Why is FPS suddenly fluctuating

[Guest]

Hey guys,I don't really know what happened, but it seems that FS2002 degrades over time. Is it just me? Suddenly FS isn't quite as sharp (it just seems a bit fuzzy), and I finally used the ole "Shift+Z" command to see what my FPS was (simply out of curiosity), and I noticed that my FPS was fluctuating between 20 and anywhere from 18 all the way down to 10. Prior to this my FPS remained rock steady at 20 (where it's locked at). Does anyone know what's going on?Thanks for any replies."Learn from your parents' mistake...use birth control."(I M A UCLA)BruinAddictAsus A7V266 MBAthlon XP 1600+ (@ 1.53)512MB PC2100 DDR RAMVisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4400 (Detonator 27.42)DirectX 8.1FSUIPC v2.842Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 HD (Primary)Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 HD (Secondary)Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1300W PSUWindows XP Professional (On both drives - Multiboot)

[Guest]

Don't know what the problem is, but I get the same experience too. Every month or two, I delete the FS2002.cfg and let FS create a new one. It's either a trick on the mind from resetting settings, or it does increase some performance :-)http://homepages.paradise.net.nz/edenw/fs_banner_je4.jpg Think highly of yourself, for the world takes you at your estimate -Anon

[Naji 5]

Hi, Demetrious. I regularly, meaning every four or five days, clean the recycle bin and defragment all hard drives on my system. I have WinXP Home and use NTFS file system, but still defragment often for FS2002 and FU3. In my opinion, this is very important for the efficient running of a flight sim.Another thing that I do from time to time, is refresh the Display settings in FS2002; I simply set all sliders and settings under Options/Settings/Display to their default values, except the resolution. I run with these for a short while and reset all again to the values I prefer. Maybe I'm imagining things, but I could almost swear that this brings more sharpness to the image and improved fluidity to the sim. Don't ask me why :-)

[Guest]

Never had it degrade over time. I do have a similar problem though...Hadn't used FS in almost a month (personal reasons, too many other things to do) and when I came back to it earlier this week suddenly many textures on aircraft and scenery are corrupted and performance is a lot worse than it was before.Haven't done anything to the machine either, so no new drivers etc. messing things up. Personally I suspect it may be hardware related, there have been some hot days here which might have caused the 3D accellerator chip to die on me (who knows, happened once before...). As I haven't changed anything to the software that's the only likely option... Maybe NVidia had a bad period and your problems too are related to hardware degradation?

[Guest]

That one seems to work for me as well, it also seems to take away some of the "blurries" that seem to creep back in over time !!!

[Wolfko 0]

I do the same! And in addition, before starting a FS session I allways recycle all the temporary files and reboot the system.Wolfgang

[Jay R 0]

Sorry this is long!! But read and ask questions!!!I have come across that too!! Here is my solution, and it does work very well.Of course it can be done differently.....(i.e. if you have two drives. If you have one just make the different partitions!!)I read below that fragmentation can be a problem, that is very true. The built-in defragment tool in Windows XP, ME, 98 is a bit on the wanting side of things. www.ExecutiveSoftware.com actually designed the fragmenter in XP. But also has created a must have add-on for the built-in defragmenter. It is made for all versions of Windows from W98 to WXP.The have two versions, Home and Professional. They are very nicely priced. So I got the professional version. It allows you to schedule times for regular defragmenting, say each day in the morning for an hour, as a complete defrag with this program can take many hours. EDIT They have a 30 day trial if don't wanna jump right in, i did and found it to be worth the money.Then I created a seperate partition on one of my hard drives, exclusively for FS2002. That way I can defrag regularly and it doesn't take long to do so. Also allows for you to reinstall your OS or FS2002, and keep anything you may need if you have any problems. THIS IS WHAT MY DRIVES LOOK LIKE:I have multiple operating systems. (soon to be reorganized)1st 15GB Drive (DESKSTAR)Partitions:| C:WINDOWS ME (15GBs) |2nd 45GB Drive (DESKSTAR)Partitions:| D:WINDOWS XP (15GB) | E: DOWNLOADS FS, MP3 (30GB) |3rd 80GB Drive (DESKSTAR)Partitions:| F: FS2002 (15GB) | G: Pagefile (1GB) | H: FREE SPACE (64GB) |Just FYI, I have three (3) hard drives in my pc. A 15GB a 45GB and a 80GB, all IBM deskstars, the 80GB being the fastest, I put FS2002 on that one. Then Windows XP has a file used for 'virtual memory' called the page file I also put this on a different drive from the operating system. This has proved extremely helpful in making things GO faster. I am able to maintain 20-25FPS, or at least good fluidity throughout in Fs2002.My system specs are as follows:ANTEC SX1040 400W PS SOHO CaseAsus CUSL2-C-BP w/ PIII 1ghz512MB RAM15GB - IBM 75GXP Deskstar45GB - IBM 75GXP Deskstar80GB - IBM 120GXP DeskstarMULTI-MONITOR SETUP:ELSA GeForce 2 Ultra 64MB (o'clocked) -> 21 inch ViewsonicPower Color GeForce 2 MX400 64MB -> 17 inch Panasonic(I run a video cooler from www.1coolpc.com)Soundblaster Live! Platinum 5.1Linksys NICToshiba DVD, 52X CD-ROM, HP 8200i CD-RW, ZIP-100CHproducts USB Yoke & Rudder pedalsLogitech Wireless keyboard and mouseAltec Lansing Surround SoundAND ALL THE COOLING NEEDED TO RUN THIS MONSTER!!Please if you need help, ask away I will be happy to assist!!http://www.forefrontgrp.com/jayssig.jpg"There is an art . . . to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!"

[Guest]

I tend to agree with the folks that say defragging does absolutely nothing. My system's been defragged once in four years and it runs great. Just make sure you run at least 384mgs of ram for this sim. But then we all got different opinions on what works and what doesn't.IMHO, there's absolutely nothing better than to restart your machine if it's late in the day and you've been using it for other stuff all day and for god's sake; right click on that virus scanner icon in the sys tray and disable it. That makes a hugh difference in the way the sim performs.

[Jay R 0]

Read this!http://www.gamespy.com/hardware/march02/defraggin/http://www.forefrontgrp.com/jayssig.jpg"There is an art . . . to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!"

[Jay R 0]

Didn't here from you BA.I just noticed you specs and your system is the perfect candidate to do the multiple partitions.ANyway just checkin in!!Laterhttp://www.forefrontgrp.com/jayssig.jpg"There is an art . . . to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss!"

[Guest]

Defragging can help, if only with loading times.If your system is using the swapfile, potentially it can help quite a lot in reducing the time needed to swap data in and out of memory. With WindowsXP that's even more important, as the amount of RAM needed to run without the system using the swapfile on XP has gone up a lot (XP is a memory hog, far more so than any previous version).If you use Windows 98 or 2000 and have 512MB or more of RAM, your statement might hold ground, but people running XP should see an improvement when defragging regularly.

[Guest]

Defragmenting every 3 - 7 days - he is having a laugh.... If your main applications are already on the system then they are not suddenly going to get "fragmented", perhaps if you add new "core" files then it is worth it - otherwise anything more than every 3 months would seem like messing around for the sake of it !!!

[Guest]

Sorry for not reporting back in sooner, guys; but, I wanted to try something before coming back to this topic...actually, I've tried a couple of things. First I reinstalled my graphics drivers (using Detonator Destroyer after uninstalling the drivers and prior to rebooting), then I did an uninstall/reinstall of FS (and repeated the above steps for the drivers), then I went to the GeForce Tweaker site and downloaded the newest Detonantor Drivers (29.42 WHQL). I then all but threw my hands up in frustration before doing something a bit more desperate...I purchased a new graphics card (same type)...no joy. So far, nothing has worked.I'd like to thank everyone for responding. I'll make sure to try all of the suggestions here and check back in either way, good or bad.Jason, if all else fails I may just try your multiple partition scenerio. I'm a bit reluctant to try it, however, because I have my system setup exactly the way I envisioned it and it runs great...with the exception of FS, or course. Thanks for the detailed information on how to get that done, by the way.See you guys. :-hang"Learn from your parents' mistake...use birth control."(I M A UCLA)BruinAddict*:-*Asus A7V266 MBAthlon XP 1600+ (@ 1.53)512MB PC2100 DDR RAMVisionTek Xtasy GeForce4 Ti 4400 (Detonator 29.42 WHQL)DirectX 8.1FSUIPC v2.842Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 HD (Primary)Western Digital 40GB 7200RPM ATA/100 HD (Secondary)Cambridge SoundWorks DeskTop Theater 5.1300W PSUWindows XP Professional (On both drives - Multiboot)