What honestly delivers good performance (fps)?

american101 · Post by **american101** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:37 am

Hi Ruahrc

Good advice but you can't upgrade a graphics card on a notebook from what I understand. I think that is the biggest obstacle. RAM could be upgraded to 1 GIG, but will the RAM make a considerable difference. I'm just looking for a 5-6 fps boost without buying a new system and laying out another $500-600.

Chuck

swapilot · Post by **swapilot** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 6:09 pm

I currently operate a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, with 1 Gig of RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128MB. I have MyTraffic and the PMDG 737 in 2D panel. Sometimes my FPS will drop to 7-8 while taxing ( Imaginesim's DTW is the worst with some rates at 5-6. My AI traffic is set to 33% and most of my sliders are at the default level. Does this seem normal?

american101 · Post by **american101** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:17 pm

Well,

For me that is low and probably not even worth flying. I thought Imaginesim scenery quality is great but performance horrible. They get about a 5 out of 10 for a scenery developer. May I ask why you get taxing around MDW in fps... maybe even upgrading my RAM to 1 GIG won't even help. My fps seem to be all over that I really haven't even bothered using my computer for flying.
I'm wondering if its worth it to buy a better notebook for under a $1000 with a better Radeon card. But I will not have that much time from August till May to really use my computer for fs2004

Chuck

swapilot · Post by **swapilot** » Tue Jul 05, 2005 8:35 pm

american101 wrote:May I ask why you get taxing around MDW in fps...
Chuck

The low is an occasional 7-8FPS, it is usually around 16-18FPS but the occasional stutter will show the drop. It is not the scenery, as I did do the check prior to the install as a gauge and Martin's product is as delivered, virtually no impact on FPS. I also have Active Sky 5, but only run it in offline mode. At other non-major airports my FPS can usually stay as high as 29 FPS while taxing.

Ruahrc · Post by **Ruahrc** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 4:00 pm

hey,

I didn't realize you were talking about laptops. Yeah you're right you really can't upgrade the graphics in a laptop (although I think some of the newest, high-end gaming laptops do have this ability... it was designed by nVidia). Upgrading to 1GB RAM might help with a little of the snappiness of the sim though. Since you're on a laptop are you using a 4200rpm drive or a 5400rpm drive? the 4200rpm laptop drives will really cut into your load performance, and will also probably cause some stutters if you pan around as it has to load that scenery into RAM. Upgrading it to 1GB will reduce the frequency of this from-HD loading, and thereby improve performance.

I don't know how much $ 1GB of notebook RAM will run you these days... I bought a 1GB stick a long time ago for $150. If you have other legitimiate uses for this laptop (such as photo editing or something) where 1GB RAM would help there too, then I would say go for it. Or if you have the budget to upgrade the RAM. But I do not think you will get a huge improvement from upgrading to 1GB. Noticeable? Probably. Earth-shattering? Probably not.

Ruahrc

Nikolai · Post by **Nikolai** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:08 am

swapilot wrote:I currently operate a Pentium 4 2.8 GHz, with 1 Gig of RAM and a Radeon 9800 Pro AGP 128MB. I have MyTraffic and the PMDG 737 in 2D panel. Sometimes my FPS will drop to 7-8 while taxing ( Imaginesim's DTW is the worst with some rates at 5-6. My AI traffic is set to 33% and most of my sliders are at the default level. Does this seem normal?

I guess so.. I used a demo of Simflyers Frankfurt Main airport using the Level-D 767 and PAI Traffic and graphics settings set to full, I got somewhere between 1-3 fps.
Im guessing this was because of the poly heavy airport since their KPHX airport with the same settings gives me normal fps.

My system is:
Pentium 4 3.5GHz
1.5GB DDR Ram
128Mb Radeon 3000 Series.

american101 wrote:I'm wondering if its worth it to buy a better notebook for under a $1000 with a better Radeon card. But I will not have that much time from August till May to really use my computer for fs2004

Well, my friend bought a gateway notebook for about $1000. It has pretty good specs and 64mb v-card. (Although I must admit that I have no idea what kind of card it is.. onboard or not, im not sure.) He bought it at Best Buy but you might wanna check the Gateway website. Dell also has a laptop made for gaming. Its called the XPS and it starts somewhere around 2500 (not worth the money IMO).

IMO, laptops are bad for gaming of any sort. Since you already have a laptop you might want to consider getting a desktop.

tjsynkral · Post by **tjsynkral** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 1:39 pm

american101 wrote:Hi Ruahrc

Good advice but you can't upgrade a graphics card on a notebook from what I understand. I think that is the biggest obstacle. RAM could be upgraded to 1 GIG, but will the RAM make a considerable difference. I'm just looking for a 5-6 fps boost without buying a new system and laying out another $500-600.

Chuck

Change resolution to half of what it is in FS. Other than that, you've got to upgrade to a newer computer. The memory won't help much, because VRAM is needed for graphics.

american101 · Post by **american101** » Wed Jul 13, 2005 3:44 pm

Well, I'm deciding not to upgrade my labtop.. It Just doesn't make sense how once I used to get 11-13 fps at dense intl airports like MDW, MIA, TPA, PHX, and now I get fps between 6-9 during taxi, landing, takeoff. This all happened after my jack needed to be fixed on my labtop because I wasn't receiving any juice from the adapter. I 've tried countless times tweaking the settings but that leads me nowhere.

Oh Well

Chuck