Well, on take off anyway. Finally corrected the problem but it took all night.First, I downloaded RamIdle and WinTop as suggested in several posts. Nothing was running that wasn't supposed to. I set RamIdle to leave 125 Mb of RAM available. Tested my FS9 set up but still had the pauses on takeoff.Deleted FS9.cfg and rebooted. Tested again. Same problem. Pauses on takeoff.Finally, I removed my SoundBlaster Live card and all the associated files. I used Registry Clean Expert from ZDNet. I then completely removed FS9. Used registry clean expert again to remove any FS9 files lurking about.Did a complete Defrag. Did this twice. Reloaded FS9 complete. Set up my test flight at Seattle with the default settings except I set it to 1024 X 768 X 32. Tested with real world weather. Took off and NO pauses, no stutters. Ran 19.9 fps solid (locked at 20).Now, the big test. Set up again with the Cloudy and rainy weather theme. Took off and NO pauses, no stutters, and ran at 19.9 fps solid. The default settings look pretty good for now and I will continue to tweek slightly to get better looking clouds, etc., but for now I am very satisfied. Now, tomorrow I will attempt to fly a complete flight and actually LAND..... The forcast for arrival is stutters and low frame rates. I hope they're wrong. :-lolThanks everyone for all the tips. It has been very informational.See you on the Flight Line.

ADDENDUM:Just loaded up the Airport Environmental Upgrade, FSScene textures, and FSGenesis mesh + Landclass to FS9.Took off from my test airport, Seattle, in the default 737-400. I loaded up the r/w weather from MS, and set my frame rates to unlimited just to see what happened.Well, :-hah on take off my fps were in the mid 30s (around 35) and I experienced absolutely no stutters or pauses. As I turned left to 270 over the Sound I was getting fps rates in the 70s+ (Yes!, 70s plus) in the forward view. I even saw one fps at over 100. I think what really helped -- and it was suggested in one of the replies to my posts -- was to do a "real" register clean and defrag the PC. Reloading FS9 helped, obviously, as I defragged both before and after I reloaded it.All I can say is now I see what you guys are talking about! WOW! Tomorrow I will load up the PMDG 737-700 and take a flight just to see if I get pauses on arrival. Maybe not? We'll see.....:-wave

Steve,I have been following your posts and am happy to hear that you have fixed your problemGood Tailwinds,Daniel, CYCW

Hi,Yeah, I've been following your odyssey too. Seems like you've been through a living hell only to end up in heaven. :)Jim

That's great news. Now I'll have to find something else to follow around here! Have fun flying.Tony

Did you reinstall the SB card?

Yes! That's great, Steve. I have the same question -- did you reintall the sound card? Was the sound card the source of your troubles?Don S.

Hi Steve, GOOD NEWS!!!"All I can say is now I see what you guys are talking about! WOW! "Excellent!!ThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Great news. Enjoy.

It's taken all morning to reinstall all of my AI aircraft, Reg Clean again, and Defrag again. I'm about to do my final test.And, no, I didn't reinstall my SoundBlaster Live card. My AC97 sound system on my MoBo is 20 bit where the SoundBlaster Live card is 16 bit. Might invest in a new Audigy 2 care (24 bit) later but maybe not.

Good stuff!

So i am gathering that you just uninstalled the Soundblaster and let it use the on board AC97?? I may just try that!!! Thats what I have also on my Gigabyte board here.Hornit

That is great to here Steve! I know you had a hell of a time and glad to see yours works, mine always has worked well since day one, I guess I am one of the lucky ones!!

Interesting. I have an Audigy, and I still suffer stutters. My system isn't the slowest.. maybe its a creative issue. I'll have to try it later on today.

I got a Creative Sound Card, you can see in my Sig and I got no stutters.