this is a switch. hopefully y'all can be as helpful to me, as i try to be to youi just bought a new dell, it has dual geforce 7800 gtx w/ slii'm not sure i know what that means yet ;-)anyway, there is a total of 4 dvi connectors on these two cards. i run two monitors (i did when i had my trusty ati card - don't get me started)i have one monitor plugged into the first and second port on the first card. is that right? windows works, all other apps work. all except flight simulator :-(no matter what i do. fs9 starts, splash screen appears, the primary monitor goes black (as if fs9 was going into full screen mode), and then everything goes back to windows. the fs9 process is not running.i've tried reducing the resolution. i've upgraded drivers (84.21) i think. i've removed the sli bridge between the two cards, i reinstalled xp sp2. everything but call dell.anyone see anything like this?i guess my next step is to remove one of the 7800 gtx cards.jd

jd - just a thought which has just occurred to me.I had EXACTLY this problem when I 1st had FS9 and it was because I'd move the My Documents to other than the default location (ie not the C: drive) It drove me completely nuts but it was exactly the identical symptoms - splash screen then zilch.

jdHave you installed the MSFS 9.1 update?Did your video cards come with the computer?Vaughan Martell

9.1 update has no effectyes 7800gtx's came with the delljd

Hi,The Microsoft site has several solutions to try.Go to:Microsoft.comSelf supportSelect a productMore Xbox and gamingFlight Sim 2004Troubleshooting sectionselect the topic ... FS does not start ... same problem you are having!Regards,Vaughan Martell

You said you had ONE monitor plugged in to TWO ports on the same card. That doesn't sound right. WHat happens if you just plug in one monitor - can you get that to work? Then go from there.Also you might want to post this question on microsoft.public.simulators newsgroup.HTH,VicVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://sales.hifisim.com/pub-download/asv6-banner-proud.jpghttp://www.jdtllc.com/images/rcv4bannersupporter.jpg

what i meant to say, 1 monitor into the first port, second monitor into the second port.jd

yep, been there, checked all 9 things :-(jd

Have you checked the display device section of your FS9.cfg?I only have a non-sli 6800GT but here is my example:Mode=1024x768x32RenderToTexture=0//PanelAsTexture=0TriLinear=1MipBias=5Tablefog=0UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=20TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=200Some NVidia card drivers don't work with certain AA settings, especially 2x. I had to move to 4x (in the card driver) with AA off in FS.Be sure there is only one display.device section in FS9.cfg.Just some thingies to check.

Hi,Did you try one monitor on the primary card and the second minitor on the second card?Are either of your monitors VGA using a VGA/DVI adaptor?Regards,Vaughan

Hi,Can you move the shortcut ICONS from the primary to the second monitor?Vaughan

Hi,From the windows desktopWhen you right clickPropertiesSettingsAre both of your monitors listed (#1 is Primary #2 is secondary)Using the correct video card and resolutions?Vaughan

never had to do this on any machine of mine, before :-(had to edit the fs9.cfg file, and change show_opening_screen from 1 to 0now it works like a champ.now where's that radar contact code.....:-)jd

Hi,I use two monitorsMy opening screen statement is set to 1Regards,Vaughan

Hi JD,I have two 7800 cards and I have found that you cannot run multiple monitors if SLI is enabled (I confirmed this by visiting the Nvidia website). When you enable SLI one of the monitors will go blank.If this is what you are experiencing then you may want to try disabling the SLI in the Nvidia driver settings. The latest Nvidia drivers will let you enable and disable SLI without rebooting.As an aside, I eventually removed one of my 7800 cards since I found that my ASUS motherboard runs each card in PCIX8 mode if two cards are installed. If only one card is installed it runs the one card in PCIX16 mode. Since most of my FS9 views are on the primary monitor I figured I preferred to devote most of the bandwidth to the one card and plug both monitors into that one card. I have not really experimented to confirm if this is really the best configuration.Hopefully some of this info will help.