Just a little request for assistance. Overall I'm pretty happy with my FSX performance, and have followed many of the posts here, tried various tweaks etc.For me, the ONE thing that impacts performance is clouds. Almost any other setting I try makes minimal difference - I can even have loads of AI traffic, max autogen etc, but when I get any significant amount of clouds FPS drops. I have tried the reduced texture size clouds and it seems to make very little difference.Anyone there have any insight into what this tells me about performance bottlenecks? What other settings might affect the same link in the chain and therefore allow me to compensate for the clouds?I have a Intel 6400 (dual) overclocked a little (to 2.72GHz).GeForce7600 GS card.2GB of RAMThanks!

We seem to have similar systems, you and me. I am not a tweaker, so I wouldn't suggest that I know about the bottlenecks per se. What I would think is that your system is at it's maximum load for overhead, so if you want more clouds, you need less of something else. These are my settings, and my frame rates are usually in the 20-30'sBloom = off (bloom is a big framerare killer!)LOD radius = mediumwater = mid 2x (low 2x looks good, as well, high 2x hogs too much fps)Scenery complexity = Extremely dense (I like to see all of the landmark buildings!)Autogen = normal (Recall that normal for FSX is the same as dense or better in FS9)Cloud Draw distance = 90 miles (this can effect frame rates a fair bit. Dial this down to get better perfromance, and only dial it up bit by bit until you reach a comfortable compromise)With these settings, I can keep cloud complexity and density at maximum. I would definitely consider lowering autogen and fiddling with the cloud draw distance. Then you should be able to see clouds. Also, keep in mind that some aircraft do better in clouds than others. For instance, the default FSX Beaver should do better than the 747. Really complicated aircraft will lower your framerates. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

>Just a little request for assistance. Overall I'm pretty>happy with my FSX performance, and have followed many of the>posts here, tried various tweaks etc.>For me, the ONE thing that impacts performance is clouds. >Almost any other setting I try makes minimal difference - I>can even have loads of AI traffic, max autogen etc, but when I>get any significant amount of clouds FPS drops. >I have tried the reduced texture size clouds and it seems to>make very little difference.>>Anyone there have any insight into what this tells me about>performance bottlenecks? What other settings might affect the>same link in the chain and therefore allow me to compensate>for the clouds?>>I have a Intel 6400 (dual) overclocked a little (to 2.72GHz).>GeForce7600 GS card.>2GB of RAM>>Thanks!>An 8800 GTX video card would help you out.

i only fly jets at high altitude, so I set texture res to 10 m. It looks the same as 1 m from high up, and is a gigantic improvement it leaves massive overhead for cloud depiction, which I consider more important at 38'000 feet than crisp ground textures. just to illustrate: in the Level-D 767 I get 12 fps over France with 1 m resolution and stutters, but constant 40 fps when set to 10 m, absolutely no stutters, fantastic clouds and smooth flying in any weather. of course 10 m is unacceptable if you fly VFR below the clouds. ==Marten:Weber==P-D920 oc3.64MHz 2GB RAM WinXP ATI X1900+1024MB 2xSATA250 2xVIEWSONIC 19"Need AI? Get AI: www.world-of-ai.com

Good point! FSX allows you to save and load multiple custom profiles, so that if you want one for VFR and one for IFR, you can do that. You can just use one profile and make compromises, or you can switch back and forth between several custom profiles depending on what you want to do: scenic flights, passenger jets, acrobatics, etc.Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

an 8800gtx is overkill, but the 8800 GTS would be a better match for your system640mb or 320 version would be up to you, I'd personally go with the 640mb

I'm waiting for the Christmas season, when there will be money in my pocket(hopefully), and more choices in reasonably-priced DX10 cards, presumably after the DX10 patch for FSX is released. Jeff ShylukSenior Staff Reviewer, Avsim

Thanks all for great input. Seem slike the suggestion ist hat I may have a bot of a video bottleneck, but also great suggestions on the settings.Appreciate it!