I have a AMD ATHLON  xp 2500+
runs at 1.84 GHz
1.00 GB of Ram
Windows xp
Nvidia Geforce Ti 4200 with 128mgs of ram

I am running FS2004 around 80% on the graphics  but I am having trouble with the computer stopping to reload all the time. The frame rates are down to 3 to 4 frames per second. Even when it is just showing clouds with the weather turned down to 50% or less the frame rate is around 4 to 6  per second. I defrag everyday.

I would like to upgrade my computer so I can max everything out and have it run smooth. 

Is there any good video cards out there with a Gig of Ram?

I would appreciate any suggestions as to the kind of Video card I should be looking at, mother boards, processer speed etc. I am not great on computers but I am learning.

Pickup

The core spec looks great! Although 3-4 fps is not good at all...... Any chance this being in the middle of Heathrow?

If you want to upgrade I would wait a couple of months for the new generation of GPU's (IE. NVIDIA 6800) to be in the shops then you could pick up an ATi 9800pro for cheap. Or even one of the new generation cards for that matter!

pickup,

Hi.

If you spend some time looking at the "fs2004" and "hardware" forums and look through a lot of the back threads you find there..... you'll find that the performance of fs2004 is a very well discussed topic.  Try other flight sim boards also and you'll find the same exact thing.  FS2004 is a real performance hog....and seems to be very erratic as to what it "likes".

If you "read around" a lot....... the "pattern" in performance you tend to see comes down to about four general aspects:

• Get the honkin'est, costliest gaming machine that you can find (not necessarily afford)
• Put in the absolute top-of-the-line graphics card (current Radeon 9800XT)
• The machine still might not work as well as you think it should
• Someone with a Pentium II at 800 MHz will report far better fps performance at full settings 

See my machine specs on the trailer at the bottom....I bought it to run this sim just before it came out.  If I run full sliders on all settings, full AI, and about 50-60% on the clouds and weather and sight distance at mid range, at 1024x768x32bit.....at a busy large international airport on short final it can come down to a slide show at about 10 fps.  Unflyable. 

I have been trying to debug this since the release of the new sim.  MANY kind people have tried to help.  Nada.  I've tweaked, reinstalled, added hardware and so on.  I get GREAT performance and graphics way up in the air and away from airports........ easily 60-70 fps.  But that is not where the "rubber meets the road" as far as flying is concerned.  I think you need the fps at takeoffs and landings.

Were I to (have the money to) buy yet another machine now to run this sim in light of what I now know from this experience.... I'd be going 3+ gig processor, a 800 or more fsb, agp 8X, 2 gig of fast RAM,  still the 9800XT card, and so on.  Effectively.... the most cutting edge machine out there.

And someone with a Pentium III at 450 MHZ will possibly get better performance  .

best,

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

PS:  I still love fs2004 for the realism over fs2002......its "warts" and all.

The 9800xt is a Radeon.

Also wait until the new ATI cards come out (the x800xt) they will cause a significant price drop in the 9800xt.

Definitely run a virus scan....I also run Ad-aware (the free version) and have had no problems with it.  It picks up lots of stuff I didn't know I had.

In addition, I run Norton AntiVirus 2004 (fully updated)....that thing is a lifesaver.  As careful as I am, every once in a while it picks something up. 

Crazy world.  lol

Pickup,

I'm sure it's a settings or a driver issue, your machine specs are very similar to mine, albeit the same graphics card as well, and I have managed to tweak 2004 to be not only flyable, but enjoyable.

My best advice is also given above; read thru the threads, make some adjustments, then come back here screaming for help when your better informed.

There are some third party tweaks that work, not all of them, but some really help.

It's a bit of work, but the payoff will be worth it if you really like the sim.

You don't need to defrag all the time, I do it every couple months.

You don't need a better accellerator to get good graphics in FS9, but it will certainly help a little. If I get 25 FPS on my TI4200, I'll get 30-40 with a Radeon 9800XT, depending on the situation.

The killers with your graphics card in FS9 will be the following:

1. Resolution - drop it to 1024x768x32

2. Antialiasing - clouds antialiasing in FS9 kill nVidia graphics performance. Reduce cloud or antialiasing while flying around cloud.

3. Anisotropic filtering - turn it off or reduce it, this affects distant texture clarity, but it's a FPS demon with the TI4200.

4. Basic hardware setup - includes BIOS settings (video aperature, AGP rate, etc.),

5. Video card settings (as above in 1, 2 & 3, plus a couple other informed adjustments), AGP and video driver etc.

If you do all that, and you still have probs, then look at some of the other suggestions above. Normally spyware/virus activity - won't impact FPS to the extent you are experiencing.

Have you messed with your swap file (or virtual memory) size? If it's constantly loading stuff, maybe that's it. Use a constant value (minimum and maximum) of 1048mb! (Hey! it works for me!)

One last thing, Get a No CD required crack and do a full install of the Sim, that might be your only problem lol.  

Here is Heathrow on my system (XP2600+, 1024mb ram, ti4200). Antialiasing is only 2x here, anisotropic filtering is 4x, resolution is 1024x768x32, scenery density and autogen is maxed out.

wow sound like u guys are having a hard time..

i had some trouble with my card when i first got it and my solution was to swap my two hard drives around to have the 80 gig the slave....they both ran at 7200 rpm but for some reason fs2004 loved the new maxtor (see specs). i get great performance now. also NTFS file system helped me when i had to reformat...

just a suggestion for when u run out of things to try swap yer hard drives over if you have 2.

Sounds to me like your having a heck of a time Pickup. First of all, go to Guru3d.com and download the new nVidia Forceware 60.72 drivers. These are the best yet for FS2004.

Here are some more tips I picked up over at Avsim. If you have the luxury of two hard drives, put FS on a drive that does not contain your MBR (your OS). Also do a full disk defrag while you at it.

Under you FS2004 Hardware tab in display settings, you'll want to adjust some things. Turn off "Render to Texture", turn on "Transform and Lighting" and turn off "Anti-aliasing". Under Filtering always select "Trilinear". Set your Mipmapping slider to 4 or 5 and Hardware renderd lights to 8. You can set global max texture size to "massive". Target frame rate should be 25 (this forces the card to focus on image rendering), and your resolution should be the same as your desktop.

There's also a really good guide by the people at Reality XP that explains the different FS2004 settings, how the computer renders them, and what they should be set at for a standard machine. I know Avsim has it but it might be here too. Do a search for "Reality XP FS2K4 Tweaker".