Can more RAM **really** help. Going from 512mb to 1024m

[Guest Lobaeux4]

I would think it would have to help, if you run FS2K2 like I do or close to it. I run FS2K2, with FSMeteo, FS Maintenance, FSSE, S-Combo, and Squawkbox. AND.... having a network setup, so I can run a second Roger Wilco channel (company freq.) on it. It's got to help to have more RAM, I'm going to go with another 256MB myself.Lobaeux

[Guest GabrielR]

I'm running what I think now, is an old computer (P4 1.3, 256 RAM Gforce 2 Mx 64Mb) and, to make things even worse: WinMe :D !! But, Out of the Box I could run (Killing all the programs in the background) 25 FPS average with all the sliders to the maximum.Later, I started to add things: Ocean Textures: the FPS went down to 21, (still good) and then FSW Clouds ( which I think are great!!)and my FPS went down to 8-10 and the slide show effect on, now with the "heavy version" of the falcon 50, Autogenius, Custom AI traffic, I have learned to "sacrifice" eye candy for performance, ONe of the things that helped me a lot kepping my actual 18 FPS average was locking the FPS in 19, I made the test locking them in 20, and they dropped down to 13- 14,, Maybe my CPU is not wasting cicles trying to get the impossible ??Another thing I have found is that even with 16 FPS the simulation still runs smoothly in my PC, for me that pefer to simulate the flight mostly only inside the cockpit on IFR flights in AC that more than nice eye candy, have good simulated Systems.

[Guest]

I know we all like eyecandy but that's at the expense of performance.If you run FS2002 with everything maxed at 1600x1200@32 it's going to be slow as dirt.No matter what type of machine you have.If you drop your resolution down to 1152x864 you will see A GREAT increase in performance.I also recommend not using max visablity of 150 go down to like 90.You really can not tell the difference anyways.AI traffic is a performance killer.Espically if you use other planes other then defaults or project ai planes.Right now I have my ATC at 70% which is more than enough.I also never get the go arounds now, or not as much.Also cloud are another performance killer.i would bring down the clouds to the FS default or below.You notice the differnce.I keep my FPS in the high 20's almost always because of this.I have never owned a flight sim where i can max out everything and have 3rd party addons and it runs great.Flight sims are just processor hogs.I like to see games at a high res too but I can not expect to run FS2002 with everything max and res of 1600x1200@32 and expect that it will run smooth.It does not matter what type video card you have.Nvidia was did make a GF4 with flight simmers in mind.The have games like quake 3 unreal 2003 in mind.Because all the reviews test cards and performance and those games If it's one thing I have learned about MSFS.Most designers design their addons with the suggest MSFS resolution of 1024x768.With that being the case I see Fs2002 runs best at 1152x864.I run it very smooth in almost any condition with any addons and with FSAA 2X.It looks no different than 1600x1200 with the exception of better looking ground textures.I like the eyecandy but not so much that i can't enjoy a very challenging appoarch etc.. Richard Dillon KATLSr First Officer www.jetstarairlines.com"Bill Grabowski's"ERJ-145 panel Beta TeamMD-11 panel Beta Team____________________________"Lets Roll" 9/11 Specs AMD 1600 XP 512MB DDR GF3 ti 200 64MB SBliveCh Products Yoke and Pedals(usb)Windows 2000 SP2

[Guest]

Hi Richard,I always seem to enjoy reading your posts: they are always balanced, forthright and honest from my perspective. I appreciate the frank and polite way you approach almost every issue I've seen you breach. In many ways, I've learned a lot from that example.In that light, let me ask you why you choose to run Windows 2000 over Windows XP. I run a Win2K box here as well as a few WinXP boxes for my own needs (well, they dual-boot along with 98SE and linux - but mainly run XP). I'm just curious what your particular reasons are for sticking with Win2000. What has been the benefits and pitfalls you've experienced using 2K as your main gaming box (and work box I assume?). I find it educational to hear from all kinds of users on their OS choices.Thanks Richard,http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[greeneg 0]

Well, for what it's worth, I went from 512PC133 to 1024PC133 and FS2002 seems to like it fine. No stutters frames are pretty well steady at a locked 25 unless I get into tough envirnments such as EGLL with the AI turned up. AI seems to be just a "hog" when it comes to resources. Personally wish I had FSTraffic back. It didn't do that and I think that it looked better,too.SYSTEM: MSI 694 PRO2Single PIII@ 1G1024 PC133 RAM2 7200RPM HDGainward GeForce2 MX400 64MTurtlebay Santa Cruz SoundSaitex X-36 USBBest RegardsEd Green, KCLTegreen1@carolina.rr.com:-beerchug

[Guest gasebah]

Here are some thoughts that not directly reflect what was said above.1. You will not get a great increase in framerate if you go from 1600x1200x32 to 1024x768x32 when using a GF4Ti4600. Whoever says that does not own such a card. I guess people are guessing here most of the time instead of giving real experience facts or just telling what they read somewhere else. I have a GF4Ti4600 and the difference in frame rate is almost zip. These cards were designed for high resolutions. They eat them easily. You can gain a lot more fps if you go slow on autogen or mesh. Setting mesh from 100% to 80% will give you a boost. Same applies for autogen from extremly dense to dense. The reason is that these are not graphics card related.2. The memory seems to be a bottleneck regarding FS2002. However here is my experience when going from 512MB to 1024MB of ram:FS2002, WinXP and especially the GF4 make all a very agressive use of ram. With 4 way overleave enabled your RAm gets accesed so often if you have 1024MB that it will get hot as hell. And do no care if it is mushkin or the world best reference ram. So I had to go back on memory timings in order to keep the system stable that the whole system actually got slower in the end. I tried Mushkin, Apacer, Infineon it simply did not work out. I went back to 512MB and the fast memory timings.3. All this may not apply to you as you use a different system.Cheers Alex,Athlon XP1800+MSI K7T266 Pro RU 2MSI GF4Ti4600512MB Apacer RAM Cas 2 (all memory settings max. performance)

[Guest]

Sorry if you thought I was referring to you Fringe, but I wasn't. I certainly was not trying to single anyone out. I've just read in the screenshots forum several individuals stating that they "never" fall beneath 17-18 fps. Perhaps they just do not notice the actual numbers because FS2k2 does indeed handle itself better than FS2000 even at lower (mid-teens) fps. So again, sorry if you felt I was referring to you. Thanks for your generous post nonetheless! It's very informative.-Brad

[Guest]

Just thought I'd throw some facts into this too ;-)Even with 767 PIC, I could not break 210 Megs of RAM getting eaten ...Ray

[Guest flightpro08]

My system is as follows:Pentium 4 1.3GHz512MB RDRAMGeForce 4 Ti4600Windows XPRun Desktop and FS2k2 at 1028X768X32All FS2k2 Sliders Maxed OutI agree with some of the posts above, I am never consitantly above 17-18 FPS. Now, when I've cruising say enroute JFK-LAX at FL350, then I could expect the 30+ FPS some people "brag" about. But I never get 30 FPS on the ground under ANY circumstances.Ryan-Flightpro08 :-coolTaxiwaysigns.com

[Guest]

Elrond, Thanks you so much for the kind comments.I find your post very much the same :). To answer your question, I find that win2k is more solid O/S because it's had alot more time to mature.I do not like XP because it seems to be more about being "fancy".I could careless about fancy icons and file mangers but for some reason the WinXP team wanted to go with a "pretty gui".I personally thinks all the little eyecandy is really not necessary.I mean iam I really going to about to use WinXP better because it's pretty.I think winxp pro is slower than win2k.I have had many problems with XP that I never had with win2k.here are the exact reasons broken down as to why i prefer win2k over XP.1.The small kernel and swap space enhancements to XP are not good enough right now to impress me.I do not care if XP loads in 30 seconds or however fast they promote it to be2.The memory management of win2k still seems to be far better.3.My programs just seem to react better to win2k.Most of the programs I have were on the market before XP.The only optimized programs for XP right now are by Microsoft.4. I do not like how XP holds standard drivers by certain vendors.For example Via.The 4n1 drivers are 4.35.I can update the AGP drivers and IDE but not the main .inf file with out XP going nuts and not seeing my Geforce card right.So really you can't truely update your drivers as they should be.This is ok for the average users but for people like myself it's not going to be ok.5.XP home and even XP pro seem to be win2k with some tweaks and fancy gui.As a matter of fact it seems as micrsoft spent more time on GUI than the O/S itself.These are the reasons I do run Win2k vs XP (for me only).I run BSD too which is my o/s of choice for about anything.I run win2k for gaming and work (buisness papers and invoices).I have run Freebsd for 8 yrs and love it.I actually have a slackware(linux) box for my firewall but my DNS(caching) and mail servers are unix :).Iam thinking iam going to install openbsd this weekend and do a unix firewall.I like iptables and all but it's pain compared to unix firewalling :) .I do networking and tech work for a living so i get to mess with this stuff all day.It's my buisness so i have to know just about everything it seems :) Richard Dillon KATLSr First Officer www.jetstarairlines.com"Bill Grabowski's"ERJ-145 panel Beta TeamMD-11 panel Beta Team____________________________"Lets Roll" 9/11 Specs AMD 1600 XP 512MB DDR GF3 ti 200 64MB SBliveCh Products Yoke and Pedals(usb)Windows 2000 SP2

[Guest PaulL01]

>Am I wasting my time and $$$$ upgrading my Rambus memory >from 512mb to 1024mb. Will I really see a difference? FS2k2 >is the most graphics intense program I have and it still >seems to bog down with certain sceneries and I'm try to get >little more bang in FPS so what do you think? Will more >memory help? I'm averaging about 25 FPS, but it does bog >down to 8,9, 14 FPS at times with alot of scenery going on >and this is not with everything "maxed" out! Seems as though >it should stay more consistent. >>My specs: >P4 1.8a >Asus P4T-e >512mb Mushkin Rambus (upgrading to 1024mb) >G4 Ti-4600 >Win XP home >Etc, etc. >That's the "juice" of the matter anyway..... >>Thanks! 512mb is plenty, even when I am flying my custom photoreal scenery that has 441 custom textures + another 150+ custom building textures many of which are 1024x1024 including a 10meter mesh +default ATC at 100% I don

[Guest]

Thanks Richard... Interesting and valid points. As a developer, its good to hear the reasons why someone chooses their OS in detail - it provides a grounding to understand what a market your software might fit well in.Thanks again, http://members.rogers.com/eelvish/elrondlogo.gifhttp://members.rogers.com/eelvish/flyurl.gif

[Guest]

I too watch FS2002 memory usage under XP. It never goes above 230MB. So, if you have only 256megs, you'll take a hit; 512megs is fine.However, with more ram under XP, you can have more open. I usually have FS2002 going, with Outlook Express, IE, and a slew of other programs(I'm doing a flight right now as I browse the web, receive email, organize my photos, etc, and I'm not seeing that dastardly Win98se 'System Resources are low, close ...). I have 1.5gigs, and generally 600-800meg are used for all.FS2002 likes the following:- 256 megs of ram for itself(so your machine should have a minimum of 384megs Win98se, or 512megs XP);- The faster the CPU, the better;- A really good video card. Sorry folks, but the cheapo mx400 video cards have limitations. Getting yourself a really good video card makes a major difference in FS2002. A GE4 mx420 isn't going to make FS any better than and old GE2 card, they are all the cheap-end video products. Invest in a high-end video card, it makes all the difference in the world. The single best investment for games is the video card.- Get a good sound card. FS2002's ATC demands much from the sound card. SB Live! value cards are low end, you get what you pay for. I unfortunately have a Live!, and get ATC stuttering when flying into a congested area(SoCal). The Audigy is on my shopping list, just waiting for them to drop a few $$ first.Note: No single mod will double your FS performance, but all of the above combined will make a very noticable difference. Of course, fully maxed out settings probably go beyond what the hardware today can handle, and FS code has it's own performance limitations(ie ATC engine needs tuned, cloud rendering is too heavy a hit on resources, stuff MS will improve over releases).What probably isn't going to buy you any real improvement in FS2002:- A 7200rpm HD, or ATA 133. Might improve FS start-up time, but that is about it;- A fast CD player, unless you are loading scenery from CD, which if you are, forgettaboutit!And, in my case, XP made a major improvement to FS2002 over Win98se.First off, XP doesn't run out of low level resources as 98 did;- It appears to have solved many of my fs2002 crashes(haven't worked this out yet. In Win98SE, fs2002 crashed once every 6 hours of flying or so. In XP, haven't had an FS crash in a month! 90%+ of my crashes were atc.dll, maybe XP's SB Live! driver is somewhat more stable)- XP let's you leave other programs loaded;- A somewhat improvement in FS2002 performance, and that may be due to the XP video driver being better than the one I used in 98se.Excuse all typos ...

[virtualstuff 750]

Ok as I'll stated in my previous message many factors are involved regarding FPS and FS2002 performance.- The facts if I'll looking to your screenshots...- The process takes only 194 mb at that point (in split second it can be 500 mb or more)and the flightsim is paused! (switching windows)... and 7.46 cpu time...- Look also to the handles and threats they are even more importance then memory usage.- If you want to measure software performance open Performance console and do so real measuring as looking to the simple task managerand over a longer period.- Further your system had during your PIC flight a peek in memory of 544 mb- Tip your limit of your swap file including physical memory is now 1,2 gb the advise is to set the file factor 3 * physical installed memory.- Your swap file need some defrag also from time to time (the build in defrag software doesn't defrag your swap file and mbr fileSo buy some real defrag software diskeeper 6.0 they have also a home license... defrag the swap/mbr/other files when logged on in Win2K or WinXP.Win2K and WinXP system are happy starting with 256 mb (default software), but are you going to use software that use your system heavy then go at minimum for 512 mb or more... (the days of tuning below 1 mb in dos are over...)In general a good system configuration regarding hardware/software will outperform a high-end system with a bad configuration.My experience is (in large IT environment) that 512 mb is for most heavy users enough SDRAM/DDR - 270/333 etc...If you have many programs in the background running with FS2002 thenuse more ram it's not expensive so if you can effort buy it...If your CPU is at this point waiting for other hardware then find the bottleneck, because if you can free - speed up your CPU time for FS2002 process then probably you win FPS :-)awfEHAMrunning currently FS2002 in home network on:XP2000+ A7V333 + 1 gb DDR 333 and two case fans and one CPU fan to cooling things down.. O/S Win2K Pro SP2Athlon 1.2 + KT7A + 1 gb SDRAM + Win2k Advanced Server SP2P450III + Intel TC430HX + 512 mb + WinXP Pro

[Guest Holliday]

I have tested FS 2002 as well for RAM usage and never seen it go above 230mb. Remember, programmers decide how much RAM a program will use.