Dumb Q. of the week:Do the contents of the Desktop have any neg effect on FS Frame Rate?I have 60+ icons on my Desktop- all of which, of course, underlay Flight Sim all the time. So the CPU must be continually working to produce these- as well as FS!Alex Reid

Hheheh. It's not a dumb question. It's just one that I haven't seen asked here before. We used to ask this question in the early 90's, when we ran Windows 3.1 and we had 1 megabyte of system memory. :)Personally, I like to keep the mem footprint of the OS and desktop as low as possible on my FS machine. That means a pretty clean desktop.Now, as to whether it makes any difference with todays fast and high memory computers? I don't know, I kind of doubt it.You can test it, though, do a before-and-after FPS test with the sim; test the same situation WITH 60 desktop icons...then test the identical situation WITHOUT very many desktop icons.:)RhettFS box: E8500 (@ 3.80 ghz), AC Freezer 7 Pro, ASUS P5E3 Premium, BFG 8800GTX 756 (nVidia 169 WHQL), 4gb DDR3 1600 Patriot Cas7 7-7-7-20 (2T), PC Power 750, WD 150gb 10000rpm Raptor, Seagate 500gb, Silverstone TJ09 case, Vista Ultimate 64ASX Client: AMD 3700+ (@ 2.6 ghz), 7800GT

The desktop is just another folder, just happens to show differently by the user interface. It should not impact FPS at all.To see what does, you can check Microsoft SysInternals and get the excellent process monitor to get an idea where your system's memory and CPU resources go. Look here http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx for Process Monitor and Process Explorer.Process Monitor in particular can replace task manager and can be an invaluable tool determining what you have on your system that eats up FPS cycles.Cheers,Etienne

Writing of which, his blog just put up a nice article on RAM usage:http://blogs.technet.com/markrussinovich/a...21/3092070.aspxscott s..

You might want to try a simple little test to see if 60 icons has any affect on FPS.Right click on the desktop in a blank area, go to "Arrange Icons" and uncheck "Show Desktop Icons"... Launch Flight Sim from the Programs Menu and see what happens. Then when you want the icons back, right click in a blank area on the desktop again and recheck "Show Desktop Icons".Just a guess, but if your icons are shortcuts, I would be surprised if there was any affect... but if you have folders with a fair amount a data stored on your desktop, that may have an affect.Darn good question IMO, let us know what you find.--Ray

It was almost certainly the case back in Win98 - a desktop with lots of content would slow a PC down to a crawl and eat up the memory. XP (if not W2K) fixed that.Leo Godalming UKhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpgMain PC:MSI P6N PlatinumXFX GeForce 512MB 8800 GTSQuad Core E6600 @2.4GHz3GB Corsair PC2-6400WD 250GB for Flight SimHitachi Deskstar 500GB - Dedicated FSXP, Regular XP and Vista2nd PC/WideFS:Asus P4V800D-XRadeon 9800 (256MB)Pentium IV 3.2 HT1GB DDR WD2500 250GB - XP

Ray- My Icons are for PDF AOM manuals for all addons, fuel/load/route planners and some FS files such as Panel Config & Flight Plans as well as the usual XP type of thing and some websites. If I uncheck/recheck "show desktop icons" as you suggest, will they restore in the same physical layout/groupings? I'd hate to have to reconfigure them!!! (they are the product of 5 years on this old AMD 1.8!!!)And here's another obscure query while I'm at it. I'm running triple monitors- 2 from the AGP card, 1 from a PCI card. I presume that there would be no difference as to which mon the icons were displayed on? (currently on the primary AGP mon)Alex Reid

Alex, I'm using two monitors myself (three would be nice!).On my system, I can uncheck/recheck "show desktop icons" and everything goes back to the same place. Your mileage may vary. One thing I would be concerned about is if you had a BSOD crash, your icons may get scrambled. I'd just use the "no icons" once or twice to see if it made any difference. If it does, then adjust the number of icons accordingly.

Ray- my sys is running so reliably, I get very nervous about experimentation on hdwe/software that's got a 5 year accumulation of stuff. Thanks for the suggestion and interest- but think I'll pass. Do you ever get anywhere near CYYJ? Come test fly triple mons!Alex ReidWhat's a BSOD crash?????

Alex,BSOD means the dreaded Windows "Blue Screen of Death"I understand your hesitation, if it ain't broke, etc.Am I anywhere near CYYJ?? Well, fly 133 radial from YYJ, and at 82.5 DME you'll be right over my house :-) --Ray

Search for an app called DIPS ... It will save and restore all your desktop icon positions.

Ray- July 26 12:00 DreamFleet Bonanza on YYJ R133 DME 80.0 @3000. Weather a bit showery- (note the radar returns) Port Orchard in the distance- is that your house ahead? :)Alex Reidhttp://forums.avsim.net/user_files/190957.jpg

LOL!!! You got it. East side of the lake, right over your nose.Nice Triple Mon shot!--Ray