Maximise Your Settings Guide

[ardypilot]

This "two-minute guide" by Koorby aka John Venema, the creator of the Vista Austrails FS2004 scenery series (www.vistaoz.org), has been posted on many forums around the world, so I thought I would share it with you lot here as it seems to be improving everyone's performance:

INSIDE FS9
==========
1. Set visibility (vis) to about 30mi/48km - that's the real world and this single adjustment will a) make FS2004 textures look much nicer and realistic, and B) Give you back lots and lots of FPS
2. Avoid large amount of cumulus clouds - they eat FPS. Create a new weather theme which looks nice but avoids those. If you must use real-world weather then get Active Sky 6 and install their 128x128 DXT3 MIP cloud sets - perfect solution
3. Slide MIP down to 4 - no need for more than that on your 6600GT
4. Slide LIGHTS down to 6
5. Slide 3D cloud density to 50%, will still look great
6. Turn off lens flare (pilot's sunglasses don't have lens flare
7. Turn OFF anti-aliasing inside FS9
8. Set to Trilinear filtering always
9. Run FS9 in Full-screen mode at the same resolution as your desktop
10. Lock your FPS to 25 - seriously, you won't notice anything higher and it really does help. At the worst set it to 30FPS, but I never run it that fast, because PAL video runs at 25FPS and 3.5 billion people can't be wrong eh? Movies in the cinema run even slower.

Optional
11. Optional (disable the autogen library by renaming the fs9\Autogen\default.xml to default.xml.OFF - this will make very little visual difference to your flying but gives back FPS also.

Leave everything else maxed out.

YOUR VIDEO CARD
===============
1. Set to AA to 4XS (anything else is overkill if running = > 1280x1024)
2. Set AF to 4
3. Set Sharpness to +1 (this will make FS9 visuals look spectacular)

YOUR WINDOWS XP
===============
1. Not running XP? Buy it, install it with SP2
2. Shutdown about 40-50 services you don't need. Grab a program called FSautostart, which will do this for you with tips on each setting. I have 1024MB RAM and when I start FS9 I have 860MB free. Trust me, it makes a huge difference to performance.
3. Turn OFF any programs in the tray you are not using. This includes Anti-virus, anti-spam, anti-anything. Also turn off all those silly tray icons like quicktime and countless others. They are all consuming CPU cycles and the Anti-virus will most definitely interfere with FS9 performance.

BLURRIES
========
The most common thing that can ruin your flight experience is a case of the "blurries". I see this in so many screenshots, and it's completely avoidable.

Here's a few rules to follow:

1. If you are flying low (below 5,000 ft) (not slewing), keep your ground speed around 120Kts

2. If you are slewing (not flying), always tap Y to go back into flying mode so the textures can be reloaded in your immediately area. So (a) slew to the position, (tap the 'Y' key and fly for a bit to let the textures catch up, tap 'Y' again and just slew back to the best position for the shot.)

3. Make sure your section of your fs9.cfg file has these last 3 entries in the section:


TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19 (20 for 38m mesh, 21 for 20m mesh)
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=3.500000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.000000
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4

There's plenty more to talk about, but doing the above will help you enormously, make your visuals look much better and give you a big hike in FPS.

[NZ1]

Excellent article trolly, thanks very much!

[ardypilot]

Also try this guide, which I personally found very helpfull:

1. Run FS9, load your usual startup situation and make a note of ALL your current settings. End Flight and Exit.

2. Backup your current working FS9.CFG (found at C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9) by making a copy, then delete the original file.

3. Run FS9 and load up the default flight situation at KSEA.

4. Restore ALL your previously noted in sim settings, then End Flight and Exit.

5. OPEN the freshly created FS9.CFG in NOTEPAD and ADD / CHANGE entries as indicated:

(CONTROLS) <----------------N.B. these are Square brackets in FS9.CFG
KBDAIL=64
KBDELEV=64
KBDRUD=64
PAN_RATE=900 <------ very helpful tweak to improve panning in VC and Spot View

(DISPLAY)
UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=31 (My preferred fps lock)
TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=300 <---- Values up to 400 may be tried to improve texture loading times. Too high a value may increase the tendency to stutter on some systems.
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_SURFACE_SCALAR=0.5 <---- My preferred option
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_VASI_SCALAR=0.5 <---- ditto
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_APPROACH_SCALAR=0.5 <---- ditto
RUNWAY_LIGHTS_STROBE_SCALAR=0.5 <---- ditto

TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000
TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000
TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19
TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8
TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5
TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1
TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=4.500000 <--- best results on my setup
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.500000 <--- ditto
TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1 <--- ditto

Please don't try to 'tidy' the appearance of the file contents, as existed in FS2002, by creating a space between the various sections. The aim of this exercise is to disturb the original layout as little as possible. Any changes made to the layout should be handled by the sim and NOT forced by the user.

(SIM)
SYSCLOCK=1
SHOW_BRAKE_MESSAGE=0 <--- optional

Now copy as a block your original Joystick and Keyboard assignments from your FS9.CFG backup file and paste at the bottom of the new FS9.CFG file. This is just a way of sparing you the rigmarole of having to set up these devices again. Should you prefer, you can of course do it from within the sim. However, I have not noted any adverse impact on performance by doing the former.

These are my current headings, yours may differ:

JOYSTICK_SLEW
JOYSTICK_MAIN <---- I have rudders
JOYSTICK_SLEW
JOYSTICK_MAIN
JOYSTICK_SLEW
KEYBOARD_MAIN
KEYBOARD_SLEW

Lastly, I have a couple of additional headings necessary to avoid loading errors. Those familiar with what I mean will understand. If you don't know what I'm referring to AND you are not seeing any errors, then please ignore most of what follows:

(OLDMODULES)
Waicao.dll=1
FSSound.dll=1
SOARRec.dll=1
(FrameCallNoWarn)
full=1

If you need these lines to be present, then add them to the bottom of the FS9.CFG file. Don't try inserting them in the main body of the file. FS9 will rearrange their positioning at the next run.

That's about it. What, I hear you say, about all those other tweaks like, for example, PanelAsTexture=0 and TextureAGP=0. I have never used the latter but I have used the former in that it did seem to sharpen up the gauges in the 2D panel noticeably. More recent driver sets from Omega seem to have made this tweak unnecessary and, in any case, I have never really been convinced that there was any useful performance benefit to be gained by including this line.

Okay, so now you have made those minor changes to FS9.CFG without causing any major disturbance to the freshly created construction of the file.

6. Select File - Save As... browse to C:\Documents and Settings\Your User Name\Application Data\Microsoft\FS9 and save the file as FS9a.CFG to avoid overwriting the original.

7. Delete FS9.CFG and Rename FS9a.CFG to FS9.CFG

8. Defragment the drive on which FS is installed to ensure that any file fragments are now contiguous. Not sure whether this is really necessary but does seem to be good practice. Doesn't take long in Windows XP if you are in the habit of doing it regularly.


Finally, HOW TO DEAL WITH A GRAPHIC DRIVER CHANGE:

These are my current driver entries:
(DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9800 PRO (Omega 2.5.79).0) <---square brackets
Mode=1280x1024x32
TriLinear=1

It appears it may not be enough to simply install a new driver and load the sim for it to be recognized properly. In this case you are likely to see the appearance of 2 entries in FS9.CFG - the old and the new driver references. Deleting the old reference may disturb FS9's ability to scan the file efficiently so this method is not to be recommended.

Nor is the seemingly attractive ploy of backing up FS9.CFG, deleting the original, creating a new file and then copying and pasting the new driver reference over the old entry in your backup file before saving it as FS9.CFG. What you can try doing, however, is copying and pasting the appropriate lines at the end of FS9.CFG, delete the original lines referring to the old driver, close up the spaces between the remaining entries and allow the sim to reposition the new lines automatically at the next run. That way you know there is a good chance that the sim has accepted these new entries properly.

My preferred method is to rebuild FS9.CFG as detailed above in steps 1 - 8. I know it's a hassle but you do have the reassurance in the knowledge that the sim will have accepted any changes fully. Also the sim's ability to scan the file efficiently will remain unaffected.

If you do feel you still have to make any changes to variable parameter values in FS9.CFG from outside the sim then I suggest you at least get into the habit of saving the file as, say, FS9a.CFG before deleting the original and then rename the freshly saved file to FS9.CFG. Then, throw in a defrag for good measure!

____________________________________________________________

TIP: Flying in areas with differing terrain mesh elevation resolutions presents a problem as it involves opening FS9.CFG to adjust the TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL (TMVL) to match the LOD of the mesh:

LOD 9 (76m) Mesh requires TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19
LOD 10 (38m) Mesh requires TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20
LOD 11 (19m) Mesh requires TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=21

One way to resolve this, and avoid continually having to make changes by overwriting and potentially degrading the original file, is to create 2 additional CFG files with the appropriate adjustment made in each:

fs9_LOD10.CFG (TMVL=20)
fs9_LOD11.CFG (TMVL=21)

Then, all you have to do is rename the original FS9.CFG (with the default TMVL=19), assuming this is the file currently in use, to something like fs9_LOD9.CFG and rename one of the others, as dictated by the mesh LOD, to FS9.CFG in order that it will be recognized by FS9 and go fly.

A better way is to use Ken Salter's excellent FSAutoStart module. This allows the user in the configuration section of each user-defined profile to employ a switch in the Command Line under Application to Launch Options section (for example, "/CFG:fs9_LOD11.cfg" - without the quotes) which effectively calls the correspondingly named FS9_*.CFG configuration file you have placed in the FS9 root folder.

The original article was by 'Cruachan' on the avsim forums here: http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az= ... =676&page=

[Matlo]

==========
1. Set visibility (vis) to about 30mi/48km - that's the real world and this single adjustment will a) make FS2004 textures look much nicer and realistic, and B) Give you back lots and lots of FPS

Is there a way that I can force FS9 to load all flights with this vis without having to change every time I load a flight?

Craig

[G-HEVN]

FSUIPC will do it for you, independant of your current weather settings.

[Matlo]

Sould have thought of fsuipc....
cheers,

Craig

[ardypilot]

Is there a way that I can force FS9 to load all flights with this vis without having to change every time I load a flight?

There is another way. Set up a flight, with all the weather conditions, time/season that you prefer, save your flight (including your favourite aircraft and favourite airport), ticking Make this the default flight at the bottom of the window.



Now, every time you load FS9, the main screen will automatically display your custom defined weather, favourite plane and favourite airport location and time/season ready for you to hit the FLY button (rather than having the default C172 in Seattle)