I have read thru many post many Complains about poor frame rate by their PC when runnning CFS2.  Here are some small tips I have learned through many trail and errors. The first thing you must bee aware is what are the capabilities of your PC.  You must also know the quality of your video card also. You need at list more than 1.5 MHz speed. 512 MB Ram plus a minimum of 80 Hard drive memory to make CFS2 program work  well. Make sure your Hard drive Memory is less than 75% full. That in itself will effect the efficiency of your PC. Make sure you vedio Card is up to date with all the it latest drives.
Next thing most People do not understand is that sound takes the most of the resources of your PC when running a flight Simulator.
You should always check where the sound volume in the game are set.  Remember your sounds volume do not have to be place at itst maximum setting when you are playing. Some times it feel more realistic when the the sound are set at a lower setting. For example if you set voice volume down to lets say yo 10% .  You may feel it sounds more realistic than before since in real life Pilots had a hard time hearing other Pilots with all the noises going around them. So you can lower the volume on all your sound settings until you feel confortable with them.
Also if your a English speaking person . You do not need to read the Messages from your fellow squadron members. Message read out  take a lot of resources from your PC and that may decrease your frame rate.

You may take a look at your Graphic settings and  adjust them from 1 to 6 depending of you might find acceptable with what frame rate you feel confortable with. Remember you can make your own adjustments within  the Graphics Setting . For Example if you set the graphic stetting at 2 . But you feel you are not getting the Frame Rate you like.  You can  always go settings/Image Quality and make your own changes.

You should always take at look at what resolution does you PC and your vedio card work best with. In my experience  I put mine at resolution of 480 x 720 x 16 in the CFS2. I place my PC vedio at higher resolution setting of  480 x 720 x 32 . I have had great results from that.

How do manipulate the vedio resolution in you PC. Well thats easy. Right click with your mouse. Your wiil see  with different requests . Go down the roll where it says properties . Double clickck on it . Go where it says Settings. There you should see the resolution settings for your vedio card. Set it to your liking. Test over many different settings until you find one that works best the for you . Just remember the Lower the resolution the better the frame rate. But also remember your are also sacrifying visual quality over frame rate. Some times the lower resolutions gives you poor frame rate also. I do not understand why.

Another thing to remember is that the more planes you place on a mission the more the PC has to work.  The lower thr Frame Rate. So lower the amount of planes in your missions. You really do not need 65 planes per mission to get  the most realism out of a mission possible. You probably get the same effect with only 30 to 35 planes. And that way you will get better Frame Resolution.
How to lower the number of planes in your missions is easy. Go to your MB. Open it and go to save missions , change the numbers of each squadron or delete some of the least essentials quadron by removing the farthest away squads from the player plane. Remember most or all the action revolve around the players plane.Then save the the Mission .

I hope this tips will improve your enjoyment of CFS2 experience. I hope I have been a little helpful.

I forggot to mention that Ships and Ground obects also chew up a lot of PC resources if they are moving. So be Judyciouse on how many Ships on the move you are going to put in a mission. If you spread them out a little bit.  You may get the same illusion of attacking a large task force as before and perhaps you do not need the thirty ships you where using before but only 18 to 22.
Rememder you also have static Ships and groud objects in your MB. Use them as often as possible in missions you do need moving objects. Open the MB and on your right upper side you should see a bulls eye Icon. Double click on it and you will be able see the static objects avalable.Chose whether you want Ships ,Planes ectz. I hope this will help you.
james007