I am having a bottleneck problem in fs9. I believe it is the cpu but i want to be sure by asking someone that knows more about this stuff than I do. I get excellent framerates in default aircraft. For example in the default 172 i am getting over 100fps but when I fly Level D and PMDG I get around 10-25 depending on the phase of flight. My current specs are:AMD 3700+GeForce 7600GS2 GB RAMI know my graphics card is not the fastest even though it has alot of memory. This is why i ask. I am looking at a dual core AMD 3800+ X2 if I upgrade my processor. Any help is greatly appreciated.

IF you have an AMD Athlon 754 or 939 socket motherboard you will not be able to install the AM2 940 socket processor in it, if you have a 939 board you could install a 939 socket dual core AMD Athlon XP 64 processor if you can source one. If you have a 939 or 754 board you will be using DDR memory sticks so additionaly if you wish to go the AMD Athlon 64 dualcore AM2 940 socket route, you will need to purchase DDR2 memory. It could make sense if you have a 939 socket motherboard to upgrade from a single core 939 socket processor to a dual core [ obviously it would be an advantage if your motherboard would support dual-core ( with or without a Bios update ) NB older motherboards may not support dual core ]. But going from 754 or 939 to AM2 940 dores not make much sense in that you would need a new processor, a new motherbord and new RAM sticks and as 940 AM2 processors are no more powerful nor more advanced than the 939 socket processors they replaced, if you were thinking of moving from a 754 or 939 to a 940 AM2, you would be better getting an Intel Conroe based system instead.Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

Thanks for your reply Adrian. My current CPU is 939 and the one I plan on buying is also 939. My mother board also supports dual core. I would get a core duo but they are out of my price range and from what I hear the AMD 64 3800 X2 fits my price perfectly for what i am looking for without also having to get a new motherboard. I am just trying to make sure that the bottle neck in this case would be the cpu and if it is than how much diffierence i would see in fps.

If you can find one and if the price is within your range the 4800 "Toldeo" dual-core 939 Socket Athlon 64 with 1 + 1 megabyte L2 cache is a superb piece of kit. Also the fan / heatsink which comes as stock with the 4800 is actually bought in by AMD from a third party supplier and is an excellent item itself. http://amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&...rtid=144&page=1Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

I have a 754 AMD Athlon 64 3200 and a 939 AMD Athlon 64 4800 Toloedo dual core, and there is not a huge amount of difference in performance between the two, so I would not expect miracles going from a 939 3700 to a 939 3800, in my case it is about an extra ten frames but there are two issues in my case, the 754 has a slower and less sopiscated memory interface than the 939 and the 4800 would be a significant higher specification than a single core 3200 [ie a 3200 in 939 socket guise ], if you are hoping to near double your performance with the second core, you will not! MS Flight simulators make poor use of dualies, frankly unless you can go to a Toledo 939 4800 at good price or you are getting 3800 dualie at a very low price I do not think it is worth going down a 939 processor upgrade route. Have you considered, fitting an http://www.arctic-cooling.com/cpu2.php?idx=80&disc= and overclocking your processor, if you not attempted this you may get more performance than buying a 3800 dualie and runing it at stock speeds. http://techgage.com/article/amd64_3700_san...go_s939_22ghz/1Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

Thanks again for your reply Adrian. I looked at the toledo but it is way out of my price range. I found a great deal on a 939 socket 3800 dual core that was hard to pass up so i went ahead and oredred one anyway. i am really only looking for 10 more frames. I should have said this earlier but when i run FS i also run Radar Contact, ActiveSky, TrackIR, and FS Passengers. I am sure they are affecting CPU somehow.From your last reply i was wondering if you think getting a faster graphics card would help even though it would most likely result in a downgrade of graphics memory from? Or do you think my system could be pretty close to being maxed out?My current graphics card is a Geforce 7600GS 512MB.

If you are running other software items alongside FS9, if they run as discrete items, a dual core should be usefull. Is your graphics card an AGP or a PCI express?Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

My graphics card is PCI express.

In that case, I would wait untill Directx 10 is released and see if it is a usefull benefit, if it is you could wait for a mid range card to be released for Directx 10 and whether Directx 10 is a good thing or not you will most likely get Direct X 9 cards cheaper once Directx 10 released.http://tomshardware.co.uk/2007/04/09/the_b...r_the_money_uk/Best and Warm RegardsAdrian Wainer

Thanks for your helpful replies Adrian. I think your 100% right waiting for DX10 to come out before upgrading graphics again. I will let you know how the 3800 dual core turns out once it comes in and I install it.