just finished reading latest stuff on this forum...yea..all the problems i read about are real and unexplainable! felt i had to write this now...fs9 sucks (but i need it )  in my view and experience more than half the "downloads " just become a source of frustration!...there are some excellent ones of course, such as anything from winddrifters, or cal classics, etc..but so many are horrible despite the hype the author or creator claims...for instance..i "downloaded" (i'm really getting to hate the word download) some very nice g.a. airports located in the northwest sector of the u.s....look wonderfull, but, you know, landing gear sinking into the ground, aircraft becomes possessed and starts hopping up and down really...frame rates go into the loo,,(like that u.k. vernaculer).....anyhow..i have been using  msfs from the very beginning and fs9 is begining to cause me to doubt whther or not i want to continue....what do  i need, a super cray computer just to make a nice smooth , high fps, approach into a busy airport...i'm running an h.p., p4, 2.6 gig, 2 gig of ddr memory, and a radion 256 9800xt...ok...is the cpu too slow???...do i need to go out and spend $4000 to $5000 on a new "super" alien or whatever??... my fs9 setting are not ultra high throughout, i.e. cloud settings low,etc,i think j barrymore knows what i mean.. so..if i buy that super duper computer, that will become obsolete in 6 months, maybe then some of my add on scenery will really truly "mesh" (lol) . or maybe my scenery wont "stutter" when i hat switch around my outside view, or even better, not have to deal with a "slide show" when taxiing up to the gate in a large hub...ok...i guess thats enough...my leg is getting hot from the heat coming from my computer (just finished flying, and yes, i already added an extra fan...)...by the way..i don't think my rig is too shabby, but, my 3d mark is only 3269.....i dont know..i'm buying another computer...any suggestions???...thanks for putting up with my whinning (sp?).......nite

Agreed Roger, one other thing is to fiddle with you PC to get the best out of it.
I'm running a 1Ghz PIII with 512mb RAM and a Ti4600, and I can still get 25-29 FPS in all but places like Heathrow with AI on full!
You just need to twiddle a little and play with your settings to get the best out of it. I know guys with far better rigs than me who aren't getting the same performance because they don't try and experiment a little. Just tweak one bit at a time and see what happens

Ozzy (praying for a new motherboard, processor and a gig of RAM, in my dreams )

hello hyperion....yea, i agree i should have better perf....i defrag often, i also start fs9 with "fs autostart" which shuts down any background process or programs, i also do a disc clean often....i'm convinced that this is really all about cpu speed and cache as far as fps smoothness goes......a 64bit system would not help; as you know fs9 is based on 32 bit,,,,...but i totally agree...its as though something is running in the background hogging up ram??.....i've tried all kinds of stuff...in fact, my next move prior to buying a super gamer computer is to find some 18 yr old conehead that can do a "mind meld" on my system to tweak it as far possible..i'm all out of "tweaks"...i wish fs9 never allowed us to use system settings..its mental, knowing that somehow i'm missing out because i cant max things out..know what i mean?

As far as performance goes I always shut down un-necessary processes before starting FS.  Also, I have minimum applications and processes loaded for start-up.  You can do that using run/msconfig. I have a AMD 2800 with 1gig of ram and currently only a 64 meg. ati 7200.  I have some sliders all the way like terrain mesh size and ground/water effects maxed.  Everything else is set to high.  I have clouds set to high quality,  closest possible 3D draw and lowest 3D percentage possible.  This is something people need to realize here.  What good are 3D clouds if you are not flying through them?  The ones you are not in might as well be 2D billboards, you can't tell the difference anyway if you aren't actually in them.  I have visiblity max set to 60 miles.  Trust me on this one folks.  Unless you do a lot of flying in low humidity regions (alaska, southwest, northern midwest USA etc.) you will not miss having extended visibility beyond that.  Frees up loads of processor resources.  Traffic set too 50%.  That is another frame hit.  More than many realize.  Why have traffic set to 100%?  Unless you do alll your flying in first class metro areas who's to say what the right amount of ai traffic is??? How could MS know what the airtraffic density is for most small to mid size airports?  If you do all your flying in and out of kord, kjfk,katl, klax, kbos, and other superbusy fields, who needs the extra traffic to keep you in a hold pattern or a taxi for take off que?

Anyway, a lot of performance may depend on processor also.  I recommend trading all your 3gig p4's for AMD 3000/3200 or 64 bit processors.  Remember, a 2.2 gig AMD has all the ability of a P4 thats .6-1gig faster rated but only 2/3 or so the price.