I get frame rates of 90+ fps (yes, ninety) on my new PC with every setting to the max, EXCEPT autogen and ai traffic.With every setting (incl. autogen and ai traffic), i cant get below 20 fps, no matter how hard i try.And that is with FSX in windowed mode instead of full screen, using two monitors, plus a virtual machine running XP and IE7 in the background.MB: Asus P5WD2 Premium, Intel P4 840 Dual Core, 3.2 GHz, 4 GB RAMVGA: Asus NVidia 7900 GTX, 512 MBHD: WD 150 GB Raptor, SATA2, 10K RPMNo water or liquid helium cooling, no overclocking, no black magic - just carefully picked components from the (upper) shelf.Then i felt naughty and installed FSX on my seven (!!) year old other PC. On that box, i still get 10+ fps with every setting to the min. Sure, on the old box it looks not as cute as on the new one, but i still can take off, fly and land without any problems (e.g. stutter).MB: Asus P2B-LS, Intel P3, 500 MHz, 1 GB RAMVGA: Elsa Erazor 3 (NVidia TNT2), 32 MBHD: WD 250 GB, SATA, 7200 RPMWhat do we learn from that ?- The general FSX engine performance is very good and it scales extremely well.- This FREE DEMO PRERELEASE version has still a performance problem with autogen and ai traffic, but according to TDraggers blog, they have already fixed it.- Learn to adjust the settings to your excellent/mediocre/poor/(censored) PC !How to adjust settings:- Save the default settings right after installation.- Move all sliders to the left/min. Now check your fps.- Move one slider slighty to the right. Now check your fps.- Repeat the previous step for all sliders, one by one, notch by notch. Check your fps.- Since FSX is a flight simulator and not a landscape slide show, first adjust the sliders for FLYING. Leave the eye candy for later.- Find out what slider(s) kills your fps. At what notch ? Then find out why (prerelease problem, driver problem, poor/cheap/old hardware).- If my last millenium box can do it, yours should too ..I own and have flown every general aviation flight simulator since Sublogic's Apple II (back then scenery was 4 x 4 squares and some triangle mountains, look here: http://fshistory.simflight.com/ ). Later came all MS FS versions for PC and Mac, Sierra ProPilot, Fly! 1 and 2, Flight Unlimited 1, 2 and 3, X-Plane 5, 6 and 7 (v8 has been ordered and should land in my postbox any day now). In real life, i have flown a bunch of glider planes and Cessna 15x/17x/18x.And now let me put on my helmet and hide behind the sand bags to receive your flames ... ;-P

I did the same procedure, unfortunately, my system is still a bit (read: incredibly) out of spec, so I didn't see massive gains, but it still looks beautiful and is incredibly playable.

I post on here very rarely....actually rare is over stating it.But your post (and FSX) has driven me to break my silence.First, your post: Great advice, sensible approach, top line....I applaud you for putting a level view on what is proving to be an emotional issue.Secondly, FSX - I have a good PC a great G card and loads of memory. FSX in its current state gives me 10fps on the runway on the landing mission with everything maxxed. But I am not even slightly worried. You see, I have seen Betas before and fluid they rarely are, bugless they never are. If a beta has no bugs, then the testers have missed them!!So until I post again, I am going to enjoy my un optimised FSX with a big smile.p.s. thanks to ACEs and those from the development team that have posted here. .... made for great reading and even better suspense. Roll on release!!Michael H

The only thing that kills FPS is water on high settings, turn that slider to the left and you can have the other sliders on full with great performance.

Water is everything for me..in FSX now.That ain't going anywhere but the extreme right.:)This thread seems to answer/address one bugging question I had. If I invest in a big super duper PC, would I be able to max most of the sliders in FSX and have room for ADDONS.For every addons I have in FS9, I have been shelling out FPS. My default FS9 used to be 60-80FPS.... but now running at 15-23FPS... with all my fav addons.I ran the demo on my T42P Thinkpad laptop and it gave me a much better performance than on my Desktop Dell XPS Gen 2.Right now..This Performance (FPS and No Jerkies) with sliders set at no less than 70% is what is going to make or break FSX IMO. Things like cloud shadow etc..is totally irrelevant issue at this stage.Manny

>The only thing that kills FPS is water on high settings, turn>that slider to the left and you can have the other sliders on>full with great performance.That's on your system.It's autogen and traffic on mine.You have to play with the settings.

What traffic, theres almost none aitraffic in this demo. Off course i have to play with the settings, how the heck do think i know its the high water settings that kills FPS. Autogen is not exactly a new thing added to FS, why would that suddenly start to mess it up. Water on medium settings and it runs more smooth than FS9, and no its not just on my computer :-roll .

>What traffic, theres almost none aitraffic in this demo. Off>course i have to play with the settings, how the heck do think>i know its the high water settings that kills FPS. Autogen is>not exactly a new thing added to FS, why would that suddenly>start to mess it up. Water on medium settings and it runs more>smooth than FS9, and no its not just on my computer :-roll .You know that it is high water settings that kills YOUR fps. That's my point. I wasn't suggesting that you didn't play with your settings. I was suggesting that the individual performance of your machine does not mean that other people can just slide one slider and everything will be fine. For example, I can put the water slider anywhere with negligible effects on my FPS. However, if I turn any autogen on (specifically due to vegetation, it appears) I take a hit.Also, by traffic, I mean the traffic tab, which includes road traffic and sea traffic.But hey, no reason to listen to my opinion. I'll just quote from tdragger's blog:"Overall performance: AI road traffic and autogen can contribute to poor performance so scale them back. We've made some progress since the demo build. "I'm just trying to help people get the best settings by exploring what works on their own system, not just saying "Do this, it fixes bad fps", because then people will come back and complain about it not working for them. There's no reason to be rude to me about it.

>>What traffic, theres almost none aitraffic in this demo.>Off>>course i have to play with the settings, how the heck do>think>>i know its the high water settings that kills FPS. Autogen>is>>not exactly a new thing added to FS, why would that suddenly>>start to mess it up. Water on medium settings and it runs>more>>smooth than FS9, and no its not just on my computer :-roll .>>>You know that it is high water settings that kills YOUR fps. >That's my point. I wasn't suggesting that you didn't play>with your settings. I was suggesting that the individual>performance of your machine does not mean that other people>can just slide one slider and everything will be fine. For>example, I can put the water slider anywhere with negligible>effects on my FPS. However, if I turn any autogen on>(specifically due to vegetation, it appears) I take a hit.>>Also, by traffic, I mean the traffic tab, which includes road>traffic and sea traffic.>>But hey, no reason to listen to my opinion. I'll just quote>from tdragger's blog:>>"Overall performance: AI road traffic and autogen can>contribute to poor performance so scale them back. We've made>some progress since the demo build. ">>I'm just trying to help people get the best settings by>exploring what works on their own system, not just saying "Do>this, it fixes bad fps", because then people will come back>and complain about it not working for them. There's no reason>to be rude to me about it.For what it's worth, I am getting the same results.Water I can seemingly put anywhere and it doesn't mess with my performance that much, autogen on the other hand........

I agree with you. FSX has super smooth/no stutter 30 fps (locked) without autogen or AI.If I fly around Saba I can have full autogen and still get smooth 30fps. Saba only has autogen trees and no autogen buildings, it seems the buildings cause the problems. In anycase, the new high res FSX ground textures are a massive improvement over FS9 and im having more fun turning off autogen and just flying using only the textures. I do not suffer from the blurries! Everything is maxed (except AI/Autogen).Oh... I also turn off the "on access" virus scanning in ZoneAlarm when playing FSX (or FS9). This has a big impact on stutters.FSX... I just love it! Well done MS ACES Studio :-beerchug

I didn't think this needed it's own thread, but I did a little side by comparison of a similar flight in FS9 and FSX.I turned off autogen, AI (including road and sea traffic) and used the 1.x water in the FSX version, as this is what gives me the best performance. It's a bit more unpredictable, although it does run, when using Fraps with some of those options turned on.The point is, I think the FSX looks better, or at least as good, with no autogen and lesser water. I can only imagine how cool it will be when my rig can crank some of those other settings.The FS9 is mostly vanilla. There's obviously a water texture replacement. Ignore the flying, especially on the FSX side. I was staring at the video of the first flight on the other computer, trying to match it up.http://www.laniercreative.com/brian/flightsim/fsc1.htmlRequires Flash Player 8

Nicely done! You seemed to wait a bit long to drop the dunlaps though... ;)

>Nicely done! You seemed to wait a bit long to drop the>dunlaps though... ;)Yeah, on the first flight, I realized I had been flying for a while and thought I should probably land and end it, and the second time, I was just trying to match it as quickly as possible.I thought afterwards, if there was a way to load a fs2004 flight video into fsx, or the other way around, it would be easier.Now I've managed to tweak so I can get more detail, but it's still a trade-off on whether I have nicer water or autogen. I can't do both, it seems.

Not on MY computer. I can move the water slider wherever and the frame rate is about the same. But if I increase the autogen slider...that's when I take the frame rate hit.Rhett

I think your FS9 graphics in the side-by-side video, with the settings you have, looks much better than FSX. My son, also an FS nut agrees with me.gary