How to Improve FS9 Performance?

[Roy Koehmstedt 991396]

I have a computer with relatively low specs (768 MB RAM, 2.0 GHz Processor, 64MB Video Card) and I want to get the best performance out of FS9. I want to get the best graphics and quality I can without losing all of my frames. If any one can give me some tips on a good compromise or add-ons that won't drag down my computer, I would appreciate it. Keep in mind I mostly fly GA aircraft. Thank you everyone for your help.

[Daniel Mason 953660]

It looks like your running an AGP card..

 

Hmm, you can get some decent cards. a 6600GT would definatly seem like a good upgrade if you aren't willing to spend too much.

[Paul Figueiredo 1031404]

I'm running FS9 on an older laptop 1.7 ghz processor, on board video and 1gig of ram and with some thought out "tweaks" i guess you could call them, it is rare for me to fly below 20fps (15 if I'm in a really congested area).

 

I fly fs9 with Ground Environment, Activesky 6.5 w/ ASGraphics. Weather set to high coverage (not maximum), terrain and detail sliders full right, but keep my autogen on Normal.

 

So a 2ghz processor with 750megs of ram should be plenty to get good performance and a nice looking sim I would think. But first it really depends on how you define "performance". If you're looking for 35+ fps, then you won't find it. And I would have to ask why you feel that it's necessary, since the human eye can't really distinguish any more than about 20-25 anyway. Anything as low as 13 is flyable (IMHO) and 25 is about the max that makes any visible difference. I would set your goal for about 20-25 fps and move from there.

 

I played with the usual performance tweaks for fs9, with varying levels of success. At the end of the day, my fps jumped up significantly from three main sources.

 

1) Cooling - The single most important thing for framerates. Laptops are notoriously bad, but desktops can suffer from it too. I purchased a cheap little two fan docking station for my laptop for 30 bucks...best money I ever spent. Got a 5-10fps boost almost immediately after turning it on. Translated over to your desktop, I would take a look at your existing fan and see if it's powerful enough to cool your system while flying and either add a new one, or replace with a more powerful one. If (like me) you notice that the longer you're flying, the worse it gets...that's the best sign of overheat.

 

2) fsAutoStart - Is a little freeware program that shuts down any non-essential, RAM hogging programs before it starts your flight simulator, and then restarts all those programs when you are done. You can also use it to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ign a higher priority to fs9 for the duration of the flight...meaning that fs9 will get the greater share of the system resources while you are flying.

 

3) Litestep - Now I will say that I neither recommend nor not recommend this step...since setting a shell replacement for windows XP is something that some people aren't comfortable with and i would not like anyone to mess something up on account of my advice. All I will say is that many litestep GUI's use far fewer system resources than the Windows XP GUI. I found that my fps in game got a boost when I switched.

 

 

Paulie