HiI got the deluxe version of FSX this morning and I installed it along with the SP1 patch. I'm getting really quite poor framerates though given my specs:e66008800 GTS 640meg4gig DDR2 250 Gig Hard DiscAudigy 2 ZSI'm getting around 8-11fps sat stationary on the runway at O'Hare in 1680x1050. The resolution doesn't appear to make a difference though because I get pretty much the same in 1024x768. I don't really get above 20fps until I'm about 15,000 feet. I've tried several nvidia drivers (including the latest) - none of them seem to make a jot of difference to the framerate. Any ideas? ThanksTom

Alrighty, let's start with your settingsAre you using Vista or XP?Approximately where are your config sliders at? You access these by going to the menu->options->displayexample: (heres mine for scenery)http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/171970.jpgLet's start there

Performance depends on many things. Turn traffic and autogen down to mid levels, turn light bloom off. Make sure you have defragged your hard drives (3 times consecutively then reboot). Clouds are still a frame rate killer, so go easy on weather. Resolution does not have much effect on performance with newer graphics cards; I run 1900 x 1200 and still get good performance. Cheers,Noel.

I'm using XP. Settings wise is pretty much as follows (someone else provided me with these images as a recommendation - they have a similar spec)http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/7226/captureja0.jpghttp://img501.imageshack.us/img501/7585/capture1vm1.jpghttp://img246.imageshack.us/img246/8475/capture2dn9.jpghttp://img410.imageshack.us/img410/9753/capture3tw1.jpghttp://img292.imageshack.us/img292/5016/capture4zq4.jpgThe only difference being I'm running at 1680x1050 rather than 1920x1200

HI twoodster,Turn water to 2x low, roadship to 10% Water 2xlow and water 2xMed have big difference on frame.ThanksChris Willishttp://www.hifisim.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-dev-sigbanner.jpg

That got me about 1 extra frame - now getting 13fps sat on the runway doing nothing :) Hehe

Ok, in order of your settings/pics, I'd do:GRAPHICS TABTarget frame rate: 21-24 (adjust for areas you fly in)Filtering: ansiotropic (sp?)AIRCRAFT TABLeave current settingsSCENERY TABmesh complexity: 100water effects: low 2.xspecial effects: mediumWEATHER TABleave at currentTRAFFIC TABairline and GA to 70-80%road vehicles: 30ishall boat traffic 20 or underuncheck show aircraft labelsAlso, see if you have your 8800 gtx forceware set to application controlled (for the AA and AF) or if the hardware is doing the AA and AF. I have my forceware doing application controlled and it works better.Play around with unlimited FPS and locking the FPS slider.....30 is way too high if you are around big cities. Even with your system, shoot for 20-24ish.... If you are anywhere but big cities than you can lock at 30 no problemOne more thing....XP only uses 3GB of RAM, so keep that in mind....vista will use all 4GB when you upgrade someday

My motherboard only recognises just over 3gig anyway - so technically I'm wasting a gig anyway! I did have Vista but it was annoying me too much, so I took it off again ;)I'm starting to think the game is just having a conflict with my hardware/software somewhere. Any changes I make seem to be having very little effect on the FPS. Surely changing the res from 1680x1050 to 1024x768 should cause a big performance boost? Doesn't change my FPS at all!

Again, set the frame rate slider to unlimited before you set it to anything else and check your FPS, this has helped me and many others, for example, I get crazy FPS when set to unlimited, but if I were to lock it at all on any setting I would get about 17 FPS.Jeff

yeah pretty much....I've noticed setting unlimited can yield anywhere from 15- 75 FPS, in rural areas..but it's best locked at 20ishBy best, I mean less stuttering...The thing is sometimes its constant locked at 22, but I'll get jumps down to 15 then back up to 22 - it never did that in FS9....or prior to SP1...don't know why it does that

I think your problem is your monitor resolution and your card. I have the same card but i'm flying on a 19" LCD monitor. The 320mb version of the 8800GTS is very limited as your resolutions goes higher. Maybe try a different resolution and see if it makes a difference.

I don't think it's my card - people are playing at higher resolutions than me and getting twice the performance. The resolution doesn't appear to be effecting my framerate at all either - I've tried 1024x768 and it's no better.I've tried setting the frames to unlimited, but again - no effect. Maybe one extra frame or something, but nothing noticeable. It's a strange one this! I tried ramping up all the settings to max and I only got 1 fps less!

Check other apps/processes running concurrently with FSX and check the backgound CPU usage without FSX running. Use FSAutostart to kill other processes/apps if they are a problem.This sounds odd but the high end graphics cards sometimes perform better at higher resolutions than lower due to design factors so don't be shy in trying higher resolutions.Say to yourself many times the following mantra:"It is not my hardware,It is not FSX,It is my setup" Read the scriptures that are this forum and enlightenment will come. Though enlightenment is different for every acolyte.John

Still though, heres what I get with those settings I told you @ Ohare on the runway, lets see i have some SCT cloud cover and vis is 30 miles I think...runway niner (not sure what left or right i just put active runway in)I get about 9-11 at view .40 zoom. I got my PC running pretty well, use Ultimate Defrag and run FSX and FS9 on their own partition (well along with BF2 heehe).... So yeah, this is pretty much what I excepted at the large airports....I get about the same, maybe 2-3 higher at my home airport of Minneapolis - KMSPTry msp lets see how you dohttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/171983.jpg

Are you by chance overclocking at all? The reason I ask is, after SP1, my FSX FPS went to crap along with sound stutters from my Xfi-XtremeGamer audio card. My overclock at the time had passed MemTest86+, Prime95, Orthos, FS9, FSX, and 3DMark06. But not FSX-SP1! I had to go back and re-adjust my FSB ratios and loosen my RAM timings a bit (5/5/5/15) and now I'm golden, locked at 24FPS with 50% PAI traffic. Most of my sliders are towards the right but I turn-off all double-pass scnery such as 2x-water, shadows, bloom, etc...