JimmiG,Sorry to disappoint you, but I've been running FS2004 for well over a month (for the AVSIM review) and have logged nearly 100 hours of flight-time to date on my system (AMD 1.2Ghz, ATI 9700 Pro 128MB, 512MB SDRAM, and 133 motherboard). Not one single problem you've listed have I experienced!I was experiencing a lockup problem, but that was occurring before I ever installed FS2004! That has subsequently been corrected (drivers).Bear!

The flickers yes, hopefully there will be a fix.I don't monitor fps but there is no doubt FS2004 is much smoother for me. Feels like I upgraded the cpu.I was worried too as CFS3 I thought a disaster.However I am trying to curb my enthusiasm a little as I ponder the effects of a few addons.Steve

G'day JimmieWhy would you say ATI has the issue.Microsoft have been developing this thing for over a year at least and still idn't bother to check compatability with the latest ATI driverset before going gold.Or if they did they chose to ignore any problems they may have seen.Seems once again that in the rush to get the product out the door MS forgot the QC checks with the most powerfull vid cards around.By the way if you sell your 9700 you won' need to worry about the sound effects in FS2004 as you will have the screaming jet noise coming from the cooling fans in the FX5900!Have funDArren Howie

No problems whatsoever. 16x AF, 4xAA, 1600 x 1200, fastwrites enabled, AGP8x, Cat 3.6. Here is the key--you MUST reinstall DX after any driver upgrades. After that, all is well, smooth as silk, crazy nice image quality--and all this on a Granite Bay board!Noel

>By the way if you sell your 9700 you won' need to worry about>the sound effects in FS2004 as you will have the screaming jet>noise coming from the cooling fans in the FX5900!Total BS!You are confused with the very short lived FX5800. 5900's do not have that problem in the least, not the NV reference version nor any other, in fact many run quieter than a GF4, some like the Asus FX5950 have a two piece all copper HS, with two silent fans, while only taking up one slot.

My experience is much like Bill - flashing during loading and menu useage, but very, very smooth in general with similar settings. I too peg the fps at 20 and like the results very much. Certainly not unplayable by any stretch - in fact, I really think the sim looks outstanding. I have a Radeon 9700 Pro, in a Dell Dimension 8100 upgraded to 2.6/400fsb with 764 megs of RAMBUS memory. I am interested in the mip-mapping of trees however. It's not an issue during summer time. But the bare branch treens of winter shimmer like crazy...Colin

Im running a 9700 Pro latest drivers, AMD-XP2400 processor and have FS9 running at a constant 25 fps with no probs at all.