This may be old news to most, but for me it was the biggest FPS boost I've experienced on my older machine. I have an AMD 2400+, 512 MRam, GeForce3 card PC.... and the max FPS I could achieve with default aircraft in city areas (KSEA, KSLC etc...) was approx 7 - 10 FPS. I had most sliders set 3/4 of the way up, AI Traffic set to 100% using quite a few of PAI's excellent AI traffic. In rural areas I could get 10 to 17 in level flight but it would drop dramatically in a turn or with add-on scenery.So this morning I decide to look through the manual for my motherboard and I find where I can easily update the BIOS for the motherboard at MSI Live Update. I follow the directions and the difference was as if I had purchased a new computer!!!! In the city areas mentioned above I am now getting 15 - 20FPS and in rural areas (I love Bush flying) I am getting 30+. I currently have the FPS limit at 30. I have never experienced such a huge boost in performance from any other tweak..... and I've done darn near everyone.So..... if you haven't tried this for your motherboard, especially on older machines.... I highly recommend that you try it.Flying smoother than everDave

This is a very interesting post. I am now off to my manufacturors website to see 'whats up' :)

I should note that you really shouldn't update your BIOS unless your mobo had dual BIOS chips. The second chip on these mobos acts as a backup in case something happens to the main one. The reason you shouldn't update the BIOS is simple, the download could be corrupted or infected. Also it may not install properly leaving you without a PC.

Well done, Dave!Peter Sydney Australia

I have always heard that you shouldn't update the BIOS, but that's not what techs at Intel have told me. In fact, Intel has posted an updated BIOS for my board several times. I started with version P17 and am now up to P22.

"I should note that you really shouldn't update your BIOS unless your mobo had dual BIOS chips. The second chip on these mobos acts as a backup in case something happens to the main one." I don't agree with this advice.... First of all, not all MB's come with dual BIOS chips--especially older ones. Second, in many instances, not updating the BIOS will leave one unable to exploit newer technology. Case in point--the newer HD's with older BX MB's. Without a BIOS update, many of those MB's won't even recognize the drives.BIOS updates are tricky, and a gamble on older MB's without dual chips. No doubt about that. But sometimes they are simply necessary to exploit newer technology. It's best to apply the rule "If it ain't broke".... Looking at the fps stats posted in the initial post, they clearly showed something amiss--they were way low. Likely the BIOS update fixed something or allowed something to run the way it was designed.People should upgrade their BIOS' with caution, and always they should create a backup BIOS file in case the upgrade causes other issues. Yet we can't suggest people bury their heads in the sand when a BIOS upgrade may be their only choice...-John

>>I should note that you really shouldn't update your BIOS unless your >mobo had dual BIOS chips. The second chip on these mobos acts as a >backup in case something happens to the main one. >It's true that I feel more comfortable nowadays flashing my BIOS since you can recover if things go bad. But if you have an older MOBO the benefits frequently outweigh the risks. A reflash itself can make a big improvement in your system; and often it will allow you to install a much faster CPU. I've done this for people with old P3 400 and 500mhz systems and they absolutelly cannot believe the results. You can minimize the risks to "almost" none with common sense such as observing the d/l'd file size and checksum, don't do it during a lightning storm, etc. Actually I've never had a flash fail and don't know anyone personally who has.David

I agree with David on the failure rate and the precautions. In the case of Intel, they provide a recovery BIOS that you copy to a floppy and give you detailed instructions on what to do if an update fails. It does involve opening the case and reconfiguring a jumper, but it is all described clearly, at least in my manual.The recovery BIOS program is on the same Intel web page as the BIOS update so it is easy to find, copy, and store in a safe place.

I love my old PIII 1GHZ system!I am getting very good performance with FS9 on my system.I even have an old Nvidia Geforce MX 440 64MB card running dual 17" monitors. I know most people hate that series of card, but it is working very well on my system.My FPS over non-city areas are around 29-31 FPS. Over cities they drop to about 14-17 FPS. This is with most my sliders at max and the scenery ones at one notch below max.I even have the anti-alasing in FS turned on. My resolution is at 1024 X 768 X 16, which is good enough for me. I get aircraft reflections and water motion with waves but no water reflection of course (my card is only a DX7 & 8 card). I do use the 3D clouds for all situations except when using Activesky's real weather downloads. In this case, the 2-D clouds are better for performance.The biggest diference has been overclocking my PIII chip & video card slightly, and following the FS9 performance hints posted in the hardware forum. Using Black Viper's website to eliminate un-needed Windows XP services has really boosted the performance in FS9.I also use the frame-rate freindly textures available at Avsim and I am using RealScene terrain mesh 2002 with the complexity slider at 100% I also have had no luck with the Nvidia 50.xx series of drivers with my old video card, so I use the 45.23 drivers with great looking graphics and performance.I still have FS2002 installed on my system, but to be honest, I hardly ever fire it up anymore.Happy Simming!Scott :-)ATP/CFII - KCOS, in the real aviation world.

In regards to the concerns about updating the BIOS I guess I should mention a few things about how and what I did. First, I got the info and website from my Motherboards manual, I wouldn't have tried it without it being recommended by the company who made the board, and even then the company says to do so at your own risk.Second, The website had detailed instructions (complete with screen shots for those of us with "D'OH!" syndrome) so that I knew what should happen and what should not happen during the process.Third, the program I downloaded to help me acomplish this task created a backup/restore disk, which helped my confidence a wee bit.Fourth and most importantly....... I burn all family photos and important docs to a CD on a regular basis. A lesson learned the hard way, if the system crashed and I found myself having to reformat my hard drive, the files and photos I don't want to lose are still here.After all is said and done, proceed with caution and know as much as possible beforehand. For me...I feel like I just bought a new PC and I have NEVER been so thrilled with my frame rates as I am now.Good Luck!Dave

I agree that it can be a risky process if care is not taken , but ,provided you make sure you follow the instructions properly there should be no problem (barring " acts of God" such as power failure etc during thunderstorms an so on) I have updated BIOS on several machines - including this one (K7S5A) and ( touch wood- fingers crossed etc)never had a problem. I will admit to being more than a little nervous the first time I tried it.I have used 3 different methods - all equally successfull---1: On my previous PC the Microstar online update - absolutely painless -done in a few seconds with very little input required from me.2: The Floppy method - on this machine and several others with various BIOS makes(AMI, Phoenix etc)- No problems but the instructions on the Mobo makers website aren't alway as explicit as they could be.3:From a bootable CD- again very easy providing the CD is correctly configured- Luckily - for this board at least there are several places where a bootable BIOS CD image is available for download.It is probably worth doing for the possible benefits - but there is no garauntee of performance boosts- it really is " suck it and see" in a lot of cases. And if you don't like the results you can always flash back to the original( Some BIOS Flash programs will give you the option to save the original when flashing to the new)Good luckDave