Guys, I need your help!!! I have a very serious problem with FS9, and youradvice would be more than welcome. My PC is an AMD XP 2400+, on a SoltekDRV-75 motherboard, with 768mb of DDR ram. I am using an ATI Radeon 8500128mb graphics card. I have installed FS9, and my graphics settings areapprox. 3/4 of maximum. The sim runs fairly good, giving me 15-30 fps, butthat is only when airborne! During take off, frame rate drops a little, butI could live with that. But as soon as the a/c touches down, fps drops to 1or 2, and of course everything ends there! That happens every time,especially when using PMDG 737NG, or any other add on aircraft. Could you help??!?? Why does this happento me??!?? I know that my pc is not the top of the line, but I consider itadequate for an average FS user. Thanks for your time.

1. Head on over to WWW.Viaarena.com and DL the latest set of Hyperion 4 in 1 drivers for your MB Chipset. Install these and than reboot.2. If not already doing so, go to WWW.Microsoft.com and DL and install DX9b. Follow this up with a reboot.3. Than go to WWW.Omegacorner.com and DL the latest 2496 "Leaked" Dell drivers for the 8500. Install these and than reboot.4. Follow this up with a good Defrag of your hard drive.5. Turn off AV software if running and close any programs in the start bar that are not needed for FS.6. Fire up FS9 and see if it makes a difference.I will tell you though that with your current VC, sliders at 3/4 is really pushing that card hard. Especially if your trying to run any AA or AF with it. Throw in aftermarket add-on aircraft and your really bringing that card to it's knees. If you are, try disabling AA and turn the resolution up a step or 2 to compensate.Hope this helpsBobby

Hi,Seems as if I have seen this same type of problem mentioned before and it was due to the type of joystick in use. Just out of curiosity what joystick are you using? Make sure you have the latest USB patch from MS installed, especially if you are using a USB joystick. I think it is available at the Windows Update web pages. Just my 2 cents.Jim

I am using a MS Force Feedback Pro, for which there are no drivers or patches available for WinXP Pro that I use, so it is auto-detected and installed. Do you really think that could be the problem or maybe a part of it??!?

Thank you very much FPSFREAK! Really! I will try everything you suggested and see what happens. Thanks again.

Hello Again,Yes, I have read before that the Force Feedback can cause this problem. And it was some time ago that I saw the post about it on another forum. I really cannot remember if there was a fix for it, but it was said that Force Feedback is actually uses quite a bit of resources. Your system isn't that anemic though, but I still tend to think this could be the problem. Maybe it is a problem with just the original MS Force Feeback stick? I use a USB MS Force Feedback Pro 2 and don't have any problem. The best way I can think of you to test if this is actually the problem is to try disconnecting the joystick and make a landing by using/flying airplane by keyboard only. Perhaps someone else who's actually had this problem will come along and tell you how to fix it if there is a fix?Jim

Ok, we did somethin good here! First of all, I did everything FPSFREAK suggested, and then I uninstalled my Force feedback pro. The result was, even though I slightly increased my fs9 graphics settings, it performed BETTER! Thanks for your help guys, and anything else you would like to add for my problem is more than welcome! I guess tomorrow morning I'm off to the store for the new Force Feedback Pro... or is there a better one (performance wise)???

I also use an original MS Forcefeedback Pro, and I also had the exact same problem. My machine is even less of a performer than yours. It's a 1 GHZ P-3, with 768 MB RAM. My video card is a NVIDIA GeForce3 Ti 500. I actually tried something else that you haven't. Not only did I reload DirectX 9.0b, but I reloaded FS9!. I know, that's radical. You don't lose your saved files though, just your key assignments. I had reloaded my NVIDIA graphics driver to an much older one (8/2002: 30.82) because my DVD player would give me errors on playing a DVD using the newer drivers. Anyway, the result was phenomenol! I went from a DFW busy airport frame rate of 7-9 FPS to about 15, and when I land it stays at about 15 instead of dropping to 1-2. Flying is limit up now. Maybe reloading FS9 reconfigured itself to the video card driver, I don't know. Anyway, good luck.

Hi Jim(Highpox1),That's a very nice and helpful first post! Thanks for trying to help out here. :)Jim

Regarding the comment Highpox1 made, what exactly do you mean by reloading? Uninstalling first and then re-installing fs9, or just re-installing over the existing installation???

ARARAT:You can't re-install over the existing program. It won't let you. When the first disk is placed in the drive, it comes up with the only option as "UNINSTALL". You do have an option on the right, however, to keep your saved files and other added aircraft. So, to answer you, you have to UNINSTALL FS9 first before you can INSTALL it again. The whole process takes about 20 minutes (depending on your CD drive read speed, etc.) I only lost my key and joystick assignments, and of course the display, sound settings. They go back to the original default modes. Maybe that was the difference, but I doubled frame rates at busy DFW. Actually the term 'busy' is relative too, since that depends on how many dynamics you want moving around. I think the default setting was lower than I originally had.