I honestly believe that the M$ flight sim series are mostly CPU driven with regard to frame rates.  Better video cards seem to give a prettier picture but the base frame rate does seem to stay the same.  This is based on the changes I saw in FS2k2 when upgrading from MX 200 64MB card to 5600 256MB card.  When I upgraded I started the sim in my old settings (75% ish) to view with awe the massive new FPS number.  I was disappointed to find that it was 2-3 FPS better.  I then maxed out the graphics at 1024*768 and it stayed the same....  I now run FS2k4 at 75% settings with AA at X8 and Anti wassit filtering at X4 and get 10-15 FPS on approach and 20-30 at all other times.  If the GPS is on it drops to 7-9 on approach.

The graphics look much better and the performance stays the same, it must be the CPU.

I ran 3d pro benchmarking on my system and tried various combinations of settings in an attempt to find the best settings for my system.  I scored between 200 and 2111 points, 2111 was with the card at factory settings with no tweaks applied.  I noted that throughout all of the tests I was getting the same scores from the CPU section, independant of any changes to the graphics card.

It would be beneficial to see what someone with a lower end cpu and higher end cpu gets in the same situation.

I will test my system at KBOS when I get home this morning and see what I get. 

Will

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4x?? as in AGP 4x? if so, that might be a problem... probably your mobo doesnt support 8x AGP which in that case, i would get a new mobo too, not to expensive..

I think that the CPU bottle neck is a programming fault and not a CPU fault.  I have other games which are as graphic intensive as FS, some even more so. 

Swanny - what do you mean by AGP?

As I understand it...  An 2x AGP slot is Twice as fast as a PCI slot - a 4x AGP slot is 4 times as fast and so on.

When I get my joystick later on today I shall see what this PC can do! Initial experiments look extremely promising!

Did an experiment with a "low and slow" aircraft and a standardized flight.......

Screen resolution at 1024x768x32bit, refresh at 75Hz. Set the AA on the 9800XT to 4X and the ansio to 8X.  Set both options off in the sim itself.  Everything else for sliders and checkboxes fully maxed out.... except for cloud density to 80%, sight distance to 60 miles, cloud distance to 50 miles and one other one that I can't remember now  .

Went to the "Select a flight" menu and took the "Scenic Wonders" flight titled "Along the rockies".  Loaded it as whatever defaults were set up by Microsoft for the flight.

Set the framerates to "unlimited".

When the Caravan first materializes, it is in a valley in the midst of some broken clouds flying through them with the mountains in the background and a river to the right and below.  At that point I am getting an average of about 28-30 FPS.  Flight is pretty smooth with an occasion minor "pause".  (very VERY slight)

As I get through the broken clouds and into a general "haze" with some light clouds hanging in the mountains........ and get up and into the mountains about 500-1000 feet above them, the framerates go up to about 55-60 FPS in the 2D cockpit and if I eliminate the cockpit at all and just look at the whole screen as a window.....it does not change more then 1-2 fps down.

The scenery quality is very, VERY nice and the plane flies very smoothly.

If I go and sdo the same flight and lock the framerates to 30.... it pretty much stays at 29-30.  The scenery looks a tad better...and the plane flies even smoother.

Great......... THAT is what I want out of the sim.

But if I go to the "Scenic Wonders" and select the "Sunset into Hong Kong" flight.......... the unlocked framerates with the same settings drops to about 20-25 flying up toward the city and then over the mountains toward the international airport.  As I get into final approach on the left active runway (right active too with "heavys"), the framerates drop into the 10 fps range.

I have added very few new AI flights into Hong Kong....... and the ones that I have are a few PAI planes.

To me, the sim is a LOT about takeoffs and landings.   Do I need a 4 Gig base machine to get that to work at about 20 FPS?  Geeze.  This is making the fs2004 sim look like a real "mistake" for Microsoft.

If any of you get a chance.... please max your sliders and select those "Scenic" flights and give me a readout of your fps and your CPU type + clock speed, RAM, AGP speed (2x,4x,8x), and graphics card.

I just want to see if I should be looking at something else in the machine setup OUTSIDE fs2004  (or even fs2002) for the issues.

Particularly interested in your AGP speed.  Is THAT the key to this whole thing?

best,

..................john

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...a 400/800 Front Side Bus...and fit it out with at least 512 Mb of DDR ram, (expensive but fast).... 8)...!

Cheers... ...!
Paul.

JBaymore,

I'm gonna try your flight and see what fps I get.

I'm a bit under your spec.

But, from What I've read, I think there is a prob somewhere.

Not many apps use the 8x AGP speed to advantage, 4x providing more than enough transfer bandwidth. But, still, it's possible the card or it's drivers are optimised for that. So I guess that cant be discounted.

Yuor 2.4 gig cpu on a 533mhz fsb seem quite adequate.

your RAM is slowish but 1 gig, so it seems ok.

I definitely smell a rat. There is a big diff in the performance of the two cards you specify.

Out of curiosity you could try my unofficial FS9 benchmark in these posts and do it at 1024x768x32

Also, my fs2002 runs 30-40% faster than fs9

GL, congo



ok, just did your flight a close as I could, 8x anisotrpic wouldnt display correctly so i did it at 4x, also i had antialiasing fully enabled.

on entry of first flight 10 fps, mountains around 20+
antialiasing off - double that.

second flight about 10- 15 fps the whole way. 10 0n approach.

Now, my card rates half of what your new one does, TI4200 8x AGP :  55    , ->    9800xt :  114

and you are supporting 8x aniso..... so maybe you are pretty spot on...... despite the 4 x   agp speed.

Weird thing was my final approach. about the same as yours, but I have a massive addon there, so..........

Note: I can turn down a few things and get nice graphics, but what really kills the TI4200 performance is the clouds, particularly with antialiasing them.