Hi, im running FSX on a late 2012 iMac i5 3470S 2.9GHZ.

 

I was at the start really suprised how well it performed in fsx, with all slider maxed out, except traffic & weather it gets about 30-50fps flying a 737 low over manhattan, and about 100-140fps when crusing at 35k ft. On landing/takeoff on for example JFK intl or O'hare i have 60-70fps+.

 

I have recently installed UT2 and some addon scenery such as AS Arlanda, AS Dusseldorf, AS Brussels etc. On those airports without traffic i get 35-45fps+, but with UT2 set to 50% this drops to 20-25 TOPS. Is it normal to get this huge of a drop? 

 

Any ideas of what graphic settings i can lower to achieve higher fps than this? I've tried lowering the scenery slider to about 70% max but does not make me more than 2-3 fps difference.

 

*Im runnign FSX steam edition which what i've heard is pretty much tweaked 'out of the box'.

UT2 can be a read drag on a computer, depending upon the airport.  Airports like JFK are already hard on computer performance and adding UT2 can inject so much AI traffic that it will bring a computer to a crawl.  You did not mention the settings within UT2.  I turn off moving jetways as they are a performance hog. 

I also restrict commercial AI traffic to 90% airline, 20% general aviation. 

Display generic repaints turned off.

Target frame rate turned off.

Maximum altitude ground aircraft visible set to 10000 ft.

Distance to spawn ground aircraft set to 20 nm.

Maximum aircraft to spawn set to 70.

 

These settings work for me on my old computer.

Yes, AI and airport vehicle density are huge players in frame rates and can drop them quickly.  Load up an airport and play with the option menu sliders, that's what they are there for.