Hi all,Can anyone suggest what might be my problem please?? I have a new PC with Epox EP-9NDA3+ motherboard (nforce3 ultra), Athlon 64 3500+. SATA HDD. Gainward Geforce 6800 128meg, Audigy sound card.Everything else works fine but FS2004 on a clean install is unflyable. - theoretic 10 FPS using Shift Z but nothing like that really. This happens on 800x600x8 as well as 1280x1024x32.Have already tried:New flash BIOSNvidia drivers (tried various, including latest 66.93)Updated nforce drivers from websiteDisabled on board audio chipset on m/b in biosVarious other things!!Any suggestions greatly appreciatedRobPS Merry xmas to all!R

Hi Rob,Was the hard drive formatted before you installed everything, or did you move it over from an existing system?Thanks,GregP.S. This thread will soon be moved to the hardware forum... track it there.

Hi Greg,Hard drive was new together with the other bits. Have also made sure no antivirus etc running. The thing I haven't tried yet is a totally clean minimal reboot by disabling everything via msconfig, mainly because I fear that another (more important!!) application might be affected.If no-one has had compatability issues with the same stuff I guess I might have to try it - I am at least in "running parallel" mode at the moment so that a(nother!!) full XP reinstall etc is a pain and will take time but is not the end of the world.Thanks for your input - sorry about the wrong forum - have been out of Fs for a year or so..Rob

"...sorry about the wrong forum..."NP, just wanted to warn you in case you found your thread missing.You system should be doing quite well. Have you checked the DirectX Diagnostic Tool to insure that your MB chipset drivers are installed properly? Start>Run> type "dxdiag" (without the quotes) and then click on the "Display" tab. Are all three DirectX Features "Enabled"?If so please post your FS9.cfg and a log from HijackThis (Google). Don't do anyhting w/ HJT... just post a log.Thanks,Greg

Another thought might be to ask at Guru3D forums about your BIOS settings...since it's "new" it might need some tweaking? They have some standard setting, I believe, for 3D gaming posted there. Will watch for the thread being moved. Vic

Hi Greg,Sorry for delay - Christmas got in the way!FS9.cfg is set out below. This from the latest full reinstall of FS9 - I haven't even bothered trying higher settings than 800x600 on the hardware settings. target fps is only 20 (I have tried lots of others in case!) but irrelevant. FPS says 10 but is realistically more like 1!Have tried both with and without the FS9 update. No problems on DXdiag (running 9.c with all working). Doom3 demo works fine on 1024x768 with ultra high quality setting. Latest bios and nforce drivers from guru3d also installed. 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I had a similar problem. My chipset is the same as yours. If you go into the bios hopefully you will find under the CPU config 'AMD Cool and Quiet' enabled. Disable it.For me it was throttling the CPU back to 1Ghz. Not sure why but its not noisey anyway. Let us know what you find.

Hi Howard,Thanks for the idea - however have checked and it is disabled in the BIOS (I didn't actually install it to start with!). Thinking about it, it must be something to do with FS9 (or at least generic to some specific games), otherwise the Doom3 demo wouldn't run properly. I'll just have to keep digging and trying things.Rob

Sorry, the bit about Doom did not register. Try deleting (or renaming)the FS9.cfg. Then re-apply your settings. HAve you turned off anti aliasing in FS2004 and set it on the card?

For anyone interested or with similar problems, now sorted, with some lessons certainly for me and perhaps for at least some of you!The problem seems to have been that the drivers provided by Epox (either on the CD or on their website) for the Realtek AC 97 on board sound on the mainboard didn't work or were the wrong ones (or rather it wasn't clear whether the on board sound chip was Realtek or nvidia and therefore what the right drivers were. (Whether it should make any difference I haven't a clue).Fortunately my son and his chum are both studying computer sciences at university and after yet another minimal full reboot of windows and SP2 and hours of playing around finally isolated the problem.The drivers on the CD were not only not the latest (not unusual, which is why I went to the epox website and used the latest ones), but it transpires even those on the website were wrong for the on board chip.Thank heavens for the younger generation to whom these things appear to come more easily. "Never trust anything on the cd that comes with your hardware - identify exactly what it is first and then search the internet instead" is something I for one will remember! How on earth is anyone not computer literate supposed to have a chance with this sort of nonsense??FWIW, performance is now stunning - all sliders maxed and still over 30 fps at crowded airports and super smooth. Can therefore now recommend the combination of Athlon64 3500+, Epox 9NDA3+ and 6800 GT , but be careful!Thanks for all the help and ideas.Rob