Here goes: upon starting FS9, a window popped up saying "Software 3D acceleration enabled blah blah blah", basically: no hardware 3D acceleration was available. FS9 didn't start. Checked dxdiag and video driver (Omega) settings. Dxdiag showed all accelerations enabled. Tried again, same thing. Uninstalled and reinstalled the video driver (used latest ATI, not Omega this time) as recommended by MS knowledge base. One problem fixed, FS9 starts. Now the interesting part. When loading textures in 2D panel view, the outside goes blank green (occasionally pink), while the 2D panel itself displays fine. After the outside view loads, the frame rate in 2D view stays at 11 fps, no matter how high I set the fps lock. Adding and removing PanelAsTexture=0 didn't seem to make any difference. On the other hand, in all other views (virtual cockpit / tower / spot), the frame rate is good and follows the fps lock pretty well. I can crank it up as high as 30 fps with default Cessna 172 at default KSEA. Furthermore, on the very top of the screen, a flickering thin line appears, regardless whichever view is being used. When closing FS, the outside view goes green (or pink) again. I ran the dxdiag Direct3D tests and they worked out fine. However, at the end of directx9 part of the 3D test (the last one), the screen goes green again (same as when loading textures). It doesn't do that when dxdiag tests the directx7 and directx8 parts. The card is ATI Radeon 9600 128 MB. Any ideas and recommendations ? I want to explore all possible avenues before I start pulling my hair over defective video memory or something hardware related. ThanksAdam

OK, seems that I found the culprit. Tried the tweaker called Game XP the night before and wasn't too happy with it.