What does Flight Sim 2002 use in a system?

[Callred]

I posted this to another forum, but think it may be better to have posted it here... apologies to the other group.

I run an Athlon original 800 on an Asus KX 133 mb with an Elsa Gladiac GF2 GTS. Most of my games run in the high 80 to mid 90 FPS when set to 1024x768x16... no crying over this. But when I run FS2k2 I am lucky to get 15 in the cities at low altitudes...

My question is this: Just what part of a system handles the game? Since I can get such good response from all the other games, what makes this one so different? Of course, I could drop back on the settings, but I don't have to any where else, so why in that game? I notice that No One uses it as a benchmark... so I am curious as to what part of the system it uses.

Thanks
Cec

 

[Wolfie]

Not exactly sure what part of your system it uses more then the other. But when you look at the system requirments it seems like it uses your vid card more then anything. Why I say this is because it requires at least 8MB hardware. I love the game. So I didn't let the slowness bother me much. I don't get the best frame rate either. I don't know for sure what my frame rate is. But I run it on a Voodoo3 3000. And because it requires you also to have DirectX 8.0a installed I am sure it's video intensive. Have you tried changing the video options to allow for less detail? Try turning off Shadowing? Let me know if this makes a difference.

Also, what did you use to get the frame rate?

Wolfie

 

[lorlabnew]

Callred,

I believe MSFS2002 is hungry in bothvideo and CPU performance. You'll have to scale down graphics detail a lot, as well as resolution if you want to have decent FPS....To me it seems that CPU upgrade helps more than videocard upgrade (as long as you have a bit decent card like GF2 or better).

Luckily, MSFS2002 is really scalable, so you should have nice visuals even with less detail.

I used to have PIII600EB133FSB/256PC133-CL2/GF3Ti200and couldn't go max detail without serious performance hit (talking FPS under 10).
Upgraded to P 1.6A/512RDRAM/GF3Ti200 and can max it out now, with FPS in between 20-30 (in town, airport environment, heavy clouds etc.), 1600*1200*32bit.....full detail and effects.

 

[Callred]

For getting the FPS, use the keys ctrl and z ... do it twice. The first time gives you coordinates.

I run a GeForce2 GTS 32 meg Elsa card and Detonator drivers.... I think you're right that I'll need a jump in my CPU to do much more...

I tested everything by turning up one setting after another.... Running it in Almost full High Q mode at 1280 by 1024, I also drop to around 10 in cities, especially Paris...

Thanks for the reply, looks like I'm off to Newegg.com to price new toys

Cec

 

[Wolfie]

Well I just played it to see what kinda FPS I could get... Around town and stuff (options set to medium) I get about 15-20FPS. In the air I get 30. Also in your Hardware settings in your Options/Video settings, make sure that the "Target Frame Rate" is pushed up. It was set to 15 and I wouldn't go any higher. I pushed that up to 30 and I get 30 Frames per Second after I did this. Try setting this to as high as you want. Try playing with it. Oh and this was set at 1024x768x16.

When you said you should think about upgrading your CPU I can't see why you would need too. I have a Pii450@504 with 512MB pc100 Ram voodoo3 3000 Vid Card. So I don't see a 800 making that much of a difference.

Good luck...

Wolfie

 

[Callred]

The 800 Athlon I'm now running isn't as optimized as say, even the Thunderbird core. I think you're right about the way the game handles rates. The thing I was curious about in the first place was which part of the system plays which role. FS2k2 is weird in how it utilizes a computer. Any other game and we'd be way up there in fps ranges, not this one.

I did a new load of the game, tested the defaults settings and then checked fps after increasing each setting one at a time...

Here's one for you Wolfie, when you set the slider for max frame rates, it also sets a low-end number that will be approximately 70% of that number. After you start to drop below that number, the game will begin to drop detail. EXAMPLE: set to a high of 40 the lowest it will allow before dropping detail will be around 27 fps. One way to counter this would be to set the upper range to where you want it to be, then close the game. .... Open FS2002.CFG and look for a line that says; LOD_TARGET_FPS=xx ... then set the number of xx to about 10... Mine now looks like this:: LOD_TARGET_FPS=10.

That way it will not start to drop detail until it gets Down to 10 fps... the default of 25 fps max sets that number to 17. Way to high for me personally since I don't want to lose detail until I need to.

Interestingly, you don't get much in the way of chop in the game until you start to go below 12 fps... if I could keep it up to the range you're getting, but also keep everything maxed out, then I'd be happy....

Besides, it's a good excuse to replace an old favorite, but ageing, cpu and video card...


Thanks for the input.

Cec

 

[Wolfie]

Thanks for the input. I will have to take a look at that. I thought about upgrading. But I think I will just build a new box. Now to get that cash and start building.

Wolfie