Hi,I just felt like venting a little. :-)I bought FS2002 way back when and enjoyed it so much that I rarely got anything else done. But I've always been consumed with improving its performance. FS2002 ran at a moderate pace on my Dell Dimension L 667 MHz computer, so I thought that upgrading the video card and adding some more memory would help it run faster. It didn't.FS2004 came along and performance only got worse. When it first came out, I wanted to take full advantage of its graphic capabilities, so I bought a new HP computer (1.6 GHz, 512 MB RAM) and upgraded the video card to a GeForce 5950. Everything was still sluggish, even on this new computer. I swapped out the graphics card for a Radeon 9500 Pro. A little better this time, but still very sluggish.This last May, I thought "okay, enough fooling around. I'm going to buy my dream machine and put an end to this obsession with always looking for better performance!" I bought a new Gateway computer, 64-bit computing power, 512 MB RAM, 3.0 GHz, 19" flat-screen monitor, and a new GeForce 6600 GT video card. It was the most I could afford. I had grand visions of flying through thunderstorms with detailed 3-D clouds, the antialiasing cranked up, the scenery and textures rendered to the max, and all of the other graphics goodies.Turns out, the performance still isn't what I hoped for. Even at only 4x AA and 16x AF, detailed 3-D clouds turned OFF, AI traffic at 10%, scenery detail set to "low", I get very choppy performance while taking off from a complex airport like KJFK at night. In most cases, when I click the hat button on my joystick to view different directions, the sim pauses for several seconds and the textures take a lot of time to load. It's ridiculous.I was tempted to add another 512 MB of RAM and buy a program to partition my hard drive, so FS2004 can be on its own drive. Then, I thought to myself, "No way. I've had enough."I estimate that I've spent over $3,500 in the last four years to try to improve the performance of FS2002 and (especially) FS2004. All for a $50 game. Several of you will disagree and say that you have a different experience. That's great! I, personally, am disappointed that this sim saps my computer of all its resources and still doesn't perform as I hoped. So, my obsession has ended and I'm not spending another dime to improve performance.

Try running with only 4xAF instead of 16, while yes 16 looks nice, takes a tremendous amount of power and the 6600GT just doesn't have enough power to display that much detail, that is why I run with 4xAA and 4xAF. Adding another 512MB stick would help somewhat, mostly for allowing more textures into memory.

I just bought a new system myself. But each computer set-up has to last me about 4 years before I'm willing to substantially upgrade.ricardo

I feel your pain, it just isn't right. We are part to blame as well as MS. The sim is designed to run great out of the box and will on a good rig, but it's all the great addons that make it enjoyable and that kills it. After buying most payware out there, I gave up on it and went on to play and design for other titles, waiting to see what FS10 will be like.If you are still trying to get good performance out of it, the extra ram will help (1 gig seems to be the sweet spot), decrease the AA and AF, but not eliminate, and run at a lower resolution. I find the new ASV really helps with cloud performance.BTW nice rig Ricardo, what did it cost you? Around 4 grand or more?Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://www.calvirair.com/mcpics/mcdcvabanner.jpgCalVirAir International

Hi,Your AF is certainly killing your experience and you didn't mention your resolution but given your 19" monitor, I'm going to guess it's 1280x1024. I've never tried running AF that high but without the AF, your performance should not be that bad. You mentioned a "complex airport like JFK", are you using any add-on sceneries? I have an even more powerful rig than yours and I get horrible frame rates using Just Flight's World Airports 2 (which includes JFK). That's to do with the way the airport scenery was designed, NOT a problem with your hardware (or MS' fault, for that matter).If you'd like some help, could you please provide more details as to what add-ons you are using (e.g. sceneries, aircraft, other programs like ActiveSky, FS Real Time etc.)Edwin

Michael, the system cost me $4,100. I bought it from abspc.com after much research. This time around I wanted something with as few compromises as possible. Luckily, I was able to get an interest-free loan from my employer, to be repaid monthly out of my paycheck. So the hurt is bearable. ricardo

Try upgrading your RAM, FS is very dependent on it i recommend 1GB at least.

G-MIDY :-scatterAMD 3000+ | 6800GT | 1GB GeiL |

Hi there, for what it's worth I (and judging by these forums many others) have been where you are now. The bottom line is that you CAN get good performance from almost whatever system you have, provided you learn enough about the setting up of your computer system and the FS9 program. More to the point it is NOT difficult (although can be time consuming to start with) - dependent upon how much of a computer whiz you are. I an NOT a computer whiz - indeed knew very little about the infernal machines, but by carefully reading these pages - and others; looking in the magazines and a lot of trail and error I am now competent enough to set up my system properly - and more to the point ENJOY the Flight Sim experience!You can too! - just one small piece of advice if I may; not everyone who says "buy the latest whizzy bit this or that", knows what they're on about! A little understanding is far more useful in my opinion than lots of bell & whistles - and it is FREELY given - here and on similar sites.Good Luck!Regards, Blue.