creative audigy 1... what motherboard chipset do you have?

about the temps: which processor?

I have no sound card and mine runs fine! I have naff ole AC97 onboard sound on this mobo too!

Radom crashes sounds like over heating or somthing is overclocked too high on your system.  Have you altered the ram timings at all? could be this too.

I dont see any bad bottleneck in your system really.  I was informed on my system (see sig) my CPU is my bottleneck and its equivilent to a P4 3.2GHz so maybe your in the same situation. 

As we have all said before to get FS2004 running its best its all about the way your PC is setup.  Even with my system FS-GS got it running way better than I ever had even though I have really good PC components.  I would say you have a strong enough system to run it all maxxed you just have to optimise your PC setup now to achieve this.

I tell you what instead of blasting £40 on a sound card go spend it on FS-GS services!  That is what I would do now I have seen what it can do.

Well it wont tell you much otherwise you would just go and do it 

This stuttering you have is caused as your computer isn't working to its full potential.  The FS-GS service will get your computer setup so that it runs the sim silky smooth though a few things may have to be done.  As you are stuck on time at the moment then the FS-GS service may be a little tricky for you to do.  I will say I had stutters like you even with my setup!  sometimes my game would just hang for 2-3seconds then carry on.  Once the FS-GS service was complete I had none of this.  It was basically down to how I had my PC setup.  You may have to make some sacrifices if you carry out the FS-GS services though.  I had to re-format to get my PC set up at its best.  You will also be advised about what anti-virus and firewall software is best though Michael does suggest freeware and payware stuff so you dont have to spend out if you dont want too. 

Basically the service will enable your PC to flow data extremely efficiently.  This means nothing ever gets held up and you dont get stutters! 

As for your FPS with mine setup as it is if I look directly up at the bottom of teh aircraft I get about 75fps.  Generally over heavyily populated areas and stuff I get 30ish out in the open looking aroun 40-42ish.  Some areas where there is lots of AI and scenery I can drop to 20 but it still flies silky smooth so am not worried.

I too was curious as to how the service worked but thought sod it and went for it.  I am not sorry I did use the service either!!

very interesting topic as i am also always on the look out for smoothing out my system for CFS2. would one of you point me in the right direction regarding FS-GS, please. what is it and how can i take advantage of it to maximize my performance.  thanks

michaelmichael

Modern soundcards shouldn't hold back a 3.2ghz system, even if they do, it is fairly negligable.

If your temps are in the green then it's not hot.

Your frame rates are dictated by how hard your graphics card is working, and you have a good card, so it's affected by your driver settings (anti-aliasing, anisotropic filtering, quality etc.) and your Game or Sim's detail levels and graphics settings.

Software developers are taking advantage the new PC technologies and developing some pretty heavy programs, so, don't be surprised if you still get the odd pause despite your great rig.

Getting your system leaned out to run smooth can make all the difference, and FS-GS may be good for you. (well, it will be good!).

There is a lot to taming most software, (Windows XP in particular!), so that your PC isn't running all sorts of garbage all the time. One thing I found with Creative Soundcards, is that they load a lot of crud on your system with the installation disk........it's better just to load the driver only, forget all the added software which runs in the background.