Hello and thanks for reading!I recently upgraded to WinXP (after reformatting my C drive) and updated drivers for my video card (geforce2 MX400), Motherboard, soundcard, joystick, rudder pedals, BIOS and mouse. Then when I installed FS9 I got extremely poor performance. I am not even talking about the flying part either! The menu screen at the beginning loads very very slowly and clicking between screens can take up to a minute! I sometimes am able to get flying but at about 6 FPS at best.I am at a loss to work out why I am getting such a poor response from FS9 because when I was on Win98SE I had no problems at all! When I have to hit CTL+ALT+DEL and look at performance history it claims that 100% of my system is being used for just the menu screens! Has anyone got any thoughts?

How much memory do you have installed on your computer? And what's your other computer specs, such as speed?-John

Ok, since you've already found the CPU usage statistic in the Task manager "Ctrl + Alt + Del" box, open it again. Go to the "processes" tab in that box. It should give you a list of all running programs (including background applications). There is also a "CPU" column that shows how much CPU power each program is using. More than likely you've got one rogue program that's using all of it. I've run in to the same problem when some programs become unstable and crash. If this is occuring right away every time you boot your machine, than something is definately rotten in Denmark.Joe Wagner

Blokes,thanks for the help. It is extremely appreciated! Something is very rotten in Denmark...and my system. Last night I decided to bite the bullet and re-install WinXP, format the C drive and have a cold shower. The combination of all three seemed to work. I now am getting 'normal' performance from FS9 but, hows this for a twist....you know how when you re-format the C drive from putting in the WinXP disk and re-installing the OS (well, that what I was under the impression I was doing) this morning when I had a look around my system I discovered that I had somehow managed to keep everything I had on my system! Very very odd.Still, I don't want to tempt fate too much by disturbing what ever delicate agreement my PC now has with the universe to operate 'normally'.Yours in nervous anticipation for the next crisis,Cameron

Yes, you can reinstall Windows XP without reformatting. As a matter of fact I did this myself a few months ago. My rotten luck things seemed to get worse after that so I wound up doing the full reformat deal anyway. Glad your system is back in operation again.Joe Wagner