Hi everyone,Firstly, let me just say that I read all the threads about similar problems, but havent yet found a solution. I have a 2.08 AMD Athlon PC with 512MB or RAM, ATI Radeon 9000 graphics and a Creative SB Audigy soundcard.I recently upgraded to FS9 after a (reasonably) trouble-free FS2002 installation. In FS9, immediately I got lock-ups when switching to spot plane view. Also, FS9 always crashed to desktop or crashed to a standard 'report error to microsoft' dialogue box (it is always different modules that cause fs9 to crash in such cases). I updated the Radeon 9000 drivers to the newest ones available, and this fixed the spot plane view problem, but the other problems remain. After reading the various posts and trying everything said in them, I still havent found a fix. I have moved the soundcard to a different PCI slot to force a different IRQ to the graphics card, and also downloaded the latest drivers for the soundcard. I have even flown with the soundcard disabled, but still had a crash to desktop. I downloaded & installed the PCI Latency Patch for VIA chipsets, but still no fix. I experimented endlessly with graphics settings in both FS9 display options, and in Control panel's advanced display options, but still no fix. I have reinstalled, uninstalled and reinstalled FS9, but still no fix. I have a completely default FS9 installation, no 'No-CD' crack, no overclocked system etc.Any suggestions would be greately appreciated.Steve Carr

Hi Steve,You make no mention of your BIOS, I too had hard-lock-ups and crashto desk/Fltsim error panel.Crash to desk/error panel were caused by AGP Fast Writes being enabled.Hard Locks were caused by Video Bios Shadow being enabled.Since the adjustment I have had no problems of this nature.Steve

As long as youre in SmartGart ( to turn the FastWrites off ), turn the AGP to 4x.8X doesn't do a thing for your games except cause instability. I had to turn mine to 4x or CFS2 would freeze in flight. Since turning it down, I've had no freezing.Dick

Hi, thanks for your replies.I also thought about Video Bios Shadow, but I cant find it in the BIOS (maybe I didn't look hard enought, I'll try again) Where abouts is it?As for FastWrites, they're already off and AGP speed is already at 4x (I don't even have a higher setting, ie 8x).Regards&thanksSteve

Hi,In my BIOS 'Video Bios Shadow' is in Advance BIOS features, oddthing with my board is that you can't enable 4x AGP, its 8x and stuff ya luck...:-(Steve

Hi,No, still no luck with the BIOS 'Video Bios Shadow' setting - I looked everywhere in the BIOS and its nowhere to be found.Does anyone else have any ideas? I'd really appreaciate to hear any...Best,Steve