Sounds like a graphics card problem.

CFS3 needs at least 32mb of graphics processing power to run I think and I don't think an integrated card can supply the power. I would recommend that you get a gForce4 ti4600. Its a powerful card which now the gForce FX is out will be dropping in price.

Hi ggonzalezd,

In XP try going to Start/All Programs/Microsoft Games/Combat Flight Simulator 3/Run CFS3Config. And screw around with these settings. You can choose Safest Settings and try to fly it in Safe Mode. If you can I'm sure it will look like hell! You can also go to File, then Custom Settings/click Okay, then Window then Overrides and start disabling things. Try putting a check in the "Disable Validate Device" first. Then disable the Intro Movie, Dual Pass Render and Terrain Detail Texture for starters and see if you can then get CFS3 to play. Just a few things that you can try.

When I first installed my new Radeon 9700 Pro I was getting the same error warning as you. I needed to update the drivers for it and then all was fine. Although the Radeon Catalyst 3.7s drivers are out now I still prefer the older Cat 3.4s. They work best for CFS3. Maybe the manufacturer of your computer/motherboard will have updated drivers for your onboard video chip. Since your computer is getting so old I wouldn't be surprised if they haven't bothered writing any updated drivers for it but it wouldn't hurt to look around. It's quite possible that you won't be able to sim CFS3 with your existing setup.

I can't imagine that FS2002 and FS2004 run "perfectly" on your computer specs but I get your point. They at least allow you to enter the sim and then with very limited resolutions and option settings you can fly. I have a P4_2.6GHz with 512MBs of RDRAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro and FS2002 and CFS3 needs to be tweaked down quite a bit in order to get reasonable framerates. All depending on how much AI is running and how busy the scene gets graphics-wise. Even with a top of the line P4_3.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, Radeon 9800 Pro and a gig of DDR-RAM you still can't run these (combat) flight sims at full quality and resolution in every scenario and get acceptable framerates.

If your older motherboard supporting the socket 370 Intel 815 chipset has an AGP slot on it you'll want to put a video card in there. Some Intel 815s have an AGP slot and some don't. The easiest way to find out is to open up your computer case and look. An AGP slot is brown in color and is located just above the several white PCI slots. Just make sure you know what type of AGP port that you have. The newer AGP video cards won't physically fit into the older AGP slots. I've been looking around the Internet trying to find out how to determine which motherboards support which type of AGP video cards and I can't find the information. Hopefully someone here knows and will post the answer. After I upgaded to the Radeon 9700 Pro I tried putting an AGP GeForce2 Ultra 64MB video card into my sister's older computer and it wouldn't fit because her motherboard has the older, discontinued AGP slot.

Here are some upgrade options:

#1- If you don't have an AGP slot or if you have the smaller, older AGP slot you'd probably be better off upgrading to a PCI version of the newer video cards. Not all the newer AGP video cards have PCI versions but some of them do.

#2- 512MBs of memory is the sweetspot for CFS3.

#3- You could always upgrade the processor from your existing 1.0GHz to a 1.4GHz but you'll probably need an adapter to do that. You can run the "Quick CPU Upgrade Finder" program at PowerLeap and find out for sure. Just how much performance boost you'll get with just a 400MHz processor upgrade and at what price is quite an iffy upgrade option.

http://plpadmin.tempdomainname.com/index2.html

With the newer and more robust video games and simulators I'm sure you realize that in order to get the full benefits from these you'll need to bite the bullet and upgrade your whole computer to a P4 or AMD comparable motherboard/processor. Pentium IIIs are dinosaurs in computer terms and the video driver writers and software writers are aimed at the newer, faster, feature-laden computer market with just a quick glance back at making their products retro-capable for every older computer and OS out there.

http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/index.htm?iid=devnav_btn1+hw_mb_desktop&&nb...;

Then Desktop Board Products/For Pentium III processors (all retired products).

Then select your model.

D15EGEW  No AGP slot

D815EEA2/D815EPEA2 

D815EFV/D815EPFV

If you have a (inter) national brand like Dell or Gateway etc. that uses proprietary hardware/motherboards then go to their website and look around for your exact model to find out your particular specifications and upgrade options.

Good luck.

Hi Oh_Kay,

I was trying to make the point to ggonzalezd that even the best consumer grade computers are stressing their capabilities with CFS3. And I stand by what I said:

"Even with a top of the line P4_3.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, Radeon 9800 Pro and a gig of DDR-RAM you still can't run these (combat) flight sims at full quality and resolution in every scenario and get acceptable framerates."

You said yourself that in some scenarios you're getting framerates of 20fps and suffering some stuttering and I assume it will be even less if you raise the resolution to its highest. And set the AA in your Radeon 9700 Pro to 8X and your AF to 16X. The word "acceptable" is subjective so what's acceptable to one isn't necessarily acceptable to another. But my point was made. I think a minimum of 30fps is kinda acceptable because they say that anything over that isn't discernable by the human eye. But that's a bunch of bull. With a TV set consistantly pumping out 30fps at 400 X 600 that's true, but with a computer it's a different animal because of the stress created by the demand of higher resolutions and AI and the computation power needed just to run the sim. And the demand for these always changing within the sim.

I was thinking about a mission that I was on where there were 20 or more aircraft flying around where I led my formation in to attack a convoy of ships. After most of the ships were either sunk or ablaze and the scene was getting very busy graphics-wise my computer was getting into the 10fps range and that sucks.

When I fly Quick Combat with just one wingman I'll put my AA on 2X or 4X "Quality" at 1280 X 1024 X 16 with the Detail sliders at 4 (clouds at 3) and that looks and it works pretty good. But in Missions or Campaigns I usually go into the ATI Control Panel and select the "Application Preference" option and suffer with the not so great graphics for the sake of better performance. It's always a tug of war with me!

I was talking to someone here a month or so back and he had a system similar to yours and was complaining about his computer getting "choppy" as well. Not as bad as mine I'm sure but he was quite surprised (disappointed) thinking that because he had a state of the art consumer level computer that he wouldn't have any limitations whatsoever when simming CFS3.

You asked "Any suggestions for ones I should try ??" Yeah, try CFS3 with everything maxxed out like I originally said ("at full quality and resolution") and try that.

My computer is running fine but it is getting old. It's a 2 & 1/2 year old upgraded Alienware still running on an Intel 400MHz FSB (D850GB) motherboard with a P4_2.6GHz, 512MBs of RDRAM and a Radeon 9700 Pro.  I just formatted and clean installed XP Pro a few weeks ago so everything is clean. It takes a couple of weeks for me just to get everything back to the way I like it. And today FedEx just delivered a new 120GB Seagate 8MB Cache hard drive which I'm going to use as the Primary Master disk drive so will need to do it all over again sometime soon. Grrrrrr...

My old Alienware benchmarks just over 14,000 in 3DMark2001 SE. I imagine that you're getting into the mid 17,000s or there abouts.

I'm trying to hold on to this old Alienware until something comes out that's kinda groundbreaking. A 3DMark2001 SE score of 25,000 would be nice!!! I'm tired of getting nickle and dimed to death by Intel and AMD and their buddies nVidia and ATI!

Have a nice day.

Now THOSE are answers!  Great job guys!

Thanks for posting the link from the other thread bobc1. My motherboard is the 810, which differs from the 815 so the original poster might be better off following the links prompted to him when the CFS3 program fails to start. It gives a direct url for the fix when you click "yes". It basically updates to the CFS version 3.1.

My 810 motherboard is not even supported in the CFS 3.1 patch, but it seems to run OK. I imagine as more regular computer user type people buy this game when the price starts to come down that they will run into this massive headache.

The people that ran out and bought this game are all fairly hard core flightsimmers....and now people who are buying the games are similar to me who might play a game once a month, has a 1.4ghz celeron who would never justify the expense of a $100 video card.

It's a massive headache, and took me a long time(1 hour) to figure out how to get the dang program to work. Hopefully other similar consumers will use the search function on this site and find my post.