I've heard that simflyers is a frame rate killer. Is this true? Debating on purchasing some of the airports, but if it crawls on my 6800GT p4 2.8, I won't bother.

It depends on the system, video card, memory, etc. Your processor is the same as mine but your video card is leading edge...what scenery were you planning to purchase...Phoenix, Houston, Chicago and Houston use GMAX technology while the rest of the line is rather dated. I also suggest checking into scenery from the following companies...Flytampa...www.flytampa.com better frame rates and newer technology.Sim-wings...www.sim-wings.com just released Paris CDG with slow moving gates and photo-realistic textures (Very Hot!)Aerosoft...www.aerosoft.com best renditions of German Airports I've ever seen...photo-realistic textures and excellent frame rates.Hope this is helpful...Darryl

You should be ok with your system. Don't expect 30 fps.It's not necessarily the scenery itself, but a combination of the scenery and all of the AI aircraft. They do include a utility to turn things off as well so you can turn off things like fences and cones, etc. which helps out.Matt Fox

They have a demo to try. I did this with KPHX as I saw it in a screenshot and it looked great, but even though I have my system tweaked and get good performance, it is just to heavy for normal use (ie full AI and real weather)just because something is GMAX makes no difference, it's in the modeling.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

One way to lessen the problem of performance is to stay away from Mega airports. Therefore I like the choices of airports that either FlightScenery or Online Simulation Solutions make. I prefer smaller airports with not so many gates where quality of detail replaces a maze of buildings and terminals.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/747400.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/images/asv_beta_member.jpg

>just because something is GMAX makes no difference, it's in>the modeling.Not really...A scenery made in GMAX is a LOT faster than the same scenery made with FS2000-style BGL commands. FS2002 and FS2004 can use both, but they will execute a lot faster with the newer format.Reasons are several, and all very logically explained.Pre Triangulation:Old FS2000-style BGL is interpreted in real time. If you have a, let's say, 40-sides polygon, it's stored as such in a FS2000-style BGL, and the conversion in triangles ( the only thing the a 3D card understands ) is done at run time in FS, and this take precious machine power.With new FS2002/4 commands, 3D objects are already stored as triangles in the BGL file, and the expensive triangulation step has already been done during the export phase by the Gmax MDL exporter.Vertex optimization:Even if using modern already triangulated objects, something can be also said on vertex optimization. The Gmax exporter is *very* clever, and if a vertex is shared between triangles sides, that vertex is exported only once, reducing data complexity even more. I even seen that several DirectX ( FS Gmax exporter, in fact, it's a DirectX exporter ) exporters do not export the SAME number of vertex from the SAME original model, because of different vertex optimization strategies.Since polygonal data is actually transferred using DMA through the AGP port, if the data used to describe the same object is more optimized, there's a saving in system bandwidth as well.State changes:A State Change is defined when the graphic card changes its drawing features, like materials and textures, between objects, and faster drawing speeds are achieved by minimizing state changes. As an example this pseudo code:DrawSomethingBlueDrawSomethingYellowDrawSomethingBlueDrawSomethingYellowDrawSomethingRedDrawSomethingBlueDrawSomethingGreenDrawSomethingBlueis slower than this code:DrawSomethingBlueDrawSomethingwithPreviousColorDrawSomethingwithPreviousColorDrawSomethingwithPreviousColorDrawSomethingYellowDrawSomethingwithPreviousColorDrawSomethingRedDrawSomethingGreenThe Gmax FS exporter take care of this, by sorting objects in the exported file, grouping object depening on materials.FS2004 new RIFF file format:The new BGL exporter for FS2004 uses an even more optimized format than FS2002 even for scenery. Before, airplanes used MDL-RIFF, and scenery used a much free form BGL. Now, even scenery uses a RIFF-based MDL structure, that is more rigidly defined and faster to process.LOD:with the Gmax exporter it's quite easy to implement LOD, a feature that not many scenery developers ( unfortunately ) understand, or don't want to use, because it forces to model each object twice or more times in different details, but can have, in certain cases were the objects has to appear very complex at small distances but can be simpler from far away, have a dramatic impact on performances.kind regards,Umberto Colapicchioni

Just try the demo, it is the actual scenery with some additional annoying elements. If you are happy with it, purchase the scenery. That's much a much better base for decision than listening to advice from others.-

Thanks Umberto, I understand that Gmax code is much more efficient than old school code, my point was to say that if the designer uses to many polys/vertices/faces, etc, it's still going to kill performance no matter how much optimization or which coding it uses. There are quite a few Gmax sceneries out there that are way to heavy/detailed for normal FS use.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

case in point, the PVD scenery by flightsceneries is extreemly detailed and no fps impact, so the talent of the designer play a lot in it as well.Simflyers scenery looks great but on average is a fps hitter

I have LAS, PHX, DFW, and IAH. The best of them all is PHX. With my system, i enjoy them. They are extreemly high detailed, but then again, the performance goes down. I normally get out of PHX at around 12-15FPS. Ahhh well... I love the detail so much it almost doesnt bother me. And those FPS are in the PMDG at night time with AS running.. So clear skys, in the defualt 172 i get around 18 or so.Well worth it if you dont mind the performance hit.

I actually found the demos to be a tad slower than the real thing, but not much.The real thing (mind this was under FS2002, haven't tried under FS2004) was slow but usually workable if I wasn't in a highly detailed aircraft.This on a fairly common system at the time (P4-1.6 with 1.5GB RAM and a 64MB videocard. Yes, tech has advanced a lot in 3 years).

>I have LAS, PHX, DFW, and IAH. The best of them all is PHX.>With my system, i enjoy them. They are extreemly high>detailed, but then again, the performance goes down. I>normally get out of PHX at around 12-15FPS. Ahhh well... I>love the detail so much it almost doesnt bother me. And those>FPS are in the PMDG at night time with AS running.. >>So clear skys, in the defualt 172 i get around 18 or so.>>Well worth it if you dont mind the performance hit.What graphic/detail settings do you have in FS9?

I used to run the KLAS scenery on a 2.4 and it ran great.

Cloud Draw is 50 Mi, I have it set at a max vis of 70 mi, clouds i change between med and high.I run at 1280x1024Airport gen is set to High-Ultra High. I change is around.Autogen is set to Normal-HighTerrain Mesh Complex is 50Water effects on.The option you check to render your distant textures is on. forgot what it is called.Aircraft detail is maxed out.2xAA 8xAF