FS2004 and framerates

Mixtec, I guess I could have been a bit clearer in what I said. Informative link, thanks for that.

^^^Mixtec, 😉

PCI is much slower than even AGP (which is the current, primary graphics card interface on the Motherboard). PCIe on the other hand is like comparing a old Skoda to a Lamborghini Diablo.

There is a new PCI standard refered to as PCI Express that is coming out. Read this, its explains everything:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/pci-express/intro.jsp

Jeanske, 256mb memory on a graphics card is really a bit of overkill, atleast until PCIe interface is readily available.

^^^Mixtec, 😉

PCI is much slower than even AGP (which is the current, primary graphics card interface on the Motherboard). PCIe on the other hand is like comparing a old Skoda to a Lamborghini Diablo.

My advice would be to wait 6 months with the system you have, add a graphics card and/or adjust the scenery settings in FS to get the smoothness you want.

Another thing to consider is that graphics cards are making the switch from AGP to PCI slots, so you may want to wait on that.

There is little point (IMO) in trying to get any higher than 30fps for anything, you won’t notice any/much difference between 30 and 130fps really, just pouring money into a pit. For example, when you watch a film (35mm not 16mm) at the cinema you see 48 pictures a second from 24 frames, these are still pictures.
With FS it uses CPU first, Graphics card, then RAM in that order.
My advice would be to wait 6 months with the system you have, add a graphics card and/or adjust the scenery settings in FS to get the smoothness you want.

Mixtec, yes I have checked the Battlefield thread. I don’t have a copy of it so couldn’t participate unfortunately. I also need to replace my now wornout joystick, may get the soldering iron out later to replace the pots within.
Have you tried the ‘Korean Skies’ addon (freeware) for CFS3? gives you a whole new ‘Korean theatre’ that does not interfere with your original install of CFS3. Mig15’s, Panther’s(f9-f[?]), F51’s, Yak9, Corsaire’s and others there. Quite an amazing addon given that it is free. www.sim-outhouse.com/~dakota93/

The problem is that right now I have only 512mb ram and NO graphics card at all…

Ooooh, you have a ZX80 upgraded with 512 Meg of ram ? ? 😀

(Sorry, I couldn’t resist… )

Helidriver- If you get 3 ghz processor, 1 gig of RAM and an X800 XT card, you are going to have a top of the line rig that will handle any game you want to play. With FS2004 you are going to have framerates maybe up to a couple a hundred frames per sec at a res of 1280 x 1024 with all the scenery and ground texture settings maxed. If you want to get by cheap with the rig you have, dont go and get a top of the line processor which will cost $300 to $800 bucks and skimp on all the rest of the stuff. Money to upgrade should be spent on RAM, a high end mobo, and a reasonably priced graphics card first. You can get a ATI 9200 for about a $100 now. That will handle FS2004 well at 1024 x 768 with medium to high texture settings. If you want some recomendations on good mobos, I can name some for you.

Hey Biggles- Have you checked out the Battlefield thread? You have got to try some BF mods with us.

Helidriver, 512mb is(or should be) fine. The no graphics card bit, well go get one- you will notice the difference even with a £20 GeForce2 card! They aren’t difficult to fit.

Harddrive, yes it does make a difference, no a huge one mind, but noticeable nonetheless (the read/write heads in the drive are only looking for FS data on a seperate drive , not windows operating system data and FS at the same time).
Plug the seperate drive into its own IDE channel, not as a ‘Slave’ if at all avoidable.
Do you have RAID on your Motherboard?

Increasing your ‘virtual memory’ (in windows, ‘performance options’ IIRC)will also help. Assign VM to non-system drive and set too (as a guide) 1.5times the amout of RAM you have installed.

Shutdown any non-essential processes, via task manager.
Get the most upto date drivers for your motherboard.
Defragment your drives regularly.

Bigglesworth..

The problem is that right now I have only 512mb ram and NO graphics card at all…

Does it help to install FS on a different harddrive? When I get a graphicscard of course…

Helidriver, you shouldn’t have a problem with framerates on the system you already have. What graphics card are you presently running? How much RAM (system, not graphics) do you have? Can you run your install on a seperate (not your ‘system’ drive) hard drive?
FWIW my system is an Athlon 2600 running at 1.8ghz (underclocked due to RAM compatibility, but clocked-up on FSB slightly) 1024mb RAM and Geforce FX5600U. This gives me a framerate of 25/30 with VFR scenery and UK2000 across 2 monitors running 2560*1024 which is quite acceptable.

Jeanske, 256mb memory on a graphics card is really a bit of overkill, atleast until PCIe interface is readily available.

SURE! your pc CPU is strong enough for sure. If you get 128 or an even better 256 MB of Graphic Memory, It will run very smoothly, even in Heathrow.