Longhaul747 From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 173 posts, RR: 0 Posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 18 hours ago) and read 3106 times:
hello,
Last October I purchased a P4 1.7GHz computer. It came with Windows ME installed. FS2002 ran okay but after a while it would start to run really slow and stutter badly. At the same time the sound would change volume levels and be loaded with static. I would usually get sick of it and close FS2002. If I try anything else like launch another game or surf the net it would run slow causing a reboot.
I was a little nervous about upgrading to XP because of the horror stories I have heard. I tried FS2002 on a friends computer and he had no problems like I had because of XP.
Gauge instruments look sharper and are easier to read. I can switch between different views without so much as a stutter. I gave the system an acid test and launched FS2002 and FS98 5 different times each and then open and closed Internet Explorer 20 different times. I did not notice any slow downs during this test. I also noticed that my default scenery/display configurations jumped another few notches. My framerates did drop a little from 30 average to low 20s. But FS2002 is so smooth it does not matter. Even when flying into a dense city with lots of AI traffic and clouds it stays in the low 20s. Flight modeling feels improved. Most likely from the increase in performance.
I am glad I upgraded. I am sure results very by system but on mine it made a big difference.
NZ767 From New Zealand, joined Nov 2001, 1620 posts, RR: 1 Reply 2, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 9 hours ago) and read 3060 times:
That's good to hear Longhaul.
How 'bout we swap computers?
I've had FS2002 for nearly a week now and have had nothing but problems with it.
At most airports I can't even see taxiways, runways etc and have to use progressive taxi even for airports I am familiar with just because of the lack of scenery.
Turning onto the "runway", I have to use the ILS needle to confirm that I am aligned, again due to lack of scenery.
When I change views, it takes ages. Things stutter; I go to spot view and the if I can see the aircraft (often I can't) then it's usually only half a fuselage with the rest buried into the tarmac.
The busier the airport, the worse it gets (although tried Hong Kong/CLK today and I could see everything).
Try a little hick town field and things are marginally better so this leads me to suspect it's my graphics card although my specs exceed everything that's required on the box.
Much worse than FS2000 ever was.
Driving me nuts so I'm about to reinstall FS2000 or go back to playing FS98 which I still have installed.
I don't know much about the tech aspects of my comp but:
Pentium IV (I think. Only a few months old) 900 MHZ CPU
20GB drive
128 MB Ram
S3 ProSavage Graphics card <<< I think this may be the culprit. Grrr!
Windows XP
I experimented with all the diferent settings and never have anything else running while I'm on the sim.
Any hints?
Portcolumbus From United States of America, joined Nov 2000, 1612 posts, RR: 4 Reply 3, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 8 hours ago) and read 3055 times:
Definately the video card there NZ767. You can get a 64MB card for under $100 now.
NZ767 From New Zealand, joined Nov 2001, 1620 posts, RR: 1 Reply 4, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 3051 times:
Thanks Joe,
Just as I thought.
I might have a look at a new one then. I've heard the GEForce (is that right?) is one of the best.
A bit more RAM wouldn't go astray either would it!
Portcolumbus From United States of America, joined Nov 2000, 1612 posts, RR: 4 Reply 5, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 7 hours ago) and read 3047 times:
GEForce is a solid card. I personally have an ATI Raedon but it doesn't seem to stack up against a GEForce. On a side note, you should have at least 256MB RAM for gaming, and although it won't necessarily do wonders for performance, it's still a good investment.
NZ767 From New Zealand, joined Nov 2001, 1620 posts, RR: 1 Reply 6, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 3041 times:
ok.
BTW, was doing a flight yesterday to Nelson (NZNS), just a little airport by the beach and as I was on approach, a flock of birds took off.
Was so cool; one of the few times the sim worked ok.
Cosync From Mexico, joined Nov 2001, 556 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 6 hours ago) and read 3039 times:
by thwe way i meant to say windows XP has no memory leak not FS2002.
The best thing to do to stop stuttering is to get lots of ram. 256 is ok. and 512 is just amazing.
i onyl have 128 at the moment and im using xp
i cant imagine how shity itd be if i was using something like windows 98
Portcolumbus From United States of America, joined Nov 2000, 1612 posts, RR: 4 Reply 8, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 5 hours ago) and read 3038 times:
RAM will only do so much. Unless you are doing graphic design, digital video editing, or running multiple applications at once, you don't really need an excess of RAM. All-in-all, it's CPU speed and the video card.
Longhaul747 From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 173 posts, RR: 0 Reply 9, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 4 hours ago) and read 3032 times:
My computer came with 512MB of ram. It also has a Geforce 2 MMX with 64MB of video ram. Not the best card on the market but it works very well. About the only weak link in the system was Windows ME.
This morning I took a 2 hour flight from SLC to DEN in the Cessna. It got boring after a while so I minimized FS2002 and started surfing the net. Not once did I have any memory leakage problems. If I try this with Windows ME my system would choke out after a very short while.
I also got a nice performance increase with FS2002 running XP in classic mode instead of the newer XP interface. About the only problem I have with XP is during system shut down. My computer never completely turns off and the power switch on the front does not work either. I have to reach around and hit the toggle switch on the back. If anyone knows how to solve this problem it would be great.
Longhaul747 From United States of America, joined Dec 2000, 173 posts, RR: 0 Reply 11, posted (10 years 11 months 3 days 2 hours ago) and read 3017 times:
>> Chris, try holding your on/off switch for more than 5 seconds, the pc will turn off. <<
Thanks, Holding down the on/off switch for 5 seconds did the trick.
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