Hello everyone. I have just recently purchased a new PC and am having some serious scenery performance issues. My old PC was an HP that featured an AMD processor (2.16 GHz, I believe), 1 GB of RAM, 100 GB hard drive, and a 128 MB graphics card and Windows XP. Performance left quite a bit to be desired with FS2004 in general. Using FSDT's KORD scenery with full AI traffic would result in about 6 frames per second.
Now, my new PC is also an HP, and features an Intel Quad Core 2.66 GHz processor, 6 GB of RAM, a 512 MB graphics card, and a 750 GB hard drive running on the 64 bit Windows Vista operating system. With this new PC, I am getting 1 frame per second using KORD with full AI traffic. This is the performance in daylight. At night, I am seeing 25 to 30 frames per second.
For comparison, I am also using Imaginesim's KATL scenery, with which I get 3 frames per second in the daytime, and 36-40 frames per second at night, both with full AI traffic.
Day or night, using either scenery, there is going to be an enormous performance hit with so much traffic at these airports. Why is there such a difference in between the day and night? I have already updated my video card drivers. Does anyone know of any other possible issues that could be causing this?
Thank you in advance. KORD is brilliant. I'm looking forward to KJFK.
This is generally known about AI and FS but, different packages have advantages or disadvantages. However, basically...
1. Your system needs to process millions more colors for textures and animations in the day time than it does at night; therefore, increased processing workload.
2. Your AI package might have realistic flight schedules and there are frequently fewer flights at night thus less work load at night.
3. Maybe using an AI package that has models which are not optimized for FPS but, for textures, animations, and use multi-polygon intensive models.
Your system configuration, although high enough for your purposes, may not be able to handle all the workload you're expecting.
Known Solutions:
1. Lower your AI Airliners and GA Traffic to 70's or lower in the percentages (e.g. 77%) especially, if you have all your FS graphic settings at MAX.
2. See if your AI traffic package has options for the choice of less demanding flight models; MyTraffic X has this feature for users with FPS issues, your's might have one too, if this isn't the package your using.
3. Lower your FS display Aircraft visual settings.
4. Configure your systems graphic card's control panel display settings for performance verses image quality.
You will have to discover things for yourself by trial and error. These are known issues that you will have compromise in order to achieve some FPS rating that satisfies your performance needs. Microsoft suggests that you should expect around 15-20FPS for an ideal situation.
Good luck and Hope this helps.