Landing problems

[rewasiuk]

On approach to a runway, my framerates drop to under 10 which causes quite a bit of stuttering. My computer specs are as follows:

AMD 5600 2.8 processor
ATI 4850 video card
4 gigs ram
Creative x-fi gamer sound card

I am hoping someone has a fix as it is very difficult to land an aircraft smoothly.

[heywooood]

well - you're probably going to have to use rural airfields and go pretty far left on your ingame texture and autogen settings....

have you tweaked your fsx.cfg file yet?

you can reduce the number of objects rendered by the autogen and scenery detail sliders in the fsx.cfg

there are also some files available that allow for reduced cloud and tree textures - these can really help increase framerates on rigs with only moderate horsepower...

try this site for fsx.cfg tweaks http://www.highflightsimulations.com/

and for reduced trees and clouds http://www.fsstation.com/articles/flight-simulator-x-performance-tweaks.html

[Panther_99FS]

What are your autogen & scenery settings :ques:

[jmig]

It does make it hard to land when you have single digit frame rates.

Haywoood and Panther gave you some good advise on possible corrections. You may just not have enough computer to run FSX with a large amount of detail. :(

[Pultacatt]

Geez... Ok I fly quite stably at 8 or 9 FPS. :redf: A little stutter here and there but nothing drastic, landing at my current base of Ops an addon Korat RTAFB (VTUN) I get between 6 to 7 FPS and its still flyable.

I think it has a lot to do with autogen scenery as Panther mentioned.

[heywooood]

Pultacatt...8 or 9 FPS is relatively slow and while it may be flyable, it can not be very fluid - FPS of 20+ is needed for smoothness and this is where the adjustability of the various settings can help...also fsx.cfg tweaks and the reduced textures for clouds and trees - these last two files I personally have found to be vital for FSX playability on my rig.

And if you want the kicker - you really can't tell the difference in the clouds and trees- compared to the noticeable difference you see when you adjust he ingame texture and autogen / scenery detail sliders to the left.

For myself - I don't have a lot of horsepower either so I have to avoid the most extreme models and the most densely populated regions in FSX - I can't go near LAX or Tokyo among others and I can't use Nemeths Helo or A2A's 377 Strat - but that doesn't mean I don't have a good time.

When I first got FSX, even after tweaking and after the Sp1 and eventually Sp2, I could only fly a few default planes and only in island regions like St Maartens and the Aleutians- places that don't tax the rig like big government is about to do us...

Things are better now - but I like fluid framerates (25-30) if I can get 'em but I also like alot of trees and weather and mesh / terrain detail so I still have to watch where and what I fly -

The Aleutians and the Canary Islands - the Greek Isles and the Scottish Highlands and Islands are my friends in FSX...and the Northwest Territory in eastern Canada - the southern tip of Baja California, parts of the Midwest you get the idea :ernae:

[rewasiuk]

I made some changes to fsx.cfg and to the display setup as advised by highflight simulations and what a difference in performance. I can now land at Vancouver International at 22fps. However, I will probably have to update the processor to an AMD 6400. Thanks a bunch guys for your very fruitful advice.

[Pultacatt]

Heywoood, I dunno what to tell you. But for me its fluid enough to take some darn good multiplayer video. As I mentioned I do get the odd stutter but it really isn't anything to gripe about.

Now I am a bit of a muppet in so much that most of my sliders bar autogen are over to the right, for Autogen I set it to Dense and the Cloud Draw Distance is set to 80 miles and going to Heathrow with full AI does bring the PC to a standstill LOL!

[heywooood]

fair enough Pultacatt - the ingame FPS meter has always been suspect and may not be reporting accurately...

have you tried the reduced clouds texture file?....

I can have maxed cloud detail and draw distance with the new textures where I could get nowhere near those settings before.

AI really drags frames down so I have all but GA aircraft AI switched OFF - and the GA set to 30%

with that I get just enough ATC chatter and local vicinity visual air traffic to give some immersion...even the odd contrail above from the Lear will ocassionally come into view