All:I've had a 24-inch monitor for a few months now; I'm running an E6600 at 2.4GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 8800GTS with 320MB RAM. Needless to say, my machine struggles to run FS9 in native 1920x1200 - it can actually drop *below* 1 fps - such that it's just not worth it. So, what's the bottleneck? The GPU, the CPU or just the whole rig? Would getting *only* a new GPU make FS9 run smoothly (if so, how smoothly?) at native resolution? If so, what GPU - GTX275 any good?Looking forward to your thoughts.Nicolas in CYOW

All:I've had a 24-inch monitor for a few months now; I'm running an E6600 at 2.4GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 8800GTS with 320MB RAM. Needless to say, my machine struggles to run FS9 in native 1920x1200 - it can actually drop *below* 1 fps - such that it's just not worth it. So, what's the bottleneck? The GPU, the CPU or just the whole rig? Would getting *only* a new GPU make FS9 run smoothly (if so, how smoothly?) at native resolution? If so, what GPU - GTX275 any good?Looking forward to your thoughts.Nicolas in CYOW

If this machine drops the FPS BELOW 1fps in FS9, then there is something VERY wrong about it, not the hardware's fault (although it might be if broken). On my E8600+8800GT I was getting pretty much 40fps always @ 1600x1200, never ever going below 15fps.What are you doing with it that it would drop below 1fps? Set 10 layers of highres overcast cumulus clouds? Unimaginable.Anyway: new CPU, much help with the scenery and AI, new GPU - for crunching many clouds, especially when added AA/AF.

The bottleneck is the amount of video RAM. This is a known issue with the 8800 GTS 320 in particular. I've seen this problem with that exact card more times than I care to count.

I can concur to that, I've tested my FSX exactly with that - I have never managed to make FS9 do that, no matter what I loaded in it with >>512MB GPU<<, but with FSX, it was very easy to achieve and was measurable, that if GPU memory would be used up to 100%, it indeed used to drop below 1fps.And I used 1600x1200, rather than 1920x1200, my screen has then black bars on sides (prefer 4:3 than wide).

The bottleneck is the amount of video RAM. This is a known issue with the 8800 GTS 320 in particular. I've seen this problem with that exact card more times than I care to count.

I dont follow that guys, can you explain? He says FS9 not FSX right?256 and 320 versions were often times faster than the 512 version, perhaps at this resolution the 512 would have a leg up, but "1 FPS" does not point to the 320 vs. 512 being the issue.Heck, my old AGP Gainward TI4800 with 128mb vram didnt run any where near that slow, on a XP2600M @3.2Ghz, ran that until the Gainward 7900 chiped AGP card came along...Anyway, Benchmarks for the 256 vs 512 version on FSX are pretty much equal, doubtful the 320 was worse than a 256.http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...-X-SP2,782.htmlWas there a problem with the odd size memory and the controler?Clearly there is another issue.Go into safemode, uninstall your dsiply drivers. reboot and reinstall, start there.You might also consider deleting your old fs.cfg and starting FS to let it build a new one, you will of course have to re-adjust your settings from with-in the sim if re-installing the drivers fails to deliver. And report back.

HelloI had an 8800 GTS320 and can confirm that it is not very good in FS9, the card itself is let down buy the 320mb of memory.Complex addons easily maxed out the memory resulting in severe slowdowns as the card struggled to juggle textures.Your E6600 will easily do 3.2ghz and with something middle of the road such as an Nvidia 260 216sp you will easily see 40fps.Get a decent cooler and clock that E6600, I have an [email protected] with a NV260 and run 1900x1200 on a 27"dell 2707All sliders to the right 40% Mytraffic I get 50fps over seattle in the PMDG 737.Everything else runs locked at 60fps, the only addon that kills my frames is the Eaglesoft Beechjet, which is a shame because I love flying that plane

HelloI had an 8800 GTS320 and can confirm that it is not very good in FS9, the card itself is let down buy the 320mb of memory.Complex addons easily maxed out the memory resulting in severe slowdowns as the card struggled to juggle textures.Your E6600 will easily do 3.2ghz and with something middle of the road such as an Nvidia 260 216sp you will easily see 40fps.Get a decent cooler and clock that E6600, I have an [email protected] with a NV260 and run 1900x1200 on a 27"dell 2707All sliders to the right 40% Mytraffic I get 50fps over seattle in the PMDG 737.Everything else runs locked at 60fps, the only addon that kills my frames is the Eaglesoft Beechjet, which is a shame because I love flying that plane

Edited:Sorry, I think I side tracked this threadLooking at the FSX benchies at 1900x1200, with no AA the card is right up at the top, but as suggested try to add some AA even at 1620x1050 it tanks, still holding it own over a 512 mb 7800GTX but much further away from its own 640mb brother.http://www.tomshardware.com/charts/gaming-...-X-SP2,784.htmlUntill he gets a replacement, I would kick it down to 1620x1050 and limit it to either 2xAA or 4QxAA.

I think the problem lies in:1) high resolution2) textures - he might be using highres clouds, which do use more GPU memoryI did those tests on hand with FSX, and I noticed with normal clouds, usage around 300mb, then up to 4096 highres, started kicking 512mb limit.

I recently got a 24inch 1920x1080 monitor. I had my old 8800gts 512 in there and it def struggled with that resolution at 8xS AA and 16xAF (around 15-25 fps pretty much everywhere). I picked up a new GTX275 and my frames are back up, locked at 50 now, but could easily do 60. So it might be worth a shot.

Thanks guys for your replies; was ill the past few days so I didn't get a chance to reply until now. Regarding clouds, I am using ASv at 512x512, after all, but I don't think just that would be sufficient to bring my machine down to its knees. So I'll do run some more tests and perhaps eventually go with a new GPU as I suspect there are two culprits - card itself and video RAM.Regards,Nicolas in CYOW

All:I've had a 24-inch monitor for a few months now; I'm running an E6600 at 2.4GHz, 2 GB RAM and a 8800GTS with 320MB RAM. Needless to say, my machine struggles to run FS9 in native 1920x1200 - it can actually drop *below* 1 fps - such that it's just not worth it. So, what's the bottleneck? The GPU, the CPU or just the whole rig? Would getting *only* a new GPU make FS9 run smoothly (if so, how smoothly?) at native resolution? If so, what GPU - GTX275 any good?Looking forward to your thoughts.Nicolas in CYOW

Overclock to 3.0ghz and double your system memory will help.

Uninstalled driver and reinstalled presumably newer version (didn't pay attention as to what version the old one was); works surprisingly better now. Getting more than reasonable FPS in FS9 (i.e. around 30, at which it's limited); FSX really is CPU-dependent, though, as it still won't go above 15 FPS. Looks ugly too, for some reason, compared to FS9.Nicolas in CYOW