Current system spec'sAMD Athlon 64 FX55 "San Diego" 2.6 GhzNvidia Geforce 7800 GTX 256Mb GDDR3 (Latest non BETA Drivers)2Gb Patriot XBLK PC3200 2-2-2-5 2T200GB Seagate Barrcuda 7200.8 SATAASUS A8N SLi Deluxe BIOS Rev 1011Soundblaster Audigy 2 ZSWindows XP Service Pack 2 (I am not on the internet at home so i have none of the hotfixes and updates :( )I am used to being able to play Doom 3 @ 1280x1024 and Battlefield 2 with 1280x960 both with 4x AA and 4x AF however i have to run FS9 in 1024x768 with only reasonable graphics settings.Can some one please tell me how to optimize my performance in FS9 by all rights my rig should eat this game for breakfast. I dont currently have a virus checker in the background and i have no other programs running.When flying i always start from EGCC and fly the PDMG 737-600 BMI Baby Livery. In addition i have installed the Just Flight UK Airports scenary for EGCC.Thanks in advanceRic

Hi Ric,You're right. That rig should "eat FS9 for breakfast"! (Incidentally, I just got a very similar rig this past weekend, only instead of the Athlon64 FX-55, I got the Athlon64 X2 4800+.) I'm pretty stumped with your question too but just to make sure you've remembered the obvious (I often forget the obvious, especially when I've just gotten a new rig!!!!), have you tried the following?1) Start your flight with one of the default aircraft and then switch to an add-on aircraft AFTER the default cockpit has loaded up. I don't know about PMDG but with PSS aircraft, not starting with one of the default aircraft can cause problems.2) Have you installed the latest NVIDIA chipset drivers? The latest version should be 6.66 (available from the NVIDIA Web site)3) Have you installed the FS9.1 update?4) Try reinstalling DirectX?5) Check in your Device Manager for any exclamation marks. If there are, reinstall the appropriate driver.6) Defrag your hard drive.7) Try uninstalling FS9, clearing out the directory and then reinstalling it. Then, install your add-ons one-by-one until you identify the "culprit"I'm sure it's very frustrating! :(Edwin

Edwin,Thanks for the info buddy :DI am running the 72.xx ForceWare DriversI am wondering if it may be my Just Flight EGCC scenery ?? Can anyone reccommend another good 3rd party one ?????No question marks in the Device ManagerDefragged yesterday :DFrustrated RicP.s Dont know if it is applicable but the SiSoft Sandra memory bandwidth benchmark resets my computer, i could be running an old version though ???

Hi Ric,I believe the latest non-beta Forceware drivers are 77.72. You may want to upgrade to that. Incidentally, I was talking about your *chipset* drivers, not your video card drivers, in my previous post. But since you mentioned you had 72.xx Forceware drivers, you might want to upgrade those as well.Yes, please do try flying around default scenery and see if your frame rates are much better.Edwin

Edwin,I am running both the latest chipset and GFX drivers. I tried running in 800x600 16Mb no change, tried relaxing some of the display settings no change. Tried flying from default scenery, slightly faster but nothing that will knock your socks off :(Frames were faster in the CRZ however seemed to take a while to load the ground textures black patches etc.CheersRic

Hi Ric,Sorry, I really am quite stumped here. Perhaps someone else can help? All I can think of is a complete wipe of FS9 and reinstall.It might be interesting to run a system benchmark e.g. PCMark04, PCMark05 or SiSoft Sandra. I'm suggesting this not to benchmark yourself against other machines per se but to identify the bottleneck or the culprit. For example, if your HDD score is way low, at least you'd have a clue that the problem is with the HDD (or related i.e. IDE, RAID or SCSI drivers).Sorry I can't really help.Edwin

No worries Edwin thanks for all your assistance. I have downloaded Memtest and Prime95 to test my memory tonight. I have a problem running the Sandra memory bandwidth test ATM it keeps resetting my comp :(Will let you know what i find out.Cheers buddy