Hello,i got my copy of FSX today, just in time for the weekend!Installation and activation all went well, it took around 45 minutes for the full install.I had the demo-1 installed before, and i was not unhappy with the performance with most sliders to max.My first tries with the retail version however was a disappointment at first. I moved the sliders to the same settings as i had them in the demo, and the performance was much worse. The 'target frame rate'-slider was locked to 20. In flight in the seattle area i achieved a framerate of around 8-14 stuttery FPS which really was no fun. Reducing many of the sliders wasnt really succesful in gaining FPS's.What i did then, against all recommendations, was to put the 'target frame rate' slider fully to the right to 'unlimited', and you know what happened?? The framerate went up to 16-24 !!! And it even flies wonderfully smooth, without stutters and the scenery looks great!I can only recommend to try this out, at least here on my system it made a difference of night and day!This is how i have the main sliders set in my FSX:Graphics:1600x1200x32TrilinearGlobal texture resolution: very highLens flare onLight bloom off (this seems to be a FPS killer)Adv. animations onAircraft:3D Virt. Cockpit onHigh Res 3D Cockpit onAircr. cast shadows offAircr. cast shadows on itself onLanding lights illum. ground onScenery:Level of detail radius: mediumMesh comlexity: 90Mesh resolution 19Texture resolution 1mWater effects 2.x low (looks best to me)Scenery complexity: extremely denseAutogen density : very dense (max costs FPS, but NOT unplayable)Ground scenery shadows: offSpecial effects: highWeather:draw distance: 60mi/96kmdetailed clouds, density highTraffic:Airline traffic density: 0% (didnt try yet how it affects performance)General aviation density 4%Airport vehicle density: minimumRoad vehicles 38%Ships and ferries 5%Leisure boats 15%I must play around with higher traffic settings now, to see how much they affect performance. But i guess, its the same like in FS9.My system:Motherboard ASUS A8N, AMD64 3800x2, 2GB Memory, GeForce 7800GTX.Would be interesting to know if some of you made the same experience with the FPS-slider.O.k., back to flying....Cheers from germany,Michael

The folks at ACES have already stated how the slider works. The actual developers designed it to set a level and then free resources needed for higher frames to be used for texture loading, etc. I can't explain why you experienced what you did but you can be fairly certain that the code functions like they programmed it to.DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/800FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XTX (Catalyst 6.8) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

That was one of the first things I noticed too-unlimited makes great results on my machine also. Probably very system dependent.http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/rxp-pilot.jpg

Guten Tag, I would also turn off self-shadowing, that also requires the screen to be redrawn twice...edit: oh i also get higher FPS when set to unlimited.

Setting the slider to a lower value provides a balance in processing power so you bias performance towards texture loading. By running the slider at unlimited your frames will go up but something else will suffer. If you see no noticeable degredation in texture loading or appearance then you probably have a fairly strong computer.DougDell XPS Gen3 (3.6GHz/540FSB) | 2GB DDR SDRAM | 74GB SATA, 10k RPM (C: ) | 120GB SATA (D: ) | 512MB ATI Radeon X1900XTX (Catalyst 6.8) | Audigy 2 ZS Sound | MS Force Feedback 2 | WindowsXP Pro (SP2) | DirectX 9.0c

My framerates are better with the slider at Unlimited also. Not good, just better.DougP4 3.2E @ 3.680 (1.385 vCore - 230 FSB)Asus P4C800-E Deluxe (BIOS 1019)4 x 512MB Corsair TWINX CXM3700 (3-4-4-8)1.5 TB of WD HDDATI X850XT PEA-Open 1648 AAP RipperPlextor 708A WriterEnermax 431W PSUInwin Case

> My framerates are better with the slider at Unlimited>also. Not good, just better.T.A.N.S.T.A.F.L."Thre ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Believe me, you are paying for the increased framerates by starving something else... ...now, if you donlt notice that "something else..." then all's well.

nothin else is worth noticing if you only get 15fps... :)

>nothin else is worth noticing if you only get 15fps... :)What he say!

Yep.

>> My framerates are better with the slider at Unlimited>>also. Not good, just better.>>T.A.N.S.T.A.F.L.>>"Thre ain't no such thing as a free lunch." Believe me, you>are paying for the increased framerates by starving something>else... >>...now, if you donlt notice that "something else...">then all's well. Bill,yes, that's how i understood it too. But i have yet to find where something else is starving by setting the FPS to unlimited...I wouldnt have a problem with flying at 8-15 FPS or so, as long it is smoooth and without stutters, but that is not the case with a target framerate of, say, 20. Setting it to unlimited gives a smooth and stutter-free experience to me.In FS9 that was vice versa, kind of. The framerates with 'unlimited' went up as well, but there was more stuttering. Here i got the best results setting it at around 25.Maybe you want to share your experiences where something is starving with the unlimited setting. I haven't noticed something yet...O.k., this is with the default FSX aircrafts, i dont know how this will be with complex addons.Cheers,Michael