Arthur, I've considered that. But, there are people who are saying that they are using SoundBlaster Live cards successfully with FS9. I downloaded the latest drivers from SoundBlaster but they didn't help me at all. I tried my test with the sound off and it still paused just like when it was ON. I guess I could remove the sound card and set up my onboard AC97 sound on my Mother board to be sure. Think I'll try that tonight. If I could just find the culprit for the pauses, I'd be very happy with FS9. There's only so many parts of the PC that could cause them: 1) Operating System: Win98S3 2) CPU: P4 2.4Ghz, 533 FSB 3) RAM: 512 Mb DDR333 4) Video Card: GeForce 4200 Ti 128Mb DDR 8X AGP 5) Sound Card: Sound Blaster Live!Steve

What kind of install did you do with FS9? I had read somewhere that if you do the default install it doesn't decompress all files...but then again this may be completely wrong...Using sysmon (or perfmon on XP) you should be able to monitor the fs9 executable and see what it does during the pauses - i.e. CPU spikes to 100%...during the pauses do you notice hard drive usage?http://saltydogfly2.avsim.net/images/avsim_sig.jpg"We are the music makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams."

Ken, I did the custom one which is the full install, I believe. I am going to delete FS9 and reinstall it tonight.

Also going to remove my SoundBlaster Live card and use the onboard AC97 sound to see if it's my sound card.

Steve,If you do install XP this weekend and want to use the Soundblaster cardmake sure you download the latest drivers for it because XP did have an issue with the Soundblaster cards. I hope that XP cures your ills. I have not run Win98Se in ages always worked well for me except for the Porked USB support. That is the only reason I moved up to WinME at least the USB worked well and that is about all.I love my WinXP!Good luck.Tony

Steve - Couple of things come to mind - the AGP aperture should be set to match the ram on your video card, assuming the mobo supports it. I think the TI4200 has 128 so I would definately change the AGP Aperture to 128.In addition to removing the SB Live card - go into DXDIAG and move the acceleration slider to none and see what happens.HTH,Vic

Here are my 2c Steve:If you have dx9.0b then there will be pause or infamous 1 frame issue with some joysticks...i got it on MS sidewinder1 and heard somebody having that in CH Pro yoke too. I resolved my problem by disabling FFB. You'll also have the problem if u have 2 joysticks connected.

What's FFB?

Force feedback