Hi,I have a P4 2.8HT (overclocked to 3ghz), 1gb RAM corsair DDR400, Radeon 9800pto, MB ABIT IC7-G.Loading FS9 default flight (Seattle), everything performs good and simulation is very smooth if autogen is OFF.But I found (mainly in turns) stutters for a second, like if FS is calculating something and then smooth is back. If I set Water Effects -> HIGH, I get stutters all the time, with Water Effects OFF it is fine.Any idea what can be wrong ? I'm using catalyst 4.6Thanks,Ulisses

Hi Ulisses,In the "Display" section of the FS9.cfg is the "TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=xxx" line. Try lowering this setting (as I recall, the sim sets this value at something like 40... while some folks like changing it to as high as 400!). The higher this setting the greater the stuttering will be in the turns. The trade off is that a lower setting will cause the textures to load slower when changing views. It's a matter of finding the best compromise for you and your system. As an example I have a high end system (w/ 9800XT), and I have TBM set at 100. My textures take 1/2 a second to load but I have no stuttering in the turns.Hope this helps,Greg

Hi Greg,Yes, it helps, here I have 80 and it is good.But sometimes the simulator slow down for a second then "release" the power, looks like it needs sometime to rethink in what it is doing :)Overall the performance is good, I'm trying to find what makes it to stutter sometimes, maybe textures ? maybe traffic ?Thanks,Ulisses

Sad to say, but this isn't an easy issue. These boxes of bits are so diverse, our individual installs so different, and our hardware/software configs unique, that finding a solution isn't easy. Some things I would recommend:Minimize system services. At boot-up my Home XP install has 16 services running... two of those are for my AV. I disable them when I fly. One of the few things I dislaike about ATI drivers is the ATI Hotkey Poller and ATI Smart (? not sure what this is... it doesn't effect the SmartGart feature of the drivers) are defaulted to Automatic in the XP Services menu when the drivers are installed. Now, of course, we don't want any unnecessary "polling" or services running, so I disable these two after a driver install.Minimise the number of programs that are started at boot-up. It's a sad fact that many softwares when installed will default to start at boot-up. They're running in the back ground even when we don't need them. Sounds to me like you are on top of this issue, but many folks don't pay attention to it. At boot-up, my system has the AV running. That's it... nothing else needed.Another area many folks don't pay attention to is PCI Latency. About a year ago, when we were still running FS2K2, I started studying this issue and was astounded by what I learned. Most hardware manufacturers ship their products configured to use way too much of the PCI bus. They do so because they want their product to have a safe amount of the bus on demand so they work properly. It's a simple matter of overkill in hogging the bus. Most hardware is like this, including sound cards, NIC cards, and especially video cards. ATI and nVidia are the worse culprits... they default their products to somewhere between 200-300! This is way too much demand on the bus. Creative and their Audigy series are bad also, and Turtle Beach (my sound card) isn't much better.I use the freeware version of Powerstrip to tweak my PCI Latencies. The 9X00 series of ATI cards are default to 248 (same as the nVidia cards if I'm not mistaken) for both the Primary and Secondary. I've reset the latencies of my 9800XT to 80 on the Primary and 64 on the Secondary (I only use 1 monitor), and my video works just fine. My sound card defaults to 184, but works better with the latency set at 64. Same for my NIC card... defaulted to 128 but works just the same at 64. By adjusting the device latencies more of the PCI bus can be left free for other devices that need the cycles.This is all really the tip of the iceberg. I believe the system unification that FS-GS does for their customers is a really great idea. Michael Greenblatt clearly knows his stuff, and his customers rave about what he does for their systems. While I've not purchased the service (yet! I will soon as I figure I can learn alot from the process) I think what he does is something all simmers could use. Clearly, his service goes way beyond tweaking the sim (which most of us can do just fine) but cleans up the hardware and system software to make a lean, mean computing machine!Sorry to ramble on. As I stated, this is not a simple issue. Hope some of this is useful in some way.Greg

Hi,Interesting the PCI latency issue, I'll search for the power strip and check my settings.the system is a new one only for the flight simulator, so no additional softwares and most services are disable.I have an audigy so maybe the latency setting can help.Thanks so much,Ulisses

have you tried downloading the latest audigy drivers from creative.com? They seem to make fs9 run extremely well, I still get stutters but only because Im still trying to find whats the best texture bandwidth number

Thanks Alex, I'll do thatUlisses

I downloaded powerstrip and I was able to change the video board latency, but how to change the sound board latency ? Is there another software for that ? Could you please confirm the link for download ?EDITED:I just found inside powerstrip, but audigy latency is set to 32, too low ?Thanks,Ulisses

"I just found inside powerstrip, but audigy latency is set to 32, too low ?"Each system is different. If Creative had it set that way from the factory, then kudos to them. A manufacturer who's actually thinking of others' hardware in the system.I run my Turtle Beach at 64, but that doesn't mean it might be just as happy at 32 (haven't tried it there).The big one is your video card, and it seems you've already adjusted that.Greg

I changed the 248 for the Radeon to 128 and 64, but I couldn't see a difference in the simulator. I'll continue testing.Thanks again,Ulisses

Hi Greg,i'd like to experiment with video adapter latency but i'm afraid i won't be able to tweak within my Powerstrip 3.49.My ASUS GeForce Ti4200 uses a latency of 248: can you please explain how can i set it to a lower value using Power Strip?Cannot find any option for changing default 248.Thanks in advanceLuigi ;-)

Hi Luigi,I'm also using 3.49, so it should work for you.Click on the PowerStrip icon (puts an icon in the Task bar).Right click the Task Bar icon to bring up menu.Move cursor over "Options".Click on "Adapter Information".Once the page loads unckeck "Read Only"You can then set the latency for each device in your system.Be sure to record each default latency before changing anything (in case you want to go back to the defaults... unlikely, but wise to backup first).Hope this helps,Greg

Hi Greg,what a prompt reply....>Once the page loads unckeck "Read Only"That one i was missing!Default was 248 and now i'm going to try a bit with different settings. BTW, how can you say that 3.49 is a freeware prog?I read fully functional for evaluation purposes: is it time limited?Thanks a lotLuigi ;-)

You made me dig out my folder of receipts, Luigi :-) PowerStrip is indeed shareware (latest version is $29.95US). That "Read Only" thing gets alot of folks (including me!).Greg

Hi Greg,just one more question: once latency set, do i have to start Power Strip to make change effective? Or perhaps new setting is somehow stored into video adapter itself?In other words, Power Strip has to run in background while FS9 is running?Thank youLuigi ;-)