How can I get acceptable frame rate in V7-8 on an old machine?
There a couple of serious frame rate killers in X-Plane V7+, compared to earlier versions: 3D clouds, cloud shadows, and new runway textures. You can get frame rates comparable to or better than V6 by doing the following: • Don’t use scattered or broken clouds (Settings-> Weather-> Atmosphere). Use Haze Layer or High Cirrus instead. • Turn off cloud shadows in the Settings-> Rendering Options menu. • Reduce texture resolution in the Settings-> Rendering Options menu. • Use the generation 7 scenery if you’re running V8 (see the Scenery page). • Use an aircraft with a simple panel. Each instrument consumes VRAM and presents a rendering load. • Use an aircraft without a visible cockpit object. • Revert to the V6 runway textures. The V7 textures are a lot bigger and may tax old graphics cards. Each of these has the texture files for that kind of surface. The texture file used for general pavement is named rway_pave.bmp. All the other files have special markings (lines, numbers, touch-down
