The following is a "two-minute guide" by Koorby that was imbedded in another post. It has helped me and I thought it would be good to post it here where it might get the attention it deserves. Give his suggestions a try if you haven't already. You won't be sorry! Great work Koorby! PS: (I trust I haven't violated any rules by doing this).Koory's Two-Minute Guide: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 :( Give you back lots and lots of FPS2. 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 solution3. Slide MIP down to 4 - no need for more than that on your 6600GT4. Slide LIGHTS down to 65. Slide 3D cloud density to 50%, will still look great6. Turn off lens flare (pilot's sunglasses don't have lens flare 7. Turn OFF anti-aliasing inside FS98. Set to Trilinear filtering always9. Run FS9 in Full-screen mode at the same resolution as your desktop10. 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.Optional11. Optional (disable the autogen library by renaming the fs9Autogendefault.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 43. Set Sharpness to +1 (this will make FS9 visuals look spectacular)YOUR WINDOWS XP===============1. Not running XP? Buy it, install it with SP22. 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 120Kts2. 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=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19 (20 for 38m mesh, 21 for 20m mesh)TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=5TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=3.500000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=4.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=4There'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.Hope this helped Cheers,KoorbyVOZ official site: http://vistaoz.org

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.Actually he is wrong, video is interlaced and progressive (blending of frames to create a smoothing motion blur type effect)Not only that, two passes are made at video and film (upper and lower fields) the FPS rate for video and film is actually 48, 50 or 60fps.FS is not interlaced - it just throws out frames at a certain rate with no motion blur. Real leveld flight simulators have the FPS set to a minimum of 60fps+, anything lower you can make out frames.So I guess in this case the 3.5 billion people Koorby is talking about are all wrong! ;)

No,Koorby's right. It does help and I didn't notice anything higher.That is the relevent information as far as FS9 is concerned. Debating issues regarding video and film will no doubt feed some ego's but will do little to enhance our hobby. Again, thanks Koorby!:)

Excellent quick and easy guide. Thanks. One question, how do you adjust Sharpness on Nvidia 6800s?Edit: found it, duh. Thanks again.

Bill, dont worry about it..and dont let it get to you..such is the mindset these days on the forums unfortunately.Your post is well appreciated by many im sure, including myself as it might be able to help some of the members gain something.But you are right, to quibble about what the actual fps we watch movies at is of absolutely no point to the post to be sure...so thanks for posting the info.Dave

>Edit: found it, duh. Thanks again. Err, yeah... where? :-hmmm

>>Edit: found it, duh. Thanks again. >>Err, yeah... where? :-hmmmMipMapping.Allcott

No, thats not sharpness. Its under Color Correction in the properties panel.

No,Koorby's right.Hey that's your opinion!, I'm not going to argue. Your post was a great help - I was just pointing out he was incorrect.

>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.>>Actually he is wrong, video is interlaced and progressive>(blending of frames to create a smoothing motion blur type>effect)>>Not only that, two passes are made at video and film (upper>and lower fields) the FPS rate for video and film is actually>48, 50 or 60fps.>>FS is not interlaced - it just throws out frames at a certain>rate with no motion blur. Real leveld flight simulators have>the FPS set to a minimum of 60fps+, anything lower you can>make out frames.>>So I guess in this case the 3.5 billion people Koorby is>talking about are all wrong! ;)As others have pointed out, the difference between film and video and computer displays render any such comparisons meaningless, but also, it is my understanding that standard image rendering in video is rastered, not interlaced. Linked video cards as offered by both Nvidia (SLI) and ATI (Crossfire) are the only methods by which computers do `interlaced` image display, but the measurement of `frames per second` actually mean different things in the different mediums as computers are not passing a fixed image past a display point but are actually calculating the image `on the fly` and displaying the resultant calculations in a visual format. That is very different from film and video which is re-rendering an image that has already been rendered.Do you have any references to back up those assertions, only you seem so very certain, when I think you're so very wrong. And many experts who ghave posted on these forums for a long time and have backed up their recommendations and conclusions seem to suggest that you are mistaken. And if Koorby's advice works (and it is NOT his advice alone, it is accumulated wisdom that has been tested and verified in any number of ways) then how can it be `wrong`?Allcott

That's not quite right either. Movies run at 24 fps and are not interlaced! The reason that low fps works on TV and movies in fast camera movement is not because they are interlaced, but because of the way film works: if you move your camera fast the picture you take is blurry due to the exposure time. Computer games render crisp images (motion blurring is just coming and not really implemented in many games). Hence a low fps is much more noticable in computer games - if you are moving fast.

One minor thing I like to add: do not run your monitor at 1280x1024 if you can avoid it. Use 1280x960 instead. The reason is that your aspect ratio is wrong and the picture you're seeing gets distorted. Unforunately, LCD manifacturers use 1280x1024 so there is litte you can do if you have such a monitor.Christian

>No,Koorby's right. It does help and I didn't notice anything>higher.I notice a significant difference between 30 and 60 (or even 50) FPS. I suppose it's a subjective matter.Marco

Just curious..what does the "lights" sliders do in FS?Bill

I guess my thoughts on this are I dont care if it's 100fps or 25fps or maybe even 15fps as long as it's smooth and I can control my landings especially at the great detailed airports that are available these days.