Hi,I've been having a recurring problem with FS2004 regarding very slow menu operation when in full-screen mode. Everything is peachy in windowed mode; only in full-screen does the problem manifest itself.When in fullscreen, pressing ALT and selecting the aircraft pull-down menu, weather dialog, instant replay, etc, results in a minimum 5-10 second delay. Interestingly, I've only experienced this full-screen GUI/menu stutter when using ATI video cards. Geforce series cards have had completely fluid menu operation in full-screen mode, at least with my setup. I have, however, Googled this issue and read a couple of forum posts elsewhere wherein others have experienced the same thing with particular Geforce cards as well. I now have this problem with the ATI 9800 PRO, ATI X1300 PRO, and the ATI X800 GTO cards. I've also got this problem with ATI cards in both a VIA KT266A based motherboard and a Nvidia Nforce2 based motherboard. In all cases, I'm using an Althon XP 2600+ CPU.I've tried using a wide variety of Catalyst drivers, in addition to the latest Omega release at Guru3d.com. Changing drivers has had no effect. I've also tried disabling AGP texture acceleration with no effect.My main system specs:Epox Nforce2 Ultra 400 chipset motherboardAthlon XP 2600+ CPU1 gig Kingston main RAMSeagate ATA100, 7200 RPM HDSapphire ATI X800 GTO 256MB video card/412 core/1000mhz DDRFramerates in FS2004 are excellent all around; only this very slow pull-down menu operation is holding me back. I realize that switching back to windowed mode before using the menus would be a quick-fix, but I get the unbearable pauses when switching between full-screened to windowed too! This is really driving me crazy (I know, short trip!!!). I would be eternally grateful if anyone could provide a resolution or insight into this issue. A lot of other folks are experiencing this slow menu deal as well - I've just never come across a definite fix as of yet.Thanks!

I thought that was an ATI "feature".scott s..

>Hi,>>I've been having a recurring problem with FS2004 regarding>very slow menu operation when in full-screen mode. >Everything is peachy in windowed mode; only in full-screen>does the problem manifest itself.Hi Ricardo,I'm experiencing the same annoying problems too, with a very similar configuration (nForce2, Barton2800+, 1GB, 9800Pro).In my case, it disappeared only in a pair of occasions, probably after a format and reinstall, and maybe after a driver change. But it re-appeared again.Sorry, I can't help you a lot. Try to re-install old video-drivers (maybe those bundled with videocard). I gave up on that, also I don't play with MSFS anymore.Marco

I have it too. It went away after I reinstalled but has come back. I've no idea what is causing it, but I can only assume an addon is interacting somehow. But that dosn't make sense really so who knows?billg

Thanks for the replies guys.Weird. A couple of Google hits on this subject suggested uninstalling add-on mouse drivers and reinstalling with default XP mouse drivers would fix the problem, but I've just now tried this without any results.I'll be darned if I'm gonna simply put up with these menu delays though. I'll experiment as long as I have to to clear this up - it's simply too irritating. Again, thanks for all the responses.

Same thing here, and I just switched from a Nvidia 7900 to the X1900. Everything with the card is wonderful, but the delay in accessing menu's is definitely a problem. Hope someone can shed some insight. John HaleyThunder BayCanada

Incidentally, I have submitted a trouble ticket to ATI to see what kind of input they can provide.John Haley

Many times slow operation may be caused by having a lot of invalid entries in the registry. This comes from deleting stuff from the drive, or even uninstalling things which we no longer want. Not all uninstalls remove everything, a lot of trial software with limitations leaves something to prevent reinstalling and reuse. A Free program, CCleaner helps clean out the system, and restore speed so it is like new again. Been using it a few years, running it automatically without any problems. A Payware program which does simiar things is Registry Mechanic... Can't hurt to try either of them, and it may help.

Thanks for the input. I've got Registry Mechanic, run it regularly. But alas, no difference. I have been advised to adjust the anistrophic filtering down a notch or two, tried it this afternoon. No difference. Since we have it on different cards, perhaps the solution rests with a fine tune of the catalyst drivers. John Haley

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I've tried everything mentioned so far with limited success. I just did a complete re-install of FS2004 (bare bones, no patch or add-ons of any kind), and I found that while it significantly reduced the full-screen pausing, it did not completely eliminate it. Very weird! I will continue to research this problem.

Hey Ricardo,I had this problem since I have ATI. Only way to get rid of it was using FSForce - though only demo, but I know it got rid of menu problem.But I guess your problem is connect to something else - also a delay when rightclicking somewhere in the cockpit?My opinion is it's possibly connected to the force feedback support in FS9. I only have a FS9 joystick, thus no help here for me...

Do you guys have active camera? On my old rig, I found that right after I installed active camera the sim menus slowed down greatly.http://www.kthxdone.com/images/kw_ft.jpgKen Weik [link:maam.org|MAAM-SIM][link:library.avsim.net/search.php?CatID=root&SearchTerm=kenneth+weik&Sort=Added&ScanMode=0&Go=Change+View]My AFCADs

Got this as well with an X850 card and the Omega 6.05 drivers...its an ATI deal for sure..nothing a reinstall will cure..its in the drivers themselves. I find certain aircraft cause it to be more pronounced likely due to the way the AA/AF is handled in the gauges causing the card to slow down some thus affecting things when in full scn mode.

But if that was the case, you'd expect similar trouble in windowed mode, right? I mean, effect and image quality-wise there is absolutely no difference between full-screen and windowed mode. It used to be, in the very early age of hardware-accelerated 3D, that you would not get hardware acceleration in a window - only in full-screen. But this hasn't been the case for a long time.These slowdowns are one of the reasons why I run FS9 in windowed mode and then expand it to fill as much of the screen as it can. This has the benefit of getting rid of the menu slowdown as well as giving me easy access to web browsers, PDF charts and such (only have the one monitor). The expense is some 70 pixels of wasted vertical space taken up by the menus and task bar.It doesn't cure the other problem I seem to have with ATi's drivers, AA and FS9 - namely, whenever a mouse hover or similar information popup comes up, everything slows down to a crawl until the popup closes. That can be fixed by turning off the AA, though.

I find it so hard to believe that we are the only ones experiencing this?Any solution found?