hello gentleman...fs9 making me nuts!!...ok..p4 2.6, 2 gig of 2700 ddr ram, ati 9800xp (256)....with that heres what happens...easily maintain 40 to 50 fps, but drops all the way down to 14 to 18 fps at busy airport ..ok i accept that, though i dont like it....but...i intermittenly get the stutter frame and momentary freeze up.  it seems that my vid card feels "taxed" then quickly  "catches up", but only after the stutter and rapid fps drop!!....i have the 4.3 cat ati drivers, cloud settings very low. and only a few sliders maxed out..i do have some ai aircraft, but only use 75% traffic...of course i tried every combination of slider settings..also aa and filtering at the vid card..i set agp to 8X, and call for max quality (also tried all kinds of ati settings at the card)...old drivers cleaned out, and as far as i know nothing running in the background, though i have xp, so who knows...right?...anyhow, do any of you guys have any suggestions, other then lower my slider settings, after  all my computer and vid card specs should allow me some eye candy!!!!ready to listen to any new ideas or fs9 goes out the window....

i'm glad you understand!!!...you are exactly right about the fps at altitude.......to me the most enjoyment is navigating and making a precision approach...right...now, if i run fs2002 the sim runs great, and that is with every single thing maxed out..unbelievable...thats why i really dont believe most on this forum when they brag abouy super fps, etc...they aint gettin that in the high dense ares where it counts the most.......anyhow. the only conclusion i can come to is that you and i do not have a fast enough proccesser??,,...i dont know...and...i keep the cloud level at the lowest "detail cloud" setting.  i really get pissed knowing i have great equipment (and expensive! ) but cant enjoy this sim...there simply must be some secret somewhere to get it to perform (viagra??)...hope some "genius out there comes up with something......

congo

wow..ok..25fps steady in hi dense areas!!!!...does that mean you would get that on final approach into ord?...if you dont mind, would you give it a try.....ils into 27r in a baron..lif you still get a "smooth, flicker free,maxed out setttings" performance then it will be time for me to get medieval on my rig!!lol...by the way, what did you shut down on xp start up???....let me know how you make out with the ord approach, ok?...thanks

Valo,

I tried a freind's card so I haven't got it here for testing.

I asked him to let me try it so I miight see for myself, on my own rig, how it performed and if I would strike problems, mainly out of interest because of reports in these forums.

Well, the card installed and ran fine, so there isn't really any issues I can report.

I use an older GF4 TI4200 and get reasonable performance from it.

The 9800XT was really a decent step up in performance.

I did detect a very slight, barely noticeable stutter in FS9, with or without the graphics cranked right up.