I was having a whole hockey sock full of problems with FS9. I had major stuttering, crappy frame rates, and a lot of brown and blue texture patching(even with multi_ set to 400 in config). I do have a lot of add-ons. I was ready to do a re-install, and then I decided to try one more thing. I increased my monitor resolution to 1600x1200x32, changed FS9 resolution to the same, and I was amazed at the difference. The sim ran liquid smooth, and I had frame rates(unlocked) in the mid 30's over Las Vegas. I have most sliders to the right, Chris Willis performance clouds, modified Autogen file and run in full screen mode. Even when there were a lot of clouds and the frame rates dropped into the teens, It was still pretty smooth. I have an XP2700, Radeon 9600 Pro, 768 mb PC2700 DDR RAM, and a 19" monitor. The optimum resolution for my monitor is 1280x1024@85hz so I always kept my desktop and FS9 at this resolution. The monitor is capable of 1600x1200@70 hz. I no longer required any AA or AF at the higher resolution, and I think this was what made the difference. It takes less resources to run in a higher resolution with no AA and AF than at a lower one with a lot of AA and AF. Also the WinXP refresh rate bug defaults games to 70 hz, which the higher resolution runs at anyway, so I don't need fixes such as RTool, Refresh Force etc anymore. This is probably not any major revolation for most of you, but for any one who is not aware of this and has a monitor and video card capable of running at a higher resolution and is running FS9 at lower resolutions and is having problems, I highly suggest trying this. It certainly worked for me!

Boris, thanks for the insight. On its surface, raising the resolution is counter-intuitive, but when I think about it, your explanation makes a lot of sense. I'll give it a try as well!Chris