Hi all,It's interesting to see the age old ATI v Nvidia play-offs in various reviews, with the Oh-So-Stale format run-around shooter games (Pretty much what most games are these days ... YAWN) - Getting into the triple Digits for Frame rates.I'm a casual gamer, so my motherboard, CPU & Memory are average.Asus M2V-TVMAMD 64 X2 4600+ (2.4Ghz per core) - Not too shabby, but have upgraded the bios to accept the 6000+ (3.0Ghz per core) - will get soon maybe(cheap)ATI - HD 3870 - Now this is actually a really nice card.Memory - 667Mhz DDR2 2GB - Does the JobWhat i've noticed with FSX, is that when running the sim at max monitor res (1440 x 900)MyTrafficX - 5.1b withAI 100% - IFR, 25% - General , 25% boats, cars & so on.Max Clouds range & detail.Other Graphics params (Terrain & Mesh) parameters set to middle of the road. but range max.Whilst it renders scenery beautifully & over remote areas, even with detailed mountains, - i get my target FPS of 35.However when approaching a really busy airport like Heathrow or Hong Kong, The frame rate drops to ONLY 6-10fps average! - Now i DO appreciate that the Sim is now having to 'think' about much more. AI movements etc...When i run the sim in window mode so i can see Task manager & ATI Catalyst contol.The CPU is screaming at 100% nearly (both cores), but the HD3870 is hardly being taxed at all... plodding along at 25% average usage! - & this is with everything being rendered nicely - no blurries, full terrain etc.This shows that a powerful GPU isn't actually necessary for FSX as with other games, as FSX 'still' leans heavily on the CPU to do the work. - Due to the nature of what is has to process.However, is there, 'ANYTHING' that MS could do for FSX to 'share the load' between the CPU & the GPU, More than it does now?CPU - 100% GPU - 25% - Seems quite unevenIt seems that the only way to smooth the sim out during busy times, is to be forced to buy a more 'hardcore gamer' CPU & Motherboard.. a Quad Core CPU for example. - When, what i have, is an average CPU, but a Decent GPU that is not being utilised fully, from a processing perspective.Comments?Hyper

There is an optimum balance, and unfortunately, it would be different for different folks.If you have a really fast (and expensive) video card, you'd like to load it up more. However, the CPU is actually a cheaper place to do work, so for others, bottlenecking on the video card leaves the CPU with idle time.My guess is that the bandwidth between CPU and memory and CPU and video card is as much a factor as anything, once you have a fast CPU and video card. Note the threads about optimizing system components to get optimal FSX performance.If you find yourself with extra video card power, you can use it run at higher AA (like 8XS) and screen resolution, like 1900x1200... Pretty soon, you'll find that the video card is now the performance bottleneck.

you answered it yourself... 100 % AI traffic = 100 % load on the CPU especially over big airports ;)

Yes true,But my question is more relating to whether there might have been any way the processing power of the GPU could be used in some of the baseline calculations, not just in 'colouring in'.The answer is seemingly a no...