Hi all,First of all, here are my system specs: P4 3.0Ghz, MSI motherboard,520W Power supply, RealTek AC'97 Audio, Markvision 512MB DDR 333/PC2700 Ram, Radeon X800 Pro, Xp Pro (SP2 installed). Now to my dilemna. FS9 runs pretty well on my new set-up. I average around 25 fps (locked at 30) in most cases with all settings far right. The only problem I am noticing is a slight pause (maybe a few milliseconds but quite noticeable) when I am on the ground, and ATC is communicating with another aircraft or me. It is most annoying, especially during take-off or on final approach. I have tried various settings, updated all drivers, different tweaks as suggested for similar problems, but to no avail. I also use enditall before loading FS. Can someone provide some suggestions for my dilemna? Any assistance will be greatly appreciated. BTW, I have the latest version of Direct X (9.0 c)Thanks in advanceJ.C. (MYNN)

Unlike a seperate CPU generating audio on an add-in card, your on-board audio is created by the same CPU handling your AI and scenery detail which on or near the airport can load down the CPU quite a bit. In your DX 9 audio acceleration settings try using no more than one notch above basic acceration so the "pauses" are evenly distributed. An add-on sound card would probably improve things besides free up ram (you would then disable to on-board sound in your BIOS).

had the same problem and thought having my resolution settings possibly to high i dropped down to 1024x768 and no more stutters. for me, among other problems i've had, seems to be in trying to get things running beyond my what my computer can do. william

well, it seemed to work last night but the stutters are back again. ronzie is probably right as i have an onboard soundcard also. william

i also have AC97 onboard sound, biggest mistake i made when i upgraded my Flight Sim computer 2 yrs back, the best thing to do is just get a soundcard, a good quality creative one is pretty cheap these days. I also notice the stuttering when ATC talks, funny sometimes as it sounds like thy have a natural stuttering voice.

Mine did that when I installed SP2. Uninstall of SP2 and system restore brought the sound back to normal.

Hi all, Thanks for all the replies. One thing that I have noticed is that the driver version for my realtek AC'97 audio listed when I run dxdiag is different than the current driver version installed. I usually run MSI live update to install the latest audio driver versions. Somehow the latest driver is not listed in direct X. Since this might be the "smoking gun" to my sound problems, is there any way to get my current audio driver version listed in direct X? As usual, thanks for any replies.J.C. (MYNN)

JC, I did some testing on on-board AC97 Realtek (on my board too) vs the SB Audigy 2 which I installed: you lose roughly 10% of your frames with the Realtek vs SB Aud 2. The other is could be that as you are accessing the .wav files you are getting some pausing. I get the tiniest of pauses even with my SB card, though this doesn't happen very much, and I have been able to reduce this virtual absence by lowering the PCI latency on my video card from 248 to 32 (rationale: giving the sound card and file system a little more priority relative to the video subsystem).Noel

got my stutters fixed! as i mentioned i have onboard sound but found new drivers for it. downloaded them and stutters are GONE!!! warning: there's no readme file in the download and no "run" button to click. i only remember one that says "open" and no install exe. file either. how did i do it? had a neighbor help. anyway, it does work,on mine at least. i have nvidia onboard audio. william

Hi there, I installed a Creative Soundblaster Live5.1 audio card(with the latest drivers), and another 512 MB of Ram. The slight pauses have been reduced to a degree, but it is still noticeable. It happens in complex sceneries (such as FlyTampa KMIA) and sparse default sceneries. Is there any thing I can do with the fs9.cfg file as it relates to the ATC sound waves? All other sounds are pretty much stutter free (i.e. engine sounds, environment, etc). I also tried to cap my frames at 20, but this didn't help much. To recap, this phenomena happens mostly on or near the ground when ATC transmits to me or another aircraft, or vice versa. Any further assistance would be greatly appreciated. BTW, the framerates are fine (averaging 35-45fps). Sound acceleration is turned down to basic also. J.C. (MYNN)