How to solve major stuttering from clouds?

[Guest davidvoogd]

Hello,I just picked up a new system for FSX. It's an Intel Core2 Quattro Q6600 / 2GB Ram / ATI X1650 256mb / on board sound (Acer ASE770 if you want the specifics).I know from the start the video card isn't anything too special, but I figured I still should be able to run FSX reasonbly well, and I can.I have fps locked at 20, and I can get that with scenery dense, autogen normal, water high 1.0, even flying around downtown Seattle in the Jet City mission. However once I throw some clouds at the system it starts stuttering like made, with framerates jumping 13/20/13/20, esp if there are any big clouds.Asside from using the pathetic simple clouds, is there anything I can do? I haven't done any FSX.cfg tweaks yet, or any tweaks at all actually.Why does MS have to overdo the clouds every time? I wish there was some in between, even FS2002 style clouds so you can get performance while still getting IFR.Anyhow if anyone has suggestions they would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you.

[JSkorna 137]

Hi,Keep cloud draw distance at 40. Watch your AA and AF levels.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

[Guest davidvoogd]

Thanks Jim. I have my draw distance at the min (I think it's 60 for FSX). I have AF completely cranked though, perhaps that's the culprit, I'll have to play around with it a bit.

[Guest CyberSimmer]

Another thing you may want to try is to let the application (FSX) control the AF. I've noticed a slight performance boost doing this with my Nvidia card. I imagine it should work the same with your ATI card.Chris

[mjrhealth 820]

There is also a reduced size cloud texture file on avsim somewhere might help, dosnt look to bad.

[Reset XPDR 1,271]

David,We meet again :-) Firstly, with a quad core CPU, I recommend removing the FPS lock - it only cages the beast. Secondly, since your new system has onboard sound, try reducing sound hardware acceleration using DXDIAG by one notch - it SIGNIFICANTLY reduced stutters due to cloud coverage for me. I found that AA/AF levels made no difference with this issue for me.Gary