392/349 MHz respectively.End Programs------------I just used good old Task Manager for this, but tools like EndItAll work as well.PCI Video Card Latency----------------------This is not on the above list since it did not change my 3DMark03 test score. But by setting this number to 32 from the default of 255, the 3DMark FPS tests with sound came out higher. This allows other devices, such as the sound card, to get more time on the PCI Bus. I had a slight drop in the 3DMark score when I set this to 64, so I settled on 32.--------------------------Changes that had no effect--------------------------XP Tweaks---------I followed the tweaks at BlackViper.com but saw no changes in my score. This included shutting down unneeded services, modifiying my page file settings, turning off all of the visual effects, etc. I think that these are only important if you are running low on hard drive space, or have less than 1GB of memory.BIOS Video Aperture-------------------This was set to 64 MB. I changed it to both 128 MB and 256 MB but saw no difference in my scores. I just left it at 128 MB. Defrag Hard Drive-----------------My hard drive was 12% fragmented. I defragged it but saw no differnce in my score. I bet though that if it was fragmented by a higher percent, then I would have seen a small increase. Viewsonic monitor drivers-------------------------I downloaded the signed XP Viewsonic monitor drivers. After installing them, my score went down by 170 points so I uninstalled them.Omega Drivers-------------I installed the latest Omega drivers but saw no effect on my score, so I removed them. These are ATI drivers that are tweaked for better permance. I would be curious if anyone has any data where Omega drivers offer better performance.Well this is what I found. Hopefully this helps folks thinking of making these changes as well.Scott

Interesting synopsis. I think it's important to note though that FPS isn't the only performance indicator that tweaking can improve. In fact, I don't very often find that any of the tweaks have a huge impact on framerates. What I do find though is that having a well optimized system can have a big effect on overall smoothness. Personally, I find that even when the framerates are hovering around 20 the sim is still very enjoyable as long as there are no stutters and hiccups and running a lean system (meaning eliminating spyware and background tasks and services and so forth) is the best way to get rid of stuttery performance...

Thanks for the report, Scott. Like Zev I don't go after extra FPS, rather I tune for smoothness. And that's where Blackvipers's recomendations and utilites like FSAutostart become critical on any system.A couple of caveats about ATI Tool are in order. It's great utility but:1) Never allow it to test for max core and mem clocks unattended. It will run endlessly, and that could make your video card go "poof".2) It doesn't work well with many of the latest generation ATI "X" cards. Serious system problems can result.I use ATI Tool but only for setting GPU cooler fan speed (100%) and monitoring GPU temps. There are a number of other handy features included as well. Use this nice utility with caution!Regards,Greg

Interesting...But actually I tend to prefer the old 3DMark 2001 for analyzing the effects of tweaks. Why? It's more CPU/memory dependant where as '03 is almsot only a GPU test. Try overclocking the CPU - doesn't make the slightest difference to 3DMark 03 because it's 99% GPU-dependant.Further proof of this: Same CPU (Athlon64 3500+) - Radeon 9700 Pro gave me a score in the low 5000's. Upgrading to the X800XT gave me 11600 3DMarks. FS2004 and most other games on the other hand showed a much smaller increase.Athlon64 users should *optimize* the memory timings. These CPUs have a built-in memory controller which means they really benefit from using fast memory with low latency (lower options for the timings in BIOS). Don't use SPD detection. Even my crappy 256MB modules do Cas2 3-2-8 at 200 MHz even though they are rated at Cas 2.5. Run Prime95 and the Blend option for a couple of hours to verify that the RAM is stable with the tighter timings.Also re: defragging. While it won't affect overall framerate much it can reduces annoying and unneeded pauses and stutters, disk thrasing and reduce initial loading time when starting a flight.

JimmiG about A64 and mem timings.It

Thanks for reminding me to make the 1T tweak Par. I just changed my BIOS to enable 1T command rate timing, and everything seems stable. Sisoft reports a nice boost in memory throughput - from 5.5MB/s up to 6.5MB/s - but it doesn't seem to make any noticable improvement in FS framerates (as measured by FRAPS for the same scenario before/after over a 30 second period). I'm sure overall system performance will benefit by this change.Gary

Faster ram generally helps smoothness rather than max fps. But also the difference won

My memory tweaking efforts have yielded an settings improvement from 2.5-4-4-8 2T @ 200MHz to 2.5-3-3-5 1T @ 221MHz. Tha's as far as she'll go capt'n ;)Gary

I decided to tweak my memory timings as well. Here are the results:8-3-3-2.5T score of 4229 MB/s with SiSoft Sandra5-3-2-2.0T score of 4202 MB/s7-3-2-2.0T score of 4257 MB/sMy system won't boot going to 7-2-2-2T. It is interesting that the Active to Precharge Delay (APD) produced worse results when the value was lower in the 2nd test. I found a tweak guide that said the APD = CAS Latency + RAS to CAS Delay + 2 = 2+3+2 = 7 in my case.Again, I don't know what this translates to for FS9 but as long as FS9 is stable, I will keep these settings.Scott

Thanks for posting all that info!>-------------------------->My system is the following>-------------------------->Motherboard: Asus A7N8X nForce2 Ultra>CPU: AMD 3200+ 400 MHz FSB>Memory: 1 GB Corsair PC 3200>Video Card: 128 MB ATI 9800 Pro>One reason you may not see as much change, is your system. Many may be like mine, a P3, 2.4 ghz, with who knows what for a card, ATI video, and Mem: 512When you increase fps by 5-10 fps, it becomes more important, when your rate is 8fps average to begin with, than if it was 20fps+ My biggest increase came from unchecking Commercial Traffic. Using only GA-Traffic, and deleting all the other Traffic files. Only land at Fields with mostly GA Traffic anyway, maybe once or twice a year at large fields. Keeping only Props and Biz-Jets in my GA-Traffic>Defrag Hard Drive>----------------->My hard drive was 12% fragmented. I defragged it but saw no>differnce in my score. I bet though that if it was fragmented>by a higher percent, then I would have seen a small increase.Mine gets more fragmented than that, in one day. Defragging does not seem to improve my framerates, but speeds up loading of scenery, so it does not pause perceptably, enroute. Much of my time is spent working on photos, with Photoshop, and I make lots of copies. Each weekend usually take 90-300 digital photos which are added to the drive, and processed asap. This means a lot of fragmented files. When I do not defrag, it raises heck with loading in FS9... Even though I use "Diskeeper" which automaticly begins defragging whenever the screensaver is running, I manually load it and defrag before running FS9. Because I use the system so much, even working while eating, the screensaver only runs at night when I'm sleeping. Bob