I've been through all the countless "tweaks" for liberating resources for Flight Simulator. I had to, as my hardware is hardly state-of the-art.I recently came across a tip on this forum and thought I'd lose nothing by trying it out.Apologies for those who already use this procedure.Have a look on http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...kb;en-us;331796You may have to copy and paste this link to get it to work.I tried it on Windows ME and the effect was nothing less than dramatic.Stutters are gone and fluidity is much improved. Scenery and aircraft textures now load in much faster and frame rates average 30 fps (previously 15-20).I decided to put the tweak through its paces.Flew Captain Sim's 727-200 (complex aircraft and panel) and set up some filthy weather (present Geneva weather :( ).Never really liked to use too much weather because of the dismal fluidity it produced.Very happy to report that I seem to have a totally new sim now.Even though the frame rates dropped to 18-20 in complex clouds, fluidity was unaffected, even in steep turns!! The usual jerky landings are gone and taxiing in to the gate is now as smooth as silk. Wonderful!Sorry I sound so enthusiastic, but I am now the proverbial happy puppy.Using "About Windows" in Windows Explorer used to show 64% resources available. The clean boot shows 96% free!! No wonder. Make sure you use the instructions relevant to your Windows version!No problems to report with the revised selective start-up and the return to the normal setup.What a difference!!Dell 8200 1.7mhz P4512MB RAMGeForce 3 64MB

This was mentioned a week ago in the Hangar Chat forum.I'm using XP and I've d/l and installed it and agree with Calypso - it does make a difference. Maybe not as dramatic as with Calypso's system but certainly enough to be noticeable .I'm running with the fps locked at 30 and most things maxed.Previously a typical setup at a "major" airport would drop things to the high teens( 15-19) now runs at more like 18-22 fps .Also generally smoother at all times ( not just FS9)DaveSystemAMD Athlon 2000XP (@133/133)ECS K7S5A Mobo 3.1 :04/29/02 Rev BiosSiS 735 Chipset Rev 12 x 256mb DDR RAMGeforce4 Ti-4200-8x 128mb DDR AGPAGP 1.17 WHQL . 5216 Detonator XP Drivers2 x Maxtor 40GB HDD (7200rpm)LG 8x4x32 CDRWLG 52x CDRDirect X 9.0 Windows ME(FS2002)/ Windows XP(FS2004) dual bootBIOS Settings- DRAM Timing Ultra. CAS Latency 3T,RAS ACtive 6T,RAS Precharge 3TL1 Cache Enabled.L2 Cache Enabled.Sys BIOS Cache Disabled.DRAM Drive Slew Rating - Fast

Thank you for the link, John. I'm still using FS2002Pro with Win98SE and am always on the lookout for aides to improve my simming performance. I printed out the instructions for Win98SE will be giving them a shot this afternoon.More computing resources is always better! -Lindy :-rotor:-wave

I tried the link and it says it's unavailable. Can you direct us somewhere else for this? Thanks.

That is one of the reasons I wrote FSAutoSTart - which allows you to shutdown programs and service before launching Flight Sim.

>I tried the link and it says it's unavailable. Can you>direct us somewhere else for this? Thanks.Do not click on the link, cut and paste it into your browser address window. The semicolon in the link is being interpreted as a separator - so when you click on it everything after the semicolon is ignored.-michael

Here it is in the Hanger Chat forum. I do not know why it got moved. :-hmmmhttp://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho..._id=11448&page=Ken can you tell me the relation of your program and this tweak?ThanksJayedit: forgot the link.

I'm not sure why the article does not show FS9 on the game list only the order flightsims.In the past I have used selective start up to trouble shoot problems but never ran the new FS9 after. Even though it is not on the list I will give it a try. Thanks for the tip.KSPI

My program allows you to shut down programs and services, basically getting your computer to a clean state. Of course you can do this manually, but this program automates it. Like the EnditAll program, except that my program can automatically restart all the programs you had shutdown after you are finished flying.

Ken, I like the idea of your program better then the other tweaks as I already have selected startup and do not wish to loose my settings.My question to you is (keep in mind I just downloaded your software. Not even installed or read the readme file).I want to make sure before I do anything...You say your program runs like end it all, so I assume all these changes are temporary and when I restart my system it will be with my previous settings.In other words, is there any chance your program can change my system settings permanently.Ron

Before folks start Windows 2000 and XP optimizations/tweakfest I suggest a review of my earlier discoveries regarding tweak preparation.http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...&mesg_id=174088-Todd

I've mentioned this philosophy in many of my posts, most recently last week. Ken's program is a great help, but I need to reiterate something I discussed before which is important.Many programs once started will rob your system of memory and resources (the two are different critters in terms of the O/S) EVEN if they are terminated. You still gain by terminating them, but not as much as you would if they don't start to begin with.If you are a hardcore simmer and seek every ounce of performance, you need to learn about/investigate what's "under the hood" of your O/S. The small amount of investment reaps huge dividends, as the author of this thread notes.One case study of this dates back several years, when I first bought my keyboard. My keyboard has many nice "extras"...a volume control and even programmable buttons for one keypress retrieval of email or program launching. I had long since installed it and the software that came with it, when I noticed a regular hesitation in MSFS (in those days it was FS98). Every 2-3 seconds there would be a measurable pause--and it sure killed FS98's fluidity. So I started backtracking through all the startup vectors like those mentioned in the KB article, and I found an application that was called something like keybmgr... I terminated it, and still the stutter continued.But then I removed it from the registry "Run" vector, and the difference was like night and day in MSFS. I lost the means to control volume and pull of email with one keypress, but I gained what seemed like twice as much fluidity in MSFS...Mileage and performance increases vary by O/S, but this thread details a common sense approach to getting a system "lean" and "mean" for MSFS. If you don't feel technical enough to dig into what's loading, Ken's program is a good choice, although you may not gain as much in the way of RAM and resources as you would had the applets not started to begin with...-John

It makes no permanent changes to your system.

Yeah it is true that you may not gain as much as if the programs had not loaded in the first place. This may be because memory has become fragmented and dlls may still be loaded in memory. I am looking into adding a memory defragger and forcing dlls to unload before starting flight sim in the program.Mainly I wrote the program because the computer I use for Flight Sim is my main computer for email, surfing, etc. So instead of setting up a clean system, I wanted to be able to easily shutdown my anti virus, browser, email, etc., then play Flight Sim, and have everything start back up for me automatically.BTW, my program can be used to launch ANY program, not just Flight Sim. So it can be used for any other games where you would like to have a lean system before running the game.

When I first got XP, I set up a seperate boot configuration for gaming in which I disabled all the services according to blackvipers's tweak guide. I did it as a seperate boot config becuase I assumed that those services must have some reason for exsisting and that I might need to boot to the standard config in order to perform specific tasks other than gaming. In fact, I've never had any reason to do so. I use the game config boot 100% of the time and have never had a problem running any programs or performing any tasks including internet, image editing, installing hardware or peripherals...I did the tweak this thread refers to this AM and I do notice a slight improvement in FSCOF and everything else seems to work fine too. Which leads me to wonder, what the hell ARE all those services anyway?