I've contacted FS-GS as of last night inquiring into the possibilty of obtaining their service on my machine - if they think they can improve my FS experience, I think I'm going to do it and report back with the results. Anyone who knows me from my several years on these forums knows I'll give a truthful review on what took place...Ryan

>One question I have is does he come to your house or does he>do it over the phone? I'm in California.>>Thanks.Hi Steven. To get the best benefit; you'll usually use windows messenger...with a microphone. However, in my case; I could never get my mic. to work properly...so Micheal and I worked over the phone. I use Verizon, and most was evening...so minutes didn't count against me. But, rest assured MIcheal will do everything to help you feel at easeBest,Dave

>I've contacted FS-GS as of last night inquiring into the>possibilty of obtaining their service on my machine - if they>think they can improve my FS experience, I think I'm going to>do it and report back with the results. Anyone who knows me>from my several years on these forums knows I'll give a>truthful review on what took place...>>RyanHey Ryan. I think you'll be happy. :-) Good Luck. Look forward to hearing about your experience as well.Best,DaveAlso Ryan, one thing to consider. Take some screenies before you do this. And of course some afters. Reason I say this, most of the screenies I've tried to take after I did the unification; it's hard to tell the changes. You can better tell the results; taking before and afters. Also, with possibly different settings. ie: what you use on flightsim now....and after. If you have any basic questions I'll try and answer them. My email should be in the profile.Best,Dave

Actually the only time you will see any difference is if your textures don

Well, no offense to anyone else who can do it, but I'm pretty confident I have already spent 4 hours+ and have everything about as "good as it gets!" The only rationale for this service, and it's not a bad rationale, is there are people out there who just don't have the time or inclination to find the right stuff out on their own so it's worth a guided tour by someone who understands things. It is very tempting with all of these testimonials, but I'm guessing a very large % of the consultation time spent for me with FS-GS will be going over stuff I've already gone over. And as for one comment I think I read, of reinstalling everything, well geez I don't think so. Not on my dime! I have experienced improved perf after reinstalling stuff and understand the rationale, including reinstalling of DirectX and a zillion other maneuvers. It is no wonder the guarantee is pretty much based on the end user NOT changing a thing after the "unification" is accomplished. Yes, I understand this too. Done it several times only to lose the holy grail--momentarily. Obviously there is a market for the service, though how much I can't imagine. Best wishes in your service, FS-GS.Noel

Hi Ryan,I think you are going to find that FSGS will be able to get you a performance boost, I truly believe that you will NOT be disapointed, Mike will show you things you may have never thought of doing in the past. I know I never thought about some of the things that were done, and alot of these changes that were done to my system are NOWHERE to be found in any of the forum TIPs and Tweaks and system setups and so on on any of the flight simulator sights I've been on.I tweaked my system to the point that I was always tweaking and never flying, no lie!!!. My tweaking days are over, and my flying days have just begun.It's fantastic, like flying a whole new sim!!!Mike

Wonder why this stuff can't be taught in an online guide for $19.95? This sounds so much like secret snake oil it brings the cynic out in me, and a few others from the looks of a few posts. The testimonials very much sound holy grailish, and unless there are "unnatural" powers involved, why not sell the "True Secrets of FS9 Performance Tweaking--Professional Edition" for $19.95? Or maybe a piece of software that looks for the problems and tells you what needs tweaked. This I would consider, esp with the testimonials here. But $60 and 4 hours of my time on top, it's a hard sell. You folks might consider something like a guide or dev a piece of software, though choice one would be pretty cheap. How many hours do you think it would take you to write down this holy grail exclusive knowledge? Hard to believe if these tweaks and unifying are relatively effective on various platforms that the Mother of All FS9 Tweakers couldn't be done and in style.Noel

I honestly can't see paying somebody to tell me how to tweak my computer, whether for Flight Simulator or anything else.I know some out there may find this "help" much needed, but in all seriousness, the people at that site are ripping people off.There is NOTHING that can't be learned on your own with a little bit of studying and patience. $60?? That is ridiculous, IMO. There is so much information on the internet that somebody can learn about tweaking from that paying $60 for somebody to tell you what is readily there AND availalbe for the world to see is just plane nuts.Kind of like people who buy ALienware systems...that's another rip-off. The tech guys I used to work with built an exact duplicate of the Area-51 (I think it was called). The only difference between us and the Alienware was the Alienware warranty and the colorful paint/Style of the tower and ours was over $1000 less (and no we didn't go on Pricewatch and buy OEM products, it was all retail boxed).I guess if time is an issue then by all means go for it, it's your $60. However, I truely believe that someone is wasting your money if you don't at the very least try yourself first. In fact, saying you don't have the time isn't really valid either since these guys take 4hrs (I think someone mentioned) and flight simming is obviously done in your free time. To top it all off, if you do it yourself you will actually learn quite a bit about your system, save money, and feel the gratification of doing something yourself.There's a reason we charge A LOT for the work we do....Because somebody is ALWAYS willing to pay.

A review of this service would be a great thing. If you do write a review, consider having several people try the service to help readers get an idea of what this service can do for them. For example, you could have maybe three people write a review each:-A "newbie" who hasn't dared to make any changes to the system and is using only factory-built systems from Dell etc.-Someone with moderate computer skills, who builds his/her own system and knows how to set it up properly-A "computer expert". Somone who works as a professional computer technician or programmer.

<>Have fun, Ryan! I hope you enjoy the session as much as I did!Ken

Shane,With all do respect,,you are wrong.

Still waiting for a response from FS-GS... My email was pretty extensive though. Do they usually work on the weekends or no? I would be happy to participate in a possible AVSIM review after doing this if the writers felt my write up was good enough - I'll probably email it to Tom to see what they think before posting it in the forum...

>Shane,>With all do respect,,you are wrong.How so?Please explain.

>Wonder why this stuff can't be taught in an online guide for>$19.95? This sounds so much like secret snake oil it brings>the cynic out in me, and a few others from the looks of a few>posts. The testimonials very much sound holy grailish, and>unless there are "unnatural" powers involved, why not sell the>"True Secrets of FS9 Performance Tweaking--Professional>Edition" for $19.95? Or maybe a piece of software that looksLook Noel, it's clear to me that you're just not getting it. You can't put the details of unique consultations into a $19.95 book. You can put a rather nice set of detailed guidelines into a book but after having ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED this service myself, I can tell you flat-out that I would be AMAZED if most of FS-GS' conversations are similar. In my case it was absolutely crystal clear that we had to go into some pretty different territory due to some things I'd done to my system (all in the name of better FS9 performance ironically and that failed just as ironically).What happens when most people in need of psychiatric help buy a self-help book? 99% of the time, they aren't helped and are effectively just $30 lighter and lost the time to read general comments that aren't specific enough to their case.You are clearly in the mode of feeling you know more than FS-GS about what they do for a living. Fine. I understand that, but please quit insulting those of us who have ACTUALLY used the service and who are trying to tell people like you who have NOT used the service, that it is of value. Of the two of us, who has more credibility right now???You spent 4 hours? Great! I've been tweaking systems for more than 20 years and I spent countless hours tweaking this system and failing to get the performance I KNEW had to be there. That's the nature of PC's. We're all mixing video cards, drivers, motherboards, bios', memory speeds, memory types, memory manufacturers, CPU speeds and types, hard drive technologies, etc. The combinations are mind boggling. To assume that you can toss all these combinations together and come up with general techniques that are going to help everyone for something like this is just foolish in my view.>would consider, esp with the testimonials here. But $60 and 4>hours of my time on top, it's a hard sell. You folks mightThen don't utilize the service, but again, stop passing judgement on something you clearly have no experience with as you haven't tried the service and clearly have no inclination to bother. We did. We're ecstatic about the results. Your comments just work to belittle our experiences as it suggests that a) we're not as bright as you because we couldn't do this ourselves and :( we wasted the money. Frankly I'm getting tired of reading replies like these.No one said that "Path A" works on a large variety of systems. What goes on is very tailored to each customers situation. Tell you what. Why don't you write a $19.95 book on what will make everyone happy in life? Apparently the complexities of each potential situation doesn't scare you one bit so you should be able to crank that bestseller out in no time. Human Unification System. We'll all spend the $19.95 and never look back!

I get similiar performance on my 2.4 mgz machine and 25-30 FPS all the time.. I think I would rather spend the $60.00 on PMDG's 737. But, on the other hand I have been tweaking and learning since the day FS2004 came out, and had there been a shortcut back when it was released, I probably would have taken it!