Hello there...This is what is going on with my FS9. First of all, here's my system spec.AMD Athlon XP 1800+ATI 9800 Pro All in Wonder 128MBSound Blaster Audigy 2512 MB DDR RAMWin XP Pro160GB HD.Direct X 9bATI Catalyst 3.10For the first month of receiving the card the game ran just fine. but past two to three days, I get Frame Rates of 1 FPS!! All of a sudden, it seems to run at that rate, I can't get it to go any faster. It will move 1 step in 1 second.BUT, if I just click on the Map View and then put in a Altitude and a speed, it runs relatively fine. the worst part is nothing has been changed, I haven't even installed any new software. I have re-installed FS9 3 times already. Each time, switching ATI Drivers, going to the old one, and then again to the new one, But no Luck. I also installed the latest DirectX version.Has anyone gone through a problem such as this? Any Suggestions? I don't want to format my HD. Since all my other games work just fine. Raven Shield, LOMAC etc.Thanks for your help in advance.Mihir

So No one has any idea on what could be wrong?Mihir

Hi Mihir,Is your graphics card being recognized correctly in FS2004?If not, you might try deleting any Display entries from fs9.cfg and running FS2004 again. Look for any redundant entries and duplicates and delete the lot.In mine it looks like:{DISPLAY.Device.RADEON 9800 PRO (Omega 2.5.04).0} <---N.B. Square brackets.Mode=1280x1024x32TriLinear=1Mike Edit: Also, you might try checking all is well with DirectX by running the diagnostics tool program: dxdiag.exe from START - RUN and then check out the Display tab. Be patient, the diagnostics tool can take a few moments to fire up.

Hi Mike,I did try the things you mentioned. All the DirectX test ran fine, and the Display line in FS9.CFG is accurate as well...Any other ideas??Mihir

Mihir,Just a thought, forgive me if I am being basic but have you tried removing the drivers totally, re-booting and reinstalling them?Andrew

Yes, actually thats what I did when I re-installed the Drivers.. removed them and re-installed them...I will try that again though... has anyone had problems with the catalyst 3.10 drivers?Mihir

Hi MihirHave you renamed the default.xml?Have you set Terrain_Use_Vectore_Objects to 0? Set AI traffic to 59% max. Decrease autogen. Decrease weather perhaps. Just a thought: If you'ld get a (very) decent CPU (min 2500), you could get much more out of your ATI. 1.8 GHz is not strong enough for that card. In case, I hope your mainboard will allow CPU-switch only, perhaps via BIOS upgrade. If not a 2.4/266MHz is the best you can get. Where I live, the 2.4GHz XP costs less than 95$. Good luck mateJaap

Hi Jaap,Don't forget, Mihir stated:"For the first month of receiving the card the game ran just fine. but past two to three days, I get Frame Rates of 1 FPS!! All of a sudden, it seems to run at that rate, I can't get it to go any faster. It will move 1 step in 1 second."Therefore, it does seem unlikely that his CPU is the issue here, unless, of course, it has recently developed a fault.Perhaps we should be asking, for example, how other games are performing or whether cooling has become an issue - check fans are all working.MikeEdit: Sorry, just noticed he did in fact confirm other games were fine. Therefore, the problem must be centered on FS2004 - something has changed - but what exactly? From his description it's almost as if something running in the background is taking priority and when he calls up the map view and resets a couple of parameters that priority is being returned to the sim for a time. I do remember trying the high prioritizing suggestion offered some time ago for FS9 to improve performance/reduce stuttering. This was okay so long as you did not need to switch to any other programs while the sim was running. You would grow old waiting ;)

Hi Mihir,Just another thought, but have you tried to defrag you hard drive. I have also read that the video card will not increase FPS, so you might want to look elsewhere.smorose

Hello There...Yes, I did defrag before doing the driver exchange etc... assuming that was at fault somehow. But That didn't work.I gave it a last shot last night.. I did let the default cessna takeoff, with all Display options to Minimum. It Did the 1FPS, and then finally managed to takeoff, the funny thing is as soon as it took off, the frame rates were smooth... and then they decreased right away to 1FPS as soon as I landed... so I thought it was something to do with the runway textures... so, I reinstalled FS9.But, same problem remained, try different seasons.. same problem remained. Here's something else that I did try...I started for the Vin Giz flight (the 2nd one in the Select Flight List)and that worked smooth for about 2 min. so, then I switched again to another select flight, this time I selected Defauly Meigs.. and it ran fine!! so, in High Hopes, I shut down FS9 and restarted.. but the problem came back... and remained!!! So, finally giving up hope...I'm going to format my HD tonight...Thanks for your suggestions... I have tried each of them with no results...something wierd must have gone wrong... Will see if this happens again.Mihir

I have the same problem, as you have mentioned, I drop down to 1 fps when approaching an airport. I just attributed it to my memory (I only have 256mb), if you overcome this problem let us know.My System:P4 1.5Intel 850MV MBATI 128 Pro with 32 mb120 gb Maxtor 7200 rpm HDsmorose