I just bought a laptop. Decided to put fs2004 on it to take on a trip for a little R & R in spare time.First thing-this laptop has an ati card on it-I have been using nvidia for last 5 years. Looks lots better-period-the LCD screen looks better than my monitor! Got a cheap usb controller-handles nicer than my chpro setup-even vibrates which is totally unrealistic but kind of fun!Laptop is slower processor by 1 ghz from my desktop unit.Difference is no add ons on laptop-(figure I have about 30 or more now on the desktop). No aircraft, mesh, roads, ai,weather,megascenery...nothing.Sim is like a new sim-great fps -at least 20 fps than I get on my desktop that is a much faster computer....takes about 30 seconds to boot up on the laptop vs. now about 2.5 -3.o minutes on my desktop...etc....etc.no stutters, smooth flight.I am obviously an add on addict-but I have to say-stripping FS back to the basics-almost as much excitement as adding all the add ons I have. I wonder how many would find the same-strip it down to the original and suddenly this sim screams! Those add ons pile on so gradually one doesn't notice the decreases..until... as I have found lately....I use the sim less due to the 1)load times 2) performance....Xplane smoothness, quick boot up, and you know what-it doesn't look all that bad in the default mode..A new sim-just take it back to the original?

I have been operating FS2004 on my Acer Ferarri 3400 (an AMD64 3000+ CPU) laptop for a while now and it is runs pretty good. I have Active Sky V and Squawkbox v3 and most of the display settings are about midway. I run at 1280 x 1024 and use the Omega vid drivers with the ATI Mobile Radeon 7500 on board video card. Operating the PMDG B737 in VC gives me well above 25FPS most of the time depending on scenery (I am using a 75m New Zealand mesh) and well above that in the air (frequently over 45FPS).The Omega vid drivers made a huge difference.The laptop is a viable option for sure.

I am running FS2004, PMDG 800/900, FSCene 3D, Ultimate Traffic and sky set to overcast and all sliders to the max. I get 22 -25fps on the ground and 29-30 in the air (locked at 30).I also have an ACER Ferrari 3400 AMD64 cpu, 512Mb, 80GB and 128 ATI Mobility Radeon. This machine really has some horsepower. The take anywhere FS machine.Gerry EngwerdaYackandandahVictoria

GeoffI agree totally. I was amazed when I recently ditched a load of addons I didn't really need, and reinstalled FS. Everything was a lot quicker and smoother - and I lost my CTD problem as well. Now I run a very light FS set-up: Flight environment, a couple of airports and two aircraft addons. And you're right - there is excitement in ridding a bloated FS of all the unnecessary stuff and watching a re-invigorated sim emerge. FS Detox??Ian

Since its release, I've been running FS2004 on a P3/800 with a Gef/4200 TI. Other than aircraft add-ons and my own landclass work, my sim is pretty much stripped to its bare essentials. It's the norm for me to average 20-25 fps with only AI, my screen res, and autogen reduced.I don't know if your laptop is running at a lower res than your desktop, but I find having a high res (like 1600x1200) can really start to hit FS2004. In the add-on department, filling the skies with AI using one of the AI add-ons seems one of the easiest ways to hit performance, and introduce stutters.One other thing that may be slowing FS2004 is "module bloat" as more and more add-ons are dumping dll's into the sim that have to coexist with all the other default code. Many of these dll's simply enforce copy protection, others have essential uses, but likely there's a big impact that's hard to measure unless you strip the sim to its essentials.What I know is the sim gives hour after hour of acceptable performance and breathtaking visuals--on my outdated hardware, by keeping to the basics.-John

I've got a Dell D800 1.7MHz Pentium M, 1 GB Mem, 40 GB disk, nVidia 4200 Go 64 MB video running at 1920 x 1200 x 32 resolution/colors. FS takes almost 20 GB on the disk (I'm starting to think I need to upgrade the disk) I get between 15 - 25 FPS, mostly between 20 - 24. I fly mostly GA (i.e. dreamfleet archer, LIC Decathalon, Aerosoft Beaver, Simflight and Shupe Beech 18), but have many different aircraft. USA Roads, FSG landclass, JT Mesh, FFNE, AD Streams are the main addons but have many others. Sliders are all maxed, 'cept for Water effects low (I'll have to test that one), Scenery very dense, Autogen Normal, Cloud coverage high, 3d clouds 20%, Cloud draw 50 mi, sight 70 mi (I can rarely see further than 30 mi in real life anyway around here (NE), Mip Map 4. Even AI is set to max (Hmm, maybe I should lower this), though I only use the default. I tried to use GA traffic once, but it killed me, but I was using all my planes instead of AI specific ones, so that makes sense. Runs great for me. Fixing the latency for the video really helped the performance a lot. I never really did a lot of testing, probably should, might be even able to do better.ThomasN15802

Similar to Thomas I run FS9 on a PIII 1.4G and a GF3 ti500. I nearly ditched using fs9 because even though I was getting 15-30fps is just wasn't fun. I then uninstalled many addons and locked framerates 20fps. Sliders were turned down (mesh 25%, AI 15%, scenery dense). The frame rate now only drops below 20fps when using GPS. I sacrificed all autogen and use only simple clouds (3d at 100% though). I use fsuipc for restricting visibility to realistic real-word values (30 miles) and to smooth the control surfaces (massive difference imho). I have lots of photoscenery, SRTM mesh & texture upgrades and use maximum texture sizes so visuals are great. The sim is smooth and very playable. I'm glad to see I'm not the only one happily running FS on an underpowered machine. It can be done!