I have had fs9 for about 4 months or more now. I have never really looked into this problem. I have a p4 2.4ghz 512 megs of ram. 96 meg gfx card. I only average around 12 fps. This pretty much happens with any a/c. Currently I run fs with no AI traffic. I even have to use 2d clouds to keep the fps from dropping under 10. I also use fs autostart to shut down almost every program running. I have no anti virus software running while flight simulator is running. My computer is also clean of spyware. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. This has happend since I have boght flight simulator 2004. I use no auto gen. I have even tried turning every slider down low. No luck. My fps is locked at 20. Rarly gets above 17. Thanks :)

seems you have onboard graphicsYou urgently need a new card. The frames you are getting at the moment seem normal with those settings.

:( That sucks. I am kind of short on money at the moment. Seeing as how x-mas just passed. I know it's like squeezing water from a rock. But is there anything I can do to improve frames for the time being?

I've a Dell Dimension with 2GHz Celeron, 512M RAMb on onboard Intel Extreme Graphics with a maximum of 64Mb graphics memory. I generally get 20+fps with GA aircraft and UK VFR scenery and terrain and a resolution of 1024 by 768. That's not outstanding I know but is enough for smooth flying. I have no other scenery/weather/cloud/ATC addons and get that frame rate without bothering to shut down any processes or close my anti-virus software. I found that shut things down at made no difference to fps. I imagine the graphics are the bottleneck. Have you downloaded the latest drivers from Intel and the latest version of DirectX (9c I think)?

Yes I have the most up to date drivers. I also have DirectX 9C. Any more suggestions from anyone would be appreciated :)

I don't know how these suggestions will affect things for you but I would try them if I had the same problem. Try them one at a time and perhaps put the original setting back if it doesn't help.1. Try setting 16 bit instead of 32 bit in FS graphics settings menu.2. Try setting graphics aperture to a higher setting in the BIOS, maybe the highest setting you can select. That is, if your onboard graphics utilise that setting at all. It may not.

Tried the first one. No look. Cant find much in the BIOS about graphics. Thanks for the suggestions though.

I will move this into the MSFS H/W forum so it gets more attention. It seems a config issue of some kind on your system--likely the gfx card isn't being recognized properly. Granted I only run in 800x600x32, but I still achieve 25 fps with your settings on a P3/800 with a GeF 4200/TI.One thing to note in case you haven't tried it--cloud draw distance should be minimized. Doubling the cloud draw distance roughly quadruples the amount of clouds that MSFS draws. I run with full 3-d clouds, but keep the draw distance at 30 miles. Also, cloud layers impact performance. Try your setup with just a high layer of cirrus. If the FPS soars, then likely you have too many cloud layers or layers which are too dense (thick).-John

I use 2d clouds at the moment. If I run any 3d clouds, even at the lowest setting. My fps drops to about 5. Thanks again though to everyone that has responded to this thread.

John wrote: "I still achieve 25 fps with your settings on a P3/800 with a GeF 4200/TI"John, what driver have you settled on as the best for the 4200/TI? thanks...Sherm

I run the 30.8x drivers to this day with the Rivatuner LOD tweak. They've worked for me, they're stable, and being in IT I subscribe to the "if it ain't broke" crowd.-John