Heres a good description of vsync and tearing.http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928593

well, its worth pointing out that that's about 4 yrs old. But yeah, thats it in a nutshell. I use a little app called D3DOverrider to force vsync w/tripple buffering all the time. I note no lag at all really, even in a race sim like Iracing. I'm pretty finicky about that sort of thing. Of course, with most LCD monitors being 60hz, I find the screen tearing to be more noticeable than I did on my old CRT...

OK. There is some interesting possible misinformation in this thread. Of course, everyone's rigs are different, so I will just say that this is what I see...My FS9 rig. E6750 no OC, 2GB 667 ram , 8800gt, XP 32. No big deal. I run Avast free AV, I have 54 processes running, No real addons for FS. NO TWEAKS. Fps set to Unlimited. I have no reason to lower it.With my old P4 HT, I had to jump through all kinds of hoops to get good performance. When I moved to a Core 2 Duo ( and make no mistake, there is a difference between a C2D and a Pentium or Celeron dual core), everyting changed. I see NO difference in FS or 3dmark 06 scores between turning off extra processes/AV/internent connection/what have you, and not turning those things off. None. Sometimes I do have to reinstall my video drivers.Yes, FS9 runs on one core. I see that in Task Manager/ Performance. Processes=54, CPU Usage=0%. Start FS9, core one is maxed, CPU Usage=50%, core 2 has a blip now and then. This is the default flight, all sliders maxed, everything turned on. FPS=40 or so. What I see is 2 cores helping FS, even if it is only to spread out the load ( background stuff). And I have Vsync and AA on. FS is more of a test of hardware than most other games. The OP's rig should blow FS out of the water, If it does not than there is some kind of mismatch going on. That's what we need to find. It will be tough,because we don't have his rig on a bench in front of us. This looks like a user built computer. We don't know if BIOS is correct, or ram is working properly. Could be anything.I do not defrag as often as I should, but I do run CCleaner , Glary's Utilities, And Tweak Now ,quite often.Bob

Hey Guys, just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone here who took the time to help me with this issue. I still have not been able to resolve it, however your support does mean alot! :( Still very confused, as ive tried everything, on 2 completley different systems but the same issue arises :( But im not about to give up just as yet ( and when i say give up - it probably means migrating to FSX) THE THING IS, on my old system when i plugged a USB in, it smoothened out FS! without a usb, FS was slow and jerky and i was getting around low 20's in fps, but when i add a usb instantly frames were boosted to mid 30's and most importantly the sim smoothen out. SO im thinking that my solution MAY be linked to that somehow... what happens when you plug is a usb? there must be some voltage running to it, which made me think that if i increase the voltage to the GPU it might help? IF i cannot sort this out, is there anyone you recommend me talking too? any particular FS guru's or stores or anything?! this is a real bummer esp after buying a whole new system to play it, the damn thing wont work! :( B) Thanks guys! - and im still open to suggestions! : B)

just another thing to note.... when i say microstutter i dont mean a drop in framerates every few seconds....Its just not smooth and jerky bit on a 'micro' scale...thanks again guys!

From your task manager, it is obvious that you need to clean up your Win7 first before you can think of tuning FS9. Also make sure you defragment (absolute must) space then name.I've just noted a few processes:1. Search indexer should definitely be turned off;2. you have 3 iexplorer running; you should have nonePierre

hahaha, welcome to the taskbar of Vista/7. There seems to be a plethora of processes always running in the background. They are not always eating up CPU, but they do take away from available RAM. Surprisingly all those processes don't slow down your Windows 7 machine, at least I haven't taken notice.Also 3 iexplorers running is alright. He is running IE8 and each tab is an individual process and shows up like that in the task manager.

hahaha, welcome to the taskbar of Vista/7. There seems to be a plethora of processes always running in the background. They are not always eating up CPU, but they do take away from available RAM. Surprisingly all those processes don't slow down your Windows 7 machine, at least I haven't taken notice.Also 3 iexplorers running is alright. He is running IE8 and each tab is an individual process and shows up like that in the task manager.

I dont find that the processes slow FS down either, plus i got this program (recently) called GameBoost that stops all unnecessary programs before running the game, doesnt change anything :( Im thinking... perhaps up the voltage on my GPU?