Just a note about the Shadders tweak. The recommendation is turning shaders off and youll see a big increase in performance. This is very true as I discovered after dutifully using Riva to shut down those pesky shaders, and voila! 22 FPS in London Heathrow with ALL sliders maxed minus traffic.
Whats the pay off? Well, pretty much everything that makes FSX FSX. Anything that has shine is now dull, if its wet, no more slick wet runways, no cockpit reflections in the windows in VC mode, no shine on any surface that has it (fuel tankers, leading edges) and the water looks like matt blue blurk!
So, while you get improved performance with shaders turned off, you get crap visuals which in my view dont make it worth it at all. Having said all that I will try with shaders 1.4 forced to see what thats like, I shall let you know.
I'll post a few pics as well to show the difference, then at least those considering this tweak can make an informed decision and not get caught in the 'this is the smoking gun' furore doing the forums.
UPDATE:
Firstly, shaddows in the VC are done using textures, so i was mistaken in my earlier note as I simply couldnt see them due to the light conditions at the time, so thats ok. I have noted however that turning shaders off increases performance by about 100%, hense why this tweak is causing so mch interest. Shaders forced at 1.4 made no difference. As I mentioned, you loose all the shine and water effects this way. From my perspective, if you turn shaders off, you might as well stay with FS9, you can get some great texture replacements that give similar water effects etc and better FPS.
