>However-the sweet spot can be found with almost any setup-but>that does require choices. I am glad we have them via the>sliders-they are not there to just move all the way to the>right!Yes I'm glad too, but I think Aces made a mistake to set the max setting for future hardware that didn't yet exist. This is where I think FSX got the reputation as a poor performer. Psychologically people alway tend to judge a games performance based on max settings, especially those with high end systems. So when they saw a slie show, they naturally poo-pooed it. As we all know FSX even at sparse scenery and autogen settings have greater scenery detail then FS2004, and it performed well at those settings. So by that alone, FSX was at least on par performance wise with FS2004. This I think could have been avoided and still maintain the flexibility for greater detail as future H/W advanced, by limiting the GUI sliders at max setting to the level of existing high end systems. Then there could have been a setting or settings in the FSX.CFG file to scale it up for future hardware. It looks like there may have been an attempt to do this with the PerfBucket field, but that looks like it set too high by default, or just didn't work!

>nVidia 8800 GTX>Aircraft High>Graphics High>Scenery Medium High >Traffic Medium High>Weather High >filtering Aniso >AA On >Target frame rate 30 fps >Global texture resolution High >Lens flare On >Light bloom Off >Advanced anim On >Informational text Continuous >Aircraft casts shadow on ground Yes >Aircraft casts shadow on itself Yes >Land lights illuminate ground Yes >High resolution 3d virtual cockpit Yes >Level of detail radius Large >Mesh complexity 60>Mesh resolution 60 >Texture resolution 5m>Water effects Max 2.x >Scenery complex Normal >Autogen density Normal >Ground scenery shadows Off >Special effects detail Medium >Land detail textures Yes >Cloud draw distance 60mi >Cloud detail Detailed clouds >Cloud coverage density Maximum >Thermal visualization None >Airline traffic density 15% >General aviation traffic density 5%>Airport vehicle density Minimum >Road vehicles 2%>Ships and ferries 8% >Leisure boats 5% Lens flare On 80 - 100Mesh resolution 60 <- system should handle 34Texture resolution 5m <- 1 meter !Water effects Max 2.x <- and here's your major killer. Set 2xLow up to 2xHighCloud coverage density Maximum <- not necessary. medium or high is enough.Heiko