HiIf you have a relatively fast PC with a very good Graphics card should you lock the Frame rates at 25 or set it to unlimited.Stelios

Lock, but not 25. I have it at 40.

if you can, lock at 35 or 40. I lock at anywhere from 25 to 30 just because thats about my cards max. But it just depends on what you want i guess. :)

There are IMO two reasons to lock the framerate:1. "microstutters" - these seem to happen more often with FPS at Unlimited2. More concistent framerate. Instead of the framerate going from anywhere from 20 to 100 FPS depending on scenery complexity you can lock it at 25 and it will only vary by 5 FPS.I leave it at Unlimited because this gives the sim maximum resources for loading scenery textures and such.

>I leave it at Unlimited because this gives the sim maximum>resources for loading scenery textures and such.Jimmi, I've heard the opposite: lock the framerate to free up resources for texture loading.Also there's not much to gain above 25fps because of the eyes reaction-time. Tv (europe) is 24fps and movies goes at 25. They don't stutter ..."Some say" (popular expression if you wanna avoid responsibility for what you say) that the framerate set should be devidable to the screen refresh rate. Don't know if it matters but I have a TFT at 60hz, and my sim at 20fps, and it works fine :).Eagle

"Jimmi, I've heard the opposite: lock the framerate to free up resources for texture loading."Yes, but it has been found by developers of texture-intensive addon sceneries that the oposite is true for FS2004 (in FS2002 it's probably best to limit the framerate). The developers of Megascenery, Swiss Pro and UK VFR all recommend a setting of unlimited for fastest texture loading.

Interresting, I'll try that next time I fly :).Eagle

While it is true that movies run at 25 FPS, they incorporate video blurr that makes the images appear fluid. This isn't quite the case in FS. I believe it takes at least 35 FPS to suspend the disbelief of suttering to achieve fluidity.jm2c

>While it is true that movies run at 25 FPS, they incorporate>video blurr that makes the images appear fluid. This isn't>quite the case in FS. I believe it takes at least 35 FPS to>suspend the disbelief of suttering to achieve fluidity.>>jm2cThat is not correct. The number of frames in a movie film are 24 complete pictures or frames per second. The only problem in displaying 24FPS is that a very visible flicker would be the result, due to a characteristic of the human visual system. Any refresh rate slower than about 45 hz, would cause most people to see a flicker in the image. The way that they get around this in the movie theater is to flash each frame of movie film twice using a shutter running at 48hz. Perception of smooth motion usually occurs for most people at a frame rate of about 18FPS or more. Certainly there should be no problem perceiving smooth motion with 24 FPS or 25 ( European TV ) or 30 FPS ( NTSC 3.58 )

>>Perception of smooth motion usually occurs for most people at>a frame rate of about 18FPS or more. Certainly there should>be no problem perceiving smooth motion with 24 FPS or 25 (>European TV ) or 30 FPS ( NTSC 3.58 ) >>So what your'e sayng is that the screen refresh rate (usually no less than 60Hz) resembels the 48Hz movie shutter (only better)?Bdw, Do you know what NTSC means? European broadcast people always refer to it as "Never Twice Same Color", but no one told me the correct meaning ...Eagle

Actually, jm2c is correct.A movie camera catches *everything* that happens while the shutter is open which is why if you pause a movie at a particular frame, one with lots of motion, you'll see motion blur.A computer image is rendered perfectly sharp and displayed until the next image is ready in the backbuffer, at which point the buffers are swapped and the new image is displayed with absolutely no interpolation between the two.I, and I'd imagine, most human beings, can see the difference in computer animation up to about 70 FPS, and I can also make out the difference between 85Hz and 100 Hz in CRT's.

Didn't think about that, but of course! I've even used the motion blur fx in Photoshop to illude smoth movement when fps are slow in flash or gif animations ;)Eagle

my understandin is that you run it unlimited, find your avg fps then lock it 5fps above your avrage. I lock mine at 25 because I get fluid motion and consistancy there

Yep Jimmi, both of you are correct (and you're also correct in your comments about the way frame rate lock works in FS2004).Although it's easy to perceive differences between 20 fps, 30 fps, 40 fps and so on, I think anywhere between 20 and 24 is acceptable if one can get it consistently. It's fast enough that our aircraft can be controlled and fast enough that the motion looks "real" to most people.I have been surprised at times when checking out some of the new highly detailed aircraft. I'll pan around them, and sometimes instead of hitting "shift-s" to switch views, I'll accidentally hit shift-z and pull up the fps counter. I've been stunned to see it dip into the mid-teens for some aircraft--not because it bothers me, but because I am so engrossed in the aircraft I am viewing that I don't "sense" differences in performance as much.FPS has always been a juggle of not only what is smooth, but whether the "wow" factor can deceive our senses enough that we either don't care of we're simply not aware. As of late, I've seen a lot of "wow" factor type of work that makes me forget about that dang 'ol shift-z key. -John

"my understandin is that you run it unlimited, find your avg fps then lock it 5fps above your avrage. I lock mine at 25 because I get fluid motion and consistancy there"That rule works with FS2002 very well, but FS2004 seems to have texture loading issues when fps are locked. I experienced it on long haul flights early after FS2004's release--my textures would gradually blur over long flights with the fps locked for no obvious reasons. But unlocking the fps rid FS2004 of that problem. Interestingly enough, FS2004 has a more consistent "unlocked" fps than FS2002 did. FS2002 would average anywhere between 17 and 40 fps, where as FS2004 averages about 15-25 fps. Part of that lower figure is due to my running FS2004 at the higher detail it supports vs. FS2002.If you have a wider range of fps similar to what I have in FS2002, then a lock may be worthwhile in spite of the texture issues, since a more consistent fps, even if it's a lower one, masks our noticing fps falloffs and spikes better.-John