HiTo all people with FSP stutter with the 4.01: What type of soundcard do you have?I have Asus P5ad2 motherboard with integrated 7.1 audio. I have a performance drop when sound files are being accessed.Maybe I buy a new soundcard tomorrow (Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi). What do you think of that card?Niclas

I have an Audigy2 and I don't notice any significant drop.

any system with an integrated sound card will suffer frame rate decreases when sounds are played. because the pc's cpu has to do audio work, which will decrease fs's processing time slicesjd

>any system with an integrated sound card will suffer frame>rate decreases when sounds are played. because the pc's cpu>has to do audio work, which will decrease fs's processing time>slices>>jdJust what I thought. I

Can you let us know if the fps improve with an independant soundcard. I also have an integrated soundcard and would like to know if changing it woill make a difference.ThanksDaniel

Daniel,You won't get better frame rates because RC4 is not that demanding. What you will benefit from with a separate soundcard is improved speech as the soundcard can process the sound exclusively without needing to rely on spare CPU cycles.I run RC4 on a P4 3.0, 1Gb RAM and an Audigy 2 ZS and speech is very fluid with 4.01.Also ensure you defrag your HD on a regular basis. The quicker RC4 retrieves the wavs the quicker it responds to your actions.Cheers,

ah ok. thanks for the reply. I'm always looking for ways to squeeze a few extra fps anyway i can. :) While the fps aren't bad it could be better and it gets pretty slow near the end of a flight and even slower when i'm on finals!I've got a P4 2.6 with 1gb ram and ati 9600 pro. thinking of upgrading to an ati 9800 256mb. Do you think that could improve my fps.ThanksDaniel

HiI have bought a SoundBlaster X-Fi soundcard now. I have also defraged my hardrive. Before I had stutters from 37 to 11 and now I have steady 37-27. What an improvement :-jumpy for "only" 158$ :-lol (Dont

Hi Daniel,The 256Mb 9800 Pro won't make a big difference and the extra graphics memory isn't of any direct benefit in FS9 or RC4. Try reducing AA or AF if you have them enabled. AA is especially hard on frame rates.What I would suggest once you get a separate soundcard is to install RC4 onto a separate partition away from FS9 if possible and to keep that partition defragged on a regular basis. As very few new files will be added to that installation it should stay defragged pretty well.You can also improve frame rates by reducing the % of Ai aircraft especially if you fly into busy airports such as EGLL and KLAX. It also helps to terminate any unnecessary programs and services and FSAutoStart is an excellent tool to achieve this. You should find Ken Salter's program on AvSim.Cheers,

Hi Niclas,That good news although a cheaper soundcard such as the Creative Labs Audigy would probably have done the job just as well. Still, just as long as your wife doesn't know we'll keep that little secret between us ;-)Happy flying!

Thanks for the advice Ray.

Hello RayWith all due respect, moving from a radeon 9600 to a 9800 will provide a much smoother experience especially at higher resolutions 1600x1200 ectI swapped out a 9600 256mb card for a 9800 128mb and the results were very noticable.

Hi Mad Dog,Fair comment if you have personal experience. I would have thought the two cards wouldn't have showed such a marked difference in performance and I'm a bit surprised you can run the 9800 at 1600*1200 without a marked drop in performance. I guess you also have a 21" CRT or a high-end TFT capable of such a resolution.However, searching a couple of major UK internet retailers for the 9800 I couldn't find any stock. Things may be different in the US but it may be difficult to track down a 9800 now. It's a pretty old card and won't be transferrable to a future PC if it has a PCI-Express mobo.If Daniel is contemplating a new PC for FSX later this year he may want to bear that in mind. Of course there's always the second-hand market with the usual advice about buyer beware.Cheers,

They have them on on ebay for about 85 quid. They're new i think so i was contemplating it. i guess 85 quid for another year isn't too bad. From what i've heard they are very good graphics cards.

Providing you have a reasonably fast processor - 2.8MHz minimum, 1Gb RAM, a good soundcard and XP then 85 UKP is certainly a lot less than I paid two years ago. It also depends on what you have now of course.The 9800 Pro is good for FS9 but FS10 will probably be far more demanding especially with graphics and a 256Mb PCI-Express card will probably be essential for smooth performance given how much processing is now being transferred to the card from the CPU.Cheers,