With that on, Even I get stutters with my P4 3.8 and Radeon X800XT Card.I'm going to be getting a P4 3.8 1GB mem, Radeon X800XT in a few days. What kind of FPS can I expect? Also I does the "Thermal Monitor 2" function control the heat problem the Prescotts have been plaqued with better, as INTEL (and also Tomshardware.com) states about this CPU?ThanksTom Cain

"PanelAsTexture=0"What does making this change do to the panel? Visible changes?

Very interesting about the Global Texture Size.I am also wondering where the Force Feedback parameter is located.

I have a Radeon 9700 Pro and the change to =0 was a dramatic one, visually with earlier ATI drivers. It made 2D panels much crisper but caused a considerable drop in FPS, one which was very noticeable. It is no longer an issue with the newest drivers from ATI and Omega, and I no longer add that line to the .cfg.

Thanks Jim,I tried it but I sam no change in FPS or panel quality (6800GT 256mb with current drivers).Douglas

>I have read here and elsewhere that having ground bumps>enabled with FFB controllers has caused this type of problem>>-JohnI think you'll find this is only when onboard sound orjoystick uses the game port on the sound card.I changed to a USB FF stick (Logitech and very good it is too)So I can still "Feel" the sim and get rid of (bad) ground stutter.Remaining stutter is down to AI traffic-ATC-upgraded sceneryetc. I don't know of any PC configuration that beats Microsoftat their own game!!!!Just reduce it as much as poss and live with it.(Although if you go back to using ONLY the original simas boxed - you'll get real smooth fps - but plain!)MickB

Hi I had this problem and what i found it to be was Airport Environment Upgrade 7. Every time i was on the ground or even fly over an airport i got serious stutters. So if you have this installed you might want to try take it off. All this info i found on some other post so you might want to do a search. Shaun

All the above sources are indeed possible in causing stutters, but I think many stutters in FS are caused by gauges rather than cfg lines or general sliders. If you go to your aircraft menu and then "failures", then disable some of the primary instruments you might find the stutters are eliminated. Of course no-one wants to fly without instruments, but it might demonstrate where the stutters on the ground are coming from.Generally speaking I have found that stutter elimination is given more of a chance if your raw CPU power is as high as possible, assuming you already have a reasonable graphics card and you are not over-stressing your system with a great deal of AI, Scenery and Weather.Rob Young

This issue has got to be the most annoying in FS9, to me at least.I've been tweaking my system and FS9 since FS9 came out and I'm getting tired of it. For every hour of flying, there's three hours of tweaking. I've read every post and every 'magic' trick on most sites and I've contacted MS directly regarding the issue a few times.We're talking about the visual stutter when maving/turning espcially on the ground or near airports.I've all but given up on these magic solutions and FS9.cfg tweaks. I've done the PCI latency thing, Over clocking my Card, FS AutoStart, BlackViper tweaks etc.....The stutters have never gone away. I've literally tried almost every combination of in game and windows settings. If they worked for some people, then never worked for me. These solutions may well be hardware/software-configuarion dependent, in that you may be lucky enough in your PC configuration for the tweaks to have any significant result. As far as I'm concerned, I wouldn't be too upset if MS locked the fs9 config file altogether in the next version.Solution one is get the latest off the shelf hardware and you'll probably run FS9 like it should be. Expensive option this one.Solution two is what many people have done on a dated system but its time consuming. My PC is coming up to three years old. Its:P4 2.26GHz1Gb RAM (Rambus)NVidia Ti4200 64MB VideoSB LiveWindows XP + SP2The rest is standard stuff.Clean install XP, load SP2 and drivers for video and sound. Then install FS9 and the 9.1 patch right after that. Have everything USB/network cables disconnected from the PC at this time.Install and Run Bootvis (microsoft freeware), Intel Application Accelerator and clean your system registry (there are many freeware and payware apps for that - I use TweakNow RegCleaner).-I disabled System Restore in XP however you may want that running.-Turn OFF windows Indexing Service.-Disable LAST FILE ACCESS STAMPING in XP (done through RegEdit).-While you're in RegEdit, Disable Paging Executive and Enable Large System Cache.-Defrag your HD but make sure you disable Page File before you do, as Disk Defrag is way more effective without it. Put a 'Static' Page File after you've Defraged. I use 1534MB Static Page File.Now in Windows Display settings, I set resolution of my desktop to match FS9 (1152x864 32bit 85Hz Refresh).I set AA to 2 and AF to 8. Quality setting and VSync ON.Under system properties, Advanced, Visual Effects under Performance Settings check for Best Performance instead of Best Appearance.Goto MSCONFIG and uncheck Process WIN and SYS ini. Clear all startup items and disable all non-windows services.Lock your FS9 frame rates to a number divisable by the refresh rate. IE, for me with 85Hz referesh I have 43 (85/2=42.5, or try 28FPS-85/3=28.33)Also under Global Max Texture, set to Medium. Set default weather to 30 miles Vis (its also more realistic). Also use Chris Willis' HiFPS clouds.Set LOW to VC quality, and have in-game AA disable as well as Render to Texture and Extended Terrain textures. MipMaps to 4 and Trilinear Filetring. Everything else is pretty much up to you; for me the rest is almost MAXed).When you reboot your system or turn it on the first time, press CTRL-ALT-Delete and see the number of running processes. Mine show about 17-18. And this is without using the BlackViper guide or FS Autostart. The system, at least mine, is purring now. You can tell its extremely responsive.Now load FS9 and enjoy. I'm not promising anything but its worth a try. For my three year old system, FS9 is now running as I think it should with only minimal performance hit at larger airports with lots of traffic. For some reason, I have somehow managed to also eliminate my audio stutters and visual stutters that are caused by ATC/AI chatter. Go figure.I think I will stop my tweaking now, at least till the next version of FS comes. :-)

>Also use Chris Willis' HiFPS clouds.>This is very important! If you use ActiveSky or have slightly complicated weather this make an enourmous difference. Use the dxt3 clouds. With 32 bit you only have to turn those sliders left. Again.Here they are: http://fsw.simflight.com/FSWdownload.htmlLook for HiFPSv2.zipBestEagle

but isn

Thanks for the reminder about the Large System Cache; Yes if using ATI cards please disregard that step. I didn't think of it as I'm using NVidia.As for the rest of the steps, like I said, most tweaks are specific hardware/software configuration dependent. They work for some people and not others. For me, they made my three yr old system young again. Other tweaks did absolutely nothing.Best regards from 'mr. unknown';)

rob, sorry for the "Mr. Unknown", the reply form didn

Just don't say anything to anyone while on the ground! LOLSorry, couldn't resist it All the best,Dave.'Three greens and soft landings':-laugh1

Just my 2 cents.Over the years, I have tried most of the suggested fixes that are supposed to prevent stutters at low altitude (approach) and ground level.In my humble opinion, these are caused by the drain on resources associated with more detailed airport scenery (including autogen-generated objects) at low and ground levels.If you go to the FS menu that allocates keys and joystick to FS functions (controls/assignments), you will find a line that says something like Refresh Textures (not sure of the exact wording - I'm in the office :))I have assigned Shift/T for this function.On final approach, when I am very close to the airport, I now hit Shift/T. It only takes a few seconds to load in the airport textures and my touchdowns and rollouts are now as smooth as silk.Give it a try.