Fly Framerates on High Powered System / vs. MSFS2002?

[Guest product]

Hi,Wondering if anyone runs both Fly2 and MS Flight Sim 2002 and could give some insight on the framerates they get (considering comparable scenery and detail levels, etc.) I just got a new PC, tons of power (P4 processor, Radeon 9700, 1GB Ram, etc...) but the framerates I get in Fly2 simply don't seem all that great when you have building scenery turned on at airports. Frankly I was expecting to not even think about framerates, but I drop to 10-15 FPS on landing at a decently populated airport, simply not smooth enough for reality. Turn off the scenery (leaving all other setting on max) and things smooth out to 30-40fps.Any thoughts on Fly's framerates in general, and anyone have a comparable system the can compare to what I'm getting? I hate to start messing with the render .ini, was thinking with so much horsepower it wouldn't be necessary.For specifics, I'm flying with the Real Air Citabria, out of San Diego International, using Wayne Roberts' scenery package.Thanks and Best regards,Joel

[RandallR 444]

Joel,I don't use MSFS anymore so I can't compare Fly! II with that. However, I get excellent performance in Fly! II, averaging 30 fps when flying over TerraScene including basic TM scenery like Wayne's. If the weather isn't too bad (heavy, deep clouds can really cause a hit) I'll get into the 50s in some areas.At the worst, I'll run 18-25 in heavy custom scenery areas with heavy clouds, such as some detailed PMDG Greek airports, etc. - still, flying is smooth.It sounds like you have your scenery settings at MAX, which isn't a good idea - even the best of machines and cards would have trouble with that. I'm running Max. Visibility at 40. If I'm going to be flying in extremely detailed areas I back that off to 30 or even 20. High Res. Radius is set 5-7 and Medium Res. Radius from 11-15. All other settings (environmental lighting, shadows, etc.) are maxed.All video cards are different - you will probably need to adjust your render.ini to bring your performance up and handle the textures that are trying to load.

[Guest tonyc]

here, check my render.ini. Just don't forget to change the vertexIndexformat to 1 for your radeon.[Graphics]mipLevelCount=10vertexIndexFormat=0premultiplyColorAndAlpha=0allowAutoMipMapping=10directTextureFlag=0[Textures]maxTextures32=10maxTextures32_565=24maxTextures64=128maxTextures64_565=16maxTextures128=72maxTextures128_565=200maxTextures256=100maxTextures256_565=82maxTextures512=8maxTextures512_565=8maxTextures1024=1mipMapFlag=896maxTextures64=16[NonAGP]maxTextures256_565=0[AGP]maxTextures256_565=0tony

[Guest product]

Thanks, maybe I'll back off a bit on the visibility. While flying, and even take offs, I'm usually well over 30 regardless of scenery but landings seem to be the problem Maybe I'll try that "render tweak kit".

[Guest pilotsim7828]

Hi , just to let you know that the Smaller chaper cards compared to higher end cards can make the difference, Had a cheap 32.00 card /SIS brand , Then went to 250.00 card /Readeon 8500DV. What a differnce, AFTER iI got the render INI file help of these good peopleHope things work out for you Here is mine

[Guest product]

Thanks, you are right the people on this forum are great!I'm wondering, does anyone have a render.ini file for their Radeon 9700 that's been "optimized"?Thanks,Joel

[Guest Sabadin]

>here, check my render.ini. Just don't forget to change the>vertexIndexformat to 1 for your radeon.Unless you want a funky light show I would suggest against that, unless the 9700 reacts differently than the 8500.

[Guest pilotsim7828]

The 8500 DV uses 0 for the vertexIndexformat , And might I add it works very well.The cheaper cards uses 1,Although I dont know about the 9700, SorryJeff Akins

[MGS 0]

I can't say my system is high powered, I haven't loaded Flightsimulator, and I can't say my framerates are optimized by any means. I just built a 2.53 GHz system paired with 1GB PC2700 ram, ATI 9700 Pro, and XP Pro and the directX8 that came with it. Maybe it is similar to yours. I installed everything straight out of the retail boxes, no tweaks, no driver upgrades, nothing! I don't have your scenery. However, at Scott Cannizzaro's KLGA (pretty demanding scenery) while taxing in the Cessna I get 33 fps and the same 33 fps while approaching Scott's NYC high detailed Manhattan scenery with 60 mi visibility, high detail 3mi, medium 11mi, 0AI aircraft, complex detail, no shadows, at daylight in clear weather; distance hiding radius=4 in fly.ini, 2x AA and a low anisotropy level (forgot) for the video card driver. Approaching JFK from the NW it's 27 fps with Scott's old JFK scenery, very demanding on fps, IMO. I have no idea if any of these fps are normal for the 9700 Pro in this scenery, but, frankly, I am amazed, given the richness and complexity of the scenery. Some venders sell non-Pro versions of the 9700, which has somewhat slower ram. I don't know what the fps hit would be in Fly2, but 10-15 fps seems unreasonable, despite my inexperience with the card. As for the render.ini, everyone has a version they embrace. For the above "stats" (for what they are worth), I used the render.ini below. Probably the most important tweak for me, was to up the 256_565 slots to 65 (mine are 75). The value of 65 accommodates the highest unique hits for this slot when flying from the NW towards Scott's JFK; my 700 MHz machine and Ti/200 card could not deal with this and fps plummeted below 10. The big surprise for me was the fact that I moved my Fly2 directory to the new machine with absolutely no change whatsoever and the program worked just fine, although I did have to delete the default.key and control.txt to avoid resets of my assignments for the keyboard /joystick each time I started Fly2. Big kudo for TRI for making such a migration possible by not having to deal with the registry. I am completely happy with the ATI 9700 Pro. I'm also extremely impressed (and clueless) with XP Pro. Now, if only I knew what to tell you. 10-15 fps seems unreasonable to me, I never saw anything less than 22 in all sorts of aircraft or Metars I've used on my system, if you wish to give any credence for my week's worth of my experience. I would look at the unique hits line when flying your scenery (hit tab twice). I focus on the maxTextures256_565 textures, as you can see below. mipLevelCount=5vertexIndexFormat=0premultiplyColorAndAlpha=0allowAutoMipMapping=0directTextureFlag=0[Textures]maxTextures32=20maxTextures32_565=20maxTextures64=16maxTextures64_565=110maxTextures128=72maxTextures128_565=340maxTextures256=25maxTextures256_565=75maxTextures512=8maxTextures512_565=0maxTextures1024=1mipMapFlag=896[NonAGP]maxTextures256_565=0[AGP]maxTextures256_565=0

[Guest product]

Thanks Mark, I do think its probably just 1 or 2 lines in the render,ini that need to be tweaked, because framrates in most all situations are indeed excellent. Thanks for sending yours, I'll give it a try!Best,Joel