Hi gang,Can someone help with an fs2004 performance issue I'm having?I'm getting very good frame rates after all the tweaking I've done (averaging around 40fps) and everything's as smooth as silk, but there's one last issue that's annoying me tremendously!Every time I get some radio traffic (i.e. ATC), I get a very small but noticable stutter. Now, when flying around VFR, it's not so much of a problem, but when I'm flying, say, out of Gatwick, with all the RT, it makes it almost unusable.I've tried everything I can think of. Latest drivers for everything. All the Black Viper tricks with services, no other apps running with FS, tried different sound cards, have changed hardware acceleration for the audio cards, disabled NT last time stamp etc etc. It's always associated with disk access (which makes sense), but only with radio traffic. Doesn't happen with other sounds (such as, say, flaps extending), and the disk chatters away loading scenery without any such problems. I've also tried the various sound settings in FS9 itself, all to no avail.If I completely disable the sound card on my system, it stops the problem, so it's not the amount of atc traffic, but the audio they generate. I've got FSFPS, and whether I use max VFR settings or min IFR settings, it still happens.Any help gratefully received, as this is driving me nuts!Using Win XP Pro, 3 ghz proc, 512Mb RAM, 128Mb Raedeon 9100 card, have tried both AC97 and Philips Aurilium sound cards.Many thanks in advance,Mark Avey

Have you tried lowering the Sound Acceleration slider in DirectX? Move it down to Basic and see if that fixes your problem (it probably will). If so, then try moving it up to Standard and see if that works. Set it as high as possible with out stutters. R-

Yes, tried that. That's what I meant by "changed hardware acceleration for the audio cards" - sorry, forgot to mention the DX bit :)It seemed to help a very tiny amount when I dropped it from full to basic, but hardly anything at all really. When I dropped it to none, the ATC in FS9 sounded like it was under water!Cheers,Mark

I read this post because ststustutters are the bane of my life too!I have to agree that performance is worse at a busy airport, but I've always assumed that is just the burden of scenery and AI aircraft. The thought that it's ATC is interesting, I'll look out for that.I'm not an expert, but is XP Pro, FS9 and a 3ghz chip a good match with 512mb of RAM?1gb of RAM seems to be the recommended amount.Anybody more informed than me have a thought on that?

Perhaps reducing the amount of air traffic will clear it up. I notice that when on an IFR flight when I am being handed off to approach control, everyone else is at the same time. Giving approach clearences to multiple aircraft seems to slow things down for a few moments, then once everyone has their clearences the FPS will come back up. Just my thought. Granted reducing the amount of traffic takes away from the fun, but it might help the stutters.

I have 1GB RAM and I have the same problem, I don't think its a RAM issue. I'm still tweaking the thing. It seems like I spend twice as much time tweaking than using the Sim.

It's correct that reducing the number of AI aircraft reduces the problem (although it's still there, but obviously restricted to communucations between me and ATC) but, as you say, that takes away a lot of the fun, especially on long airliner flights :(The annoying thing is that I can have 100% traffic (using MyTraffic 2004 + the GA traffic add-on) and, whilst obviously the framerate slows a little when, say, landing at Heathrow, the smoothness is still there until they start chatting!Well, I guess I'm glad it's not a specific problem with my system :)Generally what I do now is reduce AI traffic to 0% for VFR flying and for taking off/landing at the big airports, and switch it back up to 100% for the duration of the long-hauls. Guess that'll have to do until some whizz comes up with a solution.Thanks to all for the comments and suggestions.Mark