XP should I change from ME

[Guest]

I am wondering what if anything windows XP will do to my frame rate.My computer:Windows MEP-III 966512 megsATI 7200 64 megsSound BlasterI am getting now a frame rate of 20-25 fps in generic scenery and 3-6 in add on scenery like simflyer and this is in the high setting. As I fly my frame rate changes constantly going sometimes changing from 2-10 fps in a matter of a second...is that normal? This happens my whole flight. Should I have a constant frame rate?David AlbrightFAA Flight dispatcherSingle and Mult-engine rated pilot

[John_Tavendale 453]

David,Under XP you will find frames will drop by 1 to 5 depending on the scenery etc. FS loads much faster under Win XP. I personally have found XP to be far better than Win ME, and the small drop in frames is compensated by the more stable O/S.

[Guest]

Hi Dave,I agree with John, XP is better.Make sure you download all the XP drivers for your hardware first (sound,video,modem cards etc).I`ve downloaded TweakXP from "totalidea.de" & got loads of tweaks & tips from "www.tweakXP.com", really useful.Some people say it doesn`t make any difference, but I`ve added an extra 512Mb ram (now 1Gig). XP uses a lot of memory & as prices are low,get it. My whole pc is faster with it.Upgrading to XP was a good move.Rob

[Guest]

Not to argue with the other posters, but changing your OS from ME to XP is not going to make any difference at all to your current problem which is that your expectations exceed your hardware.If your frame rate is stuttering that badly (25-2 fps), you are seriously overloading your machine.Start from scratch, set your desired frames per second to something that you can achieve on your hardware (which is probably 20 max) then start increasing/decreasing options until you get a constant capped frame rate as per your set value (this means you are now running just under what your machine is actually capable of delivering).Take note of these settings. These will be your baseline until you buy new hardware as nothing other then hardware is going to amount to +/- 5% of this performance configuration.Add your addons in and note the impact, adjust your expectations downwards as required (lower resolution, 16 colour instead of 32, less AI, less dynamic stuff, etc).Once complete, you'll be running smoothly, and enjoying what you have. Expecting to be able to max all the sliders on anything under a GeForce 4 4600 and a P4/AMD 2GHz+ machine is not realistic and will just make you hate your computer and flight simulators in general.