Defrag, install the October release of DirectX 9c, and update your vid driver. More like routine maintenence than tweaking. I'm happy---ASUS K8N (plain) AMD Sempron 2700+ 1.5 gigs RAM ATI X1300 vid cardFLYing? It's cool. Trillions of birds and insects can't be wrong.

"FS is not a typical game in the traditional sense, but a highly sophisticated toolbox that brings us a close to real-life simulation."I agree. When I tweak the CFG file these days I get ever so closer to feeling like a "real" software engineer..... errr pilot. ;)

>The new sim is very disapointing. I have a AMD Dual Core>4600; 2 gigs of memory and a 7900GS video card; a good ASUS>motherboard - and my machine is sucking wind. 11 FPS in a turn>over PDX in the Cessna with moderate low graphic settings - no>airport buildings even.You need to apply some of the tweaks on these forums. My AMD 3500, 7800GT vid card gives me a smooth flying experience in most situations.Ray Keattch.

Hi, Colin. I have an AMD Athlon 64 at +3200. I read (I think, in the readme for FSX) that if we have an AMD processor we can expect degraded performance. That's a switch! It used to be that AMD was better for gaming.Tim

>> Len,>> Not sure how you can say that. Perhaps you could offer some>advice> to Colin instead of telling him crap.>> CraigI find this post deeply offensive and regrettable, people who post such things lose all credibility and should at least be given a friendly warning.

>Don't be jumping to conclusions too soon. Yes, the>out-of-the-box settings don't get the best out of your CPU,>but you can apply a few tweaks that a lot of people have used>successfully (even recommended by MS).>>The best tweaks so far are to:>>- Rename default.xml to default.bak in the autogen folder>- Add FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION=XXX to the [main] section or>fsx.cfg>- Use TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL=400 and>TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL=3000 in the [Terrain]>section of fsx.cfg, where the numbers are the trees/building>that are rendered per cell. The lower the value the less>densely populated the areas with autogen.>>The recommended setting for the fibers are anywhere between 0>and 1 where 0.1 for example allocated 90% of the CPU cycles>towards rendering (0.2: 80%, etc).>>I easily achieve 20fps with a setting of 0.2 with everything>almost maxed and full autogen and it looks and flies great,>except when flying over very densely populated areas where the>fps drop in the teens. I assume this is also mostly due to 70%>traffic on top of that (MyTraffic X), Active Sky and the>Flight1 Cessna 172.>>This all is on a AMD X2 4800+, 2GB Corsair XMS, nVidia 7600>GT.>>Good luck.>>sorry mate but the fibre setting only works at low altitude in a local area flying at medium altitude anywhere elso and the ground ends up looking like a 2 year olds crayon drawing.

>Hi, Colin. I have an AMD Athlon 64 at +3200. I read (I>think, in the readme for FSX) that if we have an AMD processor>we can expect degraded performance. That's a switch! It used>to be that AMD was better for gaming.>>TimNope it says the game will set lower levels than you should be able to run it at owing to it looking at clockspeed rather than cpu rating. Funny how it doesnt apply to conroes though or maybe it does.This program is the same as fs9 the more cpu power on one core you throw at it the better your experience and the recommended specs seem to be those needed to install it not play it.The thing i find most galling is the pretty cloud reflections, the one thing they should have written to make use of graohics card hardware shaders yet on my x1900xt 512mb they are unusable. There is either a very large black hole in the code somewhere or we've been had.I'm beginning to think dx10 will magically fix everything but not through dx10. This smacks of some sort of perverse dx10/vista marketing ploy. After all we all are well aware of Mr Bullmers attitude.As for the utter tripe on the blog about multi core, if MS cannot write programs to take advantage of multi core then things aren't looking to good.Those 80 cores in 5 years aren't going to be much use ... they make me laugh.

>>>> Len,>>>> Not sure how you can say that. Perhaps you could offer>some>>advice>> to Colin instead of telling him crap.>>>> Craig>I find this post deeply offensive and regrettable, people who>post such things lose all credibility and should at least be>given a friendly warning.I agree. It's strange that some people just feel the need to be rude - well, probably from the 'safety' of a forum where they don't risk getting a fist in their face that is. It seems cowardly to me.

It's simple all you need is 3 tweaks period if you can call them tweaks.1.FIBER_FRAME_TIME_FRACTION= Put in a number from .33 to .01 untill you CPU load is taken down for good FPS. 2.Turn of the default AI remove its BGL and get some low impact AI. If you can't find any AI you like just Keep it turned off or down to 10% or below untill you do. Keep Boat and Auto traffic below 10% I turn off boat traffic most of the time.3. Under Terrain put in this settings TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_TREES_PER_CELL= Adjust them from 6000 to 100TERRAIN_MAX_AUTOGEN_BUILDINGS_PER_CELL= Same as above untill you get the FPS you like along with the autogen look you want.Keep your water at 2Xlow or below. Your Mesh at 38mm or above. Play around with the rest of the settings.You do not have to reduce texures I have tried them reduced seen none to very little impact on my FPS.Now have fun with FSX. Your cpu and Video card are more then able to handle FSX with this tips people have posted.

I Dont have as good a box as yoursbut I would seriously recommend to find the time (if you can) to apply the various tweaks.... because trust methey really do make a different to FPS :D

There's another side to this; it's been my experience, over some years in the FS Forums, that polite questions almost invariably result in helpful answers.Sure there are exceptions but mostly we have much to be proud of in our fellow Members.Almost every one of my "helpers" have given unstintingly of their time and experience in an effort to solve my occasional difficulties.So there's still plenty to be grateful about in our Forum.Cliff

You're right. I did the tweaks and my frame rates improved while sitting on the runway. However, every time I set up a flight I experience a CTD (complete show stopper) after I'm well into the flight. As we all know the CTD's can really tick a person off.I'm sick and tired of having to practically rebuild this thing to try and make it work.But I'm not going to "throw the baby out with the bath water" either. FSX will have a life cycle of several years I suppose. I do fear that I'll probably run out of authorized "Activations" before the problems get solved however.If this FSX activation fiasco is a preview of things to come then I'm just glad FSX it doesn't require Vista to run. flykingVirtual AviatorSystem Specs:XP PRO SP2AMD Athlon 64 2413MHzNVIDIA GeForce 7800 GT, 256MBMemory: 2048MBSB Audigy 2 ZS Audio

3.2;1;256

>>Agreed, we should not have to replace files, recompile>>textures, add config lines etc. This is not what one should>>expect from a company with the resources of Microsoft and>the>>time since the last FS release.>>>>I sense from the comments from beta testers and developers>>that the problems stem from management. >>>>At least they have a exceptional return policy.>>Any version of FS had to be tweaked to trick out the most>performance. FS is not a typical game in the traditional>sense, but a highly sophisticated toolbox that brings us a>close to real-life simulation.>>If you hardware cannot produce the desired results, turn back>the sliders, but if you really want optimal results then you>need to tweak. Noone has ever claimed that you need to run>everything maxed. With the current hardware it is impossible.>Period. ;)>>Oh for goodness sake its a game its not a space research program they havent used the latest (recent) hardware programming methods for the graphics (or they've messed up which is allowed as long as they try to fix it which they may be) so it totally relies on the cpu.If my kids (or myself) run one of the latest arcade driving games it runs silky smooth with fantastic graphics. I know it works the graphics card because i can hear the cooling fan spinning up, for whatever reason on my system fsx isnt doing this at all its relying on cpu grunt which is never going to be enough. Anyone who knows will tell you that a game using hardware accelerated graphics can look many times better than one that isnt for virtually zero extra cpu load.FSX is just a game the 'aces studio' are not some space age research ex nassa employees they are a bunch of programmers doing what their boss tells them. I just feal that we the consumer have the right to demand a better job. The trouble is there is no competition so they get my money, doesnt stop us trying to improve things.

Never mind.:-)