Hi,I am more and more disappointed by way FS2004 handles graphics and sounds. Some days ago I sold my brand new Geforce FX5600 XT which was obviously too weak for FS9. I purchased a Sapphire 9600 XT 128 MEG. With the Geforce I had acceptables 30 Fps with clear weather but with real clouds enabled the frame rate was going down to 5 even 4 fps,..... a shame, indeed for a so called state of art software. Displays options were set at 50% for almost every settings . With the Sapphire 9600 XT I went to an asthonishing 75 Fps with everything at 100% in the display setting and DX 3D settings at max too, I mean eveything set for quality and not for performances. That was the good news. A great news. But there came the BAD news, a really BAD news. I still had the same damned STUTTERS ( program should be called M$ Stutters simulator) and would say even more than with the Geforce. Very small ones ( micro stutters) but a lot, on every turn.I was just close to threw my three networked computers, my real Short 360 cockpit, my control cards everything through the windows and at that moment it was good that Mrs. Gates was not in front of me. So, I slept one night and this morning 1 woke up with a really stupid idea in my head. Very stupid. Yesterday I tried every possible settings and tweaks discovered in 123 ( HUNDRED TWENTHIEH THREE ) threads on avsim forums concerning stuttering and Radeon cards issues. Search keys: ATI Radeon - Stutters - FS2004. Nothing was helpfull. Every Graphic Guru advice failed. I still had unacceptables stutters. I must say that as an X-Plane fan I had to go with M$ fs9 because I was building my cockpit and X-plane is not that easy to link to real cockpit items as FS ( thanks FSUIPC) is. So back to my stupid idea of the morning. It was simply to TURN OFF the SOUND. And then........suddenly came the ............MIRACLE!!!!!!FS was as smooth as X-Plane or Magenta Glass-cockpit are. FS9 ran as it was driven by OPEN GL and not with by the poor imitation called DirectX- I really had the feeling moving in a fluid - No stutters at all, rock steady 60 fps with no strobe effect in step curves, airborne or while taxying at KSFO with heavy traffic arround. Just a dream. BUT WITHOUT SOUND!!!!!!!!!Sound enabled mean Stutters enabled.What the hell is a flight simulator without sound. What's going wrong??? Lack of Memory ??? I have 1024 DDR RAM.Bad sound card ???? Possible since I use the onboard Realtek chip on my Asus board. But what could a Soundblaster or Audigny card do better.What can I do to get that damned software handling the sound correctly ???I made some tests and find out that I was never using the 1024 of DDRAM. I still have about 512 Meg unused with FS9 and W2K2 running. Nothing else running in the background. This machine is just dedicated to the outside view of FS9. Sound drivers issue ???? I have the latest installed. AMD 2500 XP issue ???? Probably is that little baby not strong enough to handle all that stuff ??? Possible.But then I would love to hear from the M$ guys why they sell programs for harware which does not yet exist.But once is obvious, I just can confirm what somebody wrote a while ago in that forum. It is NOT ATI which has to resolve the issue, it is M$ which has to come out with a patch for FS2004. Having read a lots of threads concerned by STUTTERS, I believe now one could write a book about FS9 STUTTERS.Th..th...th...th...th...th..anks for co..co..co..co..co..co..mmentsRogerMy Computer:AMD 2500 XP ASUS A7N8X-X Motherboard with 1024 DDR RAM Realtek sound chip onboard.Sapphire Radeon 9600 XT Graphic card with 128 DDR RAM WIN 2K PROFS9 not patched yet!

Hi Roger,When you say you've got the latest drivers installed, just which version are you running. The nVidia 3.45's aren't all that great... I'm using the 3.13's and am happy with them.If you have not done so yet, the first (and cheapest) thing to do is set Sound Acceleration in DirectX to Basic. Click on Start> Run> type "dxdiag"> click on the "Sound" tab, and then move the slider left to "Basic". Do not turn off Acceleration (the setting farthest to the left).I tried the onboard sound of my A7N8X Deluxe Rev 2.0 board and was only mildly impressed. Didn't sound any better (or worse) than my tried-and-true Turtle Beach card. I put it back in and disabled the onboard sound. I've heard good things about the Hercules Fortismo card as well. I personally will not own a Creative sound card, but that's just me.There will indeed be a patch for FS9... it will be released sometime in 2005 and will be called FS2006. Bring your money :-( .Regards,

Hi,>>>When you say you've got the latest drivers installed, just which version are you running. The nVidia 3.45's aren't all that great... I'm using the 3.13's and am happy with them.>>>>>I had an old SB Live Value and installed it. There is no change compared to the Realtek onboard chip. It's really the way FS9 manages all that stuff which is the cause of all trubbles.But I will see in DXDIAG. May is out there a SOUND GURU able to do with the sounds what Enrico Schiratti did for the Instruments.I mean a program just dedicated to sounds in FS, and running on a second computer ( could be an old Pentium 1) linked to FS via WIDE FS and FSUIPC.The Advertising of FS 2006 could be GREAT NEW ISSUES - UNFORTUNATELY STUTTERING GONE!!!RegardsRoger

Roger, It's depend on the cards or driver, I have the onboard Soundmax sound cards with the Asus P4P800 motherboard, when I press the "Q", I got not a single frame rate decrease and never got any stutters caused by the soundcards. Be sure you have the latest sound driver before anything and got no error in the DirectX information.Method 1:I also use the DirectX panel available for windows 98/2000 and Xp, by reducing the debug output level to less it may help in some case. Available here: http://www.softpedia.com/public/cat/13/9/13-9-76.shtmldirectx.cpl file in your system32 folder, then open up the control panel in Windows to see/use it.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64363.jpgMethod 2: Reduce Hardware Sound AccelerationTo do this, follow these steps: -Quit all programs that are running.-Click Start, and then click Run.-In the Open box, type dxdiag, and then click OK. -The DirectX Diagnostic Tool starts.-Click the Sound tab, and then drag the Hardware Sound Acceleration -Level slider to the No acceleration position.-Click Exit, and then test the game for proper function.-If the game runs correctly, attempt to increase the hardware sound acceleration level until it is at the highest level possible without corrupting sound quality in the game.http://forums.avsim.net/user_files/64364.jpgThanksChris Willis[link:fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html]Clouds And Addons For MsFs

Chris,Thanks for your reply and help. Unfortunately I have already tried all those tweaks without any positive results. The symptom is obvious. If I start without sound, taxi around an airport and hit "Q" I will in the same moment get a stutter ( with none noticable decrease in fps - the stutter duration is for a fraction of second - really micro-stutters - but too much and too often)After that, once sound is enabled I can get those stutters, when for instance ATC is calling on a busy moment where the gear is going up.I tried with an older SB LIVE VALUE card and had even more stutters. I came back to the onboard Realtek chip with the latest driver 3.54a.No change at all.One important thing is that I am in 3D full screen (without 2D panel) all the time since all my Instruments are networked on two other computer. Furthermore the outside view is set to a ratio of O.65 to get the best speed feeling. As a real world pilot I can attest that with a screen ratio at 1.00 you have no speed feeling. Thats' may be one reason. But then I do not understand why Windows uses so much the swap file knowing that I have 1 gig Memory. I tested recently the state of the memory while running FS9, I still had 50% resources remaining. What does that mean????? Stutters are probably due to a fast writing in the swap file.Any comments ??ThanksRoger

Hi Roger, I have heard that many, including me, do get a performance boost by going to a good sound card like an Audigy 2. When I disabled my onboard sound and replaced it with an Audigy 2 I did gain some FPS and a much smoother sim. I think that it is important to use a newer model card like the Audigy 2 to realize any improvement, or at least that is the sense I got from other posts on this forum. I know that some people may argue this but I am just telling you what I have experienced as it all depends on the hardware and software that you have. I am running an XP2400 on an Asus A7V333 mobo with Windows XP Home. It sounds like you got a rather impressive boost with your new video card, I wonder if it might benefit me to look into a new card as I am still running a Geforce 4 TI4600? Well good luck and I hope you find a solution to your problems. Philip Olsonhttp://www.precisionmanuals.com/images/forum/supporter.jpg

Hi Philip,I will go that way and try with a good sound card. By the way the gain in FPS from the GF FX 5600 Xt to the Radeon 9600XT (which is not the high end at ATI) was impresive. With visibility set to 32 miles, at FL 200 with my SHort 360-300 I get 75 fps steady. I have now set the limitation to 50 fps. The only weak point as regards FPS is real clouds. There I jump down to 15-18 fps. That's too bad because on a hand flown IFR approach with low stratus hanging around at 300 feet, it just breaks the feeling of realism. I heard about frame friendly clouds textures but never found them.Roger

friendly clouds = http://fsw.simflight.com/FSWMenuFsSim.html

ThanksRoger

Roger, Thanks for post the thread and yes I too have those same micro stutters especially with sound on. The direct X panel sounds like it might be a good thing to install but as you mentioned several times, the only thing that does not work correctly is the MS Flight Sim "Engine/Program" The other day I turned off the Fast writes to the video card and for some time it seemed as if the video was more fluid. You might want to take a look at that too.It is a shame we have to come up with all of these work around techniques in order to make this sim work smoothly. I use to work on F-4E and F-111D simulators in the Air Force and we had computers that were just a fraction of the performance and speed of the average desktop box today. We had no stuttttters but again we had up to eight different mainframe computers tied together to produce a simulation. The visual, radar, navigation/weapons, flights, etc all had their own dedicated computer. Our big problem was they all talked at different rates and had to be buffered through a linkage system. I do remember the visual computer would be a fraction of a second behind the flight dynamics sometimes and was over-sensitive to the point where the students were not allowed to get closer than the pre-contact position on an air refueling rendezvous. Most of the sim techs could out fly the real Air Force pilots when it came to refueling and bombing only because we were use to the simulators and their quirks. I was lucky enough to get 1.5 hours of backseat time in a "Real" F-4C and I can tell you the real jet is a piece of cake to fly compared to our sims. In the jet you had a real nice "Visual" system and the sound and flight dynamics were very realistic. : )When people ask the question, could a general aviation pilot land a jet in an emergency, I would say yes, especially if they had some time in the simulator. At the time I was a single engine Cessna/Piper CFI with an instrument ticket.Terry

Hi Roger,I have been on the Quest for stutter-free performance, and I have achieved it for the most part--that is until I loaded up the totally awesome PMDG B737NG. Now I have a tiny bit of, shall we say, "hang", when turning quickly. If clouds are overly dense (I use ActiveSky 2004, which can kill frames) I get the problem of low frames, but for the most part stutters, are not too much of an issue. With default planes and weather, liquid smooth is the rule no matter what scene . . . with the exception of overly busy weather, as in ActiveSky sometimes.Here's what I have ruled out:First, as you can see, I put top 'o the line files subsystem in place: dual Cheetah 15K.3 U320 SCSI drives: access times of ~4-5ms, CPU utilization of 1-2%. Then, to add insanity to craziness, I trialed FS2004 using RamDriveNT: this is a nice tricky way to get your OS to stop swapping to a HDD, and instead swap to a RamDrive in Win2K, thereby using all the unused 524MB of ram you have sitting there on a coffee break while the other 524mb is working its arsss off. Net result of RamDriveNT: while swapping is done in RAM, you still are reading scenery textures off your HDD. Haven't tried putting all scenery into a RamDrive, but I don't have enough to try that with.New Audigy II: this will get you ~6-10% performance boost in FRAMES over an onboard sound chip. In practical terms: no effect on microstutters ( now seen mainly under extreme load as with PMDG 737NG + ActiveSky + ActiveCamera + 9meter mesh + Flight Deck Companion). When I hit Q key now, there is no change in FPS as there was with onboard chip. However, microstutters, and i emphasize 'micro', are still there.I think the bottom line for my rig now is quite clear: with all the addons, that I have come to feel are required versus desired, the machine is simply inadequate, MS 2004 code not withstanding. I think it is my tendency to load the sucker up to slightly beyond the max, then try to figure out why it won't run flawlessly. Sound familiar?!Good luck tracing it down. I can say my machine runs great, but I really have tacked on some serious processing overhead and it is really no wonder it chokes on occasion. I DO like the eye candy and the awesome 737NG, so it's worth a stutter or two. I am very very confident if I doubled my CPU and video throughput, there would be NO MICROSTUTTERS, even under the intense situations I put it through now. Most of my prob now is simply inadequate video processing when in super-dense situations. I am upgrading to ATI R420, when it debuts around Q2 this year. This will allow me to get more consistent FRAMES (not sure about microstutters) in higher density weather I'm pretty sure :()Settings: All settings are MAX except autogen is at very dense.Clouds: 100% 3D, 60 mile draw distance, sight dist 80m, Cloud coverage density: medium1600 x 1200 x 32, 2xAA, 16x AFNoel

Terry,Thanks for your advices. I can just share your experience with the F-4 simulator. I had the chance in the 80th to ride some times a Dassault Mirage F1 simulator. At that time I was Vice-Chairman of the one of the most important Aero-Club in France and also had my IFR ticket got in Los Angeles 1986. At that time desktop computers did run at 25 mhz and had 1024 K of RAM. And that simulator had a 50 fps in any situation. Ok the computer needed a 30 Square meters room, but there was no stutters. Stutters simply kills the joy of flying a simulator. Today, flying less for real, I try to keep sharp on IFR operation and that's why I have build an entire Turboprop cockpit with 3 computers running networked. I hope to add a fourth one for the overheads system and a fifth one only to play the sounds. My major problem is that FS9 runs all the time in a full 3D outside view with a ratio of O.65 to add the speed effect one has when taking off or landing ( It's an heavy load for the processor). The standard ratio of 1.O is simply wrong and gives you no feeling of speed.But as I said in other thread, the occasionnal user of FS9 may find everything fine. The hardcore user of FS9 who is NOT a real world pilot may find it fine too, simply because he dont know what we feel when in a real cockpit. And then comes the hardcore user of FS9 with real world fying experience and he will of course come as close as possible to the reality. But there you need to build a cockpit to be immersed in the environment. When immersed like that you will notice so much thing the light user never feels.I believe that networking a good computer with a good video card just dedicated to FS with older computer you can find for the price for less than 100 $ or may be in you seller is the solution. For each duty, one processor. FS2006 will probably solve some issues but bring so much new one that it will be a never ending story.Sometimes I could say that I had more pleasure with the old Sublogic ATP simulator running at a rock steady 50 fps with a smart ATC and that with a 486 DX 25 Mhz and a video card without additional memory. What did happen in between. M$ bought Sublogic and tons of bitmaps with no relation to aviation have been add, and that's the problem.Roger

Noel,Very interesting what you say. I will try the RamDriveNT. That could be one solution, but as just wrote in the othe reply, I strongly believe that FS will always be overhelmed and each duty should have its own processor. And that's what I am already doing. But even so, my FS9 runs only with the outside view in full screen but with O.65 ratio to give speed effect. The 1.0 ratio may be more stutter free but is totally unrealistic and when taking off with a fighter you have the same feeling driving a bus.I will see if I can get somebody programming a soft able to run all sounds on a networked computer as does PMsounds.exe for add-on sounds. It should work and then you can use an old P1 or PII to run that and tuned the PC just for the graphics. You wrote that you like eye candies. I must say that. I explain why:I started flying and playing with sims almost at the same time. I had the old FS2 on Commodore 64 K. I have witnessed how the designer went more and more just to details with no relation with flight dynamics.The designer were only focused on the LOOK and LOOK kills performances. You know when you in a cockpit of 6 axis flight simulator you have no chance to see how your plane looks from outside. You see other planes and important details in the newer generation, but I am really bored of all TONS of bitmaps used by aircraft designer. Just pictures picking up too much memory with no relation to the fact of simulating an airplane. FS2006 will even be more focused on Eye candies and I believe that we will get moving flight attendants in the back and unfortunately the planes will still fly like irons.Roger

Why does everyone use Creative Sound Cards? Why not spend

Adam,Thanks for that information. I also suspect bad sound drivers.Could you please check following for me:Go to KSFO airport or EGGL, anyway, any busy airport, with traffic set to dense.Set the view to a O.65 ratio and go with a full 3D screen without 2D panel.Make some quick and fast 180