I am continuing to have a great deal of trouble both in FS2K and now in FS2k2 with regard to graphics and Fr.Rates.

I have on loan (for approval) a new CPU
Pen 4 1500Mhz.
256 RAM (80% freee at moment)
Direct X (4.08.00.0400)
Display NVIDIA GE Force2 MX/MX400
Driver nudisp.drv. Version 4.13.01.2183
Sound Card AC97
Hard Disc 37.2GB Free 29.9Gb

With all this "muscle" I still cannot get anything approaching decent graphics, I can see the graphic complexity etc but it just will not become watchable or usable. The perpetual "shimmering" of the scenery would appear to be the main cause.
I have tried every combination of settings and resolutions with little result, I can sense the graphics are there but being somehow "restrained"
The Fr Rate admittedly has improved, but with complex scenery still drops to 7/8 fps.
In multiplay last Sat. the rate dropped so low as to make the Cessna unmanagable.
I realize there is no "quick fix" for this problem but any help would again be greatly appreciated.
Regards to all,
AndyC

• RE: FS2002,RobertVA, 19:57z, 10-28-01
• RE: FS2002,Ben Chiu, 20:45z, 10-28-01
• RE: FS2002,Mike_Greenwood, 22:49z, 10-28-01
• RE: FS2002,RayProudfoot, 15:16z, 10-29-01
• RE: FS2002,Sonic33, 15:26z, 10-29-01

____________________

Do the direct X diagnostics run all right? Do the FS display settings show hardware acceleration enabled? My experience with parts of you system is limited, but it sounds like it might be a graphics settup or driver issue rather then hardware limitations.

____________________

Hi Andy:

Do you have access to another monitor? Try that one and see if you still have the shimmering.

Ben

____________________
Hi Andy,

We have *very* similar systems. The only differences being that I have a "lowly" 1400mhz P4, but 512M ram (graphics board the same).
I don't see shimmering as you describe (with the same drivers btw), but I do have performance issues. I seem to get around 15-20fps in the SF Bay Area with massive hard drive hits resulting in stutters. My PIII 700 with a viper 770 does better, and I (and MS) cannot figure out why. I've defragged, blah blah blah, and can't seem to get the "big rig" to perform as it should.

Now, the big rig has 2 drives partitioned into 5 drives, and perhaps that's a cause of the stutters. Now that I think of it, I'll move the swap file to the FS drive and see if it helps with the stutters. Other than that, all I can think of is that it might be the "MX" geforce board. We both know there must be a reason why it's substantially cheaper than the others, but I can't believe that a viper 2 with only 32meg ram could do better!

Let's keep working on this and see what shakes out!

Greenie

Hi Andy,

You didn't mention what colour depth you were running at. Unless it's 16-bit or 32-bit acceleration will not kick in. Make sure it's not set to 24-bit. Just a thought.

Cheers,

Ray
Cheshire, England.

I always figured Large hard drives to be the cause of most 'delayed reactions' in Windows. The same as stutters in FS.
Eg: I will always go for two 10 gig rather than one 20 gig. Not just for backup purposes but just because the disk is smaller and the cpu doesn't have to work as hard to get the hdd info into the ram.
If you only have a single large disk you could always partition it (however this will not help with backup if the disk fails)
I would break a 20 gig into three 8gig / 8gig /4gig. Install windows and applications on one 8gig and fs2000/2002 on the other. Use the 4gig for say, downloads etc.....then Move the pagefile / swapfile to the FS partition and make sure it is 1.5 times the size of my physical ram. This will definately stop some of the stuttering as the drive becomes fragmented.
As the Ram becomes full, windows uses what is known as, LRU algorithm, (LRU=Least recently Used.)and uses the least recently used portion of the ram to write the new data into the ram, thus only overwriting data that is probably redundant anyway. Fs scenery is the data in question here and from this deduction it is plain that the more ram you have the more scenery you will see without the hard drive paging. If you look at your hard drive led when the stuttering occurs, you will see it blinking. This is known a paging and is simply writing data from the Hard Drive to the Ram. Ie: the next 100 miles of scenery.
Deduction is:
1.The more ram you have, the more scenery you can see, and paging / LRU will have minimal effect on the running of the Sim.
2. The smaller your drive is, the less work the CPU has to do to retrieve data to the ram.The whole process would take a lot longer if it had to search a 20gig fragmented drive than if it had to search an 8gig. This is one reason why it is good practice to regularly de-fragment your drive.
I think 512 mb of ram would probably hold as much scenery you can see in FS2002 at any one time(Also this is where autogen is good as it saves space on the Ram by not writing scenery that is not necessary.) So I would say that a good base to build on would be 512mb of Ram and an 8 gig (10 max) partition with a 768mb Pagefile on the FS partition. The rest is down to the GPU and CPU. get a good combination of these and you will have a good FS system for a good while.

I tried not to be too techie and hope that those of you that don't already know how this works, can understand it.

Regards.

69 Original FS2002 Screenshots here
Http://www.shifties.freeserve.co.uk