The skeptic in me just has to scream this: and how is it established that the customer is indeed satified? While he may well be, could he not claim otherwise in order to save the cost of the service?

I must admit that it is a very clever idea! For those who are in doubt whether they could squeeze their system a bit more you can contact a consultant.However for those who have enough knowledge about PC and Flightsimulator themselves, a sort of reference database would be more convenient I believe. Just to see how others have tweaked their PC and what results they get.Anyhow, maybe I will contact them to see whether I can squeeze my PC a bit more.Regards, Ferry

Just curious:And are you now held to some sort of non-disclosure agreement which precludes you from offering advice to others who pose specific problems for which you know a solution considering your previous knowledge base?Isn't it possible that someone with expertise could indeed have reached their machine's optimal performance level prior to the help of this company only to find that there's no improvement to be made? Is this person now no longer in a position to help others because he's been exposed to the fine tuning trial and error tricks of the company?

I think that the idea posted about AVSIM doing a review should really be considered. We all trust AVSIM to give us a critical and unbiased review of a service. I'm sure if AVSIM gave it a good review, they'd increase their sales exponentially! How about it TOM A?

Hi,as far as I understand from reading various posts about the performance tweaking, it's all about making FS9 smoother. Not necessarily increase the FPS, even if it's something you probably get as a side effect. My problem right now is not low FPS but stuttering when cloudy together with heavy AI traffic and I'm going to use the tweaking service when my new computer is in place. I don't think it's a coincidence that so many are happy with the tweaks. And for $60 you don't even get 512 mb RAM of a decent brand.My 2 cents,Jan Bergwall

Believe me, I waqs just as skeptical before using the service. I read that you didn't pay until AFTER you were satisfied with the serve. Your right, there is no way for them to verify if they helped or not. FSGS just goes on "honesty". I don't know if they have been burned doing this or not. Personally, I have built my own PC's for many years and feel like I have a pretty good knowledge of what works and what doesn't. When I did try the service several months ago, I went into it figuring that it probably wouldn't do anything but I didn't have anything to lose if it didn't work. The results were extremely good and Michael spends a lot of time with you on the system, programs, settings etc. It flat out DOES make a big difference. And, your right FPS are never looked at. Only smoothness. I used to keep the FPS displayed most all the time but now I don't even look at it because it's the fluidity/lack of stutters that is important. In addition, the graphics are MUCH sharper. I'm running a P4 3.0 H/T with 1 gig ram and ATI 9800pro card so I had very acceptable performance prior to the servic. Much better now.The reason no one that has used the service will post the changes made are two fold. One- honesty. FSGS is a business and posting what changes are made would be no different than stealing software (intellectual property) Two- the changes made are very dependend on what your system needs when Michael does his thing.Hope this helps. And no, I don't have any connection to FSGS. I've been around here long enough for most of you to already know this.

One other thing. The reason you will usually see me post in threads about FSGS is because I will absolutely "toot the horn" and support a company that delivers on what they say they will do such as FSGS, PMDG, Dreamfleet, Panelshop(RFP), Eaglesoft, Flight1, Reality XP etc. (I'm sure I missed a couple.)

No I think they sell their services 10 times more as if they wouldn

If someone uses the service and then doesn't pay. Or, if the information they give the customer is posted. They do indeed lose money. The imformation that they have compiled took much thought, time and knowledge. Also, when they spend 4-5 hours with someone one on one, that is $$. This is not FSGS's only activity. They also help some very major FS developers/Publishers set up screen shots etc. for advertising their products.

For those who don't know how to set up their systems, or who have a serious problem causing low performance and/or poor image quality, this service sounds like a great idea. My problems are:-They seem to target both advanced users and beginners. This makes no sense as I doubt there's much they can do to help those who already have their systems set up optimally.-They market this "system unification" as if it's something truly unique that you can only achieve by talking to them. Surely there must be other computer users with the same level of education and knowledge as those who work at FSGS? Again, if you know enough you should be able to "unify" your system yourself.I think the service is a very good idea and I don't think these posts are fake. If I was getting poor performance with one of the fastest videocards and CPUs available, and this company was able to solve the problem I would also praise them. Basically:-If you feel you're not getting the most out of your system, talk to these guys! It's much better than trying to "fix" the problem yourself by changing random fs9.cfg settings to 100x their defaul values, disabling the swapfile or trying to overclock the system to the point of meltdown :-lol-If you have an older sysyem and you're having performance or image-quality problems, don't expext any miracles from using their service. A 1.5 GHz P4 will always be a 1.5 GHz P4 and a Geforce2 is always a Geforce2, no matter how much you "unify" them.Just out of curiousity: You mention you have Megascenery. Did they help you reduce the loading time of the textures and reduce blurries? What's the fastest you can fly over the scenery without seeing blurries, and did they tell you to disable Extended Terrrain Textures or did you leave that enabled?

Hi Guys,I did make one mistake in my post. I have 1 gig of PC3200 DDR ram and not 1 meg. hehehehehe. I already have my eye on the X800XP, will purchase as soon as its released!!!Just a note: I have built many machines in the past, been doing it for some 10 years now. My latest machine is a Koolance Super Liquid Cooling System. Its one thing to build systems, its quite another to squeeze every bit of power from your operating system.I have never seen 75+FPS in the past, I have seen it now!!!. I know that FPS is not a deciding factor it smoothness. I now have both.I did these three screen shots last night:1. Outside view of PMDG's 737-800 aircraft: 75.5 FPS - Smooth performance.2. Same aircraft, in some clouds, 36.3 FPS - Smooth performance.3. PMDG's 737-800 panel, 44.3 FPS - Smooth performance.Here is the link: http://www.airpr.net/forums/showthread.php...11310#post11310Mike

Hey Mike the link is no good. I don't think they want everyone applying just to look at the pics. :)

I'm also a satisfied FS-GS customer!To those of you who wonder whether they can do anything for you, the answer is pretty simple:If your MSFS graphics settings are where you want them to be...If the weather complexity is where you want it to be...If your FS world looks as good as the screenshots on the FS-GS site...And if you're getting smooth graphics...Then you probably don't need their help.As for me, I prefer flying low and slow. Until Michael helped me work over my system, I was very disappointed in the way MSFS scenery looks at 800 feet AGL. So I made up for it by flying at 4000 feet and figured that was as good as it gets.Furthermore, being a real world private pilot, it really bugged me when the sim stuttered in turns, so I avoided weather that was any more complex than the "Fair Weather" theme. When I wanted to fly IFR, I just turned the visibility way down. Again, I thought that this was as good as it gets.I now routinely fly at treetop level just to admire the scenery, and download real world weather... and I couldn't be more satisfied.So... what's my motivation for tooting FS-GS' horn? Simple... in a couple of years, MSFS 2006 will come out, and I will more than likely buy a new computer. I want FS-GS to be successful now so that I can make use of their services again at that time.Ken

>Yes nice system. A bit more RAM and a X800XT and you are>really flying :) I have a feeling the X800XT will totally rock>especially in FS 2004.>>Support for new aa algorithm.>>Temporal antialiasing very much what movies use.>>You use one aa algorithm in the first frame that uses 6>samples then another algorithm in the second frame that also>uses 6 samples which give you 12x aa without the performance>it or you can have 4xaa with the performance hit of 2xaa.You might know this but there is now a way you can enable temporal AA on your existing ati card. in this thread there are some instructions on how to do ithttp://discuss.futuremark.com/forum/showfl...0&fpart=11&vc=1

>by reading the info on their site I hardly feel comfortable>paying for this.I too just went through this service and I too was EXTREMELY skeptical as I was a consumer advocate for print publications for years and this sounded VERY questionable but I was so disappointed with FS9 performance that I gave it a shot. The results speak for themselves. I have a solid system and only a few add-ons but performance and quality STUNK. Now it's fantastic. As far as what they do, it's a consulting service. They're going to do something different based on every machine. For me it meant moving FS9's location, making major changes to my system setup, changing the way I was doing some things, installing a couple utilities, removing some things that were creating unknown havoc with my system and more.>i really dont know what they can suggest that would make it>worth that much.??Think about this. The most important part to me is the GUARANTEE the service and you DO NOT PAY FOR IT UNTIL IT'S DONE AND YOU'RE FULLY SATISFIED. Why people have a hard time grasping that is beyond me. FS-GS spent, at first (and more later) 4-5 hours with me (that's not a lot per hour for this sort of service) and, at the end, after I saw the clear results they then said, "So, how do you feel about your sim now?" My response was, "It's amazing. Night and day." So then the question was, "Are you satisfied?" I said, "Absolutely, how do I pay you?" That's how it went. I didn't spend the money and then beg them to help me and get nothing in return. In fact, I ran into another problem AFTER my service call and they helped me with that for the initial fee. And yes, we all could have lied and said, "Nope, not happy, sorry." But after you see how it turns out, and it happens in stages so you'd have to lie an awful lot, you can't help but pay them. Plus, is that really the way you want to be? If so, are you the type who also downloads pirated scenery or add-ons? The reason I tend to be vague is I don't think it would be very fair of me, OR TO ME, to have paid for the service and then to post exactly everything they did for everyone else to benefit. You want to pay ME? I'll send you some info. How's that? To rip the service because you're not getting a free lunch just doesn't seem fair to me.I haven't read the whole thread here but they're hosted of SimFlight Forums and I've YET to read ANY post from ANY customer who has not been absolutely satisfied with the results. So think about that too. If this is such a questionable service where are the unsatisfied customers? These guys have been doing this for quite some time. All I can tell you is that I've been a network administrator, have built my own systems since the early 80's, have tweaked my systems endlessly to get the last 1% of performance out of them and these guys knew FAR more about the FS9 performance world than I could ever know. In fact, I would argue that I made his job MUCH harder because I spent half the time questioning everything he did! I also have a hard time LEAVING things the way he did. FS-GS is probably MUCH better off with less technical customers but they can also help technical customers. And do not forget, this is what they do for a living. Do you? I wouldn't tell you how to do your job. I tend to assume if you do something 8-10 hours a day, every day, and I don't, the odds are, you know more about that subject than I do. The arrogance to think that just because you play Flight Simulator a lot and know your system WELL, is just that, arrogance and, to my view, if you've got it with respect to this service then it's getting in your way just like it almost did for me. As I said on the other forum, I had to eat a lot of pride to try them but I'm damned glad I did in the end.As far as whether it's for you, talk to them. They'll talk to you first, again, for free, and ask some very specific questions. If they don't feel they can really help you, they'll tell you that and you've lost nothing.