Those of us with less than state-of-the-art systems often find FS2000 to be an exercise in frame rate frustration. Let me describe my system: AMD K6-2 CPU, 450 MHz; Voodoo 3 3000 video card (16 megs); 128 megs RAM; 4x CD ROM. Not exactly your "Super-Gamer Special Edition". But I have learned how to live with FS2000 and enjoy it to the max. It is known as "living within your means". Let me share what I have learned.

Let's state at the outset that 128 megs of RAM is almost a necessity. While it does not affect frame rates, per se, it makes a huge difference in the amount of file swapping that goes on with the hard drive. The fits and starts that you will experience with, say, 64 megs will drive you mad.

I run at a resolution of 1280x1024x16, which produces nearly photographic images, and my frame rate guideline is to stay above 8 fps most of the time, preferably 10 or better, even under dense conditions such as cities, airports, and the like. Let me make clear that I enjoy viewing the aircraft from the outside. I am not a cockpit potato, so to speak. I like to watch the takeoff and the gear retract; I like to review my landings with the instant replay feature, again from outside the aircraft and from various angles. Reducing the resolution, even down to 800x600, has a negligible affect on fps on my system, though that may not be the case on yours. This indicates to me that the video card is doing its job well; it is the CPU that is the bottleneck.

First of all, the display settings within the simulator are not nearly as important as the elements that we will review below. (My display settings, for what they are worth, are outlined at the end of the article.) The elements that are of prime importance are the aircraft, clouds, the airport, and to a lesser extent the panel. Let's discuss each of them.

Aircraft: Oh, there are some beautiful planes out there! Some are so tempting, only to find yourself in frame rate hell. If I look at the plane parked on the runway, engines off, and get less than 10 fps I blow it away. And 10 is very marginal. I will fly it to see how it behaves, and more often than not get rid of it. A more realistic initial fps is 12, as there is a slight decline in fps when engines start and flying (especially at lower altitudes or amongst clouds) puts even more drag on the system. There are plenty of very handsome aircraft out there that will give you good to excellent frame rates. I see no reason to expose yourself to herky-jerky flying when there is no need to do so. At the bottom of this article I list twelve aircraft of various types that are my favorites. They look good and fly well. Some have night lighting and all that fancy stuff. One of the bugaboos of FS2000 has been the fact that the default aircraft do not produce good frame rates, thus many people become discouraged from their initial exposure and curse the product. (See the comparison at the end of this article.)

The question arises, then, is there a way to determine ahead of time whether that aircraft that is so appealing to the eye will pass muster when installed, or will it be a frame rate killer? I am not a designer of aircraft, so I'm sure there are others who might provide a better clue, but what I have found is that the size of the mdl file (in the aircraft's model folder) is generally proportionate to frame rate. The larger the mdl file(s) the slower the frame rate. When viewing the contents of the zip file online I look at the size of the mdl file. Many of them are well over a megabyte, and that is normally a downer. I will continue this discussion at the end of the article when the specific aircraft are shown.

Clouds: What a killer these can be! Clouds will slow things down in a hurry. Flying in clear weather is not a sin, but, like many things that are not sinful, it is dull. I like clouds. I like flying among the friendly puffies. I came upon a nice compromise. A chap named Chris Ellis has made available an FS2000 Cloud Pack 3.0 containing two sets of replacement clouds (16 bit and 8 bit). The 20 files of the FS default clouds constitute 3.33 megabytes of data; the 16 bit set of replacement clouds (which I use) is only 855 kilobytes. This means that there is 75 percent less "stuff" to push around to form the clouds you see on the screen. Ergo, much better frame rates. Not only that, but the replacement clouds look good and remain white and vaporous under all conditions, which cannot be said of the default clouds which often become blotchy up close. I find no significant improvement by using the 8 bit set. I set weather to clouds=few (1/8), visibility=30. Also, you will do yourself a favor by using the latest FSUIPC module if you do not already have it installed.

Airports: The super-realistic airport is a handsome frill, indeed, but landing at one can give you ulcers. I have one fancy downloaded airport. My home airport, Tampa International, has been nicely modeled and the frame rate drop associated with it is not severe, so I live with it happily. My general rule is to stay with the default airport scenery; it really isn't that bad. To me, a smooth landing is far more satisfying than pretty buildings.

Panels: Normally you will have little trouble with panels, but there are some that eat up frame rates surprisingly. Remember, each instrument (gauge) is a little program ticking along in the background, eating up processor time, and some of these add-on gauges may not be too cleverly designed. I recently ran into a panel that looked simple enough, but was sheer madness. I have no idea what was wrong with it, nor did I try to find out, but my frame rates went south in a hurry in the cockpit view.

So those are my rules for living in the FS2000 world as a poor but happy man.

Now, as promised, I list twelve aircraft that I particularly enjoy. In parenthesis is the fps I experience looking at the plane (spot view) from the outside, engines off, parked on runway 24R at Manchester, UK (default scenery, daytime). This is where the beautiful Aer Lingus 737 sits waiting to be faultlessly piloted by me to Dublin under ATC provided by ProFlight 2000 (so I used it as the benchmark site). Each plane is available on FlightSim.Com, and the file name is indicated. I list them in order of fps, not by my preference as an aircraft. My four favorites are indicated by an asterisk (*). The "N" indicates night lighting. On the far right is the size of the mdl file in thousands of bytes.

For comparison, here's a sample of the FS2000 default aircraft.

You see why I seldom fly the default aircraft. You see why some of us threw up our hands when first confronting FS2000. Also, if you try out any of the suggested titles, you will see that it is possible to produce quality, good looking, good flying aircraft that result in comfortable frame rates.

Notice that the size of the mdl file provides some indication of the frame rate of the aircraft. It is to some extent offset by the volume of the texture files (in the texture folder). For example, the DC-8 Cargo Lion has 10.7 megs of texture, while the Comair has 2.92 megs. There is no perfect correlation that I can find, but the clues are there.

My advice? If you really MUST HAVE that airplane, download it, install it, and see what happens. I must confess that I have two or three planes in the stable that do not meet my self-imposed specs, but I like them and from within the cockpit they fly well. If it feels good, fly it!

For the record, my display settings are as follows:

Resolution = 1280x1024x16
3D Acceleration & Advanced 3D Options all on

Overall Image Complexity = Custom
Texture quality = 3
Terrain Mesh Complexity = 40
Terrain texture detail distance = 40
Land class complexity = dense
Max unlimited visibility = 70 miles
Scenery complexity = dense

Aircraft shadows = On
Ground scenery shadows = Off (this is a big help)
Dawn/Dusk texture smoothing = On
Smooth transition view = On
Image smoothing = On
Terrain transitions = On
Dynamic scenery = sparse

Here's wishing you smooth flying!

Robert Seitz
rseitz1009@aol.com