Could you give me some advise pls? I have installed FS9, PMDG and till now some add-on sceneries. FS9 and add-ons use about 350 MB (!) of my 512 MB memory... Loading times are long Cpu is constantly at 100% Once the first windows are loaded, in the beginning the framerates are not too bad.. After a while (around 15 - 30 min) the rates are dropping, as the the memory gets full and the system blocks sometimes. The specs of my pc are: Windows xp Pentium 4 2.0GHz/512k 512 MB 266 Mhz (PC2100) DDR Ram 64 MB Ti GeForce 3 Video Card 40 GB IDE Hard drive As the costs to expend do count in my case, what do you guys advise me, in order to improve performance, so that it is at least acceptable for a descend game of fs9: 1. Double the 512 MB memory, or expand with 256 mb only? 2. Double the 64 MB Video Card? 3. Do something else in order to improve the performance? Thanks for your help, Denis.

a faster CPU would make the most difference.Andy

Your CPU is fine. What is hurting you is that Geforce 3! Trust ne I have owned all of them too ;-). My Geforce 4200ti only had 64 megs of ram and barley got the job done but certainly did not compare with even my Geforce 5700 Ultra. Your system is good, I only have 512 megs of system ram and get nop stuttering and would lay claim to some of the highest FPS even with guys that are much faster in Video and CPU. FS uses alot of ram. Turn off everything that you do not need on your system to run better. [h4]Best Wishes,Randy J. Smithhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/betaimg.jpgAMD 64 3200+ | ASUS KV8 DELUXE | GFORCE 5700 ULTRA @535/1000 | Maxtor 6Y080M0 SATA 80 GIG | 512 DDR 400 | Windows Xp Pro | Windows Xp Pro 64 |

Also-check the main FS forum- there have been plenty of reports that when there's an errand texture folder in add-on sceneries, FS tends to eat up memory galore and eventually run out of it.

It's probably your video card like Randy said since the video card does the main graphics processing. Although upgrading your CPU and video card will run it even faster, it isn't really needed to achieve good performance. I would recommend getting a nVidia FX 5x series. My computer flies perfect (although my CPU is higher) with a Geforce FX 5200 which was priced at about $50 on online retailers like http://www.tigerdirect.comNick B.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg--AMD Athlon XP 3200+ @ 2.2 Ghz400W Power supply3x 80 mm Case FansSoyo VIA KT600 Dragon PlusnVidia GeForce FX 5200 128 mb2 x 512 PC400100 GB Western DigitalMicrosoft Sidewinder Precision 2

Thanks all of you who responded, these were very pratical advises and I just ordered an ASUS v9520TD 128MB with a chipset of Geforce FX 5200....I need another advise, it's about the sound in PMDG this time:The sound in my just installed PMDG is performing less than the DF I had installed before. (I hardly hear the flaps/gear movements, no "bumpy" sound on touchdown etc...)This is very odd as I see everybody being stunned in the forum about the quality of pmdg......and pmdg is the best, let's face it!!!Now you have to know, I formatted my harddisk completely and after doing this I installed the fs9/pmdg/sceneries etc. I just checkef the fs9 cfg file and the only marks under [sound] are: SOUND=1 SOUND_FADER1=0.990000 SOUND_FADER2=0.660000 SOUND_FADER3=0.520000 SOUND_FADER4=0.300000 SOUND_FADER5=0.500000 SOUND_FADER6=0.280000 SOUND_QUALITY=2 My installed soundcard is a Creative SB Live Value of Creative labs. Does the cfg file has to be changed and does it need special input for the SB card, or what else could be the problem? Thanks again guys! Denis.

Check and make sure the all sounds are enabled in the PMDG > Styles menuNick B.http://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/800driver.jpg--AMD Athlon XP 3200+ @ 2.2 Ghz400W Power supply3x 80 mm Case FansSoyo VIA KT600 Dragon PlusnVidia GeForce FX 5200 128 mb2 x 512 PC400100 GB Western DigitalMicrosoft Sidewinder Precision 2

Hi Nick,All sounds are marker in the styles menu.Just to be sure that my expectations are not too high..., the sounds you hear when changing the flaps, extracting the gear, the touching of the wheels while landing and a rumbling noise when extracting the stairs etc.... all those sounds are existing and impressive in PMDG, right? You can hear them loud and clear, right? Thnks for the answer again!Denis

Any tips on improving performance with a 9700pro and a 2.8 pentium?Runs but stutters a lot.