Strange FPS issues

[Apollo 11]

Hey Y'all!

As some of you may know from M6, I have had some issues with Orbiters FPS ever since I installed a new graphics card, a VisionTech Radeon X1550 for PCI interface. I installed new drivers and that helped, but I get 11 FPS on default Atlantis Launch and 10 FPS on Shuttle Fleet and only 2 FPS on Space Shuttle Ultra. I did not have this problem before on integrated graphics. I always thought that Orbiter was "low profile", or not that graphically challenging. I do however get 60 some FPS when staring into space or at Saturn, or any of the planets. My system has a Radeon X1550 PCI card
2.79 GHz
Pentium 4
.99 GB of RAM
and running XP SP2
Please help, Thanks

 

[pattersoncr]

To ask the equivalent of "are you sure it's plugged in?"...
What do you have selected fur "3d Device" under the Video tab?

..just want to eliminate the stupid stuff

 

[Apollo 11]

Diect 3d HAL(VisonTek RadeonX1550)

Another intrest.
I get 30 FPS on Atlantis launch when zoomed rreally close in and get 90-95 fps when zoomed in the payload bay.
This is wierd!

 

[simonpro]

According to google the Radeon X1550 is a pretty terrible card. From the first review I found:

The fact that it still supports VGA has a low price, it is a good card for budget PC builders. It will still play some games, but resolutions and eye candy will need to be set below what any true gamer would like to see. Playing the latest games is definitely a no-go, but for a child's first computer, this card would not be a bad start.

I'd say that your graphics card just isn't capable of running orbiter properly, and is causing a massive bottleneck.

(edit)oh, and according to another review, your card has been optimised for use with Vista (don't ask me about that, but it's what the review says). As you're running XP I believe you're not getting the best out of your card, and ever at it's best your card doesn't have a tremendous amount to give.

 

[Apollo 11]

UPDATE:
The issue seems to be with the vehicle. All other settings are at max and I get 1000 fps in deep space, 525 fps at the moon, and 100 fps at KSC. I also get 200 fps inLEO. Strange. 50 fps at DG launch. I don't think that my card is not able to play!

 

[simonpro]

Well you say the problem started when you installed the graphics card. This suggests to me that the card is the problem.

Your framerates in deepspace confirm this. The bottleneck is definately not in orbiter's physics processing.
That narrows it down to either an addon being a resource hog or to your graphics card. Have you disabled *ALL* plugins? If not then try that and report the framerate.

Also, have you installed high resolution earth textures? This would explain why you experience decent framerates in orbit, or while looking at saturn, and low framerates while looking at earth. How much RAM does your graphics card have? It'll say on the box you got it in, and probably also in Windows somewhere.
I'm willing to bet it's still your graphics card causing the issues, I just can't see how a $100 graphics card can offer good performance, especially with high resolution textures.