Hi Gary,Well, I'm popping this topic back to the top again with a new post, so let's see if any fanatic attacks us this time! :( I have been using FSX on Win7 Pro 64-bit since Monday night. I also got the new lower latency memory which I had ordered the next day, Tuesday, so I was pretty happy! The memory is a Kingston HyperX 4GB DDR3 (2x2gb) rated at 7-7-7-20. This reduced tremendously, the stutters I had experienced upon first install of FSX, and in fact, the stutters are negligent and quite small and occur rarely now. I may have also solved the CTD problem where clicking in the menu, like View, settings etc... eventually freezes and crashes FSX. I installed the recommended UIAUTOMATIONCORE.DLL from Vista and placed it into the FSX folder, did NOT register it as I want only FSX to use this. So far, one complete flight without any issues at all. But I am flying strictly the default airplanes and scenery without any addons at all, at this point, to test. I will see what will happen if I start installing add-ons. I have several add-on aircraft to buy (gradually, so I don't kill my budget), and add-on payware scenery. I also have some freeware scenery already downloaded and waiting. I am just afraid if these stutters may come back again. I hope not. They are not completely gone but are negligent and happen rarely now. I may still go to WinXP. I don't think 3.25GB RAM which is what my XP Pro sees out of my 4GB, is an issue at all. Stability is important too. So I continue to test on Win7 64. Tomorrow, I will do a trans-Atlantic flight and see how it goes with CTD and stutters. But the new RAM definitely helped enormously. I had posted a reply to an existing thread in the FSX CTD forum about this...John

John I would stick with W7 for awhile. The issues with W7 if any aren't related to smoothness and I am not sure that switching to XP will help you. Stutters will increase with heavy payware for sure. Try tuning your system to this post follow the Visat suggetions as W7 and Vista are related. Follow carefully. http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

John I would stick with W7 for awhile. The issues with W7 if any aren't related to smoothness and I am not sure that switching to XP will help you. Stutters will increase with heavy payware for sure. Try tuning your system to this post follow the Visat suggetions as W7 and Vista are related. Follow carefully. http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

I use Vista64 and fly PMDG aircraft almost exclusively. I chose Vista as I wanted the beauty of DX10 Preview that isn't available if you stick with XP (32 or 64). Some have issues with DX10 Preview, but for me, I think it looks fantastic and definitely improves my frame-rates - I mean like 50%!Just IMHO and all that, and your mileage may vary. :( I agree with Gary above then - Win7 64 or Vista 64 (I'll probably be upgrading to Win7 soon as I'm hearing good things about it and hearing of slight memory management improvements).Enjoy! Cheers!

John I would stick with W7 for awhile. The issues with W7 if any aren't related to smoothness and I am not sure that switching to XP will help you. Stutters will increase with heavy payware for sure. Try tuning your system to this post follow the Visat suggetions as W7 and Vista are related. Follow carefully. http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

Hi Gary, Thanks for your info. I had looked at NickN's suggestions but I lost patience with the ridiculous bugs and stuttering with W7-64. Last night, I installed FSX in WinXP 32 and right off the bat, it is as smooth as ever. Not even ONE hiccup. I will continue testing today. But FSX was stuttering even with 100% default scenery and planes in Win7-64. I will stick with XP. I want to enjoy FSX, not make a bloody career out of how to "coax" it this way or that way to see IF it works or not if it is in a good mood in Win7. As you can see from the previous post from Mr. Midnight, he is having the same crappy issues. And as for DX10 preview - it created more problems than it solved and the framerates did NOT improve in Win7. I had done a complete re-install of the latest version of the NVidia drivers (196.21) and had the previous 191.x before. I had also re-installed DX11 in Win7-64 - no change. My number keys lose functionality on the keyboard and it is enough.I will see how it is in WinXP. I have not flown much as I was fed up of doing nothing but FSX trouble-shooting all week (since Monday night) and decided to go back to "life" for a change. I will test more today but already, the fact that there is not even a hint of stutters is amazing. Also, my Video card (see my signature) only has 256MB (not 512 as I had erroneously posted earlier), so this will have to be changed too. I am seriously considering getting an ATI (Asus) HD5770 - the best bang and most energy efficient card I've seen for the buck.**QUICK EDIT NOTE: I think trying to insist on using FSX on an OS for which it was not designed is not only a waste of time, but delusional ... at least for now, until perhaps, SP1 for Win7 may fix some issues as you had mentioned earlier. Let's not forget this fact: FSX is a "finicky" program. I have seen the same nonsense in FSX so far, that FS2004 had. NO wonder Microsoft closed down Aces Studios. I also remember posts on AVSIM back in 2006 asking, "is this the best MS can do with FSX, after all the waiting?" - these posts are at least partially right. But the scenery (and I'm talking default, not even add-ons) is truly stunning. Also, FSX is a 32-bit program which is not an ordinary one, but one which is very sensitive to small "imperfections" in the system. Whatever these imperfections is not my problem, but MSs problem. Why? Because I am positive that FSX still has "old code" and bugs in it carried over from FS2004. Otherwise, it would run much better with everything maxed out. It was not designed for Win7 but for Vista and even though they are similar, Win7 and Vista are also VERY different-so have no illusions about it - Win7 is NOT Vista. WinXP is a mature, tried and tested OS. It is not perfect, but certainly proven. FSX was meant to run on 32-bit XP or 32-bit Vista (and perhaps 64-bit XP), NOT on 64-bit Win7. I will know how many of these so-called "bugs" were due to Win7 and how many were truly FSX ones, when I do further testing in WinXP. But my hopes are very high. That is my 2 cents worth anyways.John

I use Vista64 and fly PMDG aircraft almost exclusively. I chose Vista as I wanted the beauty of DX10 Preview that isn't available if you stick with XP (32 or 64). Some have issues with DX10 Preview, but for me, I think it looks fantastic and definitely improves my frame-rates - I mean like 50%!Just IMHO and all that, and your mileage may vary. :( I agree with Gary above then - Win7 64 or Vista 64 (I'll probably be upgrading to Win7 soon as I'm hearing good things about it and hearing of slight memory management improvements).Enjoy! Cheers!

What was that you were saying about XP64 Just yesterday? http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=276508"posters - they simply do not have their facts straight and/or are handing out old advice that no longer applies. It is 2010 - go forward (Win7-64) not backward (XP64) It would be a potentially expensive and limiting mistake to go backwards to XP." :(

John I would stick with W7 for awhile. The issues with W7 if any aren't related to smoothness and I am not sure that switching to XP will help you. Stutters will increase with heavy payware for sure. Try tuning your system to this post follow the Visat suggetions as W7 and Vista are related. Follow carefully. http://www.simforums.com/forums/forum_posts.asp?TID=29041

Hi Gary and Shockwave and everyone who had made suggestions to me on this thread,I just finished my first "long" flight test using add-on airport scenery and it went perfectly. I thought I'd post an 'update'... Certainly not 100% but perfect when compared to the mess I had in Win7 - 64.I am using WinXP 32-bit for now, on the same PC (dual-boot) and did a flight using the following add-ons (still adding gradually as you might expect, as there is a lot to do...):(1) MONTREAL CYUL from BluePrint Simulations (payware)(2) PARIS LFPG airport from Aerosoft (Mega-Airport Paris) payware(3) Active Sky Advanced(4) PMDG 747-400X I have not bought a new video card yet. Waiting a bit to have the money. Frame rates were about 8-12 on the ground when taxiing at the two airports, though in the air, frame rates shot up to a minimum of 30 and up to perhaps 50 or more. NO stutters, not a single crash to desktop at all, not a single freeze or malfunctioning keys on the keyboard like I had with Win7-64. I did a lot of minimizing of FSX to look at features of ASA and switched views and even rotated views. A slight stutter sometimes when rotating but hardly noticeable and not persistent. Taxiing was good - so I've heard that it may be called a "smooth 10fps" which is great since stutters make it impossible to concentrate or do anything. There were occasional and temporary loss of textures around the gear and engines of the PMDG 744 when I switched views but they got "filled in" within a few seconds. My video card is slow (8600GT) and has only 256MB of memory so this may be the reason. Also, I wanted to see how the "base" performace was without doing any of NickN's tweaks, so no tweaking of the FSX.CFG has been done yet. Finally though, I did use the USERVA=2816 switch (rather thant the 3072 switch which would be the "recommended" one for my 256MB video memory. No OOMs and memory usage was around 1.8-2.2GB and stable (I have 4GB physical RAM).John

Finally though, I did use the USERVA=2816 switch (rather thant the 3072 switch which would be the "recommended" one for my 256MB video memory. No OOMs and memory usage was around 1.8-2.2GB and stable (I have 4GB physical RAM).John

Hi John, great to hear you are happy. Just clarification for others that may be reading along; 2816 is what I would recommend seting for a 256 card. 3072 would be the same as not setting a userva at all as the 3/GB switch is 3072 without the userva command.

Hi John, great to hear you are happy. Just clarification for others that may be reading along; 2816 is what I would recommend seting for a 256 card. 3072 would be the same as not setting a userva at all as the 3/GB switch is 3072 without the userva command.

Thanks Gary for the clarification. Of course, it makes sense that, if the maximum amount is used, it is the same as the 3GB switch...I am still curious about what could have been with Win7-64. I do get a little "sound stutter" when panning external fixed or reg. spot view for example. These issues seem to be "amplified" perhaps (?) in my Win7. But seriously, the stability is what I need and what everyone needs so we can go on with learning more about flight techniques and enjoying the scenery of FSX and of our add-ons!IN the future, I may try Win7 again but I will wait to see if an SP1 for Win7 (as you mentioned I believe) or maybe even other updates to FSX if any, may significantly improve FSX performance and eliminate bugs in Win7 platforms.Thanks again.John

Thanks Gary for the clarification. Of course, it makes sense that, if the maximum amount is used, it is the same as the 3GB switch...I am still curious about what could have been with Win7-64. I do get a little "sound stutter" when panning external fixed or reg. spot view for example. These issues seem to be "amplified" perhaps (?) in my Win7. But seriously, the stability is what I need and what everyone needs so we can go on with learning more about flight techniques and enjoying the scenery of FSX and of our add-ons!IN the future, I may try Win7 again but I will wait to see if an SP1 for Win7 (as you mentioned I believe) or maybe even other updates to FSX if any, may significantly improve FSX performance and eliminate bugs in Win7 platforms.Thanks again.John

I migrated from XP 32 and I am very happy with Win 7 64 ultimate, I notice no great diference in FPS and smoothness, but a great advance in loading time, In XP, FSX loading time is 14 minutes, and aircraft loading time is 30 seconds, in Win 7, 6 minutes and 11 seconds respectively.- Both FSX installs are identical.-

I migrated from XP 32 and I am very happy with Win 7 64 ultimate, I notice no great diference in FPS and smoothness, but a great advance in loading time, In XP, FSX loading time is 14 minutes, and aircraft loading time is 30 seconds, in Win 7, 6 minutes and 11 seconds respectively.- Both FSX installs are identical.-

Thanks for the info soldano. But I'm curious, what kind of add-ons are you using in FSX? -Planes, scenery, textures/mesh, airports etc...?John

Thanks for the info soldano. But I'm curious, what kind of add-ons are you using in FSX? -Planes, scenery, textures/mesh, airports etc...?John

Well, the list is big, but I can mention the most used: Utilities: Radar contact, Active Sky, Ultimate Trafic 2, Flightsim Commander.- Aircraft: PDMG B 747/400, MD 11, Jetstream: Capt Sim B 757. B 767; Pic B 737; Level D B 767, Comercial Level B747/200: FSD Navajo: Carenado Piper Seneca; Cessna 182, etc etc.- Addon Scenery, the list is to big to detail, but I can tell I have 376 areas active at scenery.cfg.-

I agree totally. The system I use is XP 64 for FSX (default & add-on acft including Flight1 Mustang), right now for me W7 64/FSX is a waste of time because it can not be trusted to complete a flight without crashing either FSX or windows resulting in a re-boot and message saying you will be notified when a fix is known. Great stuff when Microsoft products don't even work with each other.System 1 is Win XP 64 with one HHDSystem 2 is Win 7 64 with one HHDSystem 3 is Win XP 32 Home Editioni7 950 3.06G 45N

Well, the list is big, but I can mention the most used: Utilities: Radar contact, Active Sky, Ultimate Trafic 2, Flightsim Commander.- Aircraft: PDMG B 747/400, MD 11, Jetstream: Capt Sim B 757. B 767; Pic B 737; Level D B 767, Comercial Level B747/200: FSD Navajo: Carenado Piper Seneca; Cessna 182, etc etc.- Addon Scenery, the list is to big to detail, but I can tell I have 376 areas active at scenery.cfg.-

Thanks for the info. Two weeks ago was the last time I have flown FSX on my WinXP 32, because last week was busy for me (new laptop - my first laptop ever-love it! ... so I was playing with my new "toy" :) ). But the last flight was also a fairly long one, from Paris CDG LFPG (Aerosoft scenery as before) to Istanbul Ataturk (freeware scenery-amazing detail!) LTBA. Again, running Active Sky Advanced and using the PMDG 747-400X and again, no issues whatsoever. Perfect! No stutters, no CTDs, and memory usage was also good, as before with the previous Trans-Atlantic flight. This week, I will start learning the new Cessna Citation X version 2 by Eaglesoft which I had bought 2 weeks ago and will probably do a flight, so I'll see how that goes.John

Hi John, to clarify my preference, it is for XP-64. I am recommending to you that you try W7 because you have the 64-bit version already. My general preference is therefore for a 64-bit system. I think what made you think I preferred XP was my comment if you have troubles with W7 then install it on XP (because you said that you have XP). I may have also given you the impression that I prefer XP due to my statement that FSX was designed on XP (and it was). My preference is XP-64 for FSX. 64-bit due to memory issues with the 32-bit system. FSX is prone to exceeding the 2GB limit on virtual address spacing. These limits are raised to 4GB in the 64-bit system (FSX is a 32-bit program and cannot access the 8TB or whatever W7-64 is capable of managing with a program written in 64-bit code). My second preference is for W7-64 with hopes that the user does not experience the texture loss issues.There are a number of individuals that are experiencing a loss of texture or loss of graphics with FSX and W7. There are more people that use W7 without problem than those with (specific comment related to FSX when used with W7). However if you are one of the unlucky ones that experiences this graphics or texture loss issues there is currently no known cure. Several W7 users consequently switched back to XP-64.See as typical example there are many more: http://forums1.avsim.net/index.php?showtopic=249782I have experienced no issues in finding 64-bit drivers but will add that XP-64 is pass its age and for XP-64 drivers are becoming scarce as more developers make drivers for W7.

Hi Gary,Well, after getting repeated texture loss issues in Windows XP 32-bit, even AFTER tweaking the fsx.cfg to Nick's and Bojote's suggestions, after installing bojote's graphics shaders version 3... I just finished my first test flight in Windows 7 64-bit. This was my original idea in any case, back in February.But I realized that I was rather "naive" to think that my current hardware, specifically my GRAPHICS CARD of back then, would be OK with FSX. I got stutters no matter what, even with 4GB of Kingston HyperX matched memory sticks. I used to have an NVidia 8600GT with just 256MB memory. Now, I have an ATI 5770 with 1GB. The GPU is also set via the "auto-tune" function of the ATI Catalyst Control Centre (CCC) and is running at a max GPU speed of 400 min. 950MHz max (I think, as CCC has set values in the high performance values settings to these but current values to 400Mhz/1255), with a core memory clock of 1255MHz. No stutters AT ALL!Here is my test flight: The same flight I did in WinXP/32, but WITHOUT Radar Contact as there was a delay in my sending the new registration key request to RC support via email. EHAM - EGLL: Mega Airport Amsterdam X by Aerosoft; Heathrow X by UK2000 (demo); PMDG 744X, Active Sky Evolution (Beta 614). Even when I tested FSX without ASE and even with the default scenery/aircraft, there were no stutters. I remember that I had gotten stutters back in Feb. almost right away after take-off from a default airport, with the default 744. So it looks like the video card was the big difference here. I have not even tweaked ANYTHING yet in the FSX.CFG except the wideviewaspect=True. The TextureBandwidthmulti is still at the default 40 etc... And I did not install Bojote's shader version 3 models yet. NO disappearing cockpit with the PMDG at all and not a single missing texture during take-off from Amsterdam, nor during landing at Heathrow. The frame-rates at Amsterdam were 10-16fps which is typical for this new scenery which Aerosoft has asked the developer to issue patches for performence, and at London they were around 20fps - both when taxiing. So I WAS right in going to WinXP in February but only partially. I did not realize that it was most likely my weak GPU on the 8600GT which probably caused these bad stutters. By the way, my installation of Windows 7 has not been re-installed or changed since February, so it is the same Win7/64 install since I first installed it back in December 2009.Looks great so far! Just thought you might want to know how I am doing. And for those of you who want to go to Win7/64 but are unsure, my experience should hopefully help you.John

Hi Gary,Well, after getting repeated texture loss issues in Windows XP 32-bit, even AFTER tweaking the fsx.cfg to Nick's and Bojote's suggestions, after installing bojote's graphics shaders version 3... I just finished my first test flight in Windows 7 64-bit. This was my original idea in any case, back in February.But I realized that I was rather "naive" to think that my current hardware, specifically my GRAPHICS CARD of back then, would be OK with FSX. I got stutters no matter what, even with 4GB of Kingston HyperX matched memory sticks. I used to have an NVidia 8600GT with just 256MB memory. Now, I have an ATI 5770 with 1GB. The GPU is also set via the "auto-tune" function of the ATI Catalyst Control Centre (CCC) and is running at a max GPU speed of 400 min. 950MHz max (I think, as CCC has set values in the high performance values settings to these but current values to 400Mhz/1255), with a core memory clock of 1255MHz. No stutters AT ALL!Here is my test flight: The same flight I did in WinXP/32, but WITHOUT Radar Contact as there was a delay in my sending the new registration key request to RC support via email. EHAM - EGLL: Mega Airport Amsterdam X by Aerosoft; Heathrow X by UK2000 (demo); PMDG 744X, Active Sky Evolution (Beta 614). Even when I tested FSX without ASE and even with the default scenery/aircraft, there were no stutters. I remember that I had gotten stutters back in Feb. almost right away after take-off from a default airport, with the default 744. So it looks like the video card was the big difference here. I have not even tweaked ANYTHING yet in the FSX.CFG except the wideviewaspect=True. The TextureBandwidthmulti is still at the default 40 etc... And I did not install Bojote's shader version 3 models yet. NO disappearing cockpit with the PMDG at all and not a single missing texture during take-off from Amsterdam, nor during landing at Heathrow. The frame-rates at Amsterdam were 10-16fps which is typical for this new scenery which Aerosoft has asked the developer to issue patches for performence, and at London they were around 20fps - both when taxiing. So I WAS right in going to WinXP in February but only partially. I did not realize that it was most likely my weak GPU on the 8600GT which probably caused these bad stutters. By the way, my installation of Windows 7 has not been re-installed or changed since February, so it is the same Win7/64 install since I first installed it back in December 2009.Looks great so far! Just thought you might want to know how I am doing. And for those of you who want to go to Win7/64 but are unsure, my experience should hopefully help you.John

HelloXP 64 all the way , zero problems Can anyone running W7-64 truly state that it has zero issues with FSX and FS9And yes I was an early adopter of W7-64 but it is no faster than XP64 (looks prettier though).The only problem with XP64 for anyone wanting to give it a go is actually trying to buy itThere are no copies available retail now, on Ebay it brings higher prices than W7 such is the demand for it.

Can anyone running W7-64 truly state that it has zero issues with FSX and FS9

(Raising my hand...)With the exception of the well publicized scenery adding glitch, I have had no observable problems under W7 + FSX.