Hello,I just picked up a new system for FSX. It's an Intel Core2 Quattro Q6600 / 2GB Ram / ATI X1650 256mb / on board sound (Acer ASE770 if you want the specifics).I know from the start the video card isn't anything too special, but I figured I still should be able to run FSX reasonbly well, and I can.I have fps locked at 20, and I can get that with scenery dense, autogen normal, water high 1.0, even flying around downtown Seattle in the Jet City mission. However once I throw some clouds at the system it starts stuttering like made, with framerates jumping 13/20/13/20, esp if there are any big clouds.Asside from using the pathetic simple clouds, is there anything I can do? I haven't done any FSX.cfg tweaks yet, or any tweaks at all actually.Why does MS have to overdo the clouds every time? I wish there was some in between, even FS2002 style clouds so you can get performance while still getting IFR.Anyhow if anyone has suggestions they would be GREATLY appreciated. Thank you.

Hi,Keep cloud draw distance at 40. Watch your AA and AF levels.Jimhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-community-sigbanner.jpghttp://www.hifisim.com/

Thanks Jim. I have my draw distance at the min (I think it's 60 for FSX). I have AF completely cranked though, perhaps that's the culprit, I'll have to play around with it a bit.

Another thing you may want to try is to let the application (FSX) control the AF. I've noticed a slight performance boost doing this with my Nvidia card. I imagine it should work the same with your ATI card.Chris

There is also a reduced size cloud texture file on avsim somewhere might help, dosnt look to bad.

David,We meet again :-) Firstly, with a quad core CPU, I recommend removing the FPS lock - it only cages the beast. Secondly, since your new system has onboard sound, try reducing sound hardware acceleration using DXDIAG by one notch - it SIGNIFICANTLY reduced stutters due to cloud coverage for me. I found that AA/AF levels made no difference with this issue for me.Gary