Hi Folks,I've been using FS9 on my PIII with Windows ME (please see specs below). I've been happy with the performance of FS9 on my machine and generally have about 90% of resources available for FS9, after I close non essential programs.I'm considering upgrading to Windows XP and was wondering if I'll lose performance as Windows XP uses more ram than Windows ME. I'm already maxed out at 512 ram on my system.Please let me know your thoughts. ALso, please indicate if you've actually done the same type of operating system upgrade on a PIII as I'm considering.Thanks in advance.....

My own, not very educated opinion is...if it ain't broke, don't fix it. If you are happy with FS9 on your rig you are only asking for trouble IMHO.You might want to save up and upgrade your rig to one with a fresh XPSP2 install. Maybe when FS10 ships...which I suspect will bury a PIII.Just my 1.5 cents.Jim

You actually have two bottlenecks on that system. First is the 512 ram limit and you obviously have a problem there. WinXP will run on your system quite well; however, if you want to play games, NO. Modern games stress and stretch the system to its limits and MSFS is not an exception, rather it's out in the forefront.Second, your video card will not give you a "good ride" because it just isn't up to it anymore. WinXP is very much a more stable incarnation of the op sys and as such would serve you well FOR ORDINARY PURPOSES. As stated above, however, it won't play games very well on that system. I know, we're gonna get everyone and his uncle telling us how HE runs much the same system and doesn't find anything wrong. Caveat (something)! If you wanna see FlightSim in all its glory you gonna have to have the biggies.I used WinXP for awhile, taking the path on much the same system, but had a better video card. I took the path from WinME and at first was fairly satisfied. Then, as you might recall, last summer we had the enormous hit from the virus folks, getting one after the other. I finally went to Win2000 to get away from it. Finally, my system is fairly std for today's machines. I've got 1.5 gigs memory and a nVidia video card, the 5900 128 meg as I recall. Any problems? You bet. Do I wish I had better/faster? You bet. But one does with what one has and I can no longer afford to keep up with the Joneses (I'm retired, on a fixed income.) I did put two 250 gig hard drives in it. :D :D :D

I upgraded from ME to XP on my system (PIII 1.0 Ghz 512 Mb RAM) and it was the best 'tweak' for FS I've ever done.However, I had been having trouble with crashes and lockups with ME. In your case, if you're happy, I'd probably leave it be. An upgrade to XP costs about $150 here in Canada, money probably best saved to upgrade your system. That's my next priority.Hope this helpsBlairCYOW

I absolutely detested WinMe - the crappiest operating system ever invented. So I would say it depends on your level of tolerance for WinMe - if you are ok with it - keep it. Otherwise switch to XP (even on your system) is highly recommended.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

Hi Howard, Couple of good comments there - worth considering saving up etc...I would point out though, that before my very very long awaited upgrade last year - I was runnning (very happily IMHO) XP SP1 on my Dell PIII 866mhz with 512Mb Ram. I have a 2 year old Ti4200 128mb GF4 video card that I still use on the new system, which I used previously. This config' gave me sliders roughly 75%. The new beast is maxed out....On the old rig though, I was staggered at how much better XP ran FS9. So - if it's FS9 you want to use primarily, and you have XP, then put it on....Incidentally, my wife now uses the 'old' system. Naturally I had to downgrade her to my old 32mb GF2 GTS Video Card, but I've just checked for curiosity, and it still runs really well at about 50% sliders !!! :) Hope this helps.....Good Luck & RegardsEddy

I have an old desktop PC PIII 1Giga hertz and an envidia card (64 on board). Runs Win XP professional SP1.Never had any problems run fps fixed at 20, and I do not autogen to max etc. Good quality graphics and speed. I have a 1 Giga ram an 2X60 7200 ultra ATA 133.Edmundo Cardenas van Grieken

Instead of the buggy (by comparison) go for Windows 2000, ultra reliable , I ran FS2K FS2004 with frame rates nobody would believe after much tweaking, namely Chis Willis and an XML tweak which removed much of the tosh.Takes full advantage of your RAM, might possibly consider a graphic card upgrade and best you can buy it on Ebay for pennies and not copies !RegardsAsh

While I was running my Celeron 1.4 Ghz with W98SE, and would not have gone out and purchased WXP (Home or Pro)...I AM running it on my Dell XPS and found it to absolutely BLOW AWAY W98SE for stability.Even with careful grooming of W98SE, I still got crashes and freeze ups running FS2004. Not often mind you, but still happened.With XP Pro? Not on your life! Rock solid. You can even do abusive things (ie: dumb!) and STILL it won't crash. I am running XP Pro with SP2.I get great performance with FS2004.If you are thinking of buying a whole new computer, then wait until then and get the O.S. with that. If not...I can only say that XP is truly more stable than W98SE.Cheers!Mitch R.

Hi Folks,Wow, thanks loads for your interesting and well thought out responses.I'm leaning towards upgrading to XP as I spend too much time with ME's frustrating screw ups. If I thought FS9 wouldn't run well on my system with XP, then I'd put up with the frustrating ME.I appreciate all of your comments.Many thanks to Avsim for providing this forum, library and so on.....

Hi Blair,I guess I should have mentioned in my original message that I've had lots of problems with ME. But, at the same time FS9 runs extremely well on my machine at this time. I want to get rid of ME but only if FS9 will run well with XP. Looks like I'll be upgrading very soon. In my case Dell sent me a free upgrade to XP as I bought my computer around the time XP was coming out. Now comes the fun of upgrading and re installing FS9 and all of the many addons I've installed. With Dell's upgrade CD's I first have to reload ME and then apply the upgrade to the reloaded system. I want to start with a clean disk before applying the XP upgrade.Have fun.........

WinXp, is about the best OS from ms i think. But it is a power hungry os and takes advantages of all resources. Unless you could upgrade to 1gb ram, and even that would help with xp, i wouldnt do it. Great os, but i wouldnt bother with it on your specs. If your happy with fs, just leave it be. :):-wave

I upgraded to xp when I bought FS9 so I've never run it on ME. But, as I stated, I thought ME was a piece of ... so by all means go for XP.And just wait to see how well FS9 runs on the fresh reinstall, before you start adding in all the addons we're all addicted to that will bring any system to its knees, lol.Good luck with it.BlairCYOW