First, thank you Chris for your work--greatly appreciated. With AEU7 I get major pauses (not just microstutters). I had the same problem with AEU6 and could not therefore use them. I was hoping for better performance on my system with the latest files. My specs are below. I generally get good performance in FS9. Any suggestions?RandallNforce 2 400 Ultra motherboard (Epox)AMD Barton 3200+1 gig 3200 memoryRadeon 9700 pro (currently using Catalyst 4.3)Soundblaster Live 5.1

I would be inclinded to say the increase in texture size is causing the issue, I noticed that some of the files are 1.5mb each, where as the default and "MX" version files are about 18kb, that is a massive increase.Although they look very nice, and I am thankfull for the work Chris has done, I doubt I will install them for the above reason.Dan.

Hi Folks,AEUR7 is a great addon to go along with many other worthwhile additions to FS2004. Many thanks to Chris Arrington for another fantastic addon.I'm not having any pauses or problems on my system and I've got most display sliders on max and AI on 0 (zero).

"I noticed that some of the files are 1.5mb each, where as the default and "MX" version files are about 18kb, that is a massive increase."I notcied this, too. I have the major hesitation when turning toward an airport with v7.0 (as I did with v6.0). Went back to the Express package and all is well again.Thanks for your efforts, Chris, really too bad that I can't run anything but the Express version. Evenso, that package is wonderful.Greg

This is why I gave up on AEU-7 (or 6) for precisely this reason. They look very well but since this upgarde affects immediately many airports all of a sudden I see a stutter or heavy micro-stutter when turning in the area where there are many airports. Even airports I can't see. My tolerance for pauses and stutter is much smaller than tolerance for not having some eye candy. So at the end, after rethinking my options, I came to the conclusion that I rather have some one major airport add-on in the vicinity that is causing the performance hit and which is also my destination rather than getting hit by 10 other airports where I am not going and which I can't even see.Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

I was getting the same pauses first with AEU6 and now with AEU7, but in each case I found a workaround compromise. I was willing to sacrifice the enhanced buildings, but Chris's great runway textures were too nice to give up. So, using Imagetool, I removed the mips on runway11.bmp and runway12.bmp, then saved a lower size .bmp of 256 kb (might have been runway11_1.bmp and runway12_1.bmp, I forget) and renamed them runway11.bmp. and runway12.bmp. No more pauses, and the image quality was not significantly changed.John

Hi Folks,So far 3 of the posters with pause problems all have AMD processors.Is it possible this could be a problem specific to AMD? Just a thought.

Hi Howard,I'm having the exact same issues and my machine is a P4 3.0GHz with HT.The same thing occurs with the scenery provided with RealAir's Spitfire. I wonder if they occur from the same cause. I believe if I can solve the issue for AEU7 then the problem with the RealAir scenery would also be solved.James

>>Is it possible this could be a problem specific to AMD? Oh, I would bet my house this is not the case. Some people are much more sensitive to pauses/stutters than others. It is like they say "in the eyes of the beholder" ;-)Michael J.WinXP-Home SP2,AMD64 3500+,Abit AV8,Radeon X800Pro,36GB Raptor,1GB PC3200,Audigy 2

(copied from another thread that I started)I just installed AEU7.0 (upgrade from 6 lite) and have tremendous stutters, the sim takes 5 plus seconds to load textures and stutters for 2 seconds every 10 seconds. AEU 6 Lite works perfectly smooth. I do have a fairly high end machine P4 2.8, ATI 9800 Pro, 1 Gig ram, so should not have problems with this. Any ideas? I am sure it is something in my setup as others with similar machines don't have this issue with AEU. thanks,Mark.

Yea, some people get 'em some don't I guess. I've got an Intel. The pauses (definately not studders), are caused because of loading the large texture sizes as mentioned above. I see it up to maybe 2 seconds before FS resumes. Also when in the air and I turn towards an airport into view I get the same issue. I had it also when I tried version 6. If you have the same problem I suggest trying his Version 6 Express. Looks similar to version 6 but no problems like above. Perhaps he'll do a version 7 "lite" as well down the road. No matter for I like version 6 the best.

I also experienced stutters with the AEU7 package. My workaround was similar to John F's: reduce the size of the textures using DXTBMP and Paint Shop Pro. With the texture resolution reduced by 50% and filesizes down to around 25% of the originals, I don't experience stutters any more. The loss in image quality is noticeable but not too bad.Like JimboFly, I also had the same texture loading stutter problem with RealAir's Spitfire and RAF West Malling package. Reducing the filesizes for the RAF West Malling airfield solved the loading stutters for that package too.Athlon64 3500+2GB PC3200 DDRATI Radeon 9800 Pro with 128MB

Well I have just done some circits in my PMDG 737NG around Melbourne International (YMML) and the nearby Essendon airport where I have the default scenery plus AEU7 plus about 25 jetways installed with RW12. I must say that any pauses were very minimal and much less than that I have had with other 3rd party airport scenery. My rig is relatively modest by today's standards AMD 3400+, nvidia 4800SE & 1 gig ram.Many thanks to Chris for providing this addon.Bruceb

Well, it looks like a-lot has happened while I was at work today. ...Plagued with the blasted stutters again. I wish I could upright solve this problem altogether, but it goes against the detailed nature of AEU to make any more file size reductions than I already have. Notice that 47% of the 31 AEU6 texture file sizes have been cut in half. That is to say that some 1024x bitmaps from AEU6 are now 512x in AEU7. I could only do this with textures that people are less likely to view up close. The main terminals do not fall into this category, and are therefore still the same size. Technically speaking, there should be a performance increase but appearantly, performance is not the issue. As long as I still have files that large still on the airport property, texture load times will plague me forever. It is simply not what I intended AEU to be when the remaining textures are reduced. The detail goes away, and the impression of realism becomes little better than default.What amazes me more than anything, is that it never seems to come up in testing, only in the days following the final release.I wish that I could do more, but I would rather you not use AEU at all than to see it reduced to rubble. In my heart, it is a very special upgrade with a very specific level of detail, and that's the way that I wish for it to remain. There will be no authorized "express" version of 7. AVSIM's 57000 or so AEU6 users can't all be unhappy. Maybe I'll get lucky, and AEU7 will see similar popularity in the end.Warm regards to ALL. :-beerchug

I too have the stutters on a high end system. I tried Imagetool on those two files and it said they were not valid files. Could you please zip up the two files and upload them here? Thanks, regards, Bob.