hard drives make a huge improvement i wasnt getting beyond 10-12fps with everything dumbed down before and i hade a 64MB  ATI 9000
well i installed that hard drive and i have a 500mhz p3 and im running 26fps average with it on moderate settings but i cant have any atc or it runs at a crappy 8fps but i can live without alot of others for a while till i  shove microsofts specs i got perfect performance out of 3 of there games and i am below what they recomend

Well, the way I see it, oir limited brain tissues can't see a few frames per second.  I set my display settings at "low", have the cloud specs cut back, I really only care about 3D if I'm actually in them.  why would it mean a damn to have clouds u aren't flying in to be 3D?  Some of these things are eye candy extras that don't really add to the mechanics of flying the plane.  Any way, with the "low" settings and cloud settings cut back and airtraffic at 25% I set my lock to 24 and watch it bounce between 20 and 24.  So, I turned it all off and just started flying. I know I drop into the teens when in weather and when in mountains and when in V-cockput, which I only use on landing anyway and you know what?  With out the fps readout turned on, I can't percieve visually that drop unless I really look out the windscreen when in a bank, which I don't, i'm usually glued on on the 6 scan when I do that.  If the 9600 will keep me over 20 and allow me to turn up the weather and ai, then it was money well spent since I fly the needles usually anyhow.