major performance problems

[Guest dhsimmon]

Hi all,I just bought FS X today after playing around with the demo for a few weeks and am running into some serious frame rate problems that I can't seem to resolve even after installing the SP and reading other posts here. I didn't have very much trouble at all with the demo (~25 fps with much higher detail settings) although obviously there is less data for to process than with the full version.I'm not able to achieve a frame rate higher than about 12 FPS even with ALL the detail settings at minimum (everything looks like FS v 1.0, which I am now starting to get nostalgic for...). With anti-aliasing and filtering enabled, and autogen and all other scenery settings remaining at zero, my frame rate drops below 5 fps. I noticed that upgrading to the FS X service pack had no impact on performance.I have a relatively new machine that I purchased from ABS about two months ago -- details appear below:Intel Core2 Duo E6400EVGA Nvidia GeForce 7900GS w/ latest drivers (5/31/07)1 GB Corsair RAMWin XP etc...Nothing is overclocked at present, though this system's cooling features were designed for it.Are there any known issues with the 7900GS, or do you guys have any recommendations other than picking up an 8800 (though I am planning to get some more RAM at some point)?Thanks in advance,David

[turnandbank 243]

I have and Athlon64 4000 Single Core and I get 25 frames per second locked except around major detailed cities I get 12 - 25 with autogen and scenery density on very dense I have the same graphics card as you with no problems at all except some SP1 blurries, but they are minimal after applying some of the tweaks. Your biggest problem is you really need 2 gb of ram for FSX. I use 1X high water and keep bloom off and have about 15% road traffic and 35 % marine traffic and 33% AI traffic and am quite pleased with the overall performance and look.Martin

[Virtualwombat 4]

Hi David,FSX is CPU limited. Changing your graphics card will have little impact on FSX performance. Something maybe wrong with your system. With an E6400 processor you should be getting better performance than 5 fps at minimum settings. Things to check:No viruses (Use NOD32, AVG, not Nortons, McAfee)No spyware (AdAware)Run default check disk utility to detect any disk errorsNo un-needed files (CCleaner)Registry sorted (CCleaner)HDD defragged 3 times then re-boot (default defrag tool)AA at 4x AF at 16xThese last two settings can be made outside FSX, in the nVidia control panel.If you have done all that you should be getting 20's with autogen off.Adding another GB of RAM will help, as will overclocking. There is a heap of potential in the E6400. OK, a faster graphics card will help a little, but only expect 3-5 fps improvement from even an 8800GTX.Cheers,Noel.

[Guest CocoLoco]

As Noel says, I think the single easiest step for you to take is to get an extra GB of RAM. I think FSX needs about 1.3GB of RAM on XP. If you don't have this it starts to swap out to the disk and performance becomes very poor. I have a much older system than yours (AMD 3700+ and an X800) and I get far better performance than 12fps.P.S. Where are you when you are getting 12fps? If you're at big city airport, that can slow things down a bit...CheersDavid

[Guest cwright]

David, one obvious test would be to run the demo scenery area in FSX. You should get roughly similar frame rates with the same settings. If you find you are indeed getting significantly lower frame rates in the same scenery area then it would imply the problem is in the FSX installation rather than your system.Best regards, Chris

[FlyingsCool 3]

You neglect to say where you are trying to fly. If you are flying in New York City or Seattle, you can expect lower performance. But if these are your numbers in rural areas, my 1.86 GHz Pentium M laptop gets better performance than that, and that's with autogen off, Scenery complexity at very dense, texture res 2m, global texture very high, mesh complexity 90, mesh res 76m, water mid 1.x, special effects high and road traffic 10%. It definately sounds like there's something going on in your system, you should be doing way better than that.Another 1 GB of memory should help.Use Task Manager to make sure you've gotten rid of all your unneeded processes.Overclocking Definately helps, I overclocked my E6600 system to 3.3 GHz and it can do 20 fps in NYC.Thomas[a href=http://www.flyingscool.com] http://www.flyingscool.com/images/Signature.jpg [/a]I like using VC's :-)N15802 KASH '73 Piper Cherokee Challenger 180

[Guest dhsimmon]

Thanks for the replies everybody. The problem seems to be associated with a very high CPU usage rate for my machine in Windows. Even with all applications closed, my CPU utilization rate is around 40%. At one point this morning it mysteriously dropped to normal levels & so I tried playing FS and was getting very high frame frates.I'm going to check for spy/malware and viruses again.Thanks again.david