Hi Matt,my system specs arePIII 800 Mhz512 MB SDRAMGForce 3 Ti 200Windows MEDo you think these specs are the reason, that I have to do a reboot?The strange thing is, that I can sim for hours and no stutter or drop of fps will occure. But using other programms and applications just for minutes causes stutters. Even If I start up the system and leave it just running for 30 minutes, then starting FS2002 and I have the stutters and hick ups.RegardsWolfgang

Dear mgdbottled:To answer your post specifically:I've had terrain mesh complexity set to 100 since setting up the P4. I just installed the new Malpensa Milan by those Italian folks and, man, it is a stupendous add-on with amazing static a/c thrown in to the package ! Anyway, with terrain mesh set at 100%, frames in the default Cessna in spot view were around 18-19 looking north toward the foothills of the Alps. Reducing the terrain mesh to 85 raised the frames to about 22.Taking off and flying around Malpensa, I found that when spot viewing directly over the airport and to the north, with terrain mesh set to 100, frames were 15 to 19 whereas when I set terrain mesh to 85%, frames were 22 to the cap of 26 !This is really amazing, what a huge diff that slider makes.My visibility is set to 100 nm and it is graduated to 100 through FSUIPC and works very nicely. Should I set the visibility to a lower distance as well to increase fps further or does that slider not affect fps much?FSAA is also another fps killer. Mine is set to 2x and it is very satisfactory in terms of eliminating jaggies. But I know it eats about 8 to 10 fps.Reflections is also a fps killer but I must have reflections. They look fantastic over water and the distant sky has a lovely sheen to it, like a hallucination.Any further suggestions welcomed, thanks!JS

KeithL:Thanks for the post and suggestions. I modified the terrain mesh slider (see my reply to mgdbottled in this thread) and so obviously one can adjust fps and make significant gains. I find it difficult to diable FSAA after having it for almsot 2 years. But it does eat frames, and how !You and I run the same scenery settings and drivers, ATC (oh, OK, mine is 60%), and screen res.The new Dash 7 is a dream on my machine.If I make a couple more adjustments, I think I can probably raise the fps cap to 30 quite easily. Nonetheless, in dense add-on scenery like Malpensa and Simflyers KIAD, I know frames will fall to a range of 14 to 20 on the ground and around the terminals. If we want to see tow trucks, people, wagons, air stairs, etc. at these airports, you gotta have VERY or EXTREMELY DENSE during taxiing and fps dive !Thanks again--thanks to everybody in this thread!--and cheers!JS

About 6 months ago, I switched from a P3 800 and Gf2MX to an AMD XP1900 and GF3. What a difference ? A huge difference has been noticed in FS2k2. I could now use all settings at max (almost.. clouds are at 60). It's a different simulator.But, I must say it took many hours of tweaking to get a good setup.Things I looked at :numero uno: video drivers, I won't say I tried them all, but nearly did. There is a video driver out there that will work well for your setup that's the good news. The bad news is nobody can help you, you have to find it yourself by trial and errors. (it's a pain, but well worth the effort).numero dos: AGP setting, the aperture. Once again there, you need to try and test. There doesn't appear to be a clean cut answer.numero tres: tune the display settings of FS2k2 to fit what you want to see and what the your PC can give you (without stuttering).Just a thought. I run my FS2K2 at 2048x1536x32 without AGP texturing, agp set at 16, video drivers 30.82. And of course, I don't use AA or aniso.Pierre