Poor FS2004 Frame rate

[EHM-1816 Phil]

Brother has decided to change his FS2002 Pro for FS2004.  Now, FS2002 Pro ran fine on his laptop, but with FS2004 it is very jerky, with a poor framerate(unusable).

The spec of his laptop is.....
Windows ME
Pentium 3 850mhz
256mb RAM
8mb AGP Graphics Card


Now, that does either meet or beat the requirements on the box, is there anything he can do to get it running better?

[EHM-1617 Iain]

If you want to run FS2004 well with that system, sorry but you will have to minimize the graphics settings - no offence but that isn't exactly a monster gaming system then again neither is mine:

My spec:
WinXp
AMD2800+ 2.8ghz
512mb RAM
128mb AGP8x GFX

With this spec I can run all setting on high with some extra autogen without stuttering.

The minimun requirements on the box means that the game will not refuse to run - it might be jerky even with all settings on minimum. Sorry to break this to you.

I consider the minimum spec for running FS9 smoothly with reasonable scenery is: 2GHz processor, 512mb ram, 64mb GFX (and that's the minimum...)

[EHM-1816 Phil]

kk, cheers.

You're running at near enough the same spec as me.  But I'm able to run with everything on Ultra High with auto-gen on max.  Fine....

Software's strange.....

[EHM-1703 Philip]

Hi Phil.

You are right on the lower end of Microsofts system requirements there:

FS2004 System Requirements
XP/Win 2000 128mb RAM
Win 98/ Win ME 64mb RAM
450 mhz Processor
1.8 Gb HDD space
8mb 3D Graphics Card
DirectX 9

You may want to try going in to the settings on the FS2004 main page and drop all the graphics settings to the lowest settings. If it is now usable (but poor quality) start increasing one setting at a time. Some interesting Articles are available on MS Flight Simulator Insider website, Start by having a look at these:

http://fsinsider.com/articles/changingdisplay.htm

http://fsinsider.com/articles/optimize_visuals.htm

Hope this helps,

[EHM-1816 Phil]

Yeah settings are all the way down and nothing

Ah well.  Gonna work on him to get a new computer

[EHM-1703 Philip]

Sorry mate,

You can find a better equiped sytem than your Brothers Laptop second hand for a reasonable price on EBAY, especially one that is capable of running FS2004 at a reasonable level. My mate got a 2.8ghz P4 Dell system with 256mb RAM & a 160gb HDD last week for 65 quid. It runs FS2004 fine, although it hates UT and Far Cry. Get a desktop, you can upgrade it gradually when you can afford to then.

Good luck

EDIT* Do me a favour. press CTRL+ALT+DEL. In the bottom left hand corner of the task manager it tells you how many processes you have running. You Should try and keep this to below 30 on your system, certainly no higher than 40. Try shutting down some of the processes that are not used whilst flying. One to watch especially is Norton Anti Virus. It is a little begger when it comes to eating your clock cycles.