Hi AllJust got this new computor,(see spec below) and have loaded FS9 and made adjustments to my system as recommended on the forums when using Vista. I have not loaded a single addon yet but on a test flight in the Cessna at KSEA I am only getting 12-15 FPS. I have a lot of addons to go on so this is worrying to say the least. Everthing went so well on my previous machine with XP, loads of addons and great FPS until it broke :( . Am I missing something here or is my new machine not as good as I thought it might be? I have done a fare bit of reading in the forums but still need some input from you guys out there. Probably because its new to me but I'm not much of a fan of Vista so far.All help will be much appreciated.Thanks and best regardsMalcolm "Rooster" HancockIntel core2 Quad CPU Q8300 @ 2.50 GHz4.00GB Ram64-bit operating systemNVIDIA Ge Force GT220Vista home addition

Tell you the truth I've never even heard of your video card, and I'd like to think I keep up to day, which tells me its pretty low end card. If its atleast a decent card, you should def be getting much better then 15 fps with everything default. Did you put together this computer your self or did you buy it from somewhere?

Hi red1Thanks for your response. This is a brand new purchase from PC World. I bought it on the basis that it was a high end gaming PC ideal for FS. Below is the spec for the GT220 graphics card direct from Nvidia's web site. What do you think?GPU Engine Specs: CUDA Cores 48 Graphics Clock (MHz) 625 Processor Clock (MHz) 1360 Memory Specs: Memory Clock (MHz) 790MHz Standard Memory Config 1GB Memory Interface Width 128-bit DDR3 Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 25.3 Feature Support: NVIDIA PureVideo

I have an 8800GTX... here are it's spec's by comparison:CUDA Cores 128Core Clock (MHz) 575Shader Clock (MHz) 1350Memory Clock (MHz) 900Memory Amount 768MBMemory Interface 384-bitMemory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 86.4Texture Fill Rate (billion/sec) 36.8 Now... with that said... I don't think the video card is your problem. I'd check for background tasks... anti-virus, the built-in 'last used date' feature of Windows... things like that.

Hello EdI'm a bit of an old duffer at this stuff. Is there a specific list of things I should be disabling? Also a bit off track but I've loaded FS onto my empty D drive but Nhancer has loaded to C drive by default and doesn't seem to be working, should it be on the same drive?"Rooster"

I'm sorry, I don't honestly recall how to turn off what I spoke of, nor what it's actually called. I just know it updates a date on each and every file that's opened which can add significant overhead in CPU use.As for nHancer... I don't even use it, however what drive it's located on should not matter. Have you installed the latest nVidia drivers for your card?

Just downloaded latest drivers and FPS has gone down to 8!

Hi red1Thanks for your response. This is a brand new purchase from PC World. I bought it on the basis that it was a high end gaming PC ideal for FS. Below is the spec for the GT220 graphics card direct from Nvidia's web site. What do you think?GPU Engine Specs: CUDA Cores 48 Graphics Clock (MHz) 625 Processor Clock (MHz) 1360 Memory Specs: Memory Clock (MHz) 790MHz Standard Memory Config 1GB Memory Interface Width 128-bit DDR3 Memory Bandwidth (GB/sec) 25.3 Feature Support: NVIDIA PureVideo

I have a Q6600 2.3GHz processor and consistently get ~50fps will all sliders right, tons of AI traffic, tons of addon scenery, etc.That you can't get decent framerates with a plain vanilla FS9 indicates that you've got some issues to be resolved.For a beginning, right click on your FS9 desktop icon and set the options for "disable visual themes" and "disable desktop composition". You should see some improvement.I highly recommend finding Nick's optimization guide and following it faithfully to tune your OS and FS9 for optimum results.

RoosterIn addition to above...I disable UAC and all the default microsoft automatic updates/firewalls. Make sure you have latest edition of Vista (I've got ultimate 64-bit and it's SP2), get the latest vista compatible drivers (realize some older versions of video drivers may be better). Download nHancer and tweak your settings--here's the link to NickN's tips--written for FSX but nhancer settings apply to FS9 as well. Like Fr Bill said, I believe NickN also has an FS9 optimization as well--the link below is FSX centric but you can use it to set up nHancer.http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041NickN mainly hangs out here:http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_topics.asp?FID=29Use an anti-virus like AVAST or similar and not Norton (lots written in forum on anti-virus). I'd also defrag with O/O defrag--much more effective than default. Use a registry cleaner (I use registry defense). Start with maximizing your O/S first, then build FS9 profile. There's no silver bullet.Also, if you change/update video driver--clean the old one out--think 3Dguru site has some good driver cleaners...make sure you rebuild nhancer profile each time you change your video driver.I'd also check the hardware section of these forums--chock full of guys comments on going through exactly what you and many of us go through.It took me about 10days of concerted/focused effort to rebuild FS9 and FSX to where I had it on my alienware (which got fried in an electric storm)--luckily my insurance covered--most insurance companies will allow a separate computer plan ($5000) which I recommend--maybe a few dollars a month additional to standard homeowner insurance. R. PerryIntel I7 Extreme 965 quad core oc'd to 3.8GHzNvidia GTX 285 2GB GPU6GB OCZ DDR3 1800Mhz RAMRaptor 10000rpm HDSB Xi-Extreme surroundDell 24" 1920x1200Vista Ultimate 64-bitEvery addon known to man--run FS9 90% of the time (average 40-50FPS) and FSX 10% of the time (average 20-30FPS--however, FSX will still bring the system above down to 10-12FPS in certain conditions--complex aircraft/complex airport/lots of weather (ASA) and on VATSIM)