This may be basic to some of you, but I've been tweaking and trying new things for almost a week now and have finally made probably the single best discovery so far in FS2004: If you set settings reasonable for your computer setup ( I use the defaults for my machine - with a few MINOR adjustments), and then turn OFF the FPS indicator, this sim really does seem smooth. Sure, I can tell an occasional slowdown (I average between 12-18 fps ---10fps in the major thunderstorm theme at Seattle Tacoma), but just turning off that stupid display makes it "seem" smoother. For all those who haven't tried this yet, I highly recommend it, as it has greatly enhanced my enjoyment of an already great simulator. :-newbie

Thats exactly what I do ;-) And of course, muttering during the whole flight 'wooo weee my FPS are nice' ;-)

MS should do away with the counter since all I do is look at it when I sim. :-lolBTW at Seattle, clouds, full sliders for EVERYTHING, all boxes clicked, 100% AI, 6X AA, 4X AF, 1280X1020X32(well the best 1280 one, I think its 1020)...I get 11 FPS. It can go between 9-15 FPS on those setting, most of the time around 12-13. But then again that is using EVERY feature to the max. So I am happy. If I had a 533 FSB or a 800 FSB I think I would be getting 2-3+ more for the 533 and 4-5+ more for the 800 FSB(hyper threading).............BOOMER SOONEROU get the #1 QB out of H.S., and #1 RB looking at us hard.