I left my flight to Melbourne this morning really annoyed with the stuttering at YMML. Now I go back a few hours later - same airport, same setup, same everything really (a different aircraft, but changing a/c when the sim is stuttering doesn't help), and it's as smooth as the proverbial baby's bottom. Steady frame rates at about 30 fps. Not a hint of stuttering.This is what makes this SO hard to troubleshoot. Why on earth the change? And, if history is anything to go by, I'll get a few days flying then back to the juddering for another few.M.

I was just going to make the same comment red1 made. Format C,JimCYWG

What clouds are you using? Even with some of the killer H/W out there today, ASA and some high resolution clouds will cause horrible stuttering. Just a thought based on you saying it came and went on your last flight at the same airport. One of the only other things that can change is weather and clouds...-Paul

Hmm, that's interesting, 'cos I had the same thoughts last night. I use Flight Environment & AS6, but have the clouds drawn from FE. I had 'lower resolution clouds' as the option, but I just changed to DXT3 clouds to see if that makes any difference.The flights and taxiing were already nice and smooth again when I changed the cloud textures, as I remarked above, but I'll keep track of this. The only thing is that I did shut off AS6 and reverted to FS9 clear skies, and although the frame rates went up, I still got big fps drops every 5 seconds as before - the stuttering doesn't depend upon the fps, though of course the effect is less of a pain when the fps is already c. 40. At very heavy airports where I get about 15 fps normally, the stuttering will drop this to c. 8 fps for a few seconds, every few seconds. No wonder I sometimes get depressed: I am sure there are many others like this: SO much time and effort (and money!) on this hobby over the past 7 or 8 years. It needs to be right or I don't sleep nights! (Yeah, my son says 'Get a Life'! Maybe he's got something). Well I'm going abroad tomorrow for a week, and I'm not taking FS9 with me, so there must be hope for me I suppose!Martin :-)

Im not sure you mentioned this, but this is a longer thread. Are you using Add-on traffic? Maybe you're flying a different times of day or different days where traffic is lighter/heavier...something to consider. But this is really starting to sound more and more like something wrong with your overall system. Temps of CPU/GPU normal?

I understand you are starting up FS9 using a batch file. You should really kill off all unnecessary processes while you're at it.Use the taskkill command in your batchfile, for example "taskkill /IM LCDclock.exe" and so on...If you want to start them up again after you exit FS9 just add them after FS9.exe in the batchfile.Also did you try updating the chipset drivers for your motherboard?

Yes, I fly with Ultimate Traffic, but turning the setting to 0% doesn't help.I can get the problem at first start-up, when the machine is cold - and also NOT get the problem when it's been running for hours, so presumably hot. I tested the RAM - all seems oK. Ho-hum..M.

Yes, I fly with Ultimate Traffic, but turning the setting to 0% doesn't help.I can get the problem at first start-up, when the machine is cold - and also NOT get the problem when it's been running for hours, so presumably hot. I tested the RAM - all seems oK. Ho-hum..M.

Well I think I'm all out of suggestions then. :(