All: If anyone out there has a similar system (see specs below)please help me understand what the problem might be. I have all the latest drivers for the motherboard, display adapter, and Audigy 2 sound card. Start WindowsXP Pro with most services and all third party startup services disabled. System running on essential minimums. FS 2004 assigned to its own CPU via task manager (hyper-threading enabled). Frames are actually quite good throughout FS2004 (20+) but the stuttering and awful pauses during turns (both taxiing and flying) are real show stoppers (literally!). A typical taxiing scenario... at KATL tuning onto 09L for departure the entire sim stops for about 2-4 seconds and then starts again... and many smaller duration stutters as well throughout the turn. When airborne the same thing happens during turns. No matter what FS2004 configuration tweak I try there is no improvement... and I've tried them all, particularly all those listed in the many threads here at Avsim and elsewhere.What gives here? Are NVIDIA cards better than ATI for FS2004? Do I need a more powerful video card (9700 Pro is no slouch!)? Can't get a much faster processor at the moment so there aren't too many folks out there running FS2004 well with faster PCs.Is it possible that sometimes the combination of hardware and associated drivers in a specific configuration will just never work well? Or maybe there is a solution that corrects the horrible pauses and stutters. I'm getting tired of trying to find a solution and just may have to go back to FS2k until FS2006 comes out. Not my first choice, though, since I really like the overall rich look (except for the hokey horizon) of FS2004.TIA for any suggestions!DougDell 8250 (3.06GHz)512 Rambus RAM120MB ATA 100 (7200 RPM)ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (Catalyst 4.3)Audigy 2 Sound (latest drivers)MS Force Feedback 2WindowsXP Pro (SP1)DirectX 9.0b

Mine's smooth in every situation. Even in a 9g turn with a jet with terrain in view. Never used to be. Now it is. I run 4xAA & 16xAF (Performance) at 1400x1050x32. I also use nothing but DXT3wAlpha texture formats with mipmaps and have done both autogen fixes (the vector line change in the cfg file and renaming the default xml file in the autogen folder and I use Chris' clouds). The 32bit textures will chock you system. A gig of ram will not change that. Give it a try!

>Mine's smooth in every situation. Even in a 9g turn with a>jet with terrain in view. Never used to be. Now it is. I run>4xAA & 16xAF (Performance) at 1400x1050x32. I also use>nothing but DXT3wAlpha texture formats with mipmaps and have>done both autogen fixes (the vector line change in the cfg>file and renaming the default xml file in the autogen folder>and I use Chris' clouds). The 32bit textures will chock you>system. A gig of ram will not change that. Give it a try!Thanks Bigshot! I'm not following the DXT3wAlpha texture formats issue. Is there an easy way to explain this to me and show me what I have to do to make the changes to my system? Also, the renaming of the XML file in the autogen folder and Chris' clouds issues are new to me.Please if you have the time... a little more guidance. I'd love to make this sim more useable! Your time is appreciated!Thanks!

Try this thread:http://forums.avsim.net/dcboard.php?az=sho...78373&mode=full Also, just do a search for autogen fix. Chris' clouds are probably in the library here. You can also get them here:http://fsw.simflight.com Also a lot of threads discussing DXTBmp over at the flightsim forums. Do a search over there too.

I have one particular aircraft that seems to be king for a smooth fluid ride & keeping fps up. It's also great for getting to altitude quickly. I maintain a constant 30 fps while flying over FSGenesis mountain mesh terrain of the western US. I just figure it's great for test purposes & seeing if your system is actually messed up.....or not.It's Kirk Olsson's F-16 Fighting Falcon Viper available in the Avsim Library. Just use the simple VC (out of several selections) or spot view. Besides, in spot view this aircraft looks real!L.Adamson ----- Athlon 1900XP & P4 2.8 laptopedit: P.S ------ I much prefer FS2004's horizon over FS2002's by quite a long shot! But maybe it's my NVidia cards...

L.Adamson:Thanks for the suggestion about trying the F-16 to compare performance with your system. I'll d/l tonight and try it tomorrow sometime. I'll report back after the testing.BTW... Is there in fact a general opinion here that the NVIDIA cards produce much better horizons than ATI's cards?

L.Adamson:I did the F-16 test out of Seattle and the frames were as expected... 20+ (Locked at 20) all the time. Frame rates are never a problem with this rig. Still even though the F-16 was not loading down the system there were still many pesky stutters and pauses (1-2 seconds in duration) during turns but sometimes also when just in level flight. The pauses and stutters were not nearly as bad as they are with the PSS 319/320 but they were still bad enought to really rob the joy of this sim. I'm afraid I'm going to have to go back to FS2K since I've literally tried everything I can find here and at other forums. No tweak or combination of tweaks has been able to solve the horrible stutters and pauses.Thanks for listening... not sure there are too many more possiblities here. Just likely a bad combination of hardware that only rears it's head when loaded down. Maybe my next computer will work better!DougDell 8250 (3.06GHz)512 Rambus RAM120MB ATA 100 (7200 RPM)ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (Catalyst 4.3)Audigy 2 Sound (latest drivers)MS Force Feedback 2WindowsXP Pro (SP1)DirectX 9.0b

Don't give up until you try this!I had this same problem last night for the first time and I was going nuts trying to figure it out. Delete the FS9 config file in your Application Data folder of windows. If you need help with that, do a search for FS9 Config in the library. I did this old trick last night and now everything is back to smooth.good luck

Whoa. THat was scary. I did it and my program became smoother with increased fps.. BTW, the actual name of the file is fs9.cfgIf one does a search for it, they'll find it. It's a few folders deep in the application data folder.Bruce

Sorry to disappoint, folks. Deleting the FS9.cfg file and restarting (FS2004 creates a new one) did absolutely nothing for my performance. I still have awesome frame rates but the sim just stutters and stops/starts whenever you turn or change viewed from within the cockpit. For instance, when I change the view to the forward left quartering view the sim will stop for about 2 full seconds them start and stop once or twice as it tries to catch up with itself and then when it does everything becomes smooth again. Then when I change the view again to 90 left or right or just anywhere else the pausing and stuttering happens again until the video sort of catches up with itself and then things are smooth again. VERY frustrating. My machine handles FS 2002 like a walk in the park with no performance problems at all... frames are very high and no pauses or stutters at all.I'm afraid it's back to FS2002 for me. This is all very perplexing... having a very high end machine that just can't seem to keep up with the FS2004 demands is truly disappointing. Only thing I can think of at this point is to try the latest top-of-the-line GeForce card. Maybe NVIDIA has a leg up on ATI for this sim... Any opinions on the NVIDIA vs. ATI issue?DougDell 8250 (3.06GHz)512 Rambus RAM120MB ATA 100 (7200 RPM)ATI Radeon 9700 Pro (Catalyst 4.3)Audigy 2 Sound (latest drivers)MS Force Feedback 2WindowsXP Pro (SP1)DirectX 9.0b

There's no issues with the horizon with ATI cards. ATI cards are clearly superior in FS9. All you need do is try both cards with AA & AF running. Did you try some DXT3 textures. Fly the defaults. They're DXT3. So are the FFX aircraft. If you find them smooth, then check the textures in the aircraft you're using. It's likely they're the problem. Very easy to convert em'. Also, try turning off the AI slider. If it smooth's out, you'll know it's not video related. Just too much going on all at once. FS9 requires a lot of tweaking. It's a balancing act.

Actually I finally figured out how to get the horizon looking great... whew! An ugly horizon can really ruin an immersive flying experience :)I went and downloaded DXTBmp and converted all the PSS Airbus textures and performance did improve a bit (great tip!). I also did the autogen fix (removed default.xml file) and changed the "TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS" line in the FS9.cfg file from 1 to 0. Yes performance has improved a bit and the sim is almost playable... However, those nasty stutters and interminable pauses are still there, especially when changing views inside the 2D cockpit and when jumping out to spot view. The hard disk thrashes (I see the light flashing furiously) all the while (which is likely why the sim pauses so much). Do you all think upgrading my RAM to 1GB from 512MB will help to reduce the hard disk accesses? When I check how much RAM is left while FS9 is running it is usually in the 16k to 45k arena with a sizeable page file. Will adding more RAM relieve some of the stutters by allowing caching of more textures?Thanks, all, for your time and suggestions... we're actually making progress here! :-cool

OK; you're getting there. Going from 512mb ram to a gig will help from everything I've read; but and it's a big "BUT", you're running rdram. Check the inside of your box. You probably got 4 sticks of 128mb cause that stuff has to be installed in pairs. I have 4 sticks of 128mb PC1066 rdram. Cost to go to 1 gig is $490 bucks cause I got to get 4 sticks of 256mb. Not cheap at all. I keep checking the prices every month though cause I'd like a gig. Did you change your AF to Performance mode?Also, check your terrain mesh setting. Set it at 90 percent. Saves a bunch on resources with not much visual difference if any. Are you using Chris' clouds. http://fsw.simflight.com ? They're a big help with resources. Drop your cloud density to high from max. They still look nice. Are you testing with AI turned off? That'll free up your processor so it can feed the video card more stuff. Like I said, FS9 is a balancing act. Even the biggest meanest machines can't go full out with it. Close, but hardware isn't quite there yet.PS: Open the smartgart tab in your ATI Control Panel and make sure fastwrites is turned off. Also, set it to 4xAGP. Won't make any difference in performance; but clears up a lot of potential stability problems. These are both recommended by ATI.

Machine came with 2 x 256MB sticks of 16-bit Samsung PC1066 (for 533 FSB) RAMBUS. I just purchased two additional 256MB sticks for $210 at ZipZoomFly.com today. Should be here on Tuesday... I hope :)Yes, I changed AF to Performance (for 3D and OpenGL) and there's a slight improvement. Terrain mesh is now 90 but I don't see much difference in eye candy or performance. Yes I'm using Chris' clouds and density is set to High. I have AI on now at 50% I just have to have traffic :)Fastwrites has been off for a while and the default is 4xAGP.Thanks for helping me along... your suggestions have been a big help and performance has improved measurably! I am now beginning to enjoy flying FS9... but there's still a ways to go. Looking forward to seeing how 1GB of RAM improves things!

Make sure you post your results. I'd be real curious as to how much difference going to a gig makes.