I've posted this before but no one has had and answer for me so far. I'm baffled because I seem to be the only one experiencing this problem to this degree.

When I'm flying over open air space my graphics are as smooth as silk. I get frame rates up in the 80's. When I'm flying into Seol airbase my frame rate drops to 5 or 6 sometimes and makes it impossible to land safely.

I've had this exact same problem on two different computer systems. I like the sim but this is driving me nuts. I know people that have much slower systems than mine and tell me they've never seen this problem before.

Here's what I've tried:
1. Changing the graphic settings doesn nothing!
2. Defragmenting does nothing!
3. Reassigning system resources does nothing!
4. Tweaking swap file settings does nothing!

Here's what I've noticed happening:
1. Hard drive starts high activity rate.
2. I start getting airport sounds 15 miles out and frame rate drops badly.

I went from an ASUS P4B533 with a P4 2.0GHZ with 4x AGP to:

ASUS P4P800, 8x AGP
Intel P4 3 GHZ
512 MB of dual memory sticks, matched pair.
ASUS Gforce4 TI4200, 4043 drivers
Brand new 60GB 7200 Hitachi drive, scanned!
Fresh install of Win98SE
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum, original drivers
Nothing overclocked, all stock parts.

The problem is definately related to the hard drive activity and the sounds. I am absolutely 100% sure that this is NOT a graphics or processor problem! I have many other sims and this is only happening with F4AF.

WTF?

try to put another 512MB of RAM to get 1GB in total, this should help a bit

I was stunned at the performance differences between 98 and XP.
I knew 98 was bad but had no clue it was that bad. It's very, very bad.
Get away from 98 as fast as possible.
Run Away! Keep Running!


Otherwise:
1Gb RAM.
Pull/disable/swap your sound card to positively identify it as the problem.
Update your drivers for video and audio.


"On the side of the software box, in the 'System Requirements' section, it said 'Requires Windows 95 or better'. So I installed Linux."
Anonymous

P4 2.4 gig CPU
1024MB PC2700 DDR RAM
ATI 9800Pro

I get the same at EVERY airfield as I'm on final approach (bad enough to make a landing impossible) and to a lesser extent while on the ground (eg during ramp start) where I'll get random stutters.

In my case I've noticed the severe FPS drop on final approach starts about a mile from the runway and lasts (if I'm lucky enough to make it down) until I'm approx half way along the runway.

I've also tried various changes to the graphics settings in game. Occasionally I can get it to run right by pausing the sim and ALT-TAB'ing out of the game and back in.

i agree with the above: 98's granularity is horrific... actually it was great for its time... but XP has significantly improved "game" play...

512MB will stutter everytime you change views ( look around ) fly near airbases... especially near the dual ( bubble overlapped ) airbases near Seoul... add another 512MB matched to get to the sweet spot of 1G... or just purchase 1G from newegg for extra cheap...

Hag

Fwiw, I'm running AF on an ancient system just fine.
No stuttering ever.

P4 1.4
512 rambus
Win98
Soundblaster Live
ATI 9700 pro

More ram never hurts anything, but obviously it can run just fine on 512 and Win98.

Run Forest, Run..!!

BTW, that's correct, I had AF installed on W98SE and it was HORRYFYING..!!
Change to Xp and up your RAM to 1Gb (I had to change my PC, for that..)
Sincerelly
Cruz

Striker.

AFAIK the F4AF graphics engine isn't capable of 'instancing' 3d objects, and it's also quite possible that it uses the CPU for the 3d calculations, so when you are at places like airfields with aircraft on the ramps the framerate can be potentially HUGE.

Did you try turning off the clouds? Bummer, I know, but I picked up a LOT of FPS, relatively speaking by doing that.

John, can you post a list of your graphics settings in F4AF please?

The sim was originally designed to run on 95 or 98 so it's not an operating system problem. I know it's a hardware problem but I just haven't been able to put my finger on it. I know plenty of people running older systems with 98 and most everyone say it works fine.

I ordered new memory sticks because I'm suspicious of them and have been for the last month or so. They were supposed to be a matched pair when I bought them but one has chips on one side only while the other one has chips on both sides. I have one other very strange problem with sound loops in Steel Beasts that may be Ram related. I'm hoping this fixes both problems.

actually striker it IS possible for it to be an OS issue.

while trying to chase down cause of the stutters I came across a lot of threads in various places for other games where stutter started after applying xp sp2.

for your memory issues, try using memtest from http://www.memtest86.com/ - if it passes then you don't have a memory issue.

Er .. i know that curiosity can kill cats, but if i may ask, why aren't you using 2000 or xp ?

I have several computers and one runs XP Pro but I have one that's dedicated to older programs and sims that are not designed for or will just not run on XP. My CH HOTAS setup is on the 98SE system where my flight sims reside and I don't want to move it back and forth between other systems.

I really appreciate all the replies. I should have the new memory sticks by tomorrow and I'll post the results when I get them. I'll also try that memory test. Thanks Bard!

Here you go.

Just to be a pedantic moron, a pass in Memtest means your are unlikely to have a memory issue, and each successive pass makes it less and less likely RAM is a problem.

Very good tool though.

Also, a fail doesn't necessarily mean RAM - it can mean part of the memory subsystem, especially on systems with a memory controller on the mainboard (currently, intels as A64 is on chip).

As I said, pedantic

Thanks John. Looks like my problem is going to turn out to be hardware related rather than the sim. I've tried settings like those on my rig (which as you'll see from my first post in this thread SHOULD be quite a bit quicker than yours) and still had problems. TBH I was secretly hoping that all your sliders would be over to the left!!

Many thanks for the info though.

Np. When the game first was released, I'd get stuttering.
But iirc, one of the patches addressed it, and since then, no problem.

Obviously, these aren't any settings to write home about, but I get 30+ online in a campaign, on the runway, and that's all I care about

correct - your ram can be perfectly ok but incompatible with your board which would give you errors.

generally if you get a huge amount of errors it's due to incompatibility - if that's the case check your mobo documentation and compare.

no anisotropic filtering.. hmmmm