Hi guys,I have a pretty high end system (P4 3.6mhz, ATI 800XT PE, 1024Mgb Ram) and it has always run FS9 very well. Somewhere along the way I have lost my FS "sweet spot" and it's very frustrating. Mostly it seems to correspond to the addition of Ultimate Terrain USA but it's hard to say for sure since I've added quite a few things in the last few month. Basically I am having periods of horrific stuttering that seems related to the loading of textures for AI aircraft or airport buildings. I can see as I get closer that the structures are white but then the program stutters very badly for 3 or 4 seconds until they are drawn. At other times I get a stutter just as ATC starts to speak. The airport textures are especially frustrating because it really is important to have smooth frame rates when you are landing.I've tried scaling back everything, including AI, and I have updated my drivers but to no avail. I've tried many of the ideas that have appeared here for stuttering with no luck. I can appreciate that Ultimate Terrain must be taxing but I would expect my system to handle it better than this. Any ideas or has anyone else seen this problem? THanksDavid

Interesting theory....I too had problems with textures loading on buildings as well as on aircraft. I had to go back a few generations of video drivers to get it semi-normal. Now, come to think about it, this problem didn't pop up until Ultmate Terrain USA was installed.....Flight 1: What do you think?Paul

I have the exact same system. Might be your video card drivers not completely installed properly. Try these settings in your FS9 cfg as they work for me. These settings based on several recommendations around the Internet:[DISPLAY.Device.RADEON X800 XT.0]Mode=1680x1050x32TriLinear=1[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=50TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=60[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=96.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=200.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=20TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=4TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=1TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=40.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=60.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1242456[sCENERY]IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=5DYNAMIC_SCENERY=0DYN_SCN_DENSITY=0DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=0SUNGLARE=0LENSFLARE=0Hope this helps.Jim

Re Ultimate Terrain. That's when my same probs started. Going back a bit on driver versions did it for me. Then again I did so much to try and fix it it could have been something else but that seems the best bet on my system.Have you just gone to Directx 6.0c by any chance? I did that at the same time as loading UT USA.Andrew Brownhttp://www.gordiusfs.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/