I'd be SOOO happy if I could get that ~15% back (more like 40% here)! FLUSH!!! no more!I think those on the lower end (such as myself) are the ones suffering from Vista performance. All you C2D folks have it easy. And are likely broke :)

Pat,In order for what you say to be very credible, you would have to compare results on a fresh install of xp as well as one of vista (ideally on a newly formatted drive, but that is unrealistic). Many have done this when they reinstalled xp (generally for dual boot) after finding vista performance less than stellar. Since you upgraded and probably installed fsx after running xp for some time, I'm guessing your former xp was not fresh at the time of the upgrade. I think the reason some people (not necessarily you) report performance gains with vista is that xp had a nasty habit of become bloated (as vista probably does too). This is not meant to offend, but I suggest anyone who maintains that 3d graphical performance is better under vista pop over to the guru of 3d forums. After searching they will find plenty of reports of worse performance for 3d apps from people running very high end systems as well as average systems. And these guys on those forums optimize the heck out of their computers; some are obsessive, installing new drivers or trying new tweaks every other day. And for fsx specifically (as well as games), you have the benchmarks, not one of which I have seen - including the above - reports better performance under vista. Drivers are simply not mature on vista, hence worse performance across the board. This may not be as noticible with high end systems, but it's there. I, for one, dual boot; doing work under vista and simming and games under xp. Pat, your system may be an exception - really an anomaly since you actually report a gain rather than just equal performance - but statistically it is a safer bet for most people to stick with xp rather than vista for fsx, at least until drivers mature and the directx 10 update is delivered.

FWIW, my results are based on FSX installed on a clean and stripped down Vista Home Premium with several thorough defrags.

Anybody want some bar snacks whilst we wait? Peanuts? Crisps? Pork scratchings? I'm enjoying the beer. :-)

I have capped the fps to 15, I will be a happy bunny if the sp1 means I can increase it to 17, and night textures are fixed.

There was a thread around here somewhere a few days ago, reporting that Vista would initially impose a high overhead on performance as it went through its various indexing routines. After this initial phase, Vista would then reduce its performance overhead and perform as well as, if not better than, WinXP. (According to this poster, the issue wasn't ONLY defrags, but also Vista's process of indexing your hard drives, etc.) I cannot verify this, as I am not a Vista owner. The original post may have been by Astrodave but I'm not sure. I'll try to relocate the thread if anyone is especially interested. Incidentally, hardocp.com has just done a comparison between WinXP and Vista performance in several games, including FSX. It found that WinXP was the better performer in every instance. I saw no mention of Vista's initial indexing routines as being a possible factor -- hardocp cited poor graphics drivers as the likely culprit. I'm not going to be moving to Vista until there's a good reason to pay the outrageous cost. That probably means not until the DX10 patch is released around the end of the year.

Well, it indeed seems to be THIS week...!A quote from Phil's blog:"As to how much of a boost, we are still being conservative with the 20% across the board number, but we are seeing some scenarios on better hw hit up to 40% improvement. It really depends on your rig, on your settings, and on your actual flight. And thats before we talk to the scenery content fixes, the airplane and gauge/panel fixes, the back-compat bug fixes, the 3 AI aircraft fixes, the multiplayer fixes ( griefer bug, partial fix for the connection to Gamespy issue ) and the SDK+SimConnect fixes. SP1 is chock full of goodness. And is still on target for later this week. Stay tuned!"Well, I WILL stay tuned! No problem! :)

What I don't like about this sentence is the "later" part. Otherwise it's fine with me ;)

>Well, it must be time for Microsoft to release something. >Here come the stupid threads in the calm-before-the-storm!>>:9Yes really. I already *know* what kind of threads are going to appear after SP1 is released.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2585 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2gb Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8 (1T), WD 150 gig 10000rpm Raptor, WD 250gig 7200rpm SATA2, Seagate 120gb 5400 rpm external HD, CoolerMaster Praetorian

Sounds exciting about the gauges and panel fixes. I assume once this sp1 has percolated, developers will be bringing out heaps more aircraft models and paints that are fully compatible with fsx, such as jetways and view modes.

Remember that it still takes time to make things of quality...al