FRAME LOCK:

The suggestions about frame lock have nothing to do with what the human eye can or can not see they are about how you push your hardware to place priority on keeping things smooth while the PCIe buss is saturated by FSX especially with autogen. The scene and your sliders will make that call. In the same flight on the same settings you can go from a partially saturated PCIe buss to a completely saturated buss as the scenery changes and you fly from one place to another. In that the frame lock may need to be changed IN MID-FLIGHT

In most systems I have usually found 2 frame options that work best (switched to as needed in-flight) especially with LCD monitors

Locked 30 - outside of large airports and cities (Note: may need to be trimmed to between 24 and 30 depending on the system)

Unlimited - usually best around airports and large cities but may ALSO be of benefit in heavy weather in areas with a large amount of autogen trees

that is a 'try and see' setting and success with it depends on the system

In FSX there were changes to the rendering engine and unlike FS9 a lower frame rate can be used and still maintain a smooth visual result however the same principle still applies above to FSX

In FS9 many claimed you had to see at least 35-45FPS for smooth flight and the reason for that was explained above... they were robbing Peter to pay Paul and were losing elsewhere for that high frame lock. Its the same with FSX but unlike FS9, with FSX UNLIMITED frame lock sometimes works to smooth out the image when the buss is saturated in large urban areas depending on the system

You can be running 35-45FPS and stutter or 24-30 and run smooth and with FSX and the changes to the rendering engine even UNLIMIED FPS can present a smooth solution when certain criteria are being rendered to a scene.




FRAME RATES DURING TUNING:

If you are going to sit there and stare at the frame counter using it to judge performance.. you will be beating your head against the desk forever. Yes, you can use that number when the frame lock is set to UNLIMITED ONLY to get a feel for performance after making a change ASSUMING Unlimited frame lock does not cause microstutters in the are you are flying but DO NOT use the number as a target goal LOCKED or UNLOCKED!

In FSX its about SMOOTH flight with CLEAR terrain. If you are seeing that on the screen it does not matter WHAT the frame rate number displays!

You can be set to UNLIMITED and have perfect results and the frame counter showing 18-24.. forget the counter, TUNE BY SMOOTH FLIGHT AND SHARP/CLEAR SCENERY

ATI cards can not use Nhancer and do be aware,.. the best ATI card in the world, the 4870 x2 will be crushed by a clocked 2 year old 8800GTX in FSX weather

They rule in Crysis... ATI cards can fall flat on their face in FSX weather and large scenery environments due to how they are designed

ATI can be hit and miss in FSX depending on their drivers. I would not use a 4870x2 for FSX and if I was going to use a ATI card (which I will not) it would be the single 4870 as of this date 1/09

That may or may not change in the future