Hi all,I've searched similar threads in the forums, but couldn't find one that pertained to my particular issue. I hadn't played on the sim for a few days, and today turned it on and the frame rates kept dropping from 20fps (where it's tagged) to 3fps, and back up again. It would happen every time I shifted the view to 'spot', and continue to lag in performance for a few minutes before going back up to 20. This would continue until returning to cockpit view. Besides adding a traffic file today (using the MRAI installer), I hadn't tinkered with it before. I thought that perhaps it was the video card driver, so I updated it, but the problem has persisted. Adjusting the display settings (reducing the sliders in various categories) did not help, and I'm left wondering what else to do. I've never encountered this problem before, and any help would be appreciated. Thanks for reading,GeorgeSystem (in case it helps):Pentium 4 3.00GHz processor2.5GB RAMWin XP SP3GeForce 9400 GT video card with the latest drivers (195.62)P.S. I read earlier that some of the latest drivers of NVIDIA don't help with FS9 performance, but keep in mind that I encountered this performance problem before updating my drivers.

make sure you anti-virus software is off or disabled.--

make sure you anti-virus software is off or disabled.--

I can try that, however my anti-virus software has always remained running before with no drop in performance. Out of curiosity, why now would there be any change?

it might be actively scanning your computer without your knowledge...which would give you the results youre experiencing

Well folks, I'm at a bit of a loss. I turned off my anti-virus software, but the problem happened all over again. I also tried deleting the traffic file that I added today (thinking that might have been part of the problem in case the file was corrupt). However, about five minutes into the flight (regardless of where I begin), the simulator loses frame rates for a few mins, then goes back to 20fps or so, then drops back down to 3-4. It doesn't matter how dense the area is I'm flying over - usually, the scenery density doesn't impact the frames too much with my settings. Any suggestions? Thanks again,George

I turned off my anti-virus software,

george:what anti-virus do you use?

but the problem happened all over again.

another place to look is winXP's 'desktop indexing' utility.how many processes do you have running after booting your computer? my FS computer has ~25. my 'general use' computers have 40-50 running ... and are slower to boot, slower to shutdown, etc.--

Do you use a Soundblaster X-Fi?

To add to the suggestions..get something like rivatuner or similar and look at the temperatures of your CPU and video card while these slowdowns occur...report them here.

george:what anti-virus do you use?

I use Avast. I ran an anti-virus scan, and it came up with some interesting results. After quarantining what was found, I gave FS another try, but with the same result.

another place to look is winXP's 'desktop indexing' utility.how many processes do you have running after booting your computer? my FS computer has ~25. my 'general use' computers have 40-50 running ... and are slower to boot, slower to shutdown, etc.--

Yikes, just checked the 'services' tab in msconfig and it showed about 56 services still running. The thing is, I'm pretty sure they've been running for quite some time (a lot of them are Microsoft items; not sure if they're essential or if I should stop them) without any effect on FS in the past. I'll try and clean that up and let you know how it goes. Thanks again!

I just noticed something in my Addon Scenery folder that I never noticed was there before. Along with all of my other sceneries that have been downloaded, there's also a SCENERY.dat file. I know that this file can be found in some other scenery folders, but I don't recall ever seeing it in the Addon Scenery folder itself. I moved it to a non-FS folder, restarted FS9 and it seemed to work - for about 10 minutes this time, before dropping the frame rates. I just opened my Addon Scenery folder again, and the scenery.dat file is back. Being that I never noticed it before (and I've added quite a lot of scenery in the past), is this file supposed to be there? If so, does FS automatically update it even if it's deleted? I thought it was rather odd that the file returned even though I didn't add anything to the sim since moving it. Any suggestions?George

I just noticed something in my Addon Scenery .... a SCENERY.dat file. ... is this file supposed to be there? George

That is the scenery index file that is built when FS9 starts, if there is any changes. Deleting it will do no harm, FS will rebuild it next time you start FSregards,Joe

That is the scenery index file that is built when FS9 starts, if there is any changes. Deleting it will do no harm, FS will rebuild it next time you start FSregards,Joe

Hiya Joe,Thank you for the tip; it confused me at first (which probably sounds strange, since I've been playing FS in its different versions since 1995!). As for the issue at hand, I'm thinking that the only other course of action would be to uninstall and reinstall my FS. Will I have to reinstall all sceneries (both free and payware) that I've installed over the years? Or will they still be available upon reinstallation of FS? On a side note, I can't help feeling that something might be wrong with my video card, but nothing else on my computer appears to be affected.George

Not to keep hijacking this thread, but when it happened the last time, I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and it brought up the windows task manager info. Under the performance tab, it showed that fs9.exe was using about 90% of my CPU. Given that my CPU is a 3GHz processor with 2.5Gigs of RAM, is that possible/normal for FS9? If not, then this could explain the performance drop. My sliders in FS9 are not maxed out (not a single one), and I even downgraded my default clouds to a lower resolution. George

task manager info. Under the performance tab, it showed that fs9.exe was using about 90% of my CPU.

george:FS always wants to use 100% of the CPU .. ALWAYS.--

Not to keep hijacking this thread, but when it happened the last time, I hit Ctrl+Alt+Del and it brought up the windows task manager info. Under the performance tab, it showed that fs9.exe was using about 90% of my CPU. Given that my CPU is a 3GHz processor with 2.5Gigs of RAM, is that possible/normal for FS9? If not, then this could explain the performance drop. My sliders in FS9 are not maxed out (not a single one), and I even downgraded my default clouds to a lower resolution. George

Yes that's normal.Have you checked the temps as I suggested?