You're right on the 24 bit, except that on many LCD displays - even that may only be 18 bit, dithered. Yes - banding occurs at dusk or at night, and if I flew during those periods I might use 32 bit, but for me, who almost never flies at that time - it has ZERO effect, and that's the way I want it - so you can "No no and no" all you want freebird. :biggrin:I fully understand the vagaries of color depth - I've been a sysadmin for twenty-odd years, and electronics / airborne avionics - since 1960.

Your saying zero effect? I guess being a sys-admn hasn't done much for your eyes heh? just kidding..the average joe probably doesnt notice that much either.However if your doing graphics or are sensitive to banding (sorry but it still shows in the day time too) anything less than a real true color panel is useless (16.7 million - no dithering vs. so called 16.2 m color dithered panels) Still it is very subjective and also depends on your budget, but considering the monitor is what you'll be starring at all the time ...its worth considering what your actually getting.Cheaper panels have reduced color levels to deal with thier slower response times, lower the color level and the response time increases so with panels we are really talking 8bit vs 6bit color levels and as you say therre are a lot of them on the market.As with just about everything else you do get what you pay for, and a good true color monitor with a decent response time still aint cheap!IMO it s worth the extra cost since what you see is the sum of what all our hardware is there for (besides audio) , but to each his own.Frankly the best panels still cant really compare to a good crt, though some are quite good. I am pretty satisfied with the undithered, true color Dell 2408wfp.Cheers!

Ok, after installing SP2, I'm still facing the same issues. Again, should I be expecting more from my system or would this me "normal?"

Ok, after installing SP2, I'm still facing the same issues. Again, should I be expecting more from my system or would this me "normal?"

Your system should not have any problems at all with FSX at medium settings.I suggest downloading and installing the latest DirectX 9.0c runtime, and if that fails to change anything, a fresh format and reinstall of Windows is probably your next step.

Somethings screwed up.Not everyone's favorite option, but a format of the drive, reinstall of Windows, and reinstall of FSX might be in order.Once you get FSX installed, be sure to run it, then reboot it. Install SP1, run FSX, then reboot PC. Install SP2, run FSX, then reboot PC.Don't install any addons till default is working smoothly.

Ok, default is working relatively smoothly. I don't have any other add-ons besides the PMDG MD-11 and my new CS 727, but I haven't really started using that.Through my infinite wisdom, I forgot to mention that it was the PMDG MD-11 that was giving me problems. But even then, I expected my system to be able to handle that with most settings on low. And now, I don't know if it's actually low frame rates or stuttering. The in-game FPS counter says that I have an FPS of about 30-40, but everything's a slideshow. I have the external FPS limiter running and that helps, but there are times when the stuttering spikes to an unspeakable level.

If you get tired of messing with this and want your system tweaked to perfection, you might want to check out www.fs-gs.com It's a pay service but in my opinion, worth every penny.

If you get tired of messing with this and want your system tweaked to perfection, you might want to check out www.fs-gs.com It's a pay service but in my opinion, worth every penny.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I'm not sure if I am willing to pay for that kind of service.I guess I will try reformatting then.

Ok, so I reformatted and everything seems to be running smoother (could be placebo, dunno), but I can't get the external FPS limiter to work anymore. When I double click on the FPS_Limiter_GUI file, Windows doesn't recognize it and asks me what program I should open it with so I can't run it like I used to. What's worse is that I foolishly clicked WinRAR to open it and now I don't know how to revert it back to its original state. Now, I'm either forced to have "stutters" or low FPS from the default FPS limiter. Lovely.Anyone have a solution?