I need some help. I have a Dell Dimension 8300 system, 1 Gig of Memory , 128mb ATI Radeon Pro and have been running FS2004 for some time with is stutters and such.I have virtually all of Simflyers, Fly Tampa and other sceneries including Georender, FS Addon and Lagos Emma installed. I also have Aerosofts Manhattan. I have just acquired the Georender, Lago and FS Addon Washington Sceneries.I

Based upon my experience, with the number of add-ons you have, I would want 2 GB RAM minimum for smoother play. When you exit FS, does it take up to thirty seconds or more before you can regain normal system response and does your hard drive LED remain active during this time? Mine does that after a heavy session in a dense area with high weather effects. No doubt there is significant page file activity.After you've run FS for a while in a dense scenery area, exit the game. Open Task Manager and click on the performance tab. Look at the bottom section of the screen and examine Commit Charge (K). Note the Peak figure and compare it to your Total Physical Memory. If Peak is substantially more more than Physical Memory (K) Total then you will benefit from more RAM.My Athlon XP 2800+ with 1 GB RAM and a 128 MB Radeon 9800 Pro handles FS Global 2005, USA Roads, and Traffic 2005 quite well when running default aircraft. Adding full weather effects begins to slow it noticeably. But what really kills mine is to run Concorde Professional with Traffic 2005 with AISmooth and scenery cranked up. Throw in fog during approach and I'm in real trouble with frame rates dropping to around 5 or less with stuttering and occasional brief freezes.When my system has really slowed, checking real-time Total Commit Charge typically shows memory use around 1.2 GB. In your case with your scenery, you may be running higher than that.I don't know for sure if a new video card is a cost effective answer. Since your system (and mine) are AGP only, options are limited.Options include reducing scenery density and uninstalling some of your scenery or aircraft add-ns. I would first reduce scenery density to see what happens.Since we both apparently like to run everything maxxed, both of us would benefit from full system upgrades. I've considered upgrading my entire system to an Athlon 64 X2. But I really can't justify an upgrade now because I don't use FS 2004 as much as other less intensive applications. When FS 2006 is released, a hardware upgrade becomes much more likely for me late next year - unless something breaks. Hmmmm....what do I tell my wife? }(

I hear ya on the wife issue...Hehehehe I can live with a few stutters here and there but the freeze ups are annoying. I got some other advice from the general forum to lock my frame rates at 20... That seems to work pretty good. I am gonna get the extra Ram too.I do a lot of Photo Shop work and 2 gigs would help that as well.ThanksJim