On my older comp I never had this problem but on my new laptop (with better specs) when I get some clouds or near a dense airport addon like JFK I get slideshow frames and with the laptop I have I don't think I should be getting it. I have Vista Home Premium and an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2ghz with 3 gb ram with a Geforce 8600M video card. On my old system I had 2 GB ram some 512 MB vid card and an AMD 4000+ processor. For those specs should I be getting decent performance out of FS9, or am I in need of an upgrade? Also, could anyone point me to some articles to optimize FS? I've seen a few and tried to no avail.

On my older comp I never had this problem but on my new laptop (with better specs) when I get some clouds or near a dense airport addon like JFK I get slideshow frames and with the laptop I have I don't think I should be getting it. I have Vista Home Premium and an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2ghz with 3 gb ram with a Geforce 8600M video card. On my old system I had 2 GB ram some 512 MB vid card and an AMD 4000+ processor. For those specs should I be getting decent performance out of FS9, or am I in need of an upgrade? Also, could anyone point me to some articles to optimize FS? I've seen a few and tried to no avail.

I suggest doing a search on using Vista as an operating systwm. There is a wealth of informaton on the topic. Your question is a bit broad as you will see by reading the info from the search.

Just thought i'd bring this back to the top. I've pretty much got the same problem. I've got similar specs: Intel Core 2 Duo P7350 2.0GHz 4GB RAM nVidia 9600M GT 512MBAlthough my problem doesn't really include dense scenery. Away from heavy cloud, i've seen my framerates climb into the 70s. But as soon as heavy cloud comes into the picture, my framerate falls to about 10-15 (i.e. a stuttering mess), particularly when panning across the horizon. I tried out my old computer the other day, and while that can't do dense scenery very well, it doesn't flinch when presented with an overcast layer.I don't think it's Vista. I've found that if I turn off AA from nHancer, the problem goes away. So it's probably something to do with the way the graphics card handles AA. Which is a pain, because I can't really upgrade this laptop. Everything is packed away very tightly...*sighs* I still can't run a 6 year old application acceptably...:(

Vista runs FS9 really well, even on my system (Core i7 920, 6GB DDR3 with a GTX 285). The only places I seem to have problems is large cities with lots of AI and clouds though I have not really tweaked any FS9 settings. I run everything on high and drop down to about 15FPS (from my setting of 40) around LaGuardia on a rainy, cloudy day.

Hello,By all I readed about Vista and FS2004 it's seem's Vista is like WinXP a compatible OS for FS2004Of course .. FS2004 problems still there (settings .. etc..) and are not linked to Vista or WinXP (if OS well set)Nevertheless .. due to some security implementations in Vista .. it's less user friendly than WinXP when it come to manage files .. folders .. etc.Plenty explainations (Eg files management) are posted in this forum.Myself .. a happy user of WinXP :)Regards.Gus.

Vista runs FS9 really well, even on my system (Core i7 920, 6GB DDR3 with a GTX 285). The only places I seem to have problems is large cities with lots of AI and clouds though I have not really tweaked any FS9 settings. I run everything on high and drop down to about 15FPS (from my setting of 40) around LaGuardia on a rainy, cloudy day.

Weird. I have the exact same system, with only 4GB DDR3, and my fps also locked at 40, with full Ai and a complex-ish aircraft, and UK2000 LHR, and all sliders at full, and I never ever have problems. I'm running 9D Kai Tak and Tom Kwong's VHHH and all is well. the only problem is at Simflyers EDDF, where it can drop to 17fps depending on where I look. From this, I can say that Vista is a hog, as I am running XP64bit, usually with all kinds of stuff in the background.PS When you say "even on my system" do you mean it is somehow weak?! I spent AED6500 ($1800) on it, maxing every option the guy gave me, and since then there have been slight improvments in the GFX (now GTX 295) and processor (now i7 3.2 Ghz), so it is still in the upper echelons AFAIK

Same problem here:Intel core2duo T7500 2.3Ghz, 2Go DDR, ATI HD2600my laptop can't handle clouds the right way. Every slider is on full, apart from the clouds. When flying on a very dense airport with full ai traffic, there are no problems at all, but when flying into clouds, the FPS go down (sometimes as far as 2 or 3 FPS).My old computer could cope with clouds without any problem (Intel dual-core 2 Ghz, 2Go DDR and Geforce 7900 GT). So i really think it has to do with the graphic card. Too bad it's so difficult and expensive to change a laptop graphic card :(

On my older comp I never had this problem but on my new laptop (with better specs) when I get some clouds or near a dense airport addon like JFK I get slideshow frames and with the laptop I have I don't think I should be getting it. I have Vista Home Premium and an Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2ghz with 3 gb ram with a Geforce 8600M video card. On my old system I had 2 GB ram some 512 MB vid card and an AMD 4000+ processor. For those specs should I be getting decent performance out of FS9, or am I in need of an upgrade? Also, could anyone point me to some articles to optimize FS? I've seen a few and tried to no avail.

Run like a champ on Windows 7 with 2.3GHz Core2Celeron2 (I think that is the speed...) 4GB of ram and an ATI 4325 Mobility card. I have run it on the Vista and the Windows 7 client. I don't noticed or have encountered an differences yet. I do notice that FPS does drop when over a very object dense city or airport. I have turned of AA and it helps. I have come to think that it is just how the game processes dense and/or busy areas. Though, I have not seen this problem on my Vista desktop. I'd take the advice check the forums and also see if you have the latest video driver and if there is a driver issue known (This was a issue for the online game FFXI and the 8800 series GPUs. FPS dropped like a rock. It is a nVidia Driver Issue and not the OS.).

Hello,By all I readed about Vista and FS2004 it's seem's Vista is like WinXP a compatible OS for FS2004Of course .. FS2004 problems still there (settings .. etc..) and are not linked to Vista or WinXP (if OS well set)Nevertheless .. due to some security implementations in Vista .. it's less user friendly than WinXP when it come to manage files .. folders .. etc.Plenty explainations (Eg files management) are posted in this forum.Myself .. a happy user of WinXP :)Regards.Gus.

Ya, I really hate the security pop-ups when managing and Program Folder files in Vista. The darkened background screen is ANNOYING. Though this is 100% fixed in Windows 7. It has the same security pop-ups, but I find them FAR less annoying. ...Windows 7 is such a more enjoyable experience vs. Vista for me.After Vista I couldn't think about going back to XP :( , now with 7 I can't imagine going back to Vista. :(

Weird. I have the exact same system, with only 4GB DDR3, and my fps also locked at 40, with full Ai and a complex-ish aircraft, and UK2000 LHR, and all sliders at full, and I never ever have problems. I'm running 9D Kai Tak and Tom Kwong's VHHH and all is well. the only problem is at Simflyers EDDF, where it can drop to 17fps depending on where I look. From this, I can say that Vista is a hog, as I am running XP64bit, usually with all kinds of stuff in the background.PS When you say "even on my system" do you mean it is somehow weak?! I spent AED6500 ($1800) on it, maxing every option the guy gave me, and since then there have been slight improvments in the GFX (now GTX 295) and processor (now i7 3.2 Ghz), so it is still in the upper echelons AFAIK

I am not trying to say that my rig is weak, just that I tend to like lots of eye candy, at least in FS. I increased cloud density, AI traffic, along with autogen (set at max so the jetways and airport's static displays like cargo are shown) to allow for more realism. Once a large number of textures start being required, anything could start to drop in FPS. I am not really wanting to run SLi, but I am curious how much it would help with handling such a large number of textures, even at my normal resolution of 1680x1050