I've been playing more RoF since the last patch that seems to have cleared up the micro stutters I was experiencing. Also ensuring that I didn't have FSAA set in game and in the video properties helped with the ATI card's dislike of clouds.

In many missions with low plane counts and perhaps two enemy two seaters things are fine beyond some major lurches as they appear on scene. However in other missions with more enemy AI things go from 40-50+ fps and then dive to 5-15fps and stay there for as long as the enemy are in the air or until I fly away a few miles.

The game lurches along utterly unplayable, with sound and control lags and it's just unmanageable. This isn't transient but is a long last effect. I basically don't want to fly missions with this happening because it makes the game utterly unplayable. What I'm wondering is whether this is the same as other folks are experiencing?

My specs:
E8500 C2D CPU
4GB DDR800
ATI 4890 1GB OC
Onboard Realtek soundcard
560W PSU
1920x1200 display
MS Precision Pro joystick

Graphics settings are medium, 2xFSAA, 4x Aniso, post-processing off.
(I've tried other settings with more or less detail with similar results)
Sound set to medium settings
TrackIR disabled (to exclude it from possible causes)

I've just updated my sound drivers to the latest (were a couple of months old) in the hope that this solves it. I've also just updated from ATI 9.9 to 9.10 drivers. Will test with these updates but I'm not optimistic.

Any help, hints or ideas, or just confirmation that I'm not alone in this would be appreciated!

Well, the only thing I was going to add-you already addressed. If I let the game set the AA it would stutter like hell. After I disabled it and let the ATI control panel run things, it runs smooth as glass. Did your driver updates help?

No, no joy with the updates. I've been chatting to one of the Rise of Flight crew and he indicated that there was an error in one of my mission generated campaign files I sent so they'll be fixing that. The second mission I sent them had more planes but no errors.

I dunno, just seems like a C2D just won't cut it - but I have had reports of quad core folks experiencing similar problems so maybe it's a threading/load problem.

Anyway - I'm going to try without Fraps (one theory) and maybe set FSAA in the ATI panel rather than in-game as you mentioned. Nothing concrete other than that.

By way of an update... I've done the following:

1. Not run Fraps
2. Disabled AAA in the ATI control panel
3. Set FSAA in the ATI control panel

And - I've just flown a mission with stellar, stable frame rates. Clear skies, 10 N28s in the area and a couple of Albatrosses appear - no hitch when they arrive - and great frame rates. Same thing applied when I spotted a couple of 2 seaters.

Everything was great right up until they got my engine AGAIN. Proving to be a habit. Anyway that was my first FUN mission in ages without any chugging whatsoever. I just hope it wasn't a fluke.

I flew another mission last night, again without Fraps running, and had smooth frame rates and no stutters when the enemy flights appeared or in combat. There were only two enemy planes however so it wasn't the best test.

And sadly my ace N28 pilot died after colliding with an Albatross. I was gutted. Seems despite the problems this game HAS gotten its claws into me.

I did also re-enable reflections and shadows and that seemed to run ok as well.

Interestingly with FSAA enabled in the ATI control panel and not in game, RoF screenshots capture without FSAA which is bizarre. I'm gong to retry FSAA enabled in game rather than the ATI panel and see how it runs.

Still very promising overall but I'm not quite convinced it was 100% Fraps...

I have same problem, in Win Xp run well, but in Win7RC and in Win7 Ultimate suffer stutters and sound reverberation, i tried differents solutions and for the moment not found fix.

This issue is not problem for specs, if can run well in XP, system powerfull is correct.

In my testing, i think is problem of Asus/Intel Chipset drivers or Asus/Realtek audio drivers.

Last night i try to installing drivers of Motherboard, remember im using integrateed Realtek sound, with audio drivers of Realtek (not ASUS) installed and updated. After install driver of Motherboard (chipset) i try to play RoF and OMG run well, no stuttering. After i reinstalled Audio driver of Realtek and try RoF, but return to stutters problem.
After this i tried reinstall Motherboard driver, but i canīt, i tryed uninstall audio drivers and installing old drivers, but not fix problem, after all i restored Windows 7 to point in back have no installed ASUS motherboard drivers. Ok now install ASUS motherboard drivers and NOT install audio Realtek drivers, but this now NOT fix problem.

With all this, i think problem is in Motherboard, in integrated Realtek sound. The simple solution buy soundcard is not valid for me, i not have money for this buy (bad times).

POSIBLE SOLUTION

I tried launch RoF in compatibility mode with Win XP SP3, and issue disappear, now RoF run well.