I seem to remember all the fuss about 2000's horrible choppy framerate - I adjusted my sliders and got very reasonable performance out of it - on a PIII 500 w/256 ram and a 32 meg video card (Diamond Viper 770).When 2002 came out, it was smoother with more eye candy turned on than 2000 was without it.So, it seems that MS added features while optimizing performance.In the mean time, I upgraded my PIII 500 to a Tualatin 1.2 Ghz processor and added 128 more megs of ram; 2002 is really smooth with almost everything on except scenery complexity down to about 80% and terrain complexity down to about 70%.I don't usually fly the really busy airports, but with 5 or 6 other aircraft, I haven't had a problem.So, perhaps we're all getting our proverbial (and actual) panties in a bunch when we don't know that the sim won't actually perform >better< than we think, not worse.Apparently, X-plane is continually optimized - at least it says so on the site. Why not FS?cheersAndrew

Hi Andrew,....yes i agree with you.....very much so....fs2000 was terrible on my system...fs2002 is many times better...and i only hope they do a better job with fs2004.....it seems like they promised to optimise the code...or so i read on a review right here on avsim.. i just get very worried with CFS3 also very demandin and after readin the news about the new weather engine etc etc..my question was one the subject of minimum specs...simple argument really....flight sims are system demanding we all know and understand.....and they can only get more system demandin as they evolve with new features etc...so why give us minimum specs...when what we really need is info on new technology.........tells us about the hardware that will do the job for your new software...thats all...and dont play around with system specs like 450Mhz and 8MB video...aaaaahhhhhrrrgggg ;)...if you check around the community...startin with this great board...you will see that all of us spend a substatial amount of time trying to find answers to system performance questions.....not suggesting that all will go away if Microsoft does a better job framin a recomended hardware and driver situation...but ti will surely allow more users to enjoy all that the latest versions have to offer without becomin PC "gurus" ....something like that :)

Hi Paul,...after readin your post i went back to the official site looking for something i missed...tryed both fs2004 and fs2002.....dont know where to find the recommended system spec..like you wrote....can you pls check again...and let me know where i can locate the recommended system specs?thank you

here are the System Requirements for fs2002...usually find these on the end of the features page....which with my understandin is very ironic...pls compare these to the ones posted for fs2004 above also from the official source...