Maybe I have a clue to the frame rate problem - it may be memory usage related. Now that I'm flying... like others have reported here, I start with normal (16fps) frame rates and then suddenly it all goes blooey and I'm down at 1-2 fs thereafter. I'm using the base 600 with no VC, and this is on a P4 3.05GHz system with 512Mb memory and Win 2K SP3.Using task manager I noticed an odd thing. When I start my m/c with no appls running TM reports 149Mb Total Commit Charge. Start FS with a non-PMDG plane and this rises to 359Mb - in other words FS2K takes about 200Mb memory to run. Reasonable. Now switch to PMDG 737 and this figure jumps to from 359 to a constant 671Mb with a peak at 750Mb! In other words loading the PMDG plane eats more than 300Mb, more than 150% than the whole of FS took, and it doubled the memory load on my system.Switch back to a different plane and the memory is released, back to the 350-360Mb region.By the way switching to the plane with the VC doesn't seem to use up much more memory, so it isn't that.As I wrote earlier I have 512Mb physical memory. With a working set up in the 650-750 region, we're into paging and caching and thrashing and other disgusting things. I speculate this is might be why I'm suddenly getting frame rate death, and why other users, with bigger physical memory, might not notice any problem at all.I wonder what's going on? What are you doing with all my memory, guys? Do I need to go out and buy another 512Mb to run your plane? Have I given you a clue on the frame rate problem? I hope so.Thanks - Pete

Great minds etc. Just after posting message that starts this topic I read the other topic on memory usage in which Ray Proudfoot reports the same sorts of readings. It all starts to hang together...- Pete

That would also account to why it takes so long to load the plane. Your getting this with a high end system and I am getting the same thing also with 512megs of ram. There has to be something going on that isn't right.

Hi Pete,Welcome to the mutual admiration society! :-) Maybe those with 1Gb of memory are not experiencing these problems as they have enough physical memory? I'm going to check how loading a virtual panel changes things. I'll report back in a bit...Cheers,

I have a gig of memory, and I have the same readings.Matt

Matt,The same readings as who or what? Please be specific.Cheers,

YES that is the reason!!!I have not gotten any out of memory messages, but after exploring some of the aircrafts for some time, played with the VC and so on...My FS2002 simply frooze the first time??? In XP!And the second time it just quit it self to the desktop????Also I have higher frame rates than you do with your 3gig CPU kit, and I have a 1900+XP AMD system???There are deffinately some major frame rate issue, but again this RAM theory is really interesting, could we get a guy from PMDG to look at our discussion?Boaz...

YES that is the reason!!!I have not gotten any out of memory messages, but after exploring some of the aircrafts for some time, played with the VC and so on...My FS2002 simply frooze the first time??? In XP!And the second time it just quit it self to the desktop????Also I have higher frame rates than you do with your 3gig CPU kit, and I have a 1900+XP AMD system???There are deffinately some major frame rate issue, but again this RAM theory is really interesting, could we get a guy from PMDG to look at our discussion?Boaz...

Hi Ray,"Welcome to the mutual admiration society", huh? I've been a member for a very long time - I just look in the mirror each morning. :-) I think you and I go back in FSimming just about as long as each other... remember those mountains made from three green triangular lines...? Enough.Did you notice that Cpt Cyrille de Lattre wrote that he has no probs and his config is:P IV 2.4 GHZ/1.5 GHZ SDRAM/ATI RADEON 9700 128 MEG/See that 1.5GHz (I think he means 1.5Gb!) SDRAM? Totally consistent with our memory theory. What can they be doing with it all?I'm off to bed.- Pete

Just another theory, EVERYONE that I've seen have problems has an NVIDIA-based card, certainly some food for thought.

Yes- I have a GEForce 3 card, and also have the issue. Are you saying that it's specific to only GF cards though? There must be an adequate population of ATI cards out there now that this could be verified.Bruce.

Hi Greg,This is a red herring I think. I'm sure someone with a Radeon and 512Mb of RAM will still have problems.Cheers,

Bruce,It sounds like any Geforce card (or any Nvidia card, but not many people use anything other than Geforces so it's hard to tell). All ATI users seem happy, many are getting 20-30fps.

Hi Ray,I kind of doubt it. Three people I know of have no problems, and no one with a Radeon has complained so far.Mike Blier-8500Cpt Cyrille de Lattre-9700ProAndrew Reynolds-7500Pro.

Hi Greg,I hear what you're saying but I find it inconceivable that every beta tester and member of the development team has a Radeon card. Surely someone had an nVidia card? And, the volume of nVidia cards outnumbers the Radeon by a significant factor.Cheers,