So, I run a pretty nice desktop: 3.2g processor, 2g ram, 800-PE ATI card. Not PCI-e, but about as nice an AGP rig as you could build about a year ago. Like most people, I've always been astonished that even though I can play DOOM3 cranked, FS9 can bring me to tears. All in all though, I'm not UNhappy - I have my own tweakset going and I can get about 20-30FPS with most things cranked up, with some noticeable stuttering now and then, and some occasional bogs with freeware scenery (KFF1 kills me).For no particular reason, I decided to try running FS on my new work laptop - a Dell Lattitude 610. It's nothing special - 1.7 mobile processor, 500m of ram, and some integrated Intel 915 video chip. I expected it to suck. After install, as expected, the default settings were way way low, and FPS was locked at 20 - but it played, and I was excited. So naturally I thought "well, lets see how bad it really is" and I slowly started cranking things up. To my surprise, with the attached FS9 (which is NOT a crappy setup visually in my opinion) I can get 30FPS solid flying through downtown seattle, 50-60FPS just flying aroudn at 5000 feet in the average suburban location.So I installed my BEV textures and UT. No change in framerates. I took the graphics and scenery configuration from below, copied it to my desktop, and it wasn't as good. Now, I haven't had a chance to truly match all my settings yet (had to go to work). But still, has anyone had a similar experience? On the one hand, I'm completely stoked to play FS while sitting on the couch, on the other...What remains for me to do as part of this test is: turn off all AA/AF on the desktop (dont have any available on the laptop) and turn off hyperthreading (ditto). I also need to UNinstall activecamera, FSE, FSNav and ActiveSky from the desktop install, but I ran my test this morning without those active, so I don't think that matters too much.THe only other missing piece is that the desktop has ALL the FSgenesis mesh, but I kind of assumed that with vertex set to 19 it wouldnt matter THAT much. Perhaps that's the key, not sure.Any ideas?Here's where my fs9.cfg is now:[GRAPHICS]FULL_SCREEN=1PERFORMANCE_MODE=0DEF_PERF_MODE=4TEXT_SCROLL=1AUTO_LOD=0DETAIL_TEXTURE=1WATER_EFFECTS=0TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_MAP=1TERRAIN_USE_VECTOR_OBJECTS=1EFFECTS_QUALITY=0GROUND_SHADOWS=0SMOOTH_VIEW=1IMAGE_SMOOTHING=1TEXTURE_MAX_LOAD=1024COCKPIT_HIGH_LOD=1AIRCRAFT_SHADOWS=1LANDING_LIGHTS=1IMAGE_QUALITY=0TEXTURE_BLDG=1TEXTURE_GND=1TEXTURE_WATER=1AIRCRAFT_TEXTURE=1SEE_SELF=1TEXTURE_QUALITY=3LOD_TARGET_FPS=14NUM_LIGHTS=6[DISPLAY.Device.Mobile Intel® 915GM/GMS,910GML Express Chipset Family.0]Mode=1024x768x32TriLinear=1[DISPLAY]UPPER_FRAMERATE_LIMIT=0TEXTURE_BANDWIDTH_MULT=40[TERRAIN]TERRAIN_ERROR_FACTOR=100.000000TERRAIN_MIN_DEM_AREA=10.000000TERRAIN_MAX_DEM_AREA=100.000000TERRAIN_MAX_VERTEX_LEVEL=19TERRAIN_TEXTURE_SIZE_EXP=8TERRAIN_AUTOGEN_DENSITY=1TERRAIN_USE_GRADIENT_MAP=1TERRAIN_EXTENDED_TEXTURES=0TERRAIN_DEFAULT_RADIUS=0.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_RADIUS=0.000000TERRAIN_EXTENDED_LEVELS=1307992[sCENERY]IMAGE_COMPLEXITY=3DYNAMIC_SCENERY=0DYN_SCN_DENSITY=0DAWN_DUSK_SMOOTHING=0SUNGLARE=1LENSFLARE=0

I get fairly similar FS performance and prettiness between my desktop and notebook configs, as shown in my sig below, with the same add-ons loaded on both. Notebooks sure have come a long way in the gaming performance arena in recent years!Gary

Yeah, I guess - like I said, I'm not REALLY complaining... Your systems seem a bit closer than mine - your laptop at least is a bit beefier than mine. I'm guessing its just that the laptop is somehow being more CPU efficient, and the 915g is just lazy and stupid - it doesnt do a lot of the pixel shader/aa stuff that a "real" graphics card would.I'll finish my test tonight and post the results.

So, in the end, after much comparison, I determined that with everything basically even, my laptop runs at 40FPS for my desktops 60FPS. Perhaps more to the point, when I crank stuff up on the laptop a bit so that its at about 30 average (my personal threshold if I can keep it), the equivalent image quality on the Desktop is vastly superior - I can crank all the AA and stuff up, run higher resolutions, etc. etc...So the moral of the story is - you can run FS quite acceptably on a laptop. In fact, I'm going to set it up as a client for Wideview I think.