I've been struggling for some time to get better performance out of my system. Apart from specific FS-related things, I've tackled the system itself - very nervously. You will understand that I am not an expert on the inner workings of 'putes.I now have the latest BIOS and chipset drivers and a few more grey hairs. The one issue I can't get my head round is something called an AGP Miniport. A search in the formus revealed that it seems a good idea to have the latest drivers for this beast - whatever it is. I have a Gigabyte GA-81PE1000 motherboard with an Intel 865PE chipset. I've looked on Intel and G/byte web sites for info but can't see anything. Can anyone tell me what the AGP Miniport is and how I go about getting up to date drivers.Bud

Hi Bud, are there any exclamation marks? Which OS are you using incl. service packs? Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hello JaapNo - no exclamation marks. I'm using XP with SP 1. Have to be honest, I've never heard of this Miniport. I Googled it and turned up some learned texts - the majority of which I didn't understand so I'm no further forward.Bud

Hi Bud, if memory isn't failing, the miniport is a thing of the past. Anyway, a good starting point was to upgrade the bios to the latest version. Would you mind posting your entire specs and a desription of the symptoms you're -maybe- unhappy about? To obtain the latest drivers you have two possibilities: Either, go to the Gigabyte site and download them from there, or, go to http://support.intel.com/support/chipsets/sb/CS-009241.htm and download directly from Intel. On a side note and IMHO, FS is a pretty complicated application, specially if one wants to turn on max eye-candy... Good luck and kind regards Jaap PS: Here's a pretty useful page for general information (2nd posting): http://forum.abit-usa.com/showthread.php?t...15&pagenumber=1

Hello Jaap,First, many thanks for your interest. I think you may be correct about the miniport. I had another look at the papers I found from my Google search and they were all a couple of years old.My system - well it's based around a P4 3.2 gig; 1 gig DDR Ram; a SATA HD; 450 PSU; a BFG 6600GT OC card which runs my main and o/head monitors and a BFG FX5200 OC which runs a third monitor. Currently the vid drivers are nVid 66.93. This machine is networked to a second 'putes upon which I run stuff like A/Sky and a moving map.All drivers are up to date, my OS is Win XP Home with SP 1 and I have the u/d for FS 9 installed. I have very little in the way of scenery and no 3rd party land class files. I do use Ult Traffic at around 70%.I enjoy using A/Sky, but as an example, approaching London City, rwy 10 app - ie over the built up area of London a couple of days ago, frame rates dropped as low as 2 - the average for app and landing was 5. The average f/r for dep was 15 and cruise was 14. These latter figures I regard as OK - I'm not too concerned so long as the flight is reasonably smooth, but the latter part of the flight was a slide show! I'd have to say that the weather was bad - v v cloudy, but I'm using Chris Willis clouds and my settings are moderate.I've been using flight sims for many many years, usually on fairly good equipment - in a sense I've been protected from frame rate issues. This is my first brush with the problem and it's really getting me down.Bud

Thanks for explinations, Bud, you're welcome. Next questions (hope you don't mind!); is this a new system or did everything work well and then all of a sudden start to develope the symptoms? Which resoution/AA/AF settings are you using? Any AI add-ons maybe worth a mention? If you fly 'without weather', what kind of improvement do you see? If it's still fairly bad, a wild guess might still be the mainboard driver? Have you tried re-installing DX9.0c? Good luck and kind regards Jaap

Hello JaapDon't mind the questions at all - grateful for interest. My system tends to be subject to fairly frequent change. The secondary video card has been changed twice in the last 6/7 months. Less 'powerful' cards produced, during the currency of FS9, a cyclical stutter when flying in windowed mode. The FX card cured that. Previously my main card had always been a Gainward - the last was damaged and was replaced by the BFG card. I'd say the issues I've experienced have come as a gradual realisation, rather than all of a sudden. It's actually quite difficult to track down where it started.Apart from the add-ons I've already mentioned, I have little else. The plane I fly at the moment is the Flight 1 ATR which is not exactly f/r friendly. However, without weather, I do get reasonable rates. The problems begin when I use weather. To be honest at this point I'm beginning to wonder whether the problem may be the 6600 card itself. I did want the 256 mb version but ended up with the 128 - can't complain, it was a gift!!Bud

Hi Bud, hmmm, peculiar... Right now I'ld think you're premonition is correct. It could indeed be due to the fact, you're overstressing your display adapter a bit (although AI helps to bog things down as well). Have you used various drivers? Did you already try to completely de-install them (using a removal tool) and then re-installing? Although my last experience with Geforces dates back to almost a year now (GF4800), I recall them having probs with high amounts of AA and FS' clouds. Add a big resolution of 1280x and greater to that and things will slow down even more. Case you might be considering your upgrade options and aren't spanning views over multiple monitors, or using TrackIR and simular stuff, it may be worthwhile to take a look at ATIs too? At least they don't bog down so badly with heaps of clouds... AIM, the resolution is a big issue. IMHO, this is something which is frequently overseen. The easiest way to improve performance on a given system is to lower resolutions again. Obviously there's a hang-up if you're tied to fixed-res LCD screens which cannot properly interpolate. Or ofcourse, a huge CRT will not look right @ 1024x either. If lowering the resolution doesn't help, adjusting the AI slider probably will... Fyi, at the moment, I'm 'seriously' contemplating a swap to an Asus X800pro/256MB. I feel that my 9800pro/128MB is holding me back a bit and that I could be doing a tad better @ 1280x... Well, at least I hope so! I never saw myself spending almost 400 Euro for a display adapter, but here I go! Hehe All in all, the amount of video RAM doesn't make a big difference as far as I can judge. It's what the display adapter can do pipeline- and shader-wise. On the other hand, if a card can do high AA/AF because it has an adequate amount of pipelines and shaders, as of a certain point more display memory will certainly be preferable too (and thus enabling higher resolutions in a nice manner). At least for FS this seems to be valid. X-Plane for example, does like a lot of video memory, even at a modest res'. Are you flexible regarding resolutions? Have you experimented a bit? Hope this adds to thoughts, good luck and kind regards Jaap

Jaap,Lot to think on here. One of the things I've found now is that I'm spending virtually all of my limited FS time experimenting, and very little actually flying for pleasure. I've tried just about everything - different drivers, resolutions etc. There are so many possible combinations! I agree with you in general about resolution BTW.On the driver front, yes, I went thro' the complete uninstall process, including examining the registry. Not all traces of previous drivers had been removed I noticed.I've spent quite a time with FSautostart ie, stopping/starting progs and processes and checking the results with Task Manager. One thing I did notice was that a relatively small decrease in the amount of available memory appeared to have a disproportionate effect on frame rates. For example I 'added back' a number of processes which I'd previously stopped - a fairly modest decrease in the amount of free memory was the result. However it translated into a 35% drop in frame rates in the ensuing flight. What's more the exterior texture loading was markedly slower.I've always stuck with nVidia cards - not sure that ATI would do it for me. I'm in agreement tho' that there is too much strain being placed on the 6600/128. The display of layers of cloud is what just about kills it. I suppose I should have gone for the 6800/256, but as I said, it was a gift.I'd be very interested to know how the X800pro performs. I've a feeling that an upgrade is in my stars in the not too distant future!!Bud