Ok I'll mention this again, hope it helps some :-) Little Long.

A while back I made a post regarding framerates and performance. This was prior to optimizing with FSGS. But, it also occured after optimization. I had a great and smooth running machine after the FSGS stuff. But, One day I loaded up Lock on MOdern Combat..this was after playing it the night before. Lock on as well as flightsim was running great. The only thing I did prior was to load up the new catalyst driver at that time..believe 3.4 or 4.3..something like that. I then started Loc ON....Oh man...what the heck happened..the thing was running slow as molassis. So, I exited..then I started FS2004...same thing...I had a freakin slideshow. Oh man...what did FSGS do to my machine! Well, after doing somemore troubleshooting,un/reinstalling driver direct X etc...I was ready to give up and reformat. But, just out of curiosity..I use the CH flightyoke and pedals..While running flightsim..I selected the disable joystick...WOW! Instantly back to my baby butt smoothnessSo, I then renabled....slideshow. :-( Except, to be sure..I started a takeoff roll with my slideshow...then reached down to my USB connections on the flightyoke and pedals disconnected them....Wham instant smoothness again! So, just to experiment...I uninstalled the ATI drivers again, then cleaned everything relating to the video drivers...reinstalled. Hooked the controls back up..ran FS2004...yep you guessed it...slideshow! AHA...somewhere a conflict. So I proceeded to un/reinstall the video stuff again...but, before I did that...I uninstalled the CH flightyoke/rudder pedal drivers; including the CH manger program. THEN I reinstalled the ATI drivers..tested FS2004 w/out the yoke hooked up...very smooth and looked great graphic wise. I then reinstalled the CH manger program which reinstalls all the CH drivers including the manger. Loaded up FS2004 after my FSGS optimize steps.....Yeahhh...bacxk to it's ole smooth self. So, in a nutshell...if your having some stutters slideshows etc...and your using the CH stuff or similiar...reach down and unplug the USB connectors...see what happens...may have had a conflict Basically now, little extra work but worth it. If I'm updating the ATI drivers...I will first uninstall the CH stuff...run CH delete to ensure everything is gone....then un/reinstall the video drivers..and finally reinstall the CH stuff..works like a charm. Maybe this info. might help some that have had stutter and or slow performance in the sim.My Specs: Alienware 51 with 800FSB, P4 3.06 ghz, Intel mobo,ATI 9800 Pro, Hyper theading stuff etc. If anyone wants to know my FS2004 settings..I'll be happy to tell them.Best,Dave