Hi all, I know that this forum has covered the issue of stuttering a whole lot, but my problem is baffling me beyond what I have heard in here yet. I have a brand new system:Dell XPS 710 H2CIntel Core2 Extreme QX6800 3.46 GHz3 GB DDR2 RamDual 768 MB Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX (SLI)2X 260 GB WD HD51

Did you try all the fs9.cfg tweaks avalible here on the forum?

Brian, I would definitly do what Chase recommends and check that the usual tweaks are applied. Also, did you already update FS9 with the 9.01 update? Whats your multi bandwidth number at? I use a value of 120. 400 as a tweaked number over the default of 40 can cause stutters in some systems. I am completely blown away that you would have stuttering issues with your rig with FS9. I wish I had the rig you have. Something is a huge miss for sure. I would be very interested in finding out your solution, as I've been eyeing up a 6700 cpu.

Here is my cfg. I dont know if you want it exactly or not, but you could try it out and go from there.I probably have all kinds of tweaks in there. I did a fresh install of FS when I installed my new 320GB HD a few weeks ago, so everything is pretty fresh. As always, just back up your original just incase you dont like my settings and tweaks or something goes wrong, all though nothing should, especially since its only a txt file. Hope this helps or atleast gives you something to work with.

Wow I am surprised you get stutters! I also have a DELL XPS 710 but with the E6600 CPU and just one 8800GTX and I don't get stutters at all. Am getting around 80 FPS in FS2004 with every setting maxed out. Perhaps you should try running FS2004 with just one 8800GTX. Is it possible to deactivate the SLI mode in Ntune?

Is FS9 even SLI compliant?

Chase, If your system is working good, leave it alone, but I happened to look at your cfg and see that you have three seperate display listings of your video card. You must have made some changes over time and never rebuit your cfg file. There are some users out there that have had performance issues due to this. But again, if you are working good, I would just leave it. I just didn't know if you were aware of this or not.

Nope wont benefit one bit.

Im not complaining at all, but could I increase my performance? What should I do to correct the cfg?

Brian,aw, I know how you feel... I had a similar situation like you. A brand new system (top of the line at the time) and it stuttered, stuttered and stuttered. I did everything I could think of, replaced RAM, graphics card, disks and even the motherboard. The only thing I didn't replace were the PSU and the processor itself. It kept on stuttering. Re-installed FS, went RAID 0, re-installed FS, bought new sound card, re-installed FS, applied all the FS tweaks, Win XP tweaks, even had two long sessions with Michael who helped many simmers... all to no avail. Then I built a new system (Thanks Paul! :) )and all is smooth like butter. Sometimes, there's a combination of hardware (obviously) that won't work well together no matter what. Judging by my experience, maybe the thing to try is to change the PSU? If it doesn't provide enough juice or if it isn't stable enough, that could cause stutters. If that doesn't help, then I'll say what you won't like one bit: get rid of your computer as fast as possible! Best of luck to you!Regards,Jure

I found out 2 years ago when it first came out , 2 video cards in a SLI mode does NOT help Fs2004. Neither did the 64 bit part of the system help either. I might try to use the 2nd video card in some type on multi-monitor use. jerrycwo4

His PSU is not the issue. The Dell XPS 710 H2C comes with a 1KW Power Supply! I think it will be the SLI creating problem.

Greetings all, I sure appreciate everyone trying to help me out here. I went ahead and tried some different hardware configurations, such as using just one card, and trying my old X1300. I also used the fs9.cfg info listed above, but nothing seems to make my stutters go away. I'm wondering if it is possible that I have some file in my FS9 directory that shouldn't be, maybe a module or something? I don't know what to say, but my old Presario 2.2 was running FS9 a whole lot better than my new rig, which I assume is a pretty good machine from what I've heard. Anyway, I appreciate all the suggestions coming in.

First, bring up task manager and see if some process is showing CPU usage in synch with the stutters...that may give you an idea of where the problem is.You should also run FileMon and see if your system is doing a lot of read requests for files that it can't find.Your dual 8800GTX SLI setup is eating a large amount of your available 4GB of memory address space...1.5GB in fact just for the memory-mapped VRAM, so something between 0.5 and 1 gig of your 3GB total RAM is left unuseable by Windows and applications. Unless you are running some apps that clearly take advantage of SLI, you're shooting yourself in the foot with that config.RegardsBob ScottATP IMEL Gulfstream II-III-IV-VSantiago de Chile

I'm shooting myself in the foot alright. I actually did that just about the time that I "forgot" to tell my soon to be ex-wife that I was buying it. Anyway, thanks for the suggestion, I'll give it a try after work.