Attn: Steve Lewis

[Guest simnut]

Hey Steve....I'm glad to see ya running after all your frustrations with FS2004. Now we need to duplicate what you have done with all others that are having the same problems. As we can see with your situation, it was NOT FS2004, but the equipment running it. As mentioned, FS is very graphically intense, and we need finely tuned systems to run it. Not neccessarily very high end machines, but finely tuned. Did your FS performance improve substantially with the removal of the Soundblaster setup within your system? I think we will find that Soundblaster sound cards are generating a lot of the problems also. This again would be a hardware issue...not a Soundblaster/FS issue. Now, as I mentioned, what you have done would help many others frustrated with FS2004. Howzabout you doing a little tutorial on what you did? :):):) Just a point by point on what you did, and what software you used to accomplish "this amazing feat!!!" :):):) I think what you did would benefit EVERYONE , regardless the quality of the system.Oh, one more thing..........ENJOY FLYIN' DUDE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!HarrySimnut

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Simnut.I think you'll find it isn't the soundblaster hardware, but the software it uses.Operating system, background processes, and IRQ settings are the apparent cause of stutters, and systems running slower than expected.With the software under control, investing in one of the newer video cards seems to give the best bang for the buck, as far as hardware upgrades... but even the highest end systems will suffer if the software/OS environment is poor.In FS2002 this doesn't seem to be a big issue, but with FS2004, it makes quite an impact.Dick

[Guest simnut]

Hey Dick,I can't agree with you more. I have always been a firm believer in having your system running, tweaked to it's finest! We are asking a lot of our systems to run this FS, and the less "distractions" given to the system, the better. I always refer to the tweak sites, using proven info to help myself out with this. Soundblaster systems are known to cause problems with XP....even a bulletin posted on the MS site regarding this. Some call it a memory leak. I'm not saying the hardware is the issue, but the Soundblaster package, which of course includes the software or drivers. And the driver issue is an easy fix....SB needs to update the drivers. I would really like to take a poll with those who are having these stutter and low frame rate problems. See how many are running SoundBlaster, be interesting to see.I'm glad to see one more simmer being able to enjoy this great, but not yet perfect, FS! I am also happy to see how many people gave so much attention and effort to helping others.HarrySimnut

[Cruachan 705]

"Operating system, background processes, and IRQ settings are the apparent cause of stutters, and systems running slower than expected."Hi Dick,Yesterday evening, Friday, I was up aloft enjoying a flight in the Virgin Islands when quite abruptly the mother of all stuttering began during turns. I hadn't changed anything in the sim and after 10mins decided to quit and ponder, as you do! ;)I was running full screen and as a prelude to exiting the sim I did an ALT-RETURN to get back to a window and, guess what, Norton AntiVirus was executing a full system scan!Now hitherto my belief was that right clicking the icon and temporarily disabling Auto-Protect stopped Norton AntiVirus. Not so. What I hadn't realised was that during the installation of NA a year ago it was set up automatically to do regular full system scans once a week and yes, you're way ahead of me, that time is 1800hrs on Friday evenings.I waited for NA to complete the scan and then fired up FS again. Stutters gone, or at least back to the minor levels that existed before :)It's odd I never picked up on this before as I had often come back to my computer to find that NA had completed a scan. I just assumed that this happened automatically during a period of prolonged idling. It never dawned that this was happening regularly on Friday evenings! Idiot :(Anyway, investigation revealed that these settings can be changed/overridden to suit individual preference.Mike

[rhumbaflappy 113]

Hi Mike.On XP, system restore, auto updates, or file indexing can suddenly kick in!A simmer could add a gaming profile to eliminate almost all these processes, and that would help. Black Viper's site helps sort things out for XP:http://www.blkviper.com/Dick

[Cruachan 705]

Hey, thanks Dick I'll investigate.BestMike