HI all: According to numerous posts I have read, my system runs considerably slower then other comparable systems frame rate wise.I have an AMD Athalon 64 X2 4200 toledo core. 1 gig pc2700 ram on an MSI K8T ne02 main board. I use an Nvidea 7600 GS 512 MB video card.On low to minimum settings in FSX I get 12-20 FPS maximum.this is with all traffic off, Global texture low, level of detail radius medium, mesh complexity 39, mesh resolution 152, water effects 2x, scenery complexity normal, autogen density normal, special effects medium.I have tweaked fsx.cfg until the cows come home, and got no milk from it. I have applied all kinds of autogen patches, texture patches and everything I could find on this website to improve framerates. The BC tweaks website claims frame rates around 40-100 with an amd 4200 CPU. I cant even get 1/4 of that!I have defragged as well for what that is worth, and am running riva tuner to tweak my video cards memory. I cant honestly say that I have seen ANYTHING I did improve frame rates more then 1 fps at the most. I could live with a steady fps of 17-19 I am not that picky, but it is hard flying around cities when fps is dropping to 12 or below and erratic. Is my 1 gig memory killing me? Everyones system reports I read have 2-4 gig installed. Would another gig make that much difference? I hate to dump $120 on memory only to find out it does nothing for me.Any advice would be greatly appreciated.-Stampee

Are you getting a lot of HDD access when your FPS dips? If yes, it is either a background task taking over your system briefly, in which case you need to find and shut down the offending process, or your system accessing the page file on your HDD, in which case more memory will certainly help.Gary

short answer:I don't think that performance is too out-of-ordinary for your hardware.Having said that, do as Gary suggests in his post and also consider a mild overclock, and also consider running 1T command rate (this really helps our A64 platforms--I got 8% boost in frame rates by doing it.)long answer:If it were me I wouldn't spend any more money on that computer, unless I was planning on keeping it for a long time. Adding another gig of ram, for example, will help you a little bit, but not much extra frame rate. Your $120 would be better spent towards a faster cpu.I suppose if I were keeping the computer for a while, adding the gig of ram would be nice. Load times would be less, and there would be less hard drive thrashing (which can cause stutters, etc.) in the sim. It really does like 2 gigs of memory, but there is more to frame rate than memory.You could also consider spec'ing out a new computer with as fast a cpu as you want to budget for (such as an Intel Core2Duo E6600), at least 2 gigs of ram, and an 8800GTS video card with 640 vid ram.Those 8800 cards are still ridiculously expensive but I think that's about to change in the next 2 months. As such you could keep your 7600GS card a little longer but it would be the bottleneck if you got a faster cpu.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Hi all: I forgot to say I use FSautostart and have everything shut down I possibly can. I rarely see harddrive thrashing. I run at 1024x768 by the way.This is my NEW computer, as it was all I can afford at this time. I just bought these parts 2 months ago. I had the memory and video card from another system, so bought a new motherboard and the CPU.I guess what I cant believe is seeing other people CLAMING almost maxed out settings and 30-100 FPS on rigs that are similar to mine. For example the FSX-tweaks website system is the same cpu speed as mine with 4 gig ram and the 8500 GT card. yet the FPS are five times what I am seeing. Rhett: What do you mean by IT command?Thanks all-Stampee

>Hi all: I forgot to say I use FSautostart and have everything>shut down I possibly can. I rarely see harddrive thrashing. I>run at 1024x768 by the way.>This is my NEW computer, as it was all I can afford at this>time. I just bought these parts 2 months ago. I had the memory>and video card from another system, so bought a new>motherboard and the CPU.That means you are going to probably be keeping the computer a while. And you have plenty of computer system for FS9.Since you cobbled together ram sticks, you probably are losing some performance there, but then I don't know exactly your mem configuration.Adding gig of ram would help you a little, but really for FS9 you should have enough. If I was flying FS9 though it's less important--I might consider saving that $120 and putting it into a piggy-bank for use on a Core2 system.>I guess what I cant believe is seeing other people CLAMING>almost maxed out settings and 30-100 FPS on rigs that are>similar to mine. For example the FSX-tweaks website system is>the same cpu speed as mine with 4 gig ram and the 8500 GT>card. yet the FPS are five times what I am seeing. >They are running with unlocked frame limiter. You can get 30-100 if you do that.4 gigs of ram is 4 TIMES what you have. And the 8500 GT card is a full generation of cards ahead of yours. So, I can see them getting 30-100 fps with similar rigs.Especially in light of the fact that my computer is only a little faster than yours, and yet I see 25-40 fps (I lock at 40) in FS9. 25 is worst case (AI, etc.). If I unlock the frame lock, I can push 100 fps at times in FS9.>Rhett: What do you mean by IT command?>Not IT, one-tee (1T--the number one and the letter "T"...1T command rate. If you look in your BIOS setup (not sure what BIOS you have, but a good BIOS will have a memory timings screen) there will be a set of memory timings options. One of them is entitled, "Command Rate".On our AMD Athlon 64 platforms, setting command rate from 2T (usually the default) to 1T usually results in a 5%-10% boost in frame rates in FS.However, keep in mind that not all memory sticks like changing the command rate. If yours locks, then you know to keep it at 2T. :) Make sure you know where your BIOS reset jumper is on your motherboard, just in case it makes your rig unbootable after the change. Not likely, but I want to make sure you know all of the possibilities...ahead of time.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian